xtremegoogler

Lego 4207 City Garage Released: June 2012 Pieces: 933 Recommended Retail Price: €99,95. Okay, so I received this huge box last Tuesday and have been building it on and off in the evening times. By the way, small mistake in the box art: the ticket machine is behind (left of) the barrier, in the instructions it is before (right). The back of the box shows that there are eight bags included: and indeed, that is what you get. Also included are a 16x32 baseplate, a 16x16 baseplate and four 16x16 regular plates, all dark-bluish gray. I started building with the garage, because I was not that interested in the cars. Bags 1 and 2 are for the cars, so I opened bag 3. The white supports are new to me, but they were used before in Cars set 8639 Big Bentley (info provided by Lyichir) The decals: There aren't that many of them and are easy to apply. Building the gas pump... and on with the ground floor, this finishes bag 03. Contents of bag 04: Building the car wash: Sorry that some of my other City sets are in the background, like the harbour and modulars. I have to grab some dinner now, I'll continue (and hopefully finish) this review later this evening. I'm gonna pause now with another small scan of the box back cover art.

You can check the Bricklink forum, it has all the info you need: http://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=640572 The database was attacked, all transactions between 20:00 06/01 and 01:30 06/02 BL time are gone forever.

Okay, thanks for the info, Lyichir. I think you're right about the height and sturdiness, the latter of course a consequence of the open nature of the garage. I just don't like the holes in that element and the hollowness inside.

Is this part new? Cause I don't like it (set 4207 instructions).

Thanks for the review, excellent photography of this set. Biggest problem with it is the color scheme, lime green with pink, what were they thinking?!

Today, my sister asked me to build the 3185 set, she bought it at her local toy shop, so I guess the Friends summer wave sets are available in Holland now as well.

Just came across this German tv ad for the horse stable, so yeah, it seems the summer wave is already out over there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkkbVcQ9jyA

The veil of the bride is rubbish though. When played with, it falls of easily. Impossible to reattach for children, holes of the veil tear easily.

If you look at the instructions, I think it's supposed to be the head of the worm coming above the ground, or something.

You're right, added some more info. There are some variants in the manual that use the extra pink tiles, but they don't work that well either. You have to be the first to get the worm, and if you're an adult, you're bound to be quicker to respond than a small child, so that's not very fair. Thanks for commenting!

3863 Kokoriko Year released: 2012 115 pieces, no microfigs RRP €9,99 / £7.99 Picked this game up last week at a dutch toy shop that gave away a free lego golden dice with every board game. Did not have high expectations of this one, because the box art looked kinda silly to me. I mean collecting eggs, how can you design a game around that? Back of the box Inside the box we have the lego dice, two bags with parts, building instructions and the rules of the game. First bag has 33 white "eggs" (dome tops) and one golden egg and some parts to create the brown and grey chickens. Second bag has some more interesting parts, even though one would probably not buy Kokoriko as a parts pack. These round white plates with open stud are only used in lego games: And, finally, a closer look at the rare pink parts: Building the dice: Building four grey chickens: Building the three brown chickens and the rooster: Final look of the game: I do not have the energy to explain the game myself, so I scanned the rules. Since you can make two "worms" with the included pieces (one with and one without a face), we play the game with the houserule that if you roll the pink face, you can guess which piece is the "worm". If you guess wrong, you have to remove one of your eggs, if you guess right, you get eggs for all of your chickens, grey and brown. So what do I think of this game? Well, the box says 6+, but you can play it already with three and four-year-olds, older kids may even find it a little boring. Children learn to count, what doubling is (rooster) and to assess risks (should I take an egg or steal a chicken). In short: excellent, affordable little filler game, if you have children in the age range 3-6 years, I recommend picking up this game, otherwise skip this one.

The Friends theme has its own horse, was used in 3188 Heartlake Vet and will be used in the upcoming 3189 Heartlake Stables. The new horse is not a radical break with the past, so I'm okay with it.

I happened to be in my local toy shop yesterday and noticed that they did not have any of the new 2012 board games, so I asked about them. The owner said: "Yeah, well, the lego board games sell so poorly that we will not sell them anymore." I live in Holland, so I can alway order them on the internet, but I alway thought they sold well, but maybe this is not the case, or maybe just not where I live.

I have some Paradise baseplates that I don't use because of the horrible light green color. Real shame, the ones with the beach pattern could have been really useful.

That's exactly what censoring is. Put a label or watermark on any MOC that might be considered objectionable. Anyway, I don't want to hijack this thread, it should be about this great looking Wehrmacht Base.

So you're saying you have nothing against "war stuff" but it should be censored? Bad call.

Since the rules for Battle of Hoth don't seem to be online yet, I decided to scan the rules for anyone interested..

The Gameplay Okay, so I played this game a couple of times now with my nephew, but the basic rules are too simple for a six year old. Luckily the manual suggests some variants, first we tried the Ride the Train variant, but that made the policemen too strong, so we also added Jail Break. Since the manual suggests that you have to put jail in a corner, the problem arose that when three criminals are in prison, you simply stand guard with one cop and chase the remaining thief with the other cop. So we decided to put the prison somewhere else, next to TWO spaces (tiles), so the criminals have a slightly better chance of escaping. Three tiles puts the criminals at an advantage.

Came across this review of the ninjago theme on bliptv: http://blip.tv/familiar-faces/cheap-damage-lego-ninjago-5944077 Don't know who made it, but it explains the whole theme rather well in under ten minutes.

Thanks for your kind comment. And yeah, it's clearly a children's game, like all Lego boardgames. It would be great if TLC would release a boardgame aimed at adults, but that would be a very small niche market. I mean, adults that still like Lego AND like to play boardgames are hard to find.

The mailman delivered this one yesterday, so I decided to take lots of pictures to make it easier to decide whether to buy this or not. 3865 City Alarm Year released: 2012 243 pieces, 6 microfigs First the box art Shows the boardgame against a city background. Stereotypical criminal with evil grin, bad teeth and bad shave job, cause that's how they roll. Maybe some criminal organization can start a petition against this sort of oversimplified conception of criminals. Back of the box With symbol suggesting that the boardgame fits in the box. We'll see about that. Nothing more annoying than a game you can't put back in the box it came in. I'll open the box for you. The die and the brick separator are loose in the box, as well as the two manuals and two plates This is what is inside. Three bags of pieces, a bright green 16 x 16 plate and a dark bluish gray plate (6x16). Two manuals, one with the building instructions and one with the game rules, I made a scan of the English rules: I have not played it yet myself, basically a two player game, one player plays with the police microfigs, trying to catch all the thiefs before they steal all the money. This is what's inside bag no. 1: Lots of grey "stud-in-center" tiles. Close up of some unique pieces for this set: Helicopter tile, two money stacks tiles and of course four criminals microfigs. On to bag two: Nothing of much interest here, except for the two blue wedge plates, which were only used before in a 2012 ninjago set. Close up of the police microfigs: And finally, contents of the third bag: I'm now building the die: However, the game is played with the tiles numbered one through six and a station tile. When a crook ends his turn next to a building (not diagonally), he must roll the die, the outcome decides whether he gets money, an alarmed helicopter, or both. The helicopter protects a building temporarily, it makes the game a little longer and a bit more interesting. When you turn over the station brick tile, you can teleport a microfig to another white tile. Twelve money stacks in the game: When the criminals have stolen ten stacks, they win the game. However, if the police arrest all of the criminals beforehand... ...and put them in jail by landing exactly on them, they win the game. Finished board: Finally, you have to build ten microscale "buildings" next to which a criminal can eventually steal money. Here you can see six buildings, a pizza hut, a post office, a bank and some buildings that aren't very clear in their purpose, you have to use your imagination I guess (I don't have any). Three small left over pieces: Finished product: And yes, it does fit nicely inside the box. Final thoughts A simple, very nice looking cat-and-mouse style game, with the helicopter and station twists to keep things interesting. It's nice that a brick separator is included, however to remove tiles I still prefer that little crowbar piece. The box says 6+, which is about right, because while some luck is involved (which tile you turn over, what you roll with the die), you also have to plan which microfig to move where. However, while the box says 2-4 players, it's essentially a two player game. The manual says you have to form two teams when playing with three or four players, which is a bit of a cop out, no pun intended.

Just watched two youtube videos about Lego Friends and gender, don't know if they have already been mentioned, they might be relevant to this thread. and

I hope it's a pricing error, because $50 is ridiculous for what it is, the seaside house I mean.

Oh yeah, I forgot, I can also recommend the HP boardgame (Hogwarts). I've played that a lot with my nephews, who are 5 and 6 year old. It's an okay game, even if a lot of luck is involved. Comes with nine microfigs.