Svelte

Better than expected. Everyone's already pointed out the great minifig parts/ accessories and the cute new pieces. I think the swamp one is a must have just for the 2 dark green crocs! For me the vehicles are a bit 'meh', but I can see that little kids would love 'em. I agree with whoever said it's like Alpha Team meets Batman. This theme is kind of campy - riding on the wave of a Bond movie release late in 08 maybe? It's funny that KK2 got kicked for having campy colour-coordinated knight figs in candy colours, but a lot of people seem to like these Agents pics for just as campy cyborg spider-figs, super-bright vehicles, laserised sharks, and remote control crocs! Anyone know what the power function is in the big truck set?

Got these a few days ago, and just to add a few of my own thoughts. - The van really is rather nondescript, and the grey doors clash horribly. Would have looked much better in yellow. The same colour problem occurs with the plane - odd mix of red, yellow, light bley and dark bley - although it sticks out less there as a lot of the dark bley is the underside of the plane, which at least makes sense compared to having the back doors of a postal van painted a completely different colour! -- 2008 seems to the be the Year of the Sticker, from small sets right up to the large ones. I got the Cargo Plane and Truck & Forklift as well, and the amount of stickers is just unbelievable. Compare the Cargo Plane with the Passenger Plane from 2006 - absolutely everything in the former is stickered, whereas the latter at least had the tail, nose cone and fin printed. The truck is just as bad - 13 or 14 stickers on the whole thing (can't remember exactly!) - it's like City is the new Exo-Force. More annoyingly, the sticker for my mail van was misprinted so the colour red bleeds over into the white - misprinted stickers is a trend I've noticed increasing (as opposed to crushed and mutilated stickers, which remain fairly constant :) ). - The minifigs are nothing to write home about. I'm getting very sick of (a) men with beards (b) men with sunglasses © men in caps. - Overall, though, the plane is quite cute and a nice, quick, classic type build. These two smaller sets are at a good pricepoint for casual buyers and, while not revolutionary, do the job well to expand the City range and to flesh out the Cargo narrative from post box to van to plane to cargo plane and back again!

Definitely overpriced at $40 in Australia for what is basically a cut-down Droid battlepack with a Spider-Droid and the Hailfire Droid as an extra. I picked one up a few days ago and it does look great though. The Spider droid is cute and the trans wheels of the Hailfire Droid work fantastically. Looks very good and will no doubt look fantastic with the new AT-TE coming out later this year. SW gets more expensive! I will wait for a 20% off sale before picking another one of these up.

Aah, thanks for the clarification. I did wonder why the packaging was different. I was under the impression that the US distribution centre shipped only to North America and the European centre did the rest of the world. Then again, we got the Dino Attack US versions with piece count so I guess it makes sense. So for all those Americans wondering where there stock of 7036s is - they're in Australia!

Thanks... Maybe it will take a few extra days to reach Hobart? Get them to give you a call. Cheers, Dita

Not sure where to post this - I thought there was a 7036 thread but I can't find it... Anyway, in Australia 7036 Dwarves Mining is now available in Myer department stores for $AUD 69.95. Myer also now has a 25% off all toys sale until Xmas Eve which means the set is selling about $AUD52 - fantastic value for a 575 piece set. (Also 25% off all other Lego for those interested!) Guess this means the December date for release was correct - I would be amazed if this didn't start showing up in Europe very soon as Australia NEVER gets anything first! If anyone knows where else this info should be posted, please add it to the relevant thread. Thanks Dita

Great set. I too had mixed feelings on first seeing this - mainly because we've been so spoiled this year with the amount of amazing creator/ city buildings we've had in 2007, and because I think CC is really in a league of its own! I agree that 2 facades doesn't really fit with the CC size, but I don't think it would be too hard to add in the extra room behind. If all the buildings were to CC scale the piece count would easily be 4000+ so I prefer to have a few different facades in unusual colours which can be modded anyway. The cinema facade is very well designed, and often the building behind the art deco facade is fairly dull anyway architecturally speaking anyway so it wouldn't take too much to expand this and slot it in to a CC size cityscape. The posters are fantastic and very humorous, and the popcorn machine and little details are fab. The service station is great in its own right, and seems slightly out of place only in that it is a complete building rather than a tall facade with limited back. Very well designed and the trans clear and silver umbrellas are great. The Town Hall has the same kind of slightly empty looking construction as the Train Station - I think you need at least 2 to put together back to back to make it look a bit more solid if you want it to fit in with the CC style. Very nice dark green parts and it's nice to have a profusion of different flowers/ plant pieces in one set. All in all, I think this is a great set with a fantastic variety of great coloured pieces and some nice figs. A great way to expand your city with three large and distinctive buildings in one set. Will be interesting to see what the Australian price is, since for us the CC price was above the usual Euro conversion but MS was below :) Let's hope the colour matching problem which afflicted CC and the dark blue pieces in MS is finally fixed as well, as it is annoying to pay premium prices for such big sets only to have inferior bricks! And I'm glad we have a few months warning before this launches (unlike CC and MS) as it gives me time to save up and will stop me impulse buying other sets that I am not 100% keen on just because they're the first new Lego batch in 2008!

Troll is great. Cute but thuggish! In the Dwarf Mining set I don't think that's ordinary tan though - is it dark tan? The troll looks better in sand green, definitely. The Orcs are OK. I'm not so keen on some of these ses. I read the classic-castle interview with the 2007 designers about the marketing move to fantasy and don't mind this generally, but I think the joust/ catapult sets are more suitable MF scale with the big main castle rather than oversized catapults and battering rams. The catalog pic of the Dwarf Mining shot from below rather than above looks a lot more impressive. I had to check to see if the first one released was a prototype, but they are identical - just look very different. The ship is OK, I agree it is like a cut-down Vikings ship, but for the poster who thought the green dragon was smaller - I don't think it is, if you look at the pieces they seem to be the same as the red/ black dragons, just foreshortened in this particular picture.

I don't think so - if it's an exclusive available through Shop at Home then shipping is extra anyway.

Wow, that is way too expensive in $AUD. Normally our pricing is OK in comparison with the Euro/ UK prices, but if you compare the difference between Euro/ UK MTT price and this, the difference is huge. 10 pounds translates to $AUD70? (The same strange logic is at work with Cafe Corner.) Generally Aus is priced quite reasonably, but these higher end items (Eiffel Tower, UCS Millenium Falcon) are in a league of their own. Still, maybe we'll be lucky and it'll be discounted in Toys R Us as sometimes happens :-)