Speedboat

That's a great little set! Thanks for the pics, BrickieB! I like that we get a new helmet mold for the pilot, the old A-wing pilots looked more like generic LEGO SciFi figures. The sheer number of stickers is somewhat disappointing, though. I generally don't apply those and I hope that the fighter won't look too lackluster without them.

Thanks for the quick review and the pics! Seems like a nice set with cool minifigs, that's definitely going on my list of possible 2013 purchases. The two stacked sets do look kind of weird in my opinion, though. Sure, it makes for a great playset with new features, but somehow it doesn't look great.

Thanks for the review! I'll be getting this set this weekend at a pretty good discount, otherwise I'd complain about the ridiculous € pricetag, too. This is the set from the Hobbit theme I look forward to the most, I really like the design of the Hobbit hole and the dwarven minifigs, especially Balin. I think it'll be pretty easy to expand this set a bit to fit the whole dwarven company and that's exactly what I'm planning to do.

Great to see you back at this project! The pictures from Fanwelt look amazing, even better than the ones you posted before. One more reason for me to regret missing the event. Can't wait to see what you'll be building for the missing segments.

That's what I just thought. I also saw them there and thought about buying one because the box looked so cool. But seriously, 160$? Mostly, ebay prices seem to figure in the availability of the item (at least in my experience), so I guess the set really isn't available anymore in most stores. Be happy that made such a great deal, the bidders will feel the same way!

My old thread vanished during the server problems yesterday, so I'll post this review again. I hope I'll be able to recreate it adequately, if you have any requests for specific pictures, please write them in your comment and I'll try to add them to the review. I bought this set in the LEGO store in Cologne last weekend and it is my first set from the Hobbit theme. Set Name: Barrel Escape Set Number: 79004 Pieces: 334 Minifigs: 5 Price: €49,99 / £39.99 / US$39.99 Theme: The Hobbit "When the barrels were empty the elves cast them through the trapdoors, opened the water-gate, and out the barrels floated on the stream, [...]. For some time Bilbo sat and thought about this water-gate, and wondered if it could be used for the escape of his friends, and at last he had the desperate beginnings of a plan." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit First of all, let's take a look at the box. On the front we have a picture of the set itself, standing on a (painted) wooden floor. On the top we can see the new logo for the Hobbit-theme and in the bottom left corner there is a little picture showing and naming the five included minifigures. On the back of the box there is another picture showing the minifigs and different parts of the set, additionally the play features and the story behind the set are shown. The contents of the box. There are two numbered bags and one instruction booklet. The box could be a lot smaller, but I guess at this price people expect a somewhat larger box. The instruction booklet. Random page. As you can see, the instructions are printed on a background that shows Thror's map. I love this design choice! Now to the minifigs. I expect there will be quite a few of you that want to purchase this set just for them and can absolutely understand that, they are stunning! Let's start with Bilbo, Gloin and Oin (starting from left). Oin's hair and beard comes seperately packed and is made from a somewhat flexible rubber while Gloins hair is just the standard plastic material. Bilbos alternative facial expression and the printing on his back. The dwarves without their hair and beards, just to show the printing on the back and the alternative facial expressions. As requested in the old thread, here's a picture of the front printing on Oin and Gloin. There are a few dwarf and Hobbit weapons coming with this set. Gloin gets two axes, Oin a twohanded mace and Bilbo his sword Sting and the ring. Some of these come with extra pieces. Apart from these minifigs the set includes two elves. The one on the left is called Mirkwood Elf Guard and the other one Mirkwood Elf Chief. I'm curious if those characters will be in this particular scene in the movie or if LEGO just included some generic elves. In the book, the elves drinking themselves into a stupor in the wine cellar are the elven king's butler and the chief of the guards. The printing on the Chief's legs is slightly off on my minifig. And here we have their alternative facial expressions and the back printings. When building the wine cellar you start with just the contents of the first bag, no need to unpack the second one already. Here are some interesting parts coming with the set. Some of them may be new, I for one didn't know the small arch with the "step" in it and the big arch piece. In the second bag I found another cool piece I didn't know. It is used in building the lantern that hangs above the prison cells. Now to the wine cellar! You start the build with the mechanism that lets you roll the big barrels into the down the ramp and into the "river". The middle segment is added and the first mechanism is covered with some plates and other elements. The segment in the middle gets a few barrels and a beautiful stone arch. I really like the technique used in this part of the build! The third and last segement of the cellar comprises the stairs to the upper parts of the elven king's castle and the cells in which the dwarves are held. The cellar is completed but the set includes three additional small builds. The first one is a wine barrel rack with a glas. The second addition to thew cellar is a weapon rack with two elven blades and a bow. The third and final addition is a table with a wine glass, two bottles and two stools for the guards. The set is complete! Behold the cellar and its occupants in all their bricky glory. These are the extra pieces included in the set. I wasn't expecting a brick seperator in a set of this size, nice surprise there! The set has two play features. The first one is the ramp. You can push the lever to let the barrels with the dwarves roll down the ramp into the river that is supposed to be running along under the floorboards of the cellar. The second mechanism lets you destroy the prison cell. Considering the chapter in the book, this doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Design: 7/10 While I'm not a huge fan of the design of this set, it does one thing particularly well: It both works as a display and a set your kids can play with. The play features may not be particularly true to the story, but they are well incorporated into the set. I don't think I'll keep mine assembled for very long, though. The wine cellar, the prison area and all those extra details like the weapon rack make it clear, that LEGO has tried to incorporate a few different scenes into this set, which is understandable in regards to the target group but makes it much less interesting for me as an AFOL. Parts: 8/10 While there are few extremely interesting pieces in this set, it offers a lot of useful parts in brown and tan. Apart from those, you get some interesting minifig accessories like the elven swords and the additional rings. Build: 8/10 The build is not particularly difficult or time consuming and the instructions are pretty clear. Minifigs: 9/10 The minifigs are what I mainly purchased this set for. They are absolutely brilliant, especially the dwarves and Bilbo. I am not a huge fan of elves in general, but the two that come with this set are pretty great, too. I am somewhat sad that the printing on the second elf's legs is a bit off, but the printing quality and design on the other figs is great. Playability: 8/10 The set has two play features and some useful additions to the cellar scenery. One of the play features, the destroyable prison cell, does not make a lot of sense considering that the dwarves are freed with the key (that is hanging right next to tghe cell ), at least in the book. But I guess features like this are a big hit with kids. Price: 6/10 This set is expensive, especially here in Germany. I can understand that licensing fees have to be paid, but 50€ for a set with only 334 pieces leaves a bitter aftertaste nontheless. I would have waited with my purchase but this set seemed the obvious choice when I visited the LEGO store because I had ordered most of the other sets already and wanted to get my hands on at least one Hobbit set as fast as possible. Overall: 46/60 I doubt that this set will be my favourite from the first Hobbit wave, but it's not a bad one either. The price is pretty steep, but you get some great minifigs and useful pieces. I hope you liked my review. Sorry for the picture quality, but I don't have my usual setup at the moment. Maybe I can replace some of the blurrier pictures in a few days.

I hadn't thought of that. Ah well, back to the writing desk...

So that's where my review thread for Barrel Escape has gone. Bad timing, I guess. Thanks for working so hard to keep the site running! Edit: When trying to access the URL to my lost topic, I get the message "You do not have permission to view this topic." Does this mean that the thread still exists somewhere on the server? http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=76685 is the URL.

Nice review! I visited the LEGO store in Cologne yesterday and got this set as a free bonus with my purchase. Though I am not a big City enthusiast, I really like this little set. The minifigs are great and you can never have enough horses.

I got my second large cup in Cologne yesterday. They had a great selection of parts and gave me the promotional cardboard box that can be filled for free after Christmas AND a nice little winter-themed city set (3300014) that I didn't know about.

Fantastic! I really hope LEGO produces this theme or at least a set that features some of the proposed elements. I had hoped that the new SciFi theme for 2013 would be something like this, but I was kind of disappointed when I saw the box art. The Cuusoo Marines have great style, the proposed sets look cool and are at the same time not overly complicated and the theme is not too violent while reminding me of several "serious" SciFi franchises. I'd buy those sets in an instant. I already stockpiled tons of the Space Marines from the seventh Minifigures series because I thought they would make a great army for a cool MOC but the Cuusoo Marines would be even better in my eyes.

This looks fantastic! One of the few scenes that make that movie bearable and you have done a splendid job recreating it. Makes me sad I could not be in Cologne for this event, maybe next year. Have you included any easter eggs in this MOC? I always love to see small jokes build into huge creations like this.

The polybag seems to have vanished from the store again.

I have tried adding 5 polybags to my shopping cart but nothing happens. Is this the same thing that happened to you? I hope they fix this, I'd love to get a few.

The trees are a bit dark for my taste. I'd rather get some dark brown trees with this set instead of all the black parts. The minifigs are nice really nice though, plus I like the neat spider builds. All in all I think this is a nice set, a shame that we only get two of those dark red leaf parts.

Thanks for the great review and pics! The set looks just as beautiful as I expected and will probably be one of the first sets I buy from this wave. While I don't necessarily care for all of the dwarf designs, the part selection seems to be very useful and I love the orc minifigs. If I find a good deal for it, I can easily see myself purchasing more than one of this particular set and selling the dwarf minifigs I don't need. Who has ever enough baddies and tree parts?

Has anyone seen those polybags outside of the US yet? I went to my local TRU today on the off chance that they would have some of the new sets and/or this polybag but had no luck.

All of my old childhood sets are still at my parents' place, but I have no particular interest in any of them anymore. I had a lot of pirate and city stuff and some M-Tron, but my interests have shifted over the years, and after my Dark Ages I focussed mainly on Star Wars and Castle-related sets. I wouldn't want to mix my childhood LEGO with my new stuff, I don't really know why. Just a feeling... There's only one set I sold before my Dark Ages and that is the Black Seas Barracuda. Guess what, I haaaaaaate myself for selling it! I remember playing endless hours with that ship together with my brother, and sometime in the future, I plan to get another one. But it won't be the same as my old ship. That's the only regret I have.

I bought my first PAB cup today in Cologne. I didn't have much time, so I guess I could have stuffed some more stuff in there, but all in all I'm pretty satisfied with my haul. If only I had a LEGO store close by, so I could do this more often.

Nice combination of pieces, that's a great idea how to use that turtle shell! I hope you'll do some of the other characters, too. I think, I saw a Kame House MOC somewhere a few years back and some printable decals for DB stuff, too.

An Unexpected Gathering, by far! Everything about it appeals to me, from the minifigs (Balin ) to the cool design of the hobbit hole. The first part of the book, with the dwarves coming to Bag End to plan the journey, is one of my favourite things in the story, and I think the set is a solid base to recreate this scene. The interior is a bit small, but I didn't really expect anything else scale-wise. My second favourite set is the Goblin King Battle. Orc / goblin minifigs are always nice to have, though I don't know why they look different from the Moria orcs / goblins from the LotR set and the Warg Attack set. Apart from the minifigs, this set looks very useful partswise.

This looks great, brings up a lot of memories! When I was a kid I was so jealous of a friend in kindergarten who owned all the cool TMNT vehicles while I just had some of the figures. Nicely executed, I think I'll have to dig up my old action figures again.

I disagree. I like the new series, I like LEGO, I just don't "feel" the combination of the two. The minifigs are certainly nicely executed versions of the new TV characters, but TMNT apparently just does not work for me in LEGO. Even if the other sets are faithful recreations of the TV versions and great sets in general, that won't really change my mind about this license. I think it's mainly the heads. I know that regular minifig heads may not have looked great either, but all these special molds go well beyond the things I consider to be cornerstones of the LEGO style.

Balin, Oin, Gloin, Bombur, in that order. The first three just look the most "dwarvish" to me and it always makes me sad to think that Balin dies in Moria later And Bombur, well, he's just funny, I always liked his lazy attitude in the book. By the way, does anyone else find it strange that they didn't give Dwalin normal legs? He's supposed to be a really big dwarf, but in the picture, he's even smaller than his brother Balin...

TMNT was the first franchise I came into contact with as a child in the late 80s and it is still one of my favourite ones, so I did expect the worst from the new TV show. I was very surprised when I saw the first new episode, because i liked it - a lot! That being said, I'm not overly enthusiastic about the LEGO theme. Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Star Wars, these themes all made me extremely excited and I could not wait to see the new sets. But TMNT? I don't now, I don't see this franchise as being compatible with the whole LEGO vibe and after seing the figures and the Shellraiser set, I am kind of disappointed.