Black Falcon

That one doesn´t have to mean anything. Could be they just added it as an Artwork to represent the Serpent knights castle. Well if there would have been a castle in the works, they could have of course sheldued them to release alongside each other. If a spaceship would have won (the GWP vote(, they could have sheldued it different or just release both together anyways.

It is no exact science, but certainly more than just a guess. They actually said that most of the sets are sold within the first 24 hours, with an other, certainly smaller spike within the last 24 hours. They raise the limits at a point when the set has already gathered enough orders where they can predict how certain sets will do - it isn´t like the worst selling set will start catching up all of sudden. And I don´t think they made a mistake last time. It was said from the very beginning how it would work and this is how it worked. Increasing the limit in the end allowed all 3 topsellers to be freely purchased without setting a certain limit to each of them so all could still be purchased till they reached a certain limit that they set to have enough room to the total 150k Sets limit for the other two sets left. Which is what we had before, but people weren´t happy with it either. First the limits were to low, then some complained that the limits were increased, because it wouldn´t be special and rare enough anymore, and then people were not happy with the bars showing progress because they made a jump when the limit was increased - as a result it was removed and now people are complaining about that ;). Personally I am fine with the system as it is but would prefer if they would bring the bars back. But as it is unlikely to happen and we still got ways to see the overall progress anyways I can live with how it is.

I wasn´t expecting many figures really, Legolas is almost granted and not sure how much more space for other minifigs will be on the mumak, but 5 would have been a nice number IMO.

They surely will. Just the baby usually is pretty expensive there.

They have data from previous rounds where they can make an educated guess on how the sets are going to sell. Given the numbers we got now I would say it is unlikely that any Set aside from Dustmark Keep reaches 30k sold copies - and I actually don´t think that Dustmark itself will get sold out. Potentially, they could increase the limit to 50k if the other sets are not doing that well. but I don´t see it getting there. What any of this has to do with respect for their customer is beyone me though. The system they are using now is more flexible and allows more people to buy the set they want, while not cutting anything from any other set.

BrickTab usually is quite reliable, if they posted it, it is either from a reliable known source and or confirmed from several of their own sources. What surprises me most actually is, that it is said to release Jan 1, (same as the Dune Sandworm) which seems we are getting more big icons set there too now, with Creel House this year and now already two sets said to release then, while usually it was "just" the modular building and a big load of playsets releasing then - which totally makes sense production wide IMO. Eitherway, thrilled to see how it turns out, with 2000 pieces it is certainly not going to be small - and probably will cost something like 180-220€.

New torso prints and shields don´t seem that unlikely in general, but given the torsos used for the knights in the GWP, I think they could very well use the griffins for it (hopefully also using the legs), so I would say a printed shield is very likely.

Same here, but seems it won´t show up, the set retires end of the year, so while I wouldn´t rule it out that they could still include it I wouldn´t be surprised if it doesn´t. They are quite expensive though. And not many listed anyways.

Seems like it wasn´t the cause sadly, still not seeing most of the stuff in unread.

Scanning is way faster than feeling the bags though, and easier to do anyways. On a side note, if you order online, as long as you do so at the beginning it won´t be a problem, or if you order a full series anyways. But if you order full displays at a later point, you can have bad luck and get a box a scalper sent back after removing the best figures (and replacing them by less valuable ones).

Timewise of course, but if you expect a higher demand you can produce more displays and sell them off within the four months they are avaiable. At least the CMF was avaiable on more places here than other series and also seemed to get exchanged quite often with a new display in the shops. The only other series that I saw avaiable at so many places was the F1 one, just that that one didn´t seem to sell aswell.

Well tan of course would make sense for desert enviroment, but I really don´t see them replacing it again, I mean if anything having desert, ice, grass and desert on the shelves on the same time would make more sense and all in all ice seems like the least viable of the existing ones.

I would guess, they expected more sales for it, after all Castle related minifigs are usually among the ones with the highest demand of a series and it also seemed that there were more of them avaiable. And yeah, some time passed since then now and I would totally expect another series in the near future (but of course there are so many other licenses they can do aswell).

But then all Baseplates should retire not only the blue one. On the other side, would make more sense to me to retire the white one instead of the blue one, so who knows.