snefroe

well they've just resupplied the belgian shops with all the newest sets, but it seems they have a dreadfull supply system. Even the shop online is to my knoledge dependant from country to country. if they don't have any new sets on the US s@h then their stocks in the uS are depleted for the time being... no worries though. the catalogs for the next six months tells us the sw stuff will be available in the coming weeks...

well i don't know. it seems to me the US market gets really special themes and attention from lego even though it's already quite small. The number does not surprise me THAT much. I know what i'm spending on lego every year and i know what i used to get when i was a kid. BIIIIIG difference...

i've been comparing the german and belgian catalogs for the first 6 months of 2008 and... hm... the german doesn't mention the coast guard theme at all (for the next half of the year, that is), except for the big truck+boat and that's only available for a short while |-/ Belgium will get the goast guard theme but not this truck+boat set... hm... X-O

thanks so much for this report! *sweet* even though i have to say it puzzles me... not so long ago Jan Beyer himself said that EF sales collapsed in 2007, but for some reason that has no effect on global sales, nor on profits? |-/ i'm also wondering about the sales of smaller lines like Aquaraiders, Spongebob, Batman or Mars Mission. Did those do well, within expectations,... ? and what about the sales of the exclusives? Does Lego feel the "exclusive formula" to be the way for the future, did these sets sell very well,...? How 'bout the Lego pab at S@h? Did that do well? hm... so many questions on my mind...

does that include PAB? |-/

happy birthday buddy! Hope you got all the things you wished for *sweet*

good point! i think we've all been thinking about this, but it's great to actually see them together. no doubt in my mind that lego is trying to at least revive the spirit of the older subthemes. they're just not there yet. What i'm missing, honestly, is a concept in which all the MM sets have a place. I mean, M:Tron and Ice-planet where clearly set in space, they had clear functions (M:tron being cargo movers; ice planet where astronautes on an icy planet). it was all more defined and sophisticated.... I still don't know what MM is really all about... The rhino really is a great 6 wheeler, i just don't think it has the story telling capacity of the old M:tron set. Basically, the rhino is a platform for ships, that's it. the m:tron truck was sooo much more... the big ice planet ship is actually a great design. hope the new one is at least as good... At least it looks like it has great potential

i bought this set about a year and a half ago because... well it was boxed X-D and from another century... :-| so i thought it was ok to buy it :-| It's not a bad set, that's for sure. so no complaints, but it doesn't reach my all time top 30 of city sets, honestly... what bothers me the most is the black mast and the duplo rotor... at least it reminds me of the duplo thing... i think both are not really lego mf-parts, but from other themes. isn't the mast some sort of Jack stone part? a bad sign of what's to come, imo... to me, this set, and the others from this timeframe, will always be associated with the falling apart of the real city though. To me, outback was an attempt by Lego to keep the city line alive by going the exotic way. as a consequence, it doesn't feel like it's a part of the city sets... it's something between city and some sort of modern day adventures... couldn't really relate to it when i saw this in the 1997 catalog back then... Can't imagine that it was all that successfull as a line...

a newspaper in Belgium claimed exactly the opposite concerning lego sales in the US though. Lego wasn't particularly selling all that well. And last week Jan Beyer said that the EF line was doing really badly, so I wouldn't think Lego has had such a brilliant year because we like the sets of 2007. The reason why they're having empty shelves is because of a very crappy distribution system. Lego just doesn't know how to get goods at the shops in time. To give you an example: a toyshop here can only order Lego once every 6 months. For that, lego sends the shop the catalog and the pricelist. Unfortunately, Lego was kinda late sending the list for the sets of the first half of 2008. The shop got the list on january 10th, the goods will be delivered around August, so the shop will be getting sets for the first half of this year quite a bit late and they won't get supplies for the sets that are in the shop right now, so at some point, the shop will just not have any good selling set left. In a period like Christmas, a worse case scenario for many shops are empty shelves. not because lego is selling in a fantastic way, but simply because lego doesn't supply in time. Many people were surprised when i told them Lego wasn't doing all that great. However, if you think about, it's quite normal that 2007 cannot be as good as 2006. Life has become very expensive in this last year. All basic goods have seen increased prices, the price of petrol is quite high. Many people in Europe and the US are scared of a recession, buying a very expensive toy just is not really on their mind right now, and if they do want to spend lots of money, it's on traveling, on stuff that gives them experiences, not goods... It is true that the big discounts are gone though. 2-3 years back, when Lego had to relaunch itself with city sets, they gave discounts, now i'm hardly seeing anything. Sure, 2 or 3 actions in a year and a discount for sets the shops just can't get rid off, but nothing realy worth my while. so maybe that is just part of lego's global policy.

well let's face it, it was never intended to be a longstanding line. Lego introduced it a few years back because it was easy money. sets were very cheap compared to sw and at that time, the theme was new and exciting. after all, young boys love robots. they also surfed a bit on the manga-popularity in the West. these hypes never last long... but at the same time, it never really found a place of its own in the lego catalog. Most people went for city sets when that theme turned up with some really great sets, especially the good old fashioned police station suddenly became highly popular again, sw fans never cared about exoforce... and the space fans... well... they were far more interested in building detailed space ships than the highly playable EF. especially this year it's become unclear what EF is supposed to be.... you can't just continue to produce robots that only differ slightly from the year before. The stuff from this year looks more like EF halfbreeds or mocs made by EF fans... As jp said, the mf's were interesting, the first year was nice, but that's it... byebye EF

did you guys notice that the nose art sticker has been applied to the wrong side of the ship? i guess we'll get one sticker then, instead of two, but as usual they didn't take to much time to build and display the sets in a proper way... they should realy be more professional of that and it wouldn't hurt to release official photos on their website too so the entire community can just deeplink decent pics from there... so the gunship will most likely be 120 euro... big deal... many big sw sets are within that price category. Pay up or die...

yeah, it's a familiar problem right now. i belief it's because the staff is working on another server for EB and they don't wanna spend too much time on keeping the current one in a full working condition. so the best thing you can do is to use another site as source, instead of uploading the picture from your own pc.

well this could be a first move on Lego's part to disrupt Bricklink. it starts with the names, then the images then the trading ,... still, i don't really see the point in attacking bl. the bl shops are taking looooooots of parts and sets from lego, they're reaching customers lego will never ever reach with their limited range of products and parts... to me it sounds like the giant company is angry for some reason and needs some one to punish, just to make himself feel better again... g... as if bl is the worst problem they're facing these days...

on bricklink... sure, you can set whatever price you want there... doesn't mean you'll sell it...

happy birthday *sweet*

there used to be a time when only new members got off topic after the 3rd post of thread. We used to resiolve that by letting Vader or Yoda loose upon this poor member, but now it seems the admins themselves have become the most difficult people to control on these boards! :-| Work, you slaves! Fix the problem and shut up! :-P or should i quote the King: "a little less conversation a little more action, please" X-D

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

well i'm not surprised to be honest. 1) it's a large base, with a landing platform, a small hallway and several radar stations.. 2) the colour combination was completely different from all the stuff before... let's face it, the blue and grey was kinda old 3) the MFs were great too 4) cool transparent parts 5) some real cool features that looked very sophisticated at that time, like the roof that opens up, or the radar station that moves away from the platform 6) there was so much mystery in this set, as if a mf could easily suddenly appear out of a hallway or something... for the first time i had this feeling this was a spacestation that was far more than a classic rocket launcher

hm... coincidence or not... yoda's doing... X-O yeah... the frenchguy... you see why i'm ... hm... critical of his constructive contribution with me against the vikings? |-/ he says he's my friend, ready to fight the barbarians of the north and then WHAM!!!!! a bionicle stamp on my forehead!! X-O :-X :'-( :-P

wow! that is really a great question! *sweet* for me, classic castle will never be obsolete in it's intentions. it was a heroic fight between bad soldiers and good ones, or robin hood against Prince John mixed with some classic medieval elements like a tavern, a blacksmith... The naivety, what the theme stood for, the optimism (don't really know how to call it) will never be obsolete. ofcourse, like the space theme, the parts itself have often been replaced by parts that are waaaaay better. We have brown colours now and far more different parts to build great castle mocs. in that way classic castle just as classic space , have been surpassed, but the spirit of both themes is very much alive in the hearts of the older fans who used to grow up with the older themes...

oops yeah... sry...

they're not even in the catalog , so getting them released in april sounds strange anyway, and if they were impulse sets, they'd be next to the other impulse sets, i would think