Flak Maniak

Yeah if Lego can't make enough of these parts to meet demand and defeat the scalpers that way, they should impose fairly harsh buying limits per-order. Limit 20 or something for minifigure parts; doesn't have to be as low as 8, but 20 is already a 10x rate reduction from the standard 200. In any case, hopefully during this set's run Lego can eventually get enough of these Black Falcon parts out the door that regular customers can get their hands on them decently. Again, I only want a dozen, and I consider that to be on the high end of what a normal person should buy. It's unfortunate if we can't backorder them and they're unlikely to be in stock until March; that's a long time to wait and the cycle may repeat itself... I wasn't a B&P knower before 2020; were things always this bad with hot new parts? Or is 2020's manufacturing disruption a major cause? Back in, say, 2018, when the fancy new animal mold would come out, were they able to just churn out way more of them, or was it instant scarcity back then too?

I think that putting them in a battle pack falls under "manufacture more". Which, well, obviously we all want that; we want plentiful supply of these cool parts, enough to make scalpers unable to function. But, who knows how many Lego can make in a timely fashion.

I can only hope that Lego is willing and able to ramp up production on those high-demand parts enough to make the scalpers irrelevant... Or, you know, they could use an ounce of prediction and set much lower limits on how many you can buy at once, of parts that will clearly be high-demand.

Hmm, the new-in-flat-silver-in-the-blacksmith armor, 37614, is listed on B&P, just as "out of stock". So, hopefully that means it'll be properly available eventually! Certainly I'll want at least 20 of it. And, well, I imagine several users on here will be buying unreasonable quantities of the Black Falcon torso and legs, once that's properly available. I think I can limit myself to a dozen; as I said pages ago that's my rule, that for any spammable figure, a dozen should do nicely, and I shouldn't need more.

Yeah, I've already ordered dozens of 65435; very nice part. Certainly a keeper; many fantasy minifigs from now until forever will wear them. But, I'd like dozens of 37614, too!

I'm not really seeing the Gundam Barbatos, but it looks excellent. Are any of your mechs up on Ideas?

Ideas Blacksmith still not listed... Well, I suppose I should wait three days and then check! That silver shoulder armor piece better be on there! Still waiting for the Hidden Side Shadow Walker legs to come back in stock... I mean, maybe I should just call and ask about backordering them. Surely they're not done manufacturing those... Or maybe they are, since Hidden Side was delisted on the Lego website's themes bit? Hmm. (Even though a pile of sets are still in stock on there.) Still waiting on the Cyber Drone head... And a bunch of other parts that I hope I have all of open in tabs, just to check periodically...

Guilty as charged!

Should be trans-neon orange canopies, with blue and white, or trans-neon green, with black and red!

D&D/Magic are super-impossible because Wizards of the Coast is owned by Hasbro, a rival toy company, who even has their own block-based building toy. So, regardless of brand fit, it can never happen, unless Wizards of the Coast is spun off from Hasbro, or something of that nature.

Why shouldn't it augur the other way, that they're staying away from Western themes in general? (Or, for a different spin, if it means what you claim, then why should pirates be in the poll, right after Barracuda Bay?)

Huh, for some reason I thought the original Lando DID use that particular print, just on a brown head. At any rate, I will commend your boldness; I'd like to peer into the alternate timeline where Lando was yellow. I'm not sure that would fly in 2020, even if they'd been doing it since 2003! (And, well, frankly I'm not sure their current all-yellow-in-original-themes policy is tenable either, but we'll see on that one; certainly I like yellow minifigures and think that it's good if we keep getting yellow ones.) Oh, and side note, definitely it was strange that in light of the current policy, The Lego Movie depicted Abe Lincoln as yellow; surely he should have been fleshy, for, if they'd depicted, say, Frederick Douglass in The Lego Movie, he wouldn't have been yellow! (Except in your cut, I realize. Perhaps they can get you to direct The Lego Movie 3!)

What are you gonna do about The Lando Problem, though? If you'd have depicted Lando with a yellow minifgure head... Then you're braver than I.

They definitely did castle dirty, in that at least old-timey space fans were going to coordinate around classic space. (I mean, I much prefer the more colorful late '80s/early '90s stuff, but I'd vote for classic space in the last round if there weren't any castle or pirates or Aquazone that it's up against.) But, well, I'm not TOO mad about castle, because I suppose I'd consider myself a castle/pirates/space voter primarily, in that any from that classic trio would be fine with me. (Yeah sure you can say I'm an Aquazone partisan above those, but the classic trio is my second choice.) And, well, one or two of those classic three are going to make it into the final round, right? And I doubt that Bionicle gets more than a third of the final vote, even if they're a substantial minority voting bloc. Probably I'll end up voting pirates in the final round; we'll see. Well, hopefully the total votes for all the castle subthemes combined tell Lego that there's some demand there. Certainly I think a lot of us would be chomping at the bit to buy modular-level castle sets. Also, hmm, the vote just ended; wonder when we'll hear the results. But, also, posting on here about the whole thing won't do us much good; deluging Lego's Twitter account about the poor category-splitting might actually let them know! Either way, see you gents in round 2, and may the best theme win!

Sounds good to me!

Ten or fifteen years ago I'd have said they should collab with Blizzard for StarCraft, Warcraft, Diablo (well okay Diablo would be unlikely to happen, but) sets. But now I care not for such things. If I can ask for things that clearly cannot happen, I'm just going to say Gundam. Huge brand obviously, but too much about war and tragedy for Lego's tastes. If I can ask for things whose time is past, but that might once have worked, I'd say Gravity Falls, while it was on the air. Oh, and I thought for many years it was strange that Lego and Nintendo hadn't partnered up, given that Lego is the Disney of toy brands, and Nintendo the Disney of video game brands. But that one's come to pass, even if we don't know how far it will go. I'm not sure what contemporary video games I'd choose; hard to pick things that would go well with Lego. I mean, am I to say Guilty Gear and BlazBlue? It sounds ludicrous as I type it. I don't have any plausible ideas for licensed themes, because the only things I'd actually go for are implausible, and besides, I'm not some license-monster anyway. Oh sure, if you made Sol Badguy and Ragna the Bloodedge as official minifigs, I'd have to have them. But almost any other license you could name, you won't sell me a single set of it. Maybe, as anime gets bigger and bigger in the West, we'll see Lego reach out for their first proper anime license. Wouldn't that be interesting!

As long as some old-timey space or castle theme or pirates makes it into the top 3, well, that's what I'm voting for. "Classic space" is not my favorite color scheme; much rather have Ice Planet or Blacktron II or M-Tron, but, you know, Lego-original space stuff is hard to come by. Almost any castle subtheme would be amenable to me; sure, ideally I'd want something dragon-ish, but whatever; just, as long as it's a castle set that's huge and detailed, I will probably like it. If those interim results are accurate and pirates make it in... Yeah, that's where my vote is going. Sure, if I had my druthers it would be my darling Aquazone, but I knew I was throwing my vote away when I cast it! I have no regrets! As most of you say, it's really weird that things are split up and consolidated the way they are; really should have been big groupings of space, pirates, castle, and then if one of them wins, poll us again for a subtheme. I'm sure that space would be winning easily if it were all together, and that castle would be in the top 3 as well. I suppose my final thoughts should be: Hopefully this isn't a one-off. Ideally, sheer number of total votes, regardless of themes, will prove some kind of overall level of demand for nostalgia-bait Lego-original sets. If it truly is one set and nothing else in this fan-voting, nostalgia-pandering direction... Well, that's too bad.

Man the silver armor from the Ideas Blacksmith (design ID 37614, previously in red in a Star Wars set) had better show up on B&P eventually...

What, you want the biggest toy company in the world to have a basically-functional website? What a strange thing to fantasize about! I end up taking piles of cart screenshots; that's the kind of barbarism I'm reduced to, by Lego's digital incompetence. They're wizards in ABS, but cavemen when it comes to silicon.

I really like the exaggerated proportions; reminds a little of NXEDGE Style. The slim waist and huge pecs work very well I think. One COULD ask for the codpiece to be smaller but I won't; I think it fits well with the rest. And man the shaping on the feet and ankles... So good. If I had to criticize, the hands are way too small for my taste, and I'm not sure if I really like the flatness of the forearm guards. But, well, I'm not a Transformers fan, and not particularly into Transformers' designs, so, when I say that I love the proportions, you know it means a lot!

I voted for Pirates, Aquazone and M-Tron. Aquazone is my personal favorite; you will forgive me indulging myself. Pirates are I think a very straightforward and defensible choice, and a consolidated theme unlike all the split-up space and castle subthemes. Finally I chose M-Tron, as out of the available space themes I like its color scheme the most. Space, Castle, Pirates are all fine with me; I'd love for any of them to return. But, well, apparently more than that I'm an Aquazone partisan. Aquazone is thankfully consolidated here, not that that will save it!

If they're not making money from B&P, then... Well, they should charge us more. Honestly it seems wrong that shipping to the US is only $3; I mean sure they must be able to leverage various logistical advantages when shipping to the States, but come on. If they want to charge more for shipping or for parts, go ahead. (Especially if it means a broader selection will be available.) But, well, if they're just running it out of the goodness of their hearts... Then consider me appreciative of that goodness!

Yeah it's definitely true that offering B&P at all is going above and beyond, and one should be grateful even if it's not 100% complete parts access. And even if the explanations over the phone about part availability often clearly can't be true, well, the real explanations still wouldn't let us buy any of those parts. Man I hope that the "out of stock" for so many 2021 parts right now means they'll be actually available eventually; stuff like the new trans-light blue robot head is just great. Gotta have 'em! I didn't think Lego was introducing all that many new parts I'd want, but perusing it, well, there may be a bunch actually!

Honestly, maybe we should consider it huge progress that there's the classic space logo homages (not to mention additional classic space astronaut colors) all over the place. I mean, we fairly frequently get new torsos with the classic space logo, but otherwise modern designs. If that's not the goal minifig-wise, what is? (Well, this is where you tell me that you want things totally new, like Galaxy Squad was when it came out, as opposed to "more classic space", and that's a fair position to take.) I guess, yeah, it's good to get occasional futuristic sets in Creator, just as it's nice to get the occasional underwater set, like that underwater mech or the sea creatures set from a year or two ago. (And well, Creator is a really excellent line; if anything it's the best place to get things, given how it doesn't shy away from fundamentals-based, but complex builds.) But... Well, "a set here and there" isn't the same as... A cohesive line, with clear design idioms for various factions. I'm rambling. I guess my overall thesis would be, yes I want more Lego-original themes, or perhaps that is to say, I want more Lego-original stuff, but compacted into themes. Instead of so many generic Creator vehicles (nothing wrong with them in the abstract), maybe we could get a line of related Creator vehicles, with a cohesive color scheme. Just, imagine if there were 3-4 Creator sets this year with futuristic subject matter, and for example the same sand-blue-and-orange color scheme of that little hovercraft set. Even that very small level of tying things together would help a lot. (And recall that many of the old space subthemes DID only get four or so sets; small numbers of sets can still very clearly establish an aesthetic and a faction. Consider the Stingrays from Aquazone. Instantly recognizable, very clear visual language, iconic parts and prints. Only four sets.)

I don't think that "this part is licensed" is a really coherent thing. I'd much rather be told "this part is not available for sale via B&P for arbitrary reasons" than some contradictory stuff about how Ninjago is a licensed theme or whatever. "We can't sell that directly" without a backing reason is much less galling to me than being told a reason that's clearly wrong or at least clearly insufficient explanation. I mean, after the one time I called and was told, more or less, that the very concept of minifig capes is licensed... Look, I'd rather they just say "my superiors tell me that I cannot sell that particular element ID to you, and I'm sorry that I can't". If I could actually know what's going on underneath, talk to the contract lawyers whose words inform the written policies that the managers must inflict on the front-line call center employees, then yeah I'd be curious. But the in-between state of being told incoherent nonsense is just too annoying. And, well, if I could actually drill down and know the grimy details, I wonder how much of it would be very specifically-negotiated stuff in the contracts with the outside IP holders, how much of it would be arbitrary decisions made by mid-level bureaucrats without much knowledge/say-so from above, and how much would just be random chance/incompetence letting things slip through or not, and just the bureaucracy not following up. I mean, does Lego get serious calls from Marvel when a Captain America torso is on B&P for a moment? Or is there the understanding that, unless there's way too much stuff on there, it's not a big deal? Are the IP-holder reps micromanaging enough, and thinking in enough detail, to say "well, we don't care if a single minifig part makes it on there, so long as the other minifig part it clearly goes with isn't on there as well"? Also I guess, if you're Lego, what happens if you try to put, say, a printed Captain America torso into a City set? Do you get a stern talking-to from Marvel? What I mean to say is, some parts are clearly a lot more licensed than others. I imagine for certain parts there are very specific agreements that those parts contain this character's IP, and are only allowed to be used in certain ways. You can put an Uruk-Hai sword into a Ninjago set, but there's a lot of stuff you can't do. (And also probably a lot of these parts don't make it on for more mundane reasons.)