TeddytheSpoon

I'm sort of the same, although I'm not sure there's any that I actively dislike. I just write those off as 'not for me' - life is too short to spend time disliking stuff! That said, of the series I like, this is what's near the top: Andor Bad Batch Rebels Mando (S3 really brings down the average but I have to remember how good the first two seasons were) Clone Wars 08 Clone Wars 03 (up until S7 of the Filoni one, these two would've been swapped) Tales of the *insert faction here* (mostly decent but I REALLY liked the Dooku episodes. More TPM-era content please!) Visions Acolyte (this and Visions get extra points for being something new that took a risk, which is something I think Star Wars doesn't do anywhere near enough) Kenobi (I'm a sucker for Ewan McGregor)

Both for Depa. The new mould and her limited appearances in screen media, let alone in scenes that could be made into a set, throw her way down the list of Jedi That Could/Should Be Made IMO. As for the others... do you mean Sidious pre-disfiguring? I don't think there's any need for that at all tbh. Just swap out the head and boom, you're there. I'm also assuming you mean Senator Palpatine as he appears in TPM, in which case the argument for he and Valorum are the same: they appeared a couple times in one movie where basically nothing happened other than dialogue. I'd love a set based on the big bulbous shuttle thing or Theed, but us TPM fans are feeding off scraps as it is, so I don't think there's much chance of seeing official figures for those. I think Amedda's case for inclusion in sets is similar: he's in a lot of scenes, but with minimal dialogue and/or action. Pretty easy to fit in anything Senate-related. You can make a much better case for Boss Nass though. He can fit into pretty much any Naboo set that doesn't include Darth Maul (even an N-1, arguably). If/when LEGO does make another Naboo set, IMO it'll be a big miss if he's not in it.

£35?! That's the bargain of the century right there!

Oh I love that the remote has little icons showing what each of the levers actuate! That's a fun touch.

All I can think of here is Always Sunny in Philadelphia. (Always Sunny in Sundari?) "Day Owls! Fighters of the Night Owls! Masters of Karate! Champions of Concord Dawn, and friendship for an ex-Sith Lord!"

I'm not sure I have any specific use for this yet, but from a technical perspective it's very cool! If you find a way to do points/switches I'll be seriously impressed

I think the thing to remember about the whole 'LEGO tech never works' is that these are based on the Super Mario system, which by all accounts seems to have been a success (notwithstanding some vocal complaints online). I can see price being the bigger issue if the sets are only going to get more expensive. Even now, I can count on one hand the number of SW sets that came out this year that I'd consider good value for money.

It is quite impressive from a technical standpoint that they've managed to cram all that tech into such a small space. I still imagine I'll skip them though. I wonder how water/dust proof they'll be...

I kinda agree with this, although I don't think it's limited to LEGO Star Wars - it's just particularly prevalent in this theme for some reason. I feel like I've seen a noticeable increase in people trying to turn LEGO into an investment in the last few years ("Top 5 most valuable minifigures you MUST OWN!" or stuff to that effect). That's mostly on other social media though; I feel like forums and, to a lesser extent, blogs are less sensationalist, and therefore it's easy to be more measured.

I agree, I feel like the drop-off has been less steep on forums than it has compared to blogs, say. And after all, many social media sites have come and gone over the years. EB is still going pretty strong, and it's great it still attracts new users! I will say from personal experience too, and it was alluded to further up: the closer your ties are to TLG, the less acceptable it generally is to discuss leaks in public forums these days. Of course that's not the only thing discussed on EB but it's a big discussion driver. Hey, now THIS is blasphemy! If there's one thing the Brits can do it's a good cup of tea

Literally the day after I ordered from Breckland they come online! Ah well, TB didn't have the sizes I wanted anyway. I'm intrigued to see what people make of them in-hand. They look very good.

Oops, posted to wrong thread...

Oh I hope that comes in soon, and that they have a good range of sizes. I was hoping to get some Breckland stuff next time I visit the UK, but with a custom order that I can't seem to hear back about...

That's very useful, thanks! That's more or less my thinking for a few crucial details - running number, plus either BR crest or LMS lettering. Somehow I hadn't thought about looking for existing transfers for model trains... I'm actually building at a slightly unusual scale of 1:64 (ish) but I might still be able to find something.

I'm approaching the finish line with a LEGO train design of an LMS Ivatt 2-6-2T 2MT - just waiting for Breckland Bricks to re-open so I can ask about custom wheels. But having built most of it in the brick already, I'm starting to wonder if I should add some custom bits for the livery too. Does anyone here have good resources for how to get started on this? I've considered having some parts printed, but wondering if decals might be a better option for price and re-usability of the parts. (It's mostly tiles that would need doing, at least for this one.) I don't really know much about what process is best or how to do it though!

I don't think minifigs need a lot of small details. To me, the bizarre proportions of minifigures means they should be treated as approximations of the source material, not faithful down to every last tiny detail. Of course what's there needs to be done right, but even arm printing for me seems unnecessary for minifigures. They are fundamentally toys, after all.

Now that reviews (including mine) are out... It is disappointing that they couldn't add a pair of driving wheels or two to this. I feel like having the motor and battery hub together in the tender would have worked just fine, without sacrificing the other play features (moving chimney etc). The 3D print is really interesting from an engineering POV - the finish is really good compared to other, similar parts I've handled. But it does feel like a gimmick. It's a perfectly decent toy train, but like @ScotNick said, it doesn't have the same charm the last two did, despite their inaccuracies.

A shame, even though I never had the pleasure of owning any parts it's unquestionable what a big impact you had on the train community. Here's hoping you find someone suitable to pick up the baton!

You have my (laser) sword. (Although I'm looking at all the monkey paws lined up and wondering which one will curl first. Advent calendar? Polybag? Keyring? Place your bets folks!) Not much to add on the DS that's not been said already (too expensive, too big, doesn't interest me in the same way the Venator or Falcon do). It does reinforce my feeling that this is LSW's weakest year for a while.

The GWP looks like a 4+ set.

I wouldn't consider myself an expert on rare parts, but my 2 cents... Best case, it's a prototype part. My understanding is that LEGO tended to make these in red, as stress lines and fractures are easiest to spot. But parts do get made in other colours too, to test the different pigment mixes. With my design engineer head on, though, I'm leaning towards a convincing knock-off, for two reasons. One, some of the design aspects, in particular the lack of a line breaking the anti-stud into two halves. Even back in the 90s I'm pretty sure a lot of headpieces had this split, to prevent minifig heads getting stuck (particularly important for all-covering helmets like this one!). Two... it just doesn't look much like a scout trooper to me. If anything it looks more like something out of Spaceballs! It's possible this design would've still been made as a prototype, but if the drawing was on the table at the same time as what eventually became the production model, I wouldn't be taking it forward for prototyping. As I said I'm not so knowledgeable on what prototype parts got made, so I would be interested to see what someone wiser than me would think. But that's my inference. Good luck finding the answer!

The orange-flavoured ones are my favourite.

Your creativity is rapidly turning this into one of my favourite running jokes on this forum

Very nice. They look like wheels for a Q1, is that right?

Thing is, Ninjago isn't just a theme - right from the start it's had a big push in other forms of media, be that online, in comics, TV series, video games, movies etc. It basically set the standard for how in-house LEGO themes should be marketed to kids in the 21st century (Bionicle also did this to an extent). Nowadays, TLG have probably figured they can make more money marketing such sets for nostalgia value rather than creating an entire new theme and all the associated baggage.