kalexicon

I'm in a similar boat, although I'm loving some of these variations (especially the old purple turban! I have one of those somewhere...). For me the issue is the sword and shield being transparent... they look conjured with magic, and I like my magic users to be scare (too scarce to form an army, at least). Of course, I say all of this, and I still bought two. I "need" to have some dark elves! For me the really exciting ones from this series were the troubadour and the acorn-hatted denizen. Wound up purchasing more of the latter than I have of any CMF figure thus far, and I've bought some from every series except Simpsons and regional exclusives. That is, I bought five. Plan to mix in the parts with my fairies and elves for a sort of mixed woodland militia. Acorns are one helmet style but not everyone has to have one. Would love if some sort of dryad or wood nymph was next, but that's starting to get off-topic.

Well I went by my local Lego store (United States) for the first time in a month or so and I feel like I hit the gold mine compared to my previous trips. Filled up three packages of BAM figures, including four copies of the exclusive dark blue tuxedo top (to make a string quartet). I was also able to find several of the pieces from 2020 and 2021 that I had never run across at my location before, including the lavender corset outfit, the space pug sweater, and two unique colors of balloon dog (red and purple). They even had a medium nougat lasso, which I assume is from a previous wave but which I had personally not been aware was out there. That's everything I'd been looking for except for the denim skirt and the fruit pie. The only downsides were that they didn't have the very newest wave of figures (fairy, chick, magenta bear) yet (though all I really wanted from those was the fairy). I should also mention that while I'm not personally interested in the brick costumes (I have the original red and blue and that's enough for me), I saw none of the teal and only one of the pale blue. It was also nice to have the proper BAM tower back out again for the first time since before Covid. Cases have finally fallen enough in my area for restrictions to lift, and it was very nice to be able to root around the bins and try out different combinations rather than be limited to prepacked figures or even their nice grid reference. I appreciate and support why it had to go away (too many gross kid fingers in there even when there isn't a pandemic going on), but it's nice to have it back.

Wow... with the exception of the llama one, every one of those cancelled sets sounds intriguing to me! Obviously cancellation was the right business decision given the poor performance of the first waves (good minifigures made overpriced by licensing a minuscule selection of average songs), but I would have liked to have seen these. Hopefully some of the investment TLG already made into prints and molds will show up in other themes.

Called my local Lego store today and the employee on the phone said that brand stores wouldn't be getting them, only Shop@Home. Guess the rumors were true; we'll see if the other rumor about Walmart getting them in stores is also true, since their website still has no listing. What a wild ride. They can't sell Vidiyo sets to anyone, and then when they release Vidiyo sets that people actually want, they don't make enough copies to sell them.

...and now they say “Sold Out.” We’ll see if any physical Lego stores or other retailers get any.

Well, it's after midnight on the west coast of North America, and the series 2 bandmates still say "coming soon" with no official date. Maybe in the morning, but I'm not holding my breath. I have to say, after all these delays my excitement is starting to wane. I still want my vampire, dragon, alien, and maybe cowgirl, but I'm really questioning if it's worth paying $10/each on the aftermarket or getting more than 1 or 2 blind boxes... might be one of those things I just have to let go.

Is this what you’re thinking of?

I believe the black head is from Ninjago. Is this it? Bear in mind that BAM is NOT designed with the intention of “completing” specific figures. Every now and then they’ll create particular characters out of the parts (especially exclusive parts) to sell pre-packaged, but the real idea is to create your own minifigs out of the available selection. So very often a piece will be included without anything that “matches” it - a few years ago, for example, you could get a panda mask but no corresponding torso or legs.

They rotate out from month to month and year to year. It’s been going on for years, much longer than there’s been exclusive prints and colors in BAM. I believe there was a rule that they’d never have all of the pieces needed to recreate a single figure become available, and often there would be, for example, back printing missing.

Received my Lego print catalog in the mail today, and there is an entry for “Bandmates” (no “Series 2”) that uses the image of the Series 2 figures. Another promising sign for a future US release, although nothing in the catalog says “coming soon” (possible they went to print before this delay was known.)

Oh, wow, I'm incredibly out of the loop on what new pieces are coming out! That Day of the Dead torso looks great! Same for the lab coat... and another balloon dog color? Not that any of it matters if my store doesn't get them. Poked around on BrickLink and some of last year's exclusive parts go for like $2/each on the low end...

Meaning no method from looking at an individual figure’s box, or no method whatsoever even when looking at a case? I’d heard rumors that one side of the box was a complete set, or that each figure was in a specific position within a sealed case. Can you confirm or deny any of that?

Here's what I found on offer when I swung by my Lego store last Friday. Nothing exciting that i don't already have, sadly, but some of the good exclusive Halloween parts for those who missed them in past years. Still hoping one day I'll see the lavender corset, or the denim skirt, or the elusive space pug sweater.

Interesting. I visited my local LEGO store (US) yesterday after work and while they hadn't received the Vidiyo figures yet (contrary to what I'd been told on the phone the prior day), the employee I spoke to said that they were only delayed and that they'd still be receiving them. In fact, I overheard her confirming to another AFOL that the figures were listed on the internal database that the store uses to reorder product. Perhaps they will be a Walmart "exclusive" in the same way that, for example, the HP chess set is a Target "exclusive" here in the states - exclusive among third party retailers, but still available from LEGO directly. At least my trip out to the store wasn't a total bust. City Stuntz bikes are delightful.

The series 2 bandmates have now officially appeared on US S@H as "coming soon" but without a release date listed. I called my local Lego store earlier today and the employee I spoke with said that it was one of the October 1st releases that would be available tomorrow, though it wasn't entirely clear if they actually had them waiting in the stockroom yet. I'll be curious to see if any other retailers get them around here.

Went by my local store today and the BAM cube had some new pieces for the fall, mostly Halloween themed. The most exciting piece for me was a new, easy way to amass jack-o-lanterns (they didn't have any problem with me treating them as accessories). A slightly modified series 14 spider lady is available almost in her entirety, aside from the cape. The printed web lines are magenta instead of red now, the printed spiders are dark grey instead of metallic, the hands are dark grey instead of white, and her eye shadow is magenta instead of lavender; also, the spider on mid-torso has been raised so it no longer overlaps the dress slope. Most importantly, though, the black beehive hairdo doesn't have a spiderweb printed on it, so it can be used for just about anything. Other pieces I nabbed (not counting those sighted before) include the vampire torso from Monster Fighters, now with purple accent printing in place of dark red; the bitey side only of that figure's head, now in light grey; a legs assembly with two potion bottles that I've not seen before; and Scarecrow's hat/hair combo from 76054. New and noteworthy pieces I saw but did not purchase include the Native American headdress from Series 3 (which, given the Halloween theme of the rest of the new parts and how controversial Halloween costumes of Native peoples are here in North America, is a little surprising - but I'm glad to see the piece available nonetheless); the series 14 witch's face with magenta makeup instead of the old, subtle green look; and the series 14 witch's torso, which seemed unaltered but I didn't do a side-by-side comparison. There were also black spiders galore in the new mold, to fill out the Halloween theme. Hopefully someone else can fill in anything I missed. Most of these exclusive pieces already seem to be inventoried on BrickLink, though they're hard to find if you don't know what to look for. Best bet is to run an advanced search for each type of minifig part displaying only those results not inventoried in a set.

Final images may change my mind, but I'm not as excited by this wave as I thought I'd be. I own 41172, 41175, and 41176, but not 41178, so this new wyvern would round out the four elements . . . but I worry about the wings being too different to fit in, and it especially doesn't make sense to me for a wind dragon to have the smallest wings of the lot - which is why the original, larger version, with its extra pair of wings, worked so well. Now that the price of 41178 has tripled on the aftermarket, though, I'm somewhat regretting not buying it. Oh, well. Three dragons with one larger than the others corresponds well with the brood of a certain popular fantasy heroine. The completionist in me just feels a little weird about considering a set like 41187 (Rosalyn's Healing Hideout) when a more important element (no pun intended) of the collection is missing. The new white-haired elf that comes in the wyvern set looks promising, though, so depending on price I might still go for it. As for the rest of the wave, I don't know. The fire lion looks neat, but I worry about it being redundant with my dragon of the same color and size. As for the castle, the possible return of dark turquoise is intriguing, and I like those feather pieces on the fox, but I don't think I like the fox as a whole. Nice to see (in multiple sets) the new spider mold in another color. Can anyone tell if that's standard yellow or the spring green of the Goblin King's castle? It's also in white in the city miners sets. There's a lot of neat ideas on display here, just none that work particularly well with my finite budget and limited collection. I really hope 2018 has a second wave, but the lack of any obvious gaps doesn't give me much hope. 2015 held back on the wind key; 2016 held back on the adult wind and the baby earth & water dragons; and 2017 didn't have any obvious collectibles so it was hard to say. But this time we have all four animals and all four magic weapons. Unless the second wave is a different concept entirely, I'm not optimistic. I think it's a new piece - all of the animals (except Emily's eagle) have it on top of their head, and if you look at the castle it looks like the new villainess is collecting them, much like the Monster Fighters castle and those moonstones. (Also, yay first post! I'd been reading various forums without an account for a few years now, but I finally got around to making one.)