Masked Mini

This is pretty pimp! You captured it so well I heard Rick burping and slurping and berating Morty in my head. Thank You for sharing this!

I'm getting more excited about the Blacktron fig by the minute! I've been sorting my bricks most evenings and today I came across my Trans Yellow Slave I windscreen which reminded me I had planned on a Blacktron I color variant. I do believe this is a sign from TLC that I must realize that ambition. It's even a Bounty Hunter, how pat. "Capt. Solo is no good to me magnetized."

Probably another Batman. They'd need to scrape the barrel pretty hard to come up with a twist on or version of Batman they haven't done yet but I have faith in TLC's Bat-addiction. Possibly another Superman, but the Man of ABS isn't as popular it seems. I'd hope for an updated version of one of the original pirates. A 2019 take on Capt. Roger or Bosun Willie would be neat. And it would provide an opportunity to highlight Pirate 30th anniversary on the inside cover or something. I'm desperate aren't I?

Jeez luise guys... I go do some actual work while at work instead of reading about Lego and this blows up by two pages. I built my own Joan of Arc a little while ago, found myself a good armored female torso and rolled with it. Might have to find a place to post her. There is an entire rank of female pirates, townfolk etc to go with my standard Princesses and Damsels. I go out of my way to try and kit-bash /army build more. But in the end, with lego, any torso can be instantly female with application of the right head or hair or a dash of imagination and pretend. I do not see the point of griping about gender parity needing to be 50:50 for Lego minifigs. I DO see a point about the need for more obviously female heads/hair pieces and headwear (like helmets or hoods) with hair. Thankfully Lego has been expanding the offerings tremendously. Lego is about customization and rebuilding to suit yourself. Otherwise every set would come with a bottle of Kragle and be sold by Airfix or Revell or Tamya. If I had my way you'd all be pissed at me! There'd be army builder battlepacks for every theme... with random heads and hair at the least. Go collect them all or trade for what you want. Or we can go back to the plain two dots and smile. Then you HAVE to imagine your genders. Edit: Case in friggin' point - My avatar. Is it male? Is it female? Could be a sovjet space dog if you shut the visor. If you Bark in space - can anyone hear you?

I have one too but I guess I'd buy a second if they re-released it. Though I'd really, really prefer a new ship (for a different faction). If I have to, I'll customize it myself. Shame that stuff like Eldorado is too difficult to re-release without completely reworking the set to get around the baseplate and retired parts. At least in out-of-the-vault context. Judging by the Taj Mahal TLC is trying to keep the sets as close as possible to the original. IIRC the only added piece was the brick separator.

I get our Italian friends frustration. No Pirate/Soldier for 30th? No living/female Knight? but tons of meh (to me as a non-city enthusiast) city figs. *sigh* But hey, like MAB I'll get to kitbash myself some more Knights and if I separate out the torso and breastplate maybe even two-for-one. I'm all about the Blacktron I aesthetic so that one is a no-brainer for me! Though now that I think about Aanchir's comment regarding the Blacktron II logo, I do really like the updated version of the Blacktron I torso with the II "B" insignia. Was that the Space Villain CMF? It released during my Dark Age. Still a win for me since my Blacktrons I and II are forced to cohabit. So 2 Army builders for me out of 16 isn't horrible, thanks to the Dackel mold, Vixen+chicken and Johnny Thunder it's 5/16 for me personally. So despite my frustration there is actually more here than I got out of Disney 1+2, Simpsons 1+2, TLBM 2 top of my head. Given lemons, sugar and water... make a nice cuppa tea. I sure hope that the city enthusiasts will be able to find their own silver linings if/when we ever get a wave that is largely castle/pirate/space/oddballs.

I don't think it's sold online (by Costco) but I could be wrong. Costco is a membership required warehouse store. You'd need to have a member buy it for you or pay the 55$ fee yourself to join. For what use it is to anyone, I saw the box (10717) at the Costco at Tehama Ridge in North Fort Worth, TX. Lego Store MSRP is 59.99 according to google.

Wishful thinking? On my part, absolutely. If you are talking about a theme that's sold in retail stores.. I agree with you completely. There would need to be a popular resurgence of Napoleonic themes in popular media. A Game of Thrones without the rated R stigma that (possibly) kept TLC from capitalizing on the wave of fantasy pseudo medieval excitement. I'm not convinced that is required for a online DTC theme. I bought some Elves sets for myself and plenty for my Daughter. I'll buy minidoll pirate sets for myself as well. Just means I'll continue to rob what parts I want and pass along the mini dolls and "girly" colored refuse to my Girl. The girl focused sets seemed to have a lot more ornamentation too, so I welcome the opportunity for more gold "scrollwork" pieces. I just hope they don't recolor all the Piratey bits into "girly" colors needlessly. Not everything needs to be a shade of pink to attract girls..!

Oh, Europa. What could have been... Every time I see that shot, I get excited and immediately filled with hollow disappointment. I would buy the living daylights out of Europa 1700 right now, both to fuel my Castle and Pirate needs. I finally have the disposable income I dreamt of in 1990, but TLC does not wish to part me from my $$$. Army builders of old red and blue coats (yellow and green factions??), Castle/Tudor style civilian buildings, cannons galore (and maybe mortars/howitzers?), Cavalry!!, ramparts and palisades, town folk builder packs, trades(wo)men packs to go with the buildings (think small packs with figs, tools,product and some tiles or flags to hang outside)? But if TLC gave me what I want... what would happen to the poor souls of the secondary market? Right now the thrill of the hunt is keeping the flame of desire nice and hot. Maybe if I had my wish it would snuff it, since just buying X redcoats would just be a click or three away. Maybe I'd end up with a Waterlooo, Ligny or Zaragoza of my very own. To be very clear I did not buy the 2009 wave of pirates in large part because I can not stand the new Redcoats. I have acquired a fair amount of the Pirates on the secondary market to diversify my crews. The 2008 recession also did not help TLC in selling that wave as I along with many others had lost our jobs. Granted it was still on the shelves when I found work again but it needed to be so much better than it was for me to consider diverting funds to it. I was largely in my own Dark age and spared Lego a glance or two when passing by. The 2015 wave passed me by as I was struggling financially again and was more concerned with putting food on the table. That revamp of the Bluecoat is okay I guess, I still have not become desperate enough to add them to my ranks. But I might if the supply of old Bluecoats completely dries up, whereas I will pad print or waterslide my own old Redcoats before buying the '09 revamp. I do own a Legends Redbeard's Runner and 2 Armada Flagships. Obviously I feel that Legends has a place, albeit maybe only as an online DTC. Of course with low run numbers, costs increase and therefore the price. Bricklink did a neat thing with it's AFOL line, X thousand sets need to be committed to be purchased prior to production. There might not be 20,000 people willing to buy a re-release of Eldorado or IMPT in Texas but maybe worldwide we would exceed that. (numbers completely pulled out of my brick bin) It might not be worthwhile for TLC to re-release the sets and produce 100,000 to stock every Lego Store on the off chance that one of us will wander in and buy it on a whim but purely online shipped from one location like BnP might work nicely. Then all you need to slap into the Lego Stores would be signage or a kiosk pointing curious walk ins at the online only offers. Bring back the old catalogs and add a page or two about the DTC offers. If you do not need to supply all the million and one retail outlets worldwide, maybe the financial threshold of production/distribution with be lowered enough that a smaller volume does not inflate cost to the point of pricing out the few(er) buyers. It's frankly the only realistic model I could see TLC serving the AFOL community. In the case of a DTC Europa 1700, TLC would be able to combine both castle and pirate buyers to an extent and hopefully skew the numbers enough to make it more profitable than a pure theme of either aimed at AFOLs.

Costco (US) currently has a creative 1500pcs brick set for $39.99, that comes out to $0.027 ppcs. Probably the cheapest non-sale price I've ever seen.

Cool beans man! Next time you're over on this side of the pond, shoot me a PM and I'll try to meet up! I'll take you to my Brick-getting Spots. If you went to the Lego store Frisno you were 5 minutes away from the Bricks and Minifigs Dallas location, Jason's shop is always worth a stop. I was super surprised at the selection at Grapevine myself, not to mention that they don't have a tower anymore. Just a round table with troughs inset. But they sure don't skimp on refilling their BAM like some of the LEGO stores do.

At 5 quid per 3 figs ...I'd run them clean out of anything castle or pirate useable. At the Merlin run LEGOLAND Discovery center in DFW (Grapevine, TX) they now want 13 or 14$ for 3 figs. Only upside is, they don't appear to a have strict 15 pcs count and the clerk didn't even look at my little baggie of figures. So it's possible to even out the cost/pcs a bit. (I'm now up to 25 of the new shields. Price aside, the hunting was fantastic at the Discovery center BAM trough. They also had dark green, red and blue 1x2 bricks and plates and DBG 1x2 tiles in their PAB wall!)

Well said Arnie, I'm right there with you. I post only because I want help or because I worked out something neat and want to share it. It's cool people came out of the woodwork to help me with my ship build, but if they had not I'd still be building my little brigantine or w/e it will turn into. Create for your own soul, share with no expectations. I will give the OP this: I've been lurking for awhile now and am guilty of not posting OC or commenting on stuff. I have seen probably 90% of posts in Castle, Pirates, CMF threads and more than a few of the frontpage posts in other categories. I just wasn't contributing beyond viewcount. Okay, selfish of me. Easy fix, I want this site to survive so I started posting more content. And commenting my opinions instead of thinking them and moving on. I can still be more involved and there are large sections of the site I don't step foot in. That may change as my interests within Lego shift to other themes. I look at LDD models the same as I look at brick models. What's cool? What would I do differently? How can I adapt, steal or copy X element of the build to what I'm doing myself. There is no judgement of the creators bank account involved. I can currently afford a lot of brick. Just 3 years ago there was no way I could buy in a year what I buy in a month now. I have not forgotten what it was like to be the proverbial kid staring through the toy shop window at stuff I'd never get. One of the biggest wow moments I've had on this site is the guy that makes the Industrial sites (in LDD)! I'm not even into city themes at all but man... WOW! His models make me want to have an industrial park in brick. It's right up there for me with the guys building the huge realistic Frigates and Ships of the Line (which I am already into). And you know what? I haven't commented on any of them. Usually the topic is old and I don't want to necro it, or people have taken the words out of my mouth already. But okay I can change, it's not a huge sacrifice to let other builders know they had an impact on me. Even if 15 people have just commented the same "WOW!". Just my two bricks.

I'll be hunting a dirty dozen of the Blacktrons. I mean I won't replace my sigfig but he could use some company. Automatic buy for me. Only way that could be better would be an updated M-Tron or Space Police I as a counterpart. Knights as well, to part out for the armor/shields at least. I have no use for undead knights at the moment. I'm hoping the Knight a only a head away from resuscitation. I'm German and my 2 German couples need dogs to go with their pretzels so I'm in for a few pooper scooper ladies. Got Dackel ??!! A Johnny Thunder is a must and maybe more depending on how good the legs look on some of my Pirates/Soldiers. Wurst case scenario I'll use his head for a few of my Spaniards and his hat for my Musketeers although I prefer the actual floppy hat for them. Was a bit disappointed in the lack of Pirates though, gotta admit.

Okay so while I don't buy huge lots like that at once I have a system to sort my bulk purchases. I will use 5 or 6 tubs (1gal so maybe 3 or 4 liters) for this, mine are open but I can stack them up and do have space to just leave them. Since you are interested in being able to stop and go without leaving a mess, get the largest tupper containers with lids you can cheaply acquire. set up your empty tubs and grab a bag of bulk, get comfortable, this will take awhile. pick 5-6 types of brick and designate a tub for each. For my first pass I'll do 1/2/4/6 wide plates, 1 and 2 wide bricks of all lengths. Get sorting. As you go you can sort out the big stuff. I collect all wheels, canopies, wall panels, rocks as I go along. Those just end up in large zip loc bags anyway at the moment. Second pass, grab one of the tubs and sort all 1 wide plates (for example) by size into whatever storage you have for it. Then the next tub and the next until they are empty. Return to first pass on the remaining bulk. Now I'll do tiles, and maybe 4-5 wedge shapes like 1x2, 1x3 regular and inverted and maybe misc. wedges. Whatever I see a lot of when I look at the top layer of the unsorted bulk really. Back to second pass. And back to step 1 until all the bulk has been sorted and stored. I find it improves my throughput tremendously if I'm only handling the parts twice but also not grabbing a brick, finding it's home and going for another brick. Get a sorting tray! I bought two yellow ones on amazon for like 3$ ea. Raised lips on all sides but one corner is a funnel. Friggin' speed hack man! I can pour out a bit of bulk, quickly sort through the 5-6 types I'm hunting, then pour the rest into a bucket to be passed through the process again later. I'll also use it a lot for sorting through the second pass on plates and other small bits. Easier to sweep the bits into their tray or bag than to pick up each round 1x1 plate or technic connector. So far I've sorted ~150 gallons (560ish liters) of bulk using this method. I hope this helps You. (obligatory: type -> size -> color groups)

I'm a devotee of Bricks and Minifigs, a used lego resale shop franchise. I can fill a gallon Ziploc bag with bulk brick of my choice for 30-35$ depending on the store (they offer other volumes but I find the large bag to be best value). Same rules as PAB wall, pack it tight.. it just needs to close long enough to check out. My favorite stores have a 6% and 5% respective cash back loyalty program, carbon copy of Lego's old VIP system. They also have a version of the Build a Minifig tower, 3 for 10$. One of the owners will discount that some more if I strike it lucky and buy a bunch at once. It's gotta be said: You need luck and patience. These are used lego resale shops so the part availability is random as can be. But I've score tons of Black Falcons, Forestmen, etc. 3 for 10$. The bulk bins can have nothing of value (to me) one visit and the next I stumble on 2/3rds of a Black Pearl or a patch of 80s classic space parts. I've walked out with a 90% complete Queen Anne's Revenge (missing a couple minifigs and easily detached trim) for 75$ because it was gathering dust!! Same with the Black Pearl, hull for 25$ one trip, complete set of sails plus a couple extra QAR sails for 35$ next. Some trips I find no bulk of interest but stumble on three or four dozen classic pirates and castle figs or newer stuff I use to diversify my factions and armies. Or it's the other way around. Best part is the personal relationship I've cultivated with the Owners. They know what I'm after and will message me or hold things back until my next visit, making for wonderful surprises! One set of Owners will do after hours BYOB AFOL events throughout the year, which are super fun (and often an amazing way to get bulk brick for cheap or even "free" in exchange for labor like helping sort out non-lego from fresh bulk). Your mileage will vary! These kinds of stores are a reflection of their Owners and their selection a reflection of your area and the skill of the Owner in finding bulk lego. Aside from that, I utilize all the same sources as everyone else. Ebay (rarely, crazy prices and counterfeits galore), Bricklink, BnP, PaB, BaM, clearance sets (agree with MAB, gotta balance ppb with usefulness of said bricks), Amazon occasionally, thrift stores have contributed more than a couple gallons but I find they have pretty much all caught on now. I've also had great luck scoring vintage minis for little money at vintage malls, resale shops or cattlebarn style fleemarkets. The older the intended clientele and the less focus on toys the better the deals I find. Other than that my eyeballs are super calibrated for the Lego System logo colors and I will lock onto those colors from 50ft away. A hungry shark ain't got nothing on me when I spot a shoal of lego in the wild.

I agree with the sentiment. i'd also like to see new base plates that work into the old designs. example the lunar crater baseplate, why not have one with a straight ridge or an S shape? Maybe a base plate with a raised area on one half matching the old castle bases with ramp, so you could use one each and have a ramp in the middle of your castle/space base? Sadly Lego doesn't make base plates, they used to contract them out. It'd take a bit more than an internal effort to find molds, unlike bringing back bricks *cough GOAT cough*.

You know... I'm totally fine with that. Bricks we can get, if that's the way we get to source heraldry, accessories and printed pirate/castle figs then I'm on board. It beats getting nothing by a nautical mile.

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?M=col126#T=S&O={"ss":"US","iconly":0} Thespian / Actor CMF series 8 I keep calling them shakespeare but he had a similar torso in dark red, CMF Lego Movie 1. Don't think I've ever seen the legs, only torso, head, ruff.

The match simply could not be any better. This REALLY raises my hopes of a Lion Crusader CMF or DTC set (a castle wave may still be a pipe dream). I also snagged a few Knights, an opportunity not to be missed! Now if only they'd stock the Wolfpack Dark Archers... I'd devote a substantial amount to BAM.

Perfect match on the Lion. Please let there be a Lion Crusader CMF or set!

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday by the Evil Knight torso/legs being available. Originally went to score a box of shields but "only" found 6. My Spaniards (Shakespeare) are growing leaps and bounds as well, add another platoon to the roll call! Last I took a shoot at the dark blue legs with black boots... and it worked out rather spectacularly! I'll be looking for more of these for the rest of my blue coat officers.

More water! I left atleast another large cup or two yesterday if anyone in Dallas needs it. Top left corner. Nabbed a fistful of red 1x1 plates I need and a fistful of 1x4 sand green plates for the hell of it.

Thought I had decided on 3 stud gaps between gun ports. Didn't look quite right though. 4 stud gaps look a bit better, no? Gun stripe is too thick above the ports. Dropped it a plate, looks like I need to drop it another plate. Possibly strip out another plate of black below the stripe as well. Stern wall ended up 2 studs shorter than the first iteration. Same with the bow wall. I screwed up somewhere. Second iteration isn't shaped as nice. I'll attempt to seperate the first and second to last 5 stud wall sections and adjust them in half a stud. Then move the last 5 stud section in a half stud as well No masts roughed in this time. Concentrating on getting the sidewalls and gun deck right. MK 2 gundeck openings are 1 plate higher than MK 1. MK1 deck is 5 plates below the opening, MK2 deck is 3 plates below the opening. So MK2 gundeck should be 1 brick higher.

Painfully obvious in hindsight. I might try this. It sounds interesting. Ramcat's deck layout is what I pictured after your last input, well described.