Masked Mini

It's on bricks and pieces MINI UPPER PART NO.2822 Element 6097241 Design number 76382 Unit Price USD 0.76

In Texas and shop at HPB frequently, I'll keep my eyes peeled for these. Anyone else want a copy if I find them? I'll pick up extras at cost if anyone is hot for one.

Breaking news: Leaf is Pirate themed. However it is not a traditional wave as such, being mostly made up of polybags, battle/accessory pack and promo-type minifigs. Slated as giveaways/ gift with purchase for the Legoland Year of the Pirate event(s). sauce: my fetid and evil imagination. muahaha!

Diesel Punk Skypirates wouldn't clash with the classic pirate ideas pirate-bay... ::thonk::

Bah. If we're pipesmoking... Spaniards + Europa with Buccaneers and Islanders. 3-5 Factions, each one getting it's own wave with a certain percentage of other factions as antagonists. At 60% you'd get the Stronghold (IMTP) and/or Flagship, 20% a smaller Chase vessel (Armada flagship?) and outpost (Eldorado?), 10% a small outpost (maybe pirate island?), 5% battle pack and minifig cameos. 1: Spaniards (60%) and Islanders (10%), Buccaneers (20%), French (5%), British (5%) 2: Spaniards (5%) and Islanders (60%), Buccaneers (10%), French 20%), British (5%) 3: Spaniards (5%) and Islanders (5%), Buccaneers (60%), French (10%), British (20%) 4: Spaniards (20%) and Islanders (5%), Buccaneers (5%), French (60%), British (10%) 5: Spaniards (10%) and Islanders (20%), Buccaneers (5%), French (5%), British (60%) Why? because 5 waves of pirates... that's why! Feel free to jumble the matchups around, some don't make historical sense as is. Throw in some Revolutionary Patriots as antagonists for the Redcoats too. Cajuns for the Spaniards/French. And some Indians First Nations if you can pull it off without antagonizing a ton of people. Need another wave? Bring in the Dutch East India company! And a wave of civilian ships and ports a la Olde Fishing Shoppe. Small Crabbers, Fishers, Shanty shack dwellers, sail makers, cannon foundries, market town sets to defend/pillage a la Mill Village raid.

Steampunk Oriental Sky Pirates. Honestly if the color scheme isn't heinous i'd be down for space pirates. Or undead monster pirates.

Since it's the end of the world...err bricklink as we know it... Had to place some orders before the lights go out. In case Lego brings back pirates next year and wants to make sure they are the only game in town. ??

What makes you say that? Sure a 200$ ideas set might cannibalize sales a bit or depending on timing whet appetite for the wave.

He got shushed after clarifying he wasn't talking about the pirate Bay. Sadly.

And for everyone else … there's Google. https://www.lugnet.com/general/~1285/traumaticevents

Break out your dump trucks full of grains of salt, you'll need them. I was in a Lego store couple of weekends ago and an employee let slip that "Lego is bringing Pirates back in a big way in 2020, not just the Ideas set." He was oblivious to his co-worker shushing him until the manager shut him up saying that has not been officially announced so he can't say that. He was pretty excited to talk about it, the manager was too but … ah well. Hope. The greatest of treasures!

The Lego Group is not equivalent to Lego bricks that we are enthusiasts of. TLG is a shareholder profit driven corporation in, this the year of our Brick, 2019. They will make corporate decisions which benefit the corporations bottom line. Historically those decisions play out poorly for the (niche) consumer. Especially as they now also need to recover the funds invested in the acquisition + show a ROI. Incoming moneygrab. Hopefully BL will not be milked to death to satisfy the beancounters but I expect it will be.

This has the potential to be quite sinister. Not a lot of AFOLs know of or appreciate "Bricks and Minifigs" but they are the largest US franchise of brick and mortar Lego resale shops. Lego JUST annexed/Anschluss the Franchise as an Official Lego Group Partner, a week or so ago. Sure they are now allowed to sell new sets, bought at wholesale but are required to dedicate x square footage of their store to new sets. The entire Franchise is now going to rebrand to Lego colors and will lose it's own Identity essentially morphing into mom+pop Lego Group Stores. An insane mish mash of family store with corporate overlord... how long before they are told how to run the rest of their businesses? The best hope is that they are allowed to continue to run independently to preserve that small shop vibe as a counterpoint to the corporate stores. We will see if TLG will follow up this Annex by sending C&Ds to the other brick and mortar Lego resale shops that run on the BAM model. A rumor I was definitely not told by a friendly BAM owner was that Lego is trying to secure alternate product outlets to decrease Walmart's leverage on TLG. It sounds plausible but no way to verify or debunk. I am deeply affected by both these acquisitions as I buy the bulk of my... bulk and build my minifigures at BAM and most of my specialized parts on BL. I spend a tiny fraction of my annual lego expenditure on new sets, S@H, PAB or Lego's Build a mini towers. I'm getting a massive "The Mouse" vibe here. Straight out of the Disney playbook.

I'm with it now, thank you! As for mast placement I'll have something later today to look at and critique. Wish I could tinker at work but that's not a good look. Even if it's Sunday and I'm practically done working for the day already.

Thank you for the input! I have to work on mast placements next. How do you reconcile round masts going through the deck? overlap with the round 4x4 plates with 2x2 cutout? Add a 2x2 square brick in the stack? That's a very nice Galleon! I'm not seeing how you inverted the gun stripe again for the top rail, what am I missing? With the walls sitting on cheese slopes... how are they held in place? And while you're here... Thank You for the sideways plate technique on the hull!

I've gotten in some more bricks and found a few through sorting my backlog. Just finished building out the port side. Current state of the build has both hull sides done (short three 1*10 slopes in white), both sides gun deck stripe done, stern and bow done and everything connected. Rigging anchor points are built into both side walls as well. I stripped the aft most gun port. It looked odd with only 3 studs to the stern wall. But I did add in two chaser gun ports on the bow putting me at 14 guns, 6 gun broadside. Reasonable enough. I'll take some pictures after work tomorrow. Could use some advice regarding mast placement and how to anchor it in the hull/deck.

I'm intrigued by this. Would you expect to get better value from two of the short cups as opposed to one of the large ones? All else being equal. I usually just go straight for the tall ones and pack them until the lid barely squeaks on. Also I've never thought to ask about K-boxes. Could you ballpark a price for a K-box of 1x4 bricks for me? I'll try to remember to ask next time I'm at a store. I'm with you on the bricklink method. I usually enter a store for a select part(s), then comb the entire bricklink store for stuff I like or will need in future, then clean the shop out until the postage becomes a small enough percentage of the cost. That has cut down a lot on my ordering frequency and cash waste to postage. I've not looked at the thrifting from your point of view. Feeling a good bit less proud of my hauls at the moment. I'm not as fiscally flush as you seem to be but I also no longer need to source my bricks as cheaply as possible so it seems I need to re-evaluate my acquisition ethics. Thank you for the (uncomfortable) thought provoker.

Hot dog! I got me some ideas.

Three years too late for the party but.. Man, I love me some Asterix! My youth in ABS right here. This MOC is simply superb. C'est magnifique!! "Alea iacta est." Since TLC is so license fixated... Please go get this one!!! Do a wave for all the classic films atleast. A couple cmf series of Gauls, Romans, britons, goths, Phoenicians, pirates, Egyptians. A trireme, a Phoenician trader and a pirate ship too!! Strange that a Danish company, whose employees must have grown up on Franco-Belgian comics, haven't gone after this one. Or Lucky Luke for a renewed Western theme. spirou and fantasio in brick anyone? *Sigh* Wonderful MOC, Takes me right back to the endless summer of childhood!

This would fit wonderfully in pirate mocs. Great idea with amazing execution!

I checked Goodwill online once but with shipping I didn't see anything worthwhile. I might check back again. When I say you can't get deals anymore I was comparing it in my mind to the $2.99 I paid for a MISB anniversary Vader tie fighter with the possibly chrome minifigs. Found it in the boardgames... I snatched that so fast of the shelf there where tiny thunderclaps coming off my hand. Ipman and Bruce Lee nodded in approval at my speed of hand. No luck on the limited chrome fig but still. Or the dozen two gallon bags of random Lego for $10 ea my wife found while thrifting before we moved in together. She messaged me after leaving and sent me pics, had her drive back and buy them all. Over a hundred 80-90's minifigs, three dozen horses, an old green dragon and other absolute treasure for a song. Those times appear to be over.

I'm not big on Western theme myself but depending on how they design them they could see applications across a number of themes. I'm all about kitbashing and Army building. The more people find a particular CMF of use the more popular it and by extension the series becomes. Drives more $$$, which gives us more Series' and more opportunities to release something to please everyone. Also I too want a purist plague doctor... with leeches. And some old timey Zombies.

Not to mention basically the whole Spaniard faction. We got like 4 Spaniards in the Armada flag ship set and that's been that. Let's flesh them out as a faction a bit. They got the conquistador but there is room for improvement of the line. Arguably the Aztec warrior could use some company too. Fleshing out the revolutionary war with more companions for the single figure we have. We have two Roman legionaries and they got a Julius Ceasar. Where are King George III and/or General Washington? Paul Revere and his horse? Historically accurate Redcoats, Hessians, French troops. More Indian auxillaries would probably be welcomed by those who enjoy the western theme as well. They could to a whole group dedicated to historical civilians a la City. Those could be fit into both castle, pirates and a Renaissance fair City sub theme. We have lots of blacksmiths already but no cobblers, glassblowers, Carpenters, Miller's or brewers. Baker's, tailors, traders, farriers or wheelwrights and shipwrights. Show the trades and proletariat some love.

I really like the Ivy crawling up the column and onto the Veranda roof. But those ladders.. such a simple and effective use of bricks! I'm putting that one up my sleeve for future use.

I've never been told by Lego Store employees i HAVE to build 3 complete figs. It's strongly implied by the signage explaining how it works but I've yet to see it enforced. So I'm that guy that buys only what I'm after in sets of 15pcs. Luckily the rabbits are safe from me. However Castle, Pirate stuff... sea gulls! Might not be anything left when I leave. Atleast until the first time I try to checkout and I get rejected.