RichardGoring

I had contemplated whether getting a load of nanofigures might look good, but even those are too large for the outside of it.

I didn't vote for any of the winners, which I think is a first. With the huge caveat that all are far better than I could ever create, it's somewhat disappointing. I didn't vote for Royal Nest as it seemed much more basic and somewhat derivative. Something that's not a castle with civilian focus would have been great and The Training Ground, Kingsburgh: Medieval Village Fair, and Medieval High Street all struck me as being really nice sets that are very well designed. The only castle I voted for was Watchers of the Midnight Sea because it looks so ominous and has some glorious looking shapes in there. Elven Citadel makes a nice change, but the shaping feels very blocky in comparison with The Elven Palace of Equestrian Myths which is gloriously curved. Neither look like they have the most amazing interiors, but I think the Elven Palace wins it. Elven Citadel looks a lot larger though, for the same piece count. I'm glad Lunar Cargo Train got picked. It seems like it's very cleverly designed and does a lot in a smaller than has been typical piece count. The others are very well done, but neither inspires me. Well done to the designers. They're all far better than I could have done, and I hope they're wildly successful. Just probably not for me.

Video review from Cheesey Studios. And the statement "I genuinely did not enjoy the build process at all on this one, until the last couple of bags..." which is really worrying. The review is mostly focused on the play, which is cool for LEGO, but not great for pinball. It's as I feared based on the table football set. Such a shame. Still like the overall look of it though. The new blue violet colour goes well with black.

I like it as a thing made of LEGO and at first glance it looks good. My initial reaction is that it's very clever to have made a pinball machine out of LEGO. But at $230, you're paying so much more than you would for a similar sized, but still more detailed and complex pinball machine. There are some for just $30 on Amazon. And some for $30 where you construct it out of wooden pieces, so you can even get a build experience from it. That is true of many things though. What I'm not convinced about is whether the build experience will be any good. I got to build the table football set and it was so dense with parts to make it structurally sound, that it didn't have the joy of clever techniques or delightful NPU that you get from many other sets. It was just a very heavy, dense, robust, and therefore expensive, block of LEGO. And it couldn't have been anything else, given what it was required to do. It was probably just a poor choice of subject matter. That's what worries me about this. Maybe reviews will tell me that the build is actually incredible and I will be wrong. But then, you come back to whether it's better to have a thing made of LEGO vs a more detailed and more functional non-LEGO version of the same thing. Edited to add: I do like the brick built arrows in the floor of the ball area, which is really neat.

Still not built mine, but it's next to my desk and will be up next. Need to find the time and clear a space for it first!

I would be shocked if they don't release the space figures on PaB. If they did it for the minifigure vending machine, which was created solely for the figures, then they surely have to for these.

That's exciting. To think that $200 seems inexpensive, but it is relatively speaking.

That a good idea for the X-Mansion. It needs to be twice the size you make it for the other modulars, but obviously wouldn't work at $700.

Excited to see it, but it sounds expensive for a bridge diorama. Hopefully it's better than my imagination and/or comes in on the lower side of pricing.

I've been surprised at the lack of reviews of series 8, but they're all selling well, despite the high cost pretty much across the line. This is an interesting site that tracks progress - BLDP – BrickLink Designer Program tracker Five hours in and Dustmark Keep is at 46% Coconut Cape at 33% Brick Railroad Locomotive at 30% Hot Air Balloon at 26% University of Science at 30%

Terrific, thanks! Order placed already. Ten minutes early. No digital queue, fast loading pages, all done within a minute. Excellent! Just need to wait six months for delivery, but that's all fine.

With them both being reused from Barad-dur, I'd be surprised, but delighted, if they were to show up on PaB.

I'll be putting Minas Tirith and Barad-dur on top of an IKEA Kallax cube shelf, which is deep enough for them. Rivendell currently sits on a custom shelf above the Kallax units, which is only 11.5" deep, but it's fine to have a small amount of the forge hanging over the edge. That's for in my office. I may move them into a room in the basement one day, in which case they will line up next to each other on a 25" deep countertop.

Hurrah! There's some good parts in there. The plaited beard on the top right is always out of stock when I've placed or order. It looks good.

I'd be curious what the build is like. I was wary of the Empire State Building, which looked like a boring and repetitive build, but I actually found it delightful! This looks great as a model, but the build may be so large and repetitive that it drags. I'm glad they've made it, but I won't be getting it. Money, space, time. All three really count against it. But it does look amazing.