The Stud

Not a surprise by any means, but we have confirmation that Ninjago will last through 2023 at least.

I have never owned a Santa Minifigure before, but I just realized that I’ll own at least two between these two Christmas sets and possibly two more if I get the Christmas promos this year. I also have the Snowball Fight, Ice Skating Rink promo and Charles Dickens promo from last year that I never ended up building. I’m looking forward to having a Winter layout!

I love this set. The cottage looks so cozy and there is a lot of interesting part usage. The interior looks decent for what it is and something about the faces they used for the family members gives this set such a wholesome vibe. As mentioned by others, this set goes very well with the new Santa’s Sleigh. I’ve been wanting to delve into Winter Village forever and it looks like this might be the set that gets me started on that. I just wish I hadn’t missed out on that Fire Station a few years ago as I said the same thing about that and still missed out on it.

Those are awesome! Do you have to ask for one or do they go ahead and give it to you? I think that rumor list from a month or two ago said that it was supposed to be Borg Tower, but I’m also very skeptical of that list (partially because I didn’t see a lot of big leak accounts corroborating it) so it’s a bit of a question mark.

I just rewatched the Tim Burton Batman movies a couple weeks ago and I really hope we get a minifig-scaled Batmobile set with The Flash next year. One that’s not a limited promo. As for The Tumblers, the big D2C looks kinda boring to me besides the figures. The minifigure scaled one, however, looks great! I like how they reprinted the classic 2012 Batman face here and also included that demon head as a nice bonus. Scarecrow looks nice as well and the build looks fantastic. Very detailed build that’ll look great on display. This will look good on a shelf with my 2019 Batmobile and the ‘66 one that I still haven’t ever seen in person.

I pre-ordered my complete set a week ago so I wouldn’t have to go out and hunt for them lol, but hearing how scarce they are makes me want to go hunting for the ones I want extras for to get that experience. I want to order that six figure set when it comes back, partially to get duplicates and also so I can have that cool, weird box.

It’s probably supposed to tie-in with the Disney World 50th Anniversary this year and also give adults a Mickey-related set that isn’t part of the new 4+ line. I’m excited to see this, however it turns out!

I say this every year but a post office would be pretty cool. I’d also dig an arcade with the same level of ingenuity that we got with the arcade machine in Ninjago City Gardens.

Saw Free Guy with my buddy last weekend. It was an enjoyable, feel-good movie, nothing too special though. It was basically what would happen if Wreck It Ralph and The Lego Movie were made in live-action starring Ryan Reynolds. Solid 7 or 8 out of 10.

Sounds like a perfect fusion between the battle packs of old and last year’s 501st set. It has the smaller price/size of the former, but the army buildability (yes, I just made that word up) and use of blaster pieces as the latter. I do not want to hear any more “Lego never listens to the fans” nonsense after how great of a job they’ve been doing in recent years and now with this battle pack revitalization. I assume we’ll be getting some sort of Rebel battle pack to go against this one. I’m relatively excited for this, I’ll probably buy a decent amount of these like I did with the 501st set.

I feel the same way that I did when these images first “leaked”. The sets and minifigs look fantastic but I’m not terribly interested in the Eternals movie itself. Like with Shang-Chi, I’m waiting to see if I really like the movie to decide if I want to get the sets. The box art is really great for these sets though, despite the weird Arishem box shape, and I think it’s really interesting how they fit all of the characters onto it.

I’ve been playing through The Complete Saga in anticipation of this new one recently. The wait for info about this game has been hella brutal. Hopefully we get a good amount of gameplay and whatnot.

I built the two new 10th Anniversary sets and figured that I would share my thoughts on them. The Fire Dragon Attack wasn’t really a set I was that excited for, so I was pleasantly surprised when I built it. The process was very enjoyable and the finished result looks amazing on display. Also, I love the molded head! Really, the only problem with this set is the minifigure selection. Nya may be my favorite 10th Anniversary ninja, but the other three figures are extremely boring. So far this weekend, I’ve built the 2019 Monastery, this set and the new Ultra Sonic Raider so I have three more Legacy Kais and Zanes to add to my collection. The Ultra Sonic Raider wasn’t a set I was looking forward to too much either, especially since I already have the 2016 set and really enjoyed it. This one didn’t really surpass my expectations like the Fire Dragon and didn’t reach the level of quality in the Ultra Stealth Raider. With that 2016 version, the completed model with all four vehicles attached looked great and the four vehicles themselves all looked good on their own too. The same can’t really be said for this new version. The jet looks cool by itself but the two side bikes don’t look as cool as the ones on the 2016 version and the middle section doesn’t stand up right and the cockpit area keeps wanting to flip upside down. It’s also harder to detach/attach the vehicles in this version compared to the last one. The minifigure selection here isn’t the best either, as I just built the Legacy Monastery the night before which had a lot of the same figures. Golden Zane is pretty great though. Overall, I’d say that the Fire Dragon Attack is definitely worth picking up. The Ultra Sonic Raider is a decent model, but unless you want Golden Zane or if you want a complete 10th Anniversary collection (both of which apply to me), then you can probably pass on that one.

The 501st set is fantastic and honestly one of my favorite non-UCS sets. I mean, I own ten built copies which speaks for itself. That being said, I honestly feel like it’s going to be a one and done sort of thing. It’s tricky to think of many other battle packs they could do at that size aside from the ITT and reskins of 75280, unless Lego makes up the builds like they did with most of the $15 ones. Personally, I think Lego taking a break from Battle Packs was a good thing and I think that they have taken note of what people were displeased about with the last few years of battle packs. Hopefully 2022 or possibly 2023 kicks off a new era of battle packs, whenever they return.

I finally got my August 1st order! I got the first four Infinity Saga sets that we saw leaked pictures of (the 4+ Cap bike, Dragon Flyer, Iron Monger and Endgame Final Battle) and it really feels like things have come full circle. I remember seeing the leaked pictures in class during the last few weeks of high school and now I finally got the sets a week before I’m off to college. I also got the Shang Chi polybag which is cool because I’m not sure if I’m getting any of the other sets for that movie.

I finally got my August 1st order! Really excited to build the Mandalorian Fighter and Duel on Mandalore along with all of the other sets I got.

I think the new No Way Home Sanctum Garage is also a pretty fantastic smallish set outside of the 4+ range. It’s a cool playset with some greaf minifigs. I also do not want an entire 4+ wave. As much as I love minifigs, they’ve become less important to me over the last year. I’m more hesitant to buy sets just for the figures and 4+ sets tend to be kinda useless outside of the figures. I guess it depends how they end up going about these sets. Imo, following the formula Star Wars has been doing with their Duel sets would work out pretty well for Marvel.

I’m not a huge Brickheadz fan, though I do have a couple of them including Mando and Grogu, but I’ll definitely get this one when it comes out. I love Ahsoka and I’m glad to get more representation of her in Lego. Besides, Jar Jar would have been a really bad pick imo. Hasbro made a new Jar Jar Black Series figure this year and that turned out to be a massive pegwarmer. Meanwhile, Ahsoka is a fan favorite character and actually relevant right now, having just appeared in The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian, and will soon be getting her own show and will surely be appearing in other stuff as well.

Ideally, the new wave will have a nice balance between everything. That’s what I loved so much about the Summer 2020 wave, fans of each trilogy got a few sets, fans of The Clone Wars got two sets, Mandalorian fans got the Razor Crest and fans of the more obscure stuff even got a Galaxy’s Edge set. Of course, it’s not possible to please everybody but balanced waves are great at not alienating anybody. And hopefully we got more info on the AT-AT soon too, as I would like to know if there’s a Veers Watch minifig as well.

There’s no evidence that “Disney”, or Lucasfilm, hates the prequel era. Since the Disney buyout, we’ve gotten multiple books and comics in that era, an additional season of The Clone Wars in that era, The Bad Batch which is right at the end of/just after the prequel era, a lot of prequel-era flashbacks in Jedi: Fallen Order and tons of references in Rebels, Mando, Solo and other media. The prequel era had the most content going into the new canon (three movies and an entire TV series) and appealing to OT nostalgia was and still is very lucrative, so that’s why the shift happened around that time. Just because that era isn’t getting as much spotlight doesn’t mean it’s hated.

I’m not saying they’re perfect, just that we’re more likely to be wrong about “what sells” than they are. Then again, Lego Con was a thing…

Exactly. They have far more resources and research backing them up than a bunch of random folk on the internet.

I mean, no? Not really. Their designs keep getting better each wave and the sets this year have actually been reasonably priced, which is an improvement over previous years. They’ve also scaled back starfighters to make them more affordable and to prevent us from getting more $90 X-Wings. I’ve heard more people clamoring for sets based off the shows the last two years, and that’s what the summer wave is almost entirely comprised of. They have actually been doing a fantastic job listening to the fans the past few years. We just got the UCS Gunship, so I don’t know why they would release another one at the same time, and the 501st Clone Battle Pack is still doing well enough to stick around for another year, so again, I don’t know why they’d release another one at the same time. Look, I’d like a new Gunship or AT-TE too, but just to play devil’s advocate, wouldn’t it be nice to get something we’ve never seen before over more remakes? Especially when the Lars Homestead is one of the most iconic locations in the series.

Well, my Lego order has finally shipped. Most of my order was Marvel and Ninjago themed, but I did get both of the new Clone Wars sets. I was honestly expecting to have these sets already but I haven’t had much luck with Lego’s shipping this year. (I see a lot of other people are in the same boat.) Meanwhile, I’ve seen most of the sets from the new wave at my local Walmart and Target, though I still haven’t seen Boba Fett’s Starship or the Vader Meditation Chamber anywhere. Speaking of Target, I was surprised to see that they were selling the UCS R2-D2 there yesterday. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the set in person before.

I second this; this is where I’ve been looking to pre-order the new series as well. Very reasonable pricing and shipping imo.