Assassin

I have to admit, from what I've seen so far, I will not be buying much this year. Which could be a blessing in disguise - considering the (bad) state of my credit card ! ! !

Sorry guys - to ruin a good quote: I came, I saw, I was not impressed. And as for who wouldn't buy a $20 dollar Batmobile ? I guess the line starts behind me.

I got two copies of the fort, I used the second one to lengthen the side walls, with the side walls being longer, I moved the small tower to one end of the center section and put a small tower from the second set at the other end of the center section. Any spare log parts left over I intend to use to build the jail/cage contraption into a wooden keep, I might even get a third one to make sure I have enough log parts. When it's all finshed, the "barbarian" Bull knights will finally have a castle,

Which ridiculous helmets were you refering to mister_phes ? If it was the helmets worn by the jelly-beans, then I'd agree, but if it was the helmets worn by Vladek's troops, then I'd have to disagree, those ones grow on you after a while.

I want to see the HAMMER that was in the prototype pictures, also, seeing as these are NOT historically correct figures, I would like to see winged helmets, possibly a modified fright knight bat winged helmet but with different plug in wings (maybe even be able to plug in the horns ?) if LEGO added wings, they should not stick out from the side but be angled toward the back of the helmet. Also include a viking flag, some kind of raven banner.

I suppose the answer now is, try to design something containing the parts that you want (subject to availability of course). The main problem now is, what parts will be available ?

All of this information is very interesting, but I thought people taking these tours agreed to a non-disclosure agreement. If they have broken that agreement, then I would not be surprised if Lego excluded certain parts of the tour in the future. Also, I personally do not think very highly of someone who can give their word and then break it so easily.

Set 4990 - Rock Raiders HQ. It was produced in 1999.

Hi mister_phes you mentioned you were looking for the base similar to the one in the Dragon Fortress, but without the yellow brick pattern. If I remember correctly it first appeared (minus yellow bricks) in the Rockraiders series.

At first glance it looks interesting - mainly for parts though. I will wait until there is a parts list on Peeron before deciding if it's worth getting, I am mainly a castle person, so my purchases are all based on what I can use for castle building and detailing.

So I guess you don't get much time to sleep then :-0

Mister_Phes, the pictures were available in one of the reports from one of the toy fairs in the past couple of months, they might have been linked from an earlier post here somewhere or from Lugnet (I don't visit many other sites) Now for something off topic, with the amount of posts you've made, do you ever get any time to actually build with LEGO :-) ? ? ?

The window grill looks more like the new copper colour than gold. Other than that, there were other pictures around earlier showing the interior of the rear cabin. I haven't seen anything else about a "below decks" option. One thing that seems to be missing is some gold accents on the end of the tan reverse arch pieces (this is the only set so far to have tan reverse arches). I suppose it's another of those wait and see sets. Now comes a little plea, can anyone buying any new sets attempt to post a parts list on Peeron for those (like me) wondering what is in a set.

Thanks for the review Bloody Jay, any chance you can post a complete parts list on Peeron so everyone can see what they are getting for their money ?

quote from Bloody Jay " A LOTR LEGO theme would have sold well during the movie releases, when people of all ages, genders, and ethnicities were seeing and loving the movies. That fad's over, LEGO's lost the opportunity. Too bad. " Yes LOTR LEGO would have sold well, but, and it's a damn BIG but, LEGO did NOT get the license to make LOTR sets, that license was awarded to some other company who totally screwed it up. I can't remember who they were now, but what sets they did release were worse than Megablox, with very few individual parts, and I'm not sure, they might even have had some very basic light/sound effects on them. So, unfortunately I very much doubt LOTR will not be released by LEGO even from a book point of view, the original license may very well contain clauses restricting any other kind of construction toy approach. Having said that, think about all of the opportunities that could come from a mythology range, with the added benefit that there would not be licensing problems involved.

Sorry Mister Phes, but I just ain't interested that much in Pirates ;-)

Definitely a theme on its own, in my opinion. Why ? - they had guns, which does not really fit in with the castle range.

Barbie and Lego, Disney and Lego ? Very much doubt that that will happen, it would involve Lego with licences again, and I doubt that is somewhere they want to re-visit. Lego and Lord of the Rings ? regretably, again a licensing issue, also I think some other company got the license to produce those as building sets. Lego and Narnia ? licensing again. What I would like them to do is go into a castle/mythology/fantasy area so that we could get mythological monsters, properly designed elves, dwarves, giants, ogres etc. By properly designed I mean (for the giants etc) larger minifigs (maybe 4+ sized ?) that had movable legs and arms, not like the troll from the Harry Potter set that could only move one arm and had a head that seems out of proportion. Just think of the kind of sets that they could produce by taking ideas from Greek mythology, Jason and the Argonauts, stories of the Greek gods etc. Plus there are countless areas from the mythology of other countries, properly done this theme could continue for years without repeating itself. Then there is the possibility of producing decently sized models of national landmarks from various countries similar to the sculpture of The Statue of Liberty. Examples could be The Eifel Tower, Big Ben, Stonehenge, The Colliseum, various Castles from different countries. Again, the opportunities in a theme of this type are endless, but the sets would have to be large which would mean fairly expensive, but they could be worth it. Also I purchased the Yoda sculpture (great source of tan blocks) and I would love to see further sets like this. I don't know what subjects they could use, but hopefully, they could turn out sets that would act as a source of hard to get colours, Statue of Liberty provided plenty of sand green (pity it was not available in retail shops) so imagine a set that gave plenty of sand blue in different sizes, you get the idea ?

None, unfortunately. When they were released I didn't consider them castle, so I didn't get any. Of course, now I'm kicking myself because I think they are very superior to the castle stuff released now but I'm not going to pay the prices asked for these sets on the web.

Quote by Bloody Jay Probably because (as has been said before) the AFOL/TFOL share of the market is not that significant to warrant special treatment (and isn't helped by idiots that rave on about how they hope Lego suffers a financial loss this year)

Wolf04 - regarding your comment on Viking films, try searching the internet, there are at least half a dozen films I can think of, which means there are probably at least a dozen existing. One thats been recomended to me (but I haven't seen it yet) is Thirteenth Warrior, its supposed to be quite good.

There can only be one answer for any right minded raping, burning, pillager can there ? :-) Vikings all the way (although, I suppose these were the orginal pirates really)

Personally, I have no use for Bionicle and, to me there is no such thing as a best Bionicle. Having said that though, Bionicle was not created for adults, its for kids and whatever else anyone may say about it, it's a HUGE success. Sorry Wolf04, but you sound like a rabid wolf howling at the moon, I'm all for anything that helps Lego get back into a good financial position, only then might we see the return of more stuff that we, as adults, want to see.

Sacriledge perhaps, but has anyone considered that maybe Lego ARE listening to what people want ? Maybe a significant amount of people have asked for sets for 4 year olds with larger parts. Another point to consider is that (as has been pointed out earlier) Lego are trying to get the younger market interested, and if that takes bigger parts and simplified sets then so be it. Lego are NOT going to listen to minority groups who rave on about their favourite theme and demand new releases. Don't get me wrong, I have 4 pirate ships myself, so I'm not knocking Pirates, but also we should remember, there are only so many sets that Lego can release each year (worse luck). One last point to think about, (and I can't remember where I read it) one of the Lego reps did say that NO theme was considered dead, there was always a possibility that (one day) any particular theme may suddenly surface again.

Hey, does this mean we are already off topic ? ? ? ? ;-)