Bearded Castle Guy

I saw Series 4 a number of times at the local Target but never in a pre-printed display like that Zeya, if the Target store near you hasn't clearanced out the series 4, they will soon, keep checking and you may get lucky, toys seem to usually get clearanced mid-week in my past experience.

Nice haul! I picked up a Blacksmiths Attack last week (and a couple of cups of PaB). Overall I really like the set, I will be getting more in the future, some of the 'Heroica style' weapons are a bit cheesy looking and less satisfying but I'll deal with it, I'm sure I have a box to hi.. store them in Regarding Targets 'Sale', they usually run their weekly Ad from Sunday to Saturday, and they use Red colored signs in the Aisle, either Sale or As Advertised. They also run their in store special known as a Temporary Price Cut with a Yellow sign, these usually start on Tuesday's and have a variable length and can vary from store to store even in the same area (some stores may have different prices or not even have their in store special). Both of these are separate from Clearance pricing, that usually gets a sticker and means there will be no more showing up into the store. If you think something should be on sale drag it to a price scanner, there's usually one near the toy dept and just check it out.

Most AFOl's build in 1 by X, but part of the 'draw' of the PaB wall is for the younger crowd, and I suspect THAT group uses more 2 by X than 1 by X's... They can create things that will hold together, or have a better chance of doing so. I always have to remember that the 'core' audience for this product is Children, even though there are numerous 'People with Experience' that also use our favorite plastic blocks. We may promote others to enjoy LEGO, we may gift it to younger acquaintances so they may both enjoy it and perhaps get hooked on it. Some folks make money or even a living from it, there are many reasons, likely as many reason as there are fans of LEGO for our enjoyment and use of it. But the 'Core' market is children, it's been a while since I watched random kids build (in this day and age, well it could be taken the wrong way) but in the past when something falls apart they add pieces in whatever way they feel will make it NOT fall apart, not often is that a bunch of 1 by X to my recollection...... That is why I tend to think of the 2 x4's as an 'Basic" and even "Essential' element on the PaB wall. I've paid some attention to what folks fill the PaB cubs with, for most kids it's a few of this, a hand full of that, they tend to get a wide variety but small quantity of any particular piece. Me? I get a lot of the small stuff from the PaB wall, or the less common stuff. I gravitate towards things like, cheese slopes, tiles (oh yes times!) the small plates or even some of the 1 by X bricks. I have never yet filled a cup of 2 x 4 bricks, not had the need to so far, have to decide if I will once I get stuff sorted out and actually build again. I go for a quarter, half or even a full cup of whatever I'm targeting to fill my PaB cup. I go for having enough of whatever it is to make something BIG when I go to use the pieces, shrugs it's the way I am.

Target is advertising in their Sunday ad 'Buy one, get one 50% off' for PotC, Harry Potter and select Ninjago sets. The Website does have the sets tagged with 'As seen in our weekly Ad' but doesn't specifically mention the Bogo 50%.

What does it say if I remember reading that over on Lugnet?(when it was first posted no less) No matter, it's still funny :)

I've never seen the local store mix parts in the bins but I get there on maybe a monthly basis, usually a bit longer between trips. How fast the parts changes varies upon how fast the current parts sell out, hard to predict, certain parts are almost certain, 2 x 4 bricks in a variety of color's, they are considered basic (and I believe essential). I know at the local Lug meeting a couple months back it was mentioned that a number of 'new' previously unavailable for PaB wall selection parts had been added to the order list, I believe this included things like the reported Horses, the technic turntables and a lot of other interesting parts would be order-able. some of the selection will vary upon what the store asks for and then what the warehouse has left when the order is actually pulled. I know that the Bamboo Leaves come and go as do the tree foliage pieces, I don't think I've ever seen a time where there were NO tires on some sort or another....

One of the Targets near me still had a bunch of these on Tuesday @ the 30% off price. I'm hoping to catch the next markdown on these, over time I've gotten at least one of each but they have such a nice selection of parts in less common colors.

I'm kinda surprised you were able to have the lid so far above the cup rim, the local LIC wants at least one side of the lid touching the rim. Nice haul tho, last trip there I picked up a full Large cup of the Dark Tan 2x2 Tiles (design id: 3068) (plus a few more that went into a mixed cup). I haven't gotten around to counting (or even un-cupping them) yet but the online PaB price lists at $.09 each, I'm sure I've got more than 150 in there which means I came out ahead of the Online PaB price (and Bricklink prices as well it appears).

The other potential limiting factor of supply is, each store only has what has NOT already sold. I'd say the higher traffic, higher volume stores are more likely to 'blow thru' the supply of 'interesting' parts faster. The store Local to me, the Mall of America location is the oldest LIC in the USA, and thus has a large pool of regulars. Edit, after a further visit, they've changed out the BaM fixture since the last time I went. It's now *2* copies of a four sided square fixture, each side having 4 bins like the PaB ones and a tray underneath with 2 hooks for the packages under that. Each side has a bin for heads, torso's, legs and accessories. I suspect having the free BaM for purchases over $100 this month may have been part of the reason they upgraded the fixture.

Looking at it there are *2* castle structures on the horizon behind the WindMill Raid set. The larger one half behind the upper right blade, which to me seems to look a lot like the silhouette of 7946 Kings Castle, but it's hard to tell for sure. The second on appears to be only slightly blocked by the upper left blade but is at most 1/3 of the height of the right side image, but the silhouette appears to differ greatly from the right side image. It could merely be an image taken from a different angle but the between being a silhouette and teh samll size there's very little to speculate on.... Further perusal of the Kingdoms pages also shows what appears to be an unblocked image of the 7946 Kings Castle on the horizon to the right side on the 7188 Kings Carriage Ambush page as well...

@ Halberd, at least a treasure chest makes more sense on the back of a coach than it does on a chariot...... @ Lego Okatu, nice review, I think it makes me feel better about my eventual purchase of this set, still not real excited about the price/piece ratio but the review helps show more of the desirable qualities of the set than the mere box does.

I believe that the standard BAM fixture has an L shape with 2 holes on each 'arm' of the L. Usually at the store close to me it's legs and torso's in the holes in one arms, and heads and accessories in the holes on the other arm. In-between is a square case with a big mini and signage explaining the BAM and price as well as the empty BAM cartons next to the display case. They do a good job sorting the parts here, selection, that doesn't always seem to be quite so hot. I can ALWAYS find workers coveralls torso's, sometimes I cannot find beyond a single style hair piece or any decent accessories... The few times I've gotten BAM's were because I wanted various torso's, I've gotten comments on 'interesting minifig design there' upon checkout, but I cannot say that accessory wise I've ever been really happy with the selection. Just how many shovels, broom's and chalice's do I need? In my view certainly not as many as the BAM selection seems to suggest....... I have not bought BAM's for the whole figure result, I'd never buy any if that were my goal, the interesting parts don't line up in their availability for that, as it is I've done... 3 BAM's trying to get the best mix of parts I can, even if it means getting 3 of a hairstyle that 1 would complete the quantity I wished in my collection. Shrugs, sometimes you make compromises, that's life.

Floor above? but then where would the LEGO Sculptures go? Also what would go in the basement where the storeroom is? Ok,ok, I live near the Mall of America store which is NOT a typical design (from what I see of the pictures online of the other stores). The MoA store doesn't really have it's own roof and has an elevator into the malls basement which has their stockroom in it. A LEGO store set could be neat if done correctly, but it might be hard to translate the details into something buildable by kids (or even affordable by kids).

I remember that a lot of the older sets i got as a kid had the trays inside, many times multi level/multi part trays or dividing inserts. I also seem to recall that the 'paper goods' including were quite often packed UNDER all the sub-trays and inserts, flat against the bottom of the main tray. I agree that the baseplate options from the regular selection are limited(especially if your NOT a townie), in the full sized one the Green 32 x 32, the Blue 32 x 32 and the BLey-- err blueish Light Grey 48 x48. Townies have 2 more options, the Strait and Crossroad plates and T Junction and Curved plates sets. If you want say, a river, you'll have to either add plates for it or build up the banks of the river on a blue one. Not that's that's all bad per say but I can think of at LEAST 3 different road width standards so it's very hard to nicely mix road plates from different eras. I'd like to see a few more colors available at a minium, even if it's thru pick-a-brick online if they must avoid new set numbers and packaging. Colors such as Tan (#5 brick yellow or #312 medium nougat)and Brown (#193 Redish Brown or 308 Dark Brown) would greatly expand options in basepalte color. I'm usually too much of a purist to modify bricks, or in this case baseplate's so a 32 x32 Light Blueish Grey baseplate would be welcome as well.

Thanks Buddy and Brickdoctor for the welcome, I fully expect to enjoy my stay on the Eurobricks forum's.

Hello there, I've lurked here a while and finally got around to joining. I been collecting LEGO for... decades now, I've had a few minor 'Dark Ages' and a few of what I think of as 'Shadow Ages'. I think of 'Shadow Ages' as lesser version of a 'Dark Age' where while LEGO related activity slows down it doesn't completely disappear/stop. My main focus is Castle although I'm also partial to Classic Space as well and am willing to acquire anything I can get a good deal on even if it doesn't immediately pertain to Castle, after all, Parts are Parts :)

While I haven't done a MinFig census in probably 6 or 7 years now, the last time I did it was around 1200-1300 or so. I'd have to guess it'd be in-between 1800-2000 atm ( I really haven't sorted my collection much which makes it hard to get an accurate count).