BrickPrick

Yeah, I'm not gonna do one of those "companies are not your friends TM" kind of speeches again. I just think there are... smarter ways when it comes to communicating to your audience. PR is obviously supposed to move people to shell out as much money out of their pockets as possible... even for stuff you don't necessarily know you want to. But when I don't believe in your average PR fluff piece, in my eyes, that's s bad PR... predictable and ineffective. It's a failed mission, then. The "kindness out of their heart"-thing was exactly what I was thinking... it ain't even about that. That's why their cockiness is bothering me. It reads to me like "we know our sales suck and we could offer you more than that, but guess what... we won't. As it's suddenly not only about that." No commitment to be able to deal with constructive criticism, no aspiration to do better as a multi billion company, no nothing. Just being arrogant out of corporate's greed. I also agree with your remaining paragraph and previous ones (especially the part of "as if we are supposed to feel honored to buy something from them at full price"). Besides being too lazy right now, I don't feel like repeating everything you just said. So for simplicity sake, let's just say... It's true. All of it. In terms of pricing, yeah, we might have already reached that point. In terms of actual sets, we have not... yet. This would be a stupid question for Who Wants to be a Millionaire or something. How do you think will the Lego Star Wars Battle Pack situation continue to evolve? A: It will stay the same with one super BP, one regular, B: two Super BP's, C: one super BP, two regular, D: four regular. I think it will be A for some time, fear it to be B in the foreseeable future, would be fine with C and would love to have D again.

That honestly isn't news to me. They have been this way for a long time. Only difference is they now publicly communicate in such a manner to us. Seriously, screw them. If they feel like projecting their own obvious greed onto consumers who actually made them this successful in the first place, let alone certain longtime fans who saved Lego from pure bankruptcy in the early 2000s, so be it... arrogant pricks. If Black Friday isn't all about sales, which then again can result in a win-win situation for both the company and customers, I don't know what is. Yep, this is why I completely forgot about their Black Friday deals actually being a thing. Like you said, you usually get sales based on either soon to be retired sets and/or extremely poor performing products. You rarely feel like they went out of their way and went the extra mile. Which is freaking disgusting in my book. Just because business isn't a charity doesn't mean you can't be a little more generous and forthcoming to your loyal fans. It's like Lego opened one too many Pandora's boxes in their lifetime. Oh, I absolutely agree. Even getting one big Battle Pack in addition to two regular ones would already go a long way. But at this rate, I think two big ones at the expense of regular ones is more likely. "They're so proud of themselves, they don't even care. They're so fat and satisfied, they can't even imagine it." We should be, but knowing Lego... we won't be. Maybe next week if we are really lucky. But if anything goes to script, more like in the middle of December. Once again, help us, dear leakers. You are our only hope.

Oh shoot, I totally didn't thought about the Lego Shop having some Black Friday deals, too. There is a preview to be found on the german website, but other than some Insider offerings I see no concrete sales yet. In terms of Black Friday, I was actually referring to Amazon, where I got something other than Lego. It honestly would have been stupid to make the first proper christmas themed thing a limited edition. Knowing Lego, this is why I thought it would happen. The next Lego Star Wars magazine, due to release December 29th in Germany and as per usual quite possibly in other european countries, is gonna include the new Clone Pilot. Well, it's that time again to wake up extra early and get going.

As expected, it didn't. I won't get the set now before it retires... possibly ever. Which means no more Lego for me before christmas. Took advantage during Black Friday Week for another collective passion/obsession of mine. On a more pleasant side, I was very happy to see that the Gingerbread AT-AT is reported to be available until the end of 2027. For some reason, I thought it would be a promo item only until supplies last.

As far as upcoming purchasing plans go, I first wait whether the aforementioned Rebel Scout Speeder vs. Imperial Dropship set receives a slight discount in addition to double VIP points for this "Lego Insider Weekend". Other than that, I hope for some extra price cut on the U-Wing for Amazon's Black Friday Week. As things stand, neither of those looks to be case right now, but let's just wait and see.

This is funny, because the Rebel Scout Trooper vs. Imperial Dropship set, while not officially branded as a Battle Pack comes with the same attributes, delivers exactly that... six full minifigures. Even though it's purposefully held exclusive to their Lego shops, as you are also supposed to buy it because of the R2-KT anniversary figure. Let the slop flow through you. The 2016 Christmas Chewbacca is another one of those special figures whose creativity is solely missed in today's Advent Calendars. The 2023 Holiday Ewok came close to that, though. Happy to own them both. The majority of AC figures, actually. Yeah, this again goes to show that the disappointment is not supposed to be defined by the era of the sets alone. Sure, one person may prefer one sub-theme over the other, which is how we people work on an individual level. But the overall execution remains key. The 327th Battle Pack ain't a bad deal because of the subject matter, aka even more Clones. What's there is even solid in isolation, but falls apart when it comes to the limited value it does provide as a product this pricy. At the same time, the smart brick infested madness come fourth next March is not amazing by default just because it's based on the holy OT. If the value is not good enough, I don't think it's fair to blame specific sub-themes for that. Even though you may regret certain shortcomings in your favorite themes more than others.

You are obviously right about this. I don't see it any other way. The majority of Lego Star Wars sets is overpriced in my eyes. The question is just by how much. This has been the case for quite some time. So there are plenty of examples to choose from. However, what i meant is in regards for this particular format... or sub-format if you will. Would the reactions be any different for a 40/45 bucks OT themed Battle Pack in the same vein (more 327th Clone Troopers, less Rebel Scout Speeder Vs. Imperial Dropship), would there be double standards? Based on reactions for other overpriced sets... probably not. But i would like to see the reactions nonetheless.

It's a depressing, if somewhat unsurprising sight to see. Though this Battle Pack retailed for 40€ here in Germany and it was discounted to ~29€ for quite some time now. So it's understandable that people would pick it up for the much more reasonable price point. Problem remains that Lego still gets their full money bag, regardless of price cuts made by retailers. We, of course, only happen to have a tiny fraction of the whole sales picture, though I doubt that the Battle Pack sold significantly less elsewhere. Yep, the Battle Pack sales were to be expected. It's a good thing the Clone Turbo Tank doesn't seem to sell like hot cakes like a usual flagship would do. And in this scenario, gets pretty clearly outsold be the better MTT. However, seeing your bread and butter starfighters so close to the bottom can be indeed considered concerning. I like the new Advent Calendar for what it is. From my first impressions and describing it as "weirdest one", I have come around on it a bit. It brings something fresh and unique to the table. But it still gives me too little incentive to actually grab it like the ones from 2019 until now. Will miss out on the ugly christmas sweeter Jawa, another cool looking Gonk and B2EMO, but that's about it. B1s and B2s don't hurt but are thrown in there every time, so are nothing special. Some of the other buildable droids are cool but not essential either. Already own the BD unit. If I was a fan of the sequels, the inclusions of evil C-3PO and that tiny Babu Frik guy would probably have tipped me over the edge of getting it, but alas... The Advent Calendar, currently not available directly from Amazon DE, was at 10K+ or 12K+ units, by the way. Don't remember the exact number but it was definitely at least five digits. Yes, who would have thought that you don't necessarily need Clones in order for your Battle Pack to still sell well. Hopefully Lego gets the message as well. They probably are aware. Otherwise they would have stopped making them already, I guess. The sales of the Star Wars Logo make me a little uncomfortable. But the lower end of 18+ sets is somewhat satisfying to see. Yeah, I think we will get at least one more 40+ bucks Clone Battle Pack. Ha, while I get the idea of reserving overpriced slop to TCW era only, I would like to see the reaction if it was something from the OT. Would you guys still be just as mad about the price policy? Or somewhat more forgiving, given your hunger for more Rebellion and Empire troops. While I can't decide on which Advent Calendar to actually be the best one, the older ones are more attractive to me than the recent ones. The new ugly christmas sweeter style is cool, but it's wearing thin much more quickly than the original design. It screams "yeah, just put a new torso on it and call it a day". Whereas back in the day you would basically get a christmas-fied figure from top to bottom. Not just a new torso, but also new printed or at least fittingly red legs, some funny accessories for good measure. I mean, look at the 2012 Darth Maul with his red cape, snow stud and a shovel in addition to his regular double lightsaber. Those are the nooks and crannies that I'm missing in today's age. The themed Calendars is conceptionally a good idea and needs to be more explored. If you can strike down a good balance between minifigure count, buildable droids/stuff and micro-builds, it would be much more exciting than the mixture of eras we are getting instead.

So on the topic of bestselling sets, based on last month's Amazon performance, here's many of 2025 major german releases, ranked from highest to lowest: 327th Star Corps Clone Trooper Battle Pack (3000+) Death Trooper & Night Trooper Battle Pack (2000+) Plo Koon's Jedi Starfighter Microfighter (2000+) Battle of Felucia: Separatist MTT (1000+) Ahsoka's Jedi Interceptor (1000+) Jango Fett's Slave 1 (700+) Arc-170 Starfighter (700+) V-19 Torrent Starfighter (700+) Rebel U-Wing Starfighter (600+) Republic Juggernaut (500+) The Force Burner Snowspeeder (300+)

Yeah, you know these 4+ Mickey & Friends sets? Me, the big minifigure afficianado that I am, got all of those sets, primarily because of the figures. I don't know if this alone qualifies as "guilty pleasure", but it surely felt like one. Back to Lego Star Wars, I don't think I have a particular preference when it comes to the kind of system scale set on offer. Sure, my personal wishlist is as big as the next person, but this is more due to specific minifigures only reasonably fitting in so many sets and less about absolutely needing thing X or thing Y. So I enjoy a variety of vehicles from what i consider the core Skywalker Saga. I also like location based sets and would like to see more of them again, be it more compact Duel sets, the larger location format akin to Yavin 4 getting more explored or the return of full blown official MBS sets.

I had a typo in there. You probably got it in the first place, but I, of course, meant constructive criticism. It's something to get used to for sure. But I'm sure it well be much less glaring when the color contrast isn't that high. Other than some guilty pleasure phases here and there, I only collect the Lego Star Wars theme.

Yes, that's it, the difference in design was messing a bit with my inner eye. Contrary to the slick stripe brought forward in 2022, not at all inspired by The Black Series, the returning top banner results in a more disjointed look on the package. At least when the coloring differs this drastically. Upon further inspection, the Cobb Vanth's Speeder boxart actually looks pretty wild. Yeah, it's just all over the place at this point. Of course, more than ever Star Wars sub-themes releasing a couple of months apart means more spreading out sets, which I can totally get behind. All those shows and movies are obviously on Disney and out of Lego's control. It's just these additional Lego Star Wars sub-themes which take things to a whole new level that I can definitely do without. But like I said, since I never run out of sets to get later on, the drought between waves doesn't bother me too much. But I can see the frustration for an omnipresent Lego Star Wars-only fan.

Again, I'm gonna hold you to that. No problem, Mando man. You reap what you sow. Your constructive criticism of the theme as a whole is justified and this title obviously isn't meant to take anything away from it, as one thing doesn't need to rule out the other. It's merely a nice change of pace, I suppose. Just personally thought it was very fitting. In isolation, I like the new Mando boxart. However, I do think it heavily clashes with the more bland Tatooine backgrounds and, in the case of Cobb Vanth's Speeder, a more vibrant set itself. I dunno, I can't quite wrap my head around it... The astehtics sorta have this cheap quality to it. In terms of the worth of waves, there are now just so many tiny ones scattered throughout the year that I find it hard to compare them to the less, but much bigger waves from old days. And even if you are to merge, say, the January and March waves into one, it still feels different due to all these non system scale sets. I've always got enough brand new sets, as well as older stuff to catch up to, on a yearly basis. So I don't care too much about the exact timing of the more worthwhile sets.

You are right. Although harder to notice, even in the selection you can make out a little bit of coloring there. And oh, believe me, being restrained on something you hope for, ain't exactly easy for me. But given it's Lego we are talking about, I only believe it when I see it. But since you were the one who confirmed Cad's existence to me in the first place, it's only natural you are now the one pushing me into the direction of this minifig getting a fair bit of arm printing as well. You are like a prophet of positivity to me. So I grow more confident in this regard by the minute.

I appreciate your optimism. In the minifigure selection, it doesn't look like printed arms. However, on the actual boxart it looks like dual-moulding to me, but it may be the blurry image quality. In my mind, it would be somewhat stupid if they prioritized Cobb Vanth over Cad Bane, making a completely new, never before done character instantly more detailed than the fourth version of an already exisiting character they introduced over 15 years ago. I feel like Cad Bane is due for some arm printing at this point. Not just because i want to see it, but because it would be a natural fit. The Bad Batch Bane was the first Cad with leg printing. Now it would be a good time to one-up the minifigure once more. Looks similar to the oldschool revolver piece to me. Yeah, the fresh Mando boxart reminds me of the 25th anniversary packaging. I just knew there would be no TBOBF branding for Cobb Vanth's Speeder... What little there was for this sub-theme is cursed beyond comprehension.

Yep, yet @CloneCommando99 is going full Han Solo mode. Relatively blurry boxart pics of the January sets have leaked. Cad's not out of the bag just yet, but my boyo Bane is looking mighty fine so far. Unfortunately, looks like no arm printing, though. Although I think I make out some blue stripe on there, so who knows. And turns out we won't get the UCS Mando in his Speeder Bike. Which, of course, makes more sense in terms of the timeline. Still would have been nice to snatch that version of him in such a cheap set.

Well yeah, I check Reddit multiple times for new leaks on a daily basis, so I think I'm well covered. I wish "best bet" would equal "fairly likely" in this scenario. But it appears to be more like "very unlikely to begin with". I feel like we are waiting a little longer this time around. Yep, that sounds more like it... unfortunately.

Yeah, I'm aware of these renders and did comment on them. I thought there were other leaks beyond that, but there weren't. Turns out i was totally up to date. Just wasn't properly reading your posting, that's it. A little late to the party, but man... On one hand, just a couple of months back I would have hoped you never reached 200 days of this noble pursuit. On the other hand, I'm glad you just keep on going and deliver us some magnificent meme material. Here's to however long it takes us for some robust Summer 2026 news.

Indeed there was. I was just misreading your original posting and somehow thought the whole Battle Pack got leaked... my bad. But again, thanks for taking your time. The Maul Mando minifigures still look good and appealing to me. But like I'm never ever tired of saying... I'm not one of the purists who needs to look after every little detail. In that regard, I seem to be easier to please than the average person in here.

I've had enough for one of the usal places and have no access to it right now. Since leaks are not allowed in here... if someone would be so kind to send me a private message, I would greatly appreciate it.

The Yoda vs. Dooku set is obviously the one cancelled set that hurt the most. You combine that with the cancelled Zam Wesell minifigure a year later and AOTC has been in a pretty rough place as of late. Yeah, this has been my perfectly fine prediction for quite a while now and I stand by it. My bet is on the Summer wave. In regards to Cobb Vanth's Speeder, it's funny how Lego is willing to drastically oversize a smaller set in order to try justifying a certain price point. But ends up achieving neither a fitting design nor make it worth the attached price tag. Even though the solution to this would be surprisingly simple... two words: SIDE BUILD. Make the speeder's design smaller like how it's supposed to look like. And add a Tatooine Vaporator or something. Would have had 2002's Tusken Raider Encounter vibes. This way, you stay more true to the source material, while arguably also delivering more value. In this instance, given my Cad Bane fandom, it's tough for me to bother too much. This will still be my clear standout set of the January wave. Other than that... The Battle Pack is fine. Still excited for the Maul Mandos, while being incredibly indifferent on more 332nd Troopers. Speeder looks actually pretty decent, the rest is whatever. Let's just say there have been times when I was more stoked to pick up a brand new Battle Pack. At least the price stays consistent in my country. The $10 Mando Speeder is something I will get later on. It obviously looks very skinny and is nothing to write home about. But will use this very cheap opportunity to upgrade my pre-beskar Mando keychain to this supposed UCS version. Don't think this set will already include the new Grogu mould. And as was talked about earlier, the significance of super small scaled, non-gimmick sets making a return, is not be underestimated. Last, but certainly least, I don't "freaking" know what a Star Wars Mech or buildable 4+ figure is. And I don't care.

Ironic... Her hairpiece could have been used to save others, but it just saved herself. Though a fair amount of self inflicted punishment was needed to make it happen. Likewise. ^~^ How about... well done. Exactly, that's gotta be the main takeaway in the long run. Now, thanks to you, I can't unsee the mental image of Boss Nass sitting in a super secret imperial meeting room doing absolutely nothing. It cracks me up just by thinking of it. Yeah, the U-Wing is still on my list the whole time and I think I will get it soon.

Eh, much like last year's BARC Speeder Escape, I think Cobb Vanth's Speeder will be your average overpriced set you would associate for a product priced at 25 bucks tops. Just with less but more interesting and potentially more detailed minifigures. It will be on my birthday wishlist, so I don't care in this instance. And even if the personal timing was less convenient, I might have made an exception for finally getting a Cad Bane minifigure right out of the box. Will probably wait a bit for the Battle Pack, though. Still haven't gotten the 327th one. Yeah, as you would expect from a limited January wave by now. But things will pick up from there... even with all the smart stuff. Look how they massacred my sponge.

Hahaha, you mean Black Widow lookalike, right? Let me tell you, you are quite a funny guy. That sense of sarcasm and cynicism is something I am very receptive to. I took another look at the January set list and yeah... that's a kinda low bar to beat. But nonetheless, very excited for this set in particular. Always a fan of getting either brand new characters or new versions of existing ones. Especially ones where I thought the ship has already sailed... like TBOBF Cad Bane. Oh, I absolutely wouldn't mind if that full circle marked the temporary end of buildable characters.

The initial trailer didn't grab me at all. It neither looked nor felt like Star Wars to me. Way too much like real life, not to say some american suburbs area. But I'm pretty sure this is not what the show will be actually centered around. Only watched the first episode some time ago and it did nothing for me. Even though just a single episode is usually not enough to judge the bigger picture. So yeah, I might wanna give the show another shot, or real chance, so to speak. Don't go too hard on him... He's a crucial part of the grand Eurobricks fandom. The new Maul Mando minifigures look good to me. Hopefully not much further until Cad Bane gets fully leaked now.