Weil

Same...

No. Or at least I highly doubt it. It would be very strange not to use the new pirate, the knight's helmet is wrong for a conquistador, I don't see how the western fig is identifiable as a trader and it's a very strange place to show them for the first time. It's just a 'generic' pirate, cowboy, knight and fairy if you ask me.

Unless I'm much mistaken, looking at the new bat minifigures from The Vampire Castle from the Monster Fighters line it looks like there's a new mold for minifigure arms going out to the side. Do people think this is a one off or will now continue to appear in LEGO sets? I'm sure we can all think of lots of ideas where these arm moulds would be useful in MOCs. That said the limited poses that can be achieved with them compared with the regular LEGO minifigure arms means I can't see them being included in LEGO sets that often. How widespread do people think they will become? Edit: Hmm... Just realised the wings are probably attached to the arms. I was thinking the arms were separate - Sorry!

Having a compound bow would have been ridiculous as they don't shoot them at the Olympics. They don't shoot longbow either for that matter, they shoot 'freestyle' recurve. Using an existing piece that resembles the right thing makes an awful lot more sense than making a new piece that doesn't though. Possibly it's a place holder and they will make a new piece of a recurve bow with sight and longrod, as that piece would be rather tricky to make and unlikely to ever be used again I don't think they will though.

I think the bow is dark brown, not black. I imagine the gymnast and relay runner will be most popular. Do people think there'll each come with a gold medal as shown on the packet? Not sure what the white tile is that they all have apart from the gymnast?

I don't think you will see this happening on mass for several reasons most of which have been mentioned: - Big sets are more special to kids than several smaller ones - Many smaller sets are more costly to TLC. All of them have to be separately designed and approved, they each need to have their own packaging, box art, promotion, instructions etc. Retailers won't easily be able to stock all the sets and giving them all sufficient shelf space would be difficult, they also will look less appealing on the shelf compared to big sets. - Small modular sets mean they have little play value on their own. If a child gets bought a small set and doesn't have much fun with it then the parent isn't going to buy any more. It is much easier to build play value and a story into bigger sets which is really important for children. This is the reason TLC predominantly look to have sets with both 'goodies' and 'badies' in. Saying that it does seem TLC is trying to build in modularity where they are able to. The big modular town sets are one example but there is also an 'extension set' for Helm's Deep in the upcoming LOTR theme, this combines a medium and large set together however each set can easily stand alone in their own right.

I like the use of the Minotaur head. Using it a MOC like this was one of the first things I thought of when I saw that minifigure.

Not sure what you mean by 'bucket' or 'globe' helmets. I also miss what I assume has been referred to as the 'bullet' helmet though (http://www.bricklink.com/PL/3896.gif?0) I hope that comes out in metallic silver and/or pearl dark grey some time.

It's just the same mould as blackbeard's hat isn't it? Which is much more useful in black.

I would hate to see them change to flesh. I don't think it's likely though.

Yeah definitely the same as the highland battler sword from cmf s6.

Greatly prefer the fantasy troll to the harry potter one.

I would agree.

1. 5615 The Knight 5615 The Knight is the perfect army builder but for me the 7955 Wizard could have stole the victory if there had been a little more attention to detail. The lack of printing on the torso of The Wizard and the poor choice of head (with the grey beard showing through over the black beard) in a set focused around this minifigure tips it the other way for me. 2. 7950 Knight's Showdown Great little set. Both nice minifigures and building element for a set of this price. 3. 7037 Tower Raid Not the best tower design but I love the siege tower. 4. 7188 King's Carriage Ambush An easy win here, the carriage is much nicer and the inclusion of landscape is another plus. 5. 7947 Prison Tower Rescue Again another easy win, the overall design is much nicer. 6. 7946 King's Castle I don't like the build at the back of 7094. 7. 10193 Medieval Market Village Both are great sets, but the amount of content in the MMV at the price is unbeatable. 8. 7952 Kingdoms Advent Calendar Not much in it but for me the Kingdoms calendar overall the has best elements. 9. 7189 Mill Village Raid 7029 has a nice design for the dock area but although I'm really keen to see more medieval ships I'm not much of a fan of this one. In comparison the Mill Village Raid is an all round great set with great minifigures, buildings and accesories. So on these sets Kingdoms have it 6-3 for me. On overall feel I prefer Kingdoms as well though both are (or rather were ) great themes.

Lovely MOC! Captures the action in the scene really nicely.

Great spot CaptainMorgan!

Personally I welcome smaller boxes but having the big boxes to make them stand out on the shelves and be more exciting for kids makes sense. I wonder how much difference the money saved on cardboard and distribution will make to the price of the sets.

Thought I would mention that the Kingdoms theme is still listed on the LEGO site and S@H for Europe. Though if it's dissapeared from the US I'm sure it's only a matter of time before it dissapears here too. Other than that I agree with most of what you say.

There's perhaps a better case for Bilbo but I still wouldn't use that term to describe him. Frodo surely is involved by his own accord he just wishes he didn't have to be. If Frodo was an anti-hero he would have either just said sod this I'm going back to the shire someone else can do it when the going got tough or (without being compelled by the power of the ring) try to take the one ring for himself. Frodo is essentially the ultimate (though unlikely) hero as the whole war of the ring really has nothing to do with him and he has no personal gain by taking part but goes all the way to mount doom despite the hardship because of his morals and his compulsion to do goood for the world. Yeah I think you may be right but at least we might see some new colours. I personanlly hope they try to spread the dwaves out beyond the first wave, otherwise there'll have to devote so many of the minifigures in the sets to them that you'll get hardly any generic figures.

I don't really think Frodo is an anti-hero if the definition is what I think it is. Frodo is more of an (incredibly) unlikely hero. An anti-hero as I understand it is someone who is morally dubious and has un-idealistic traits like selfishness yet is still the 'hero' of the story. Captain Jack Sparrow is a pretty good example.

Thanks for the great review. Best series so far in my opinion, looks like others agree!

Back on topic I would also like to see some small ships (same sort of size as the trading vessel in the old imperial trading post set) and a few more civilians like they started doing in Kingdoms. If/when classic pirates return I think a small trading ship being attacked by a rowing boat containing a couple of pirates would make a nice set. Personally I think a little jetty with a small trading ship unloading some goods would be even nicer but I don't think that would be exciting enough for kids. Something like the mill village raid set but based on pirates attacking a settlement would be pretty neat too, that could also be done within the PotC theme if they based it on the cursed pirates attacking port royale near the start of the first film. (Minifig wise could include Will, Elizabeth, Pintel and Ragetti plus maybe a redcoat or another pirate.)

You're basically right but it's not quite how you tell it. You seem to suggest when Lando came along they released a set with flesh skinned minifigs (dark and light) and that was the start of flesh colours. What they actually did was make a major mistake and release a set with all the minifigures having yellow skin apart from lando who had dark flesh skin (set is here). This (unintentionally) suggested and was interpretted by some to mean that all yellow skinned minifigures past and present must therefore be representitive of 'white people' since only the 'white' actors in that set had yellow skin minifigures. As a result of that disastrous PR screw up they then started releasing all future licensed sets with flesh tones. I like you would have just preferred for them to release a yellow lando and go with the policy that all human people are yellow in lego and that it represents no skin tone. The flesh solution also makes sense and some people prefer it despite it reducing compatibility between themes. I don't think yellow minifigures are going away any time soon in non-licensed sets either. I'm sure LEGO don't want the faff of having to make sure every wave of every non-licensed theme they release has a suitable distribution of different skin tones so that noone can have a go at them. This would of course also mean that compatibility between different figure parts (especially if they keep releasing torso's showing skin) would be reduced even further! That's also not even mentioning the strong brand identity that yellow figures have for lego that has been reduced by the introduction of flesh but is still very significant.

For anyone that is interested I've made a plot of the results that me, johnnyvgoode and vexorian obtained each using a different method for the case of a uniform distribution of minifigures and for the case that there is a distribution of minifigures in series 6 as reported by SilentMode respectively. The plot is available HERE The fact that our results agree while using different methods validates the results shown as correct. Obviously the results are only valid if you buy the packets without any knowledge of what's inside ie you don't feel them or buy a complete box containing known amounts of figures.

The point about POTC being based on historical events or not (needless to say it isn't) is irrelevent as it wasn't put in the historical forum it was put in the pirate forum. The much more relevent point is that POTC is based on pirates and therefore makes complete sense to be in the pirates forum. LOTR is not based on history so it appearing in the historic forum is much more odd. Saying that the logic that the moderators gave in the announcement does make sense.