AmperZand

Give him a mallet and a stake and you have yourself a vampire hunter, a bit like the Van Helsing in this picture:

A distinction needs to be made between if NK will be cancelled and when. The story that NK would be ending first appeared in Blocks magazine. Is that a credible source? Well, I have every issue of Blocks and it has never until now been a source of "news" in the sense of providing information that wasn't already widely available online. In fact, it has always been something of a mouthpiece for TLG. It's not an official LEGO magazine, but might as well be. It never leaked information, speculated on any rumours or was ever particularly critical of TLG. One gets the impression that it was very much a I'll-scratch-your-back-if-you'll-scratch-mine relationship between it and TLG: LEGO would continue to provide Blocks with sets to review, access to exclusive events etc and in return Blocks would evangelise for TLG. I doubt that Blocks would do anything to jeopardise that arrangement. So if it's reporting that NK will be ending, you can be pretty sure that that information didn't just originate with TLG, they approved it. As for when, it seems likely that the summer NK sets are already in production. If the decision to axe NK is recent, we will still see the summer releases albeit in possibly smaller production runs which could affect which region(s) or retailer(s) have it. If the decision was taken a while ago, the summer sets will not have gone into production so won't appear at all. The fact that the summer NK sets were shown at trade events earlier this year is no guarantee that they will be produced. In all enterprises, marketing is often the last to know. It's entirely possible that LEGO's marketers were earnestly promoting NK summer '17 at London and Nuremberg while senior execs in Billund knew that the line was for the chop.

A few weeks ago, Sainsbury's had a flash sale of 50% off some TLBM, DC and Ninjago sets. I picked up a few sets. They don't have sales very often, but when they do, the discounts can be significant. I always swing by the toy section when I'm food shopping just in case.

I've been an AFOL since 1993 but long before that I was a fan of fantasy, mythology, legend, Tolkien and history, and I still am. I see construction toys - and toys in general - as a means of bringing substance to those themes. I mostly use LEGO to do that. But if there is a better way of portraying a character or creature using non-LEGO parts, I'm happy to go non-purist and liberally use pieces by BrickForge, BrickWarriors, BrickArms, BrickFortress, CrazyBricks, SI-DAN, Arealight and Kre-O among others. In short, I'm a baaad AFOL!

Cool video. Thanks for sharing. I'm a bit chuffed that one of her two favourites is one that I also have. There might have to be different records such as LEGO figures of all kinds versus minifigures only. Regardless of what record might be sought by this collector, it can't be the largest collection in the world. It violates AmperZand's Law of Collecting which states that: "If you are outside the US (and this collector sounds British), someone in the US has a bigger, more diverse, more impressive, older and more valuable collection than yours." It doesn't just apply to LEGO. It seems to be true whatever is being collected. When it comes to collecting, Americans do it better.

Ooh. That's a great idea! I think I like it more than mine. Consider your idea swiped.

I'm thinking of getting at least two: one to use as a highwayman and one for the torso and legs. The period attire in sombre colours, with a different head and hair, will make a cool vampire.

For anyone who can't read Catalan: "As ever, a great review. Well done, WhiteFang, I'm your fan." I have a feeling that all posts on the EB boards are supposed to be in English. I'm not a mod though.

The discussion has been raging online about what S17's army builder is. Is it the Dwarf? Maybe the Elf? The Gladiator in a Spartacus type rebellion? Or what about the Retro Spaceman with some different heads and weapons? No, no, no, no, no, no. It's none of those. It's... {drum roll}... THE BULLDOG! (Actually, it was lots of Connoisseurs, but they all surrendered for some reason leaving their dogs). Thank you, Criosphynx, for making me smile.

@thetang22 You're almost certainly correct. My guess is that the overwhelming bulk of revenues from CMFs are sales directly to kids and to adults buying for kids (parents, grandparents etc), not to AFOLs. So AFOLs aren't a major consideration in LEGO's CMF planning. As few kids build armies - that's mostly an AFOL thing - "army builder" isn't a design criterion for LEGO.

WhiteFang's review has a picture in which the tray is used as a shield. Looks pretty good. Am I the only person who thinks that if you replaced the Retro Spaceman's ray gun with a cutlass or trident, you would get an interesting fantasy fighter? And with some different heads, an army builder (though I'm not that into army building).

In WhiteFang's review, the printing is also off-centre but not in the same direction. It's left/right centred but slightly higher than it should be. The mismatched colours could be because the torso and slope-dress are a shade of blue while the shield is light bley, and both are distorting the colour of the printing. It could be that LEGO was trying to compensate for that but didn't get it quite right. You're just commenting on her weight because she's female. How sexist! (I'm joking, of course! )

If you don't mind going non-purist, BrickWarriors do a cool retiarius net for only 25 cents. Sorry for the slightly OT post.

Thank you for another great review and magnificent set of photographs, Fangy. Of all the reviews I've seen of this series, yours is the best! One picture I was hoping for was the S13 Hot Dog Guy holding the Sausage Man's sausage and bun (wow, how wrong does that sound?!). Seriously, I can imagine the Hot Dog Guy promoting food at the fast food joint where the Sausage Man works and having a hot dog & roll in hand. If you have a chance to take that shot, that would be much appreciated.

Totally agree. I rarely use stickers: a couple of street signs and a viking shield are the only ones in my display collection. If a set requires stickers to make it look OK, there's something wrong with the set and therefore it's not worth getting. LEGO would probably have replaced the sticker sheet if you had explained they were damaged straight out of the box. If not, sticker sheets on BrickLink are usually fairly cheap. To apply stickers, LEGO recommends using a bit of window cleaning solution to slide the sticker into place and ease out any air bubbles. I used Windolene (the liquid, not the cream!) for the street signs mentioned above and it made positioning them a cinch.

Perhaps controversially, my favourite is 70403 Dragon Mountain. But my view of it is no doubt influenced by the eponymous dragon in that set.

Great build! The vegetation and waterfall are especially well done. The problem of not having enough space in your kitchen to fit your MOC has an obvious solution: knock down your kitchen wall. Who cares about a wall? You can always rebuild it in LEGO.

Here are mine. Some of them have already been mentioned. Dark Elf Two-headed Giant - using the long arms and legs moulds used for Toy Story's Woody and a new shoulder piece to take two heads, possibly reprinted baby heads. Troll - Alexandre Boudon's design Death Knight Cambion - human-devil hybrid inspired by NK's red villain designs Harpy Druid Vampire Hunter - Van Helsing Arabian Thief - Ali Baba 19th Century Californian Swashbuckler - Zorro Necromancer with Skeleton Dog Golem, Clay Oni - Japanese ogre Messenger of Olympus - Hermes 18th Century English Dandy/Secret Agent - Scarlet Pimpernel Shaolin Monk/Kung Fu Expert

My recommendation based on my experience of visiting LEGOLAND Billund last year is not to go during school holidays, after school breaks up for the day or at weekends. All schools follow the same holiday schedule and school times set out by Monbusho, so it should be pretty straightforward to avoid the hordes of kids and their parents. The truancy rate is low in Japan, so you won't get many kids there who are playing hooky. And based on the crazy queues in Shinjuku for the first Krispy Kreme store in Japan, I would delay going to LEGOLAND Japan for its first few weeks.

Although Asian markets may be growing faster than others, that's starting from a relatively small base. The largest markets are North America and Europe. They're considerably bigger than the others. It would be a strategic error to focus on growth to the detriment of established markets. LEGO already knows that. You can see it in the CMF line where there are references to western culture that have little meaning in most of Asia, and no examples in the line of the reverse. You can also see it in the choice of some of the licences LEGO has pursued. Lord of the Rings/the Hobbit, for example, isn't nearly as popular in Asia as it is in the west. Given that there are few universal cultural references especially historical ones, LEGO would be better off having a line that speaks fairly strongly to major markets rather than one that is equally but weakly culturally resonant worldwide. Ninjago is actually a good example of what I was saying. Sure it's a mash-up but from the start LEGO went to considerable effort (and no doubt expense) to build its cultural capital among kids through a popular game system (Spinjitsu) and cartoon. The problem with China was that the game play and the cartoon weren't that popular. A company trying to build its own cultural capital is playing a game of high risk. The reward may be worth it but only if the company gets it right. Generally, LEGO seems to get it wrong more often than it gets it right, so should probably stick to safer options. The 2013 Castle theme suffered from its thematic similarity to the LotR line: there was overlap in the time when they were on store shelves. Certainly, there were slight (and probably intentional) differences in the age ranges appealed to (LotR to older kids, Castle to younger kids), but they both featured knights on horses, castles and fantasy monsters, so were tapping the same area of interest. I suspect that there were execs at LEGO at the time who were (rightly) concerned that Castle's sales would eat into the tail end of the LotR sales, and because LEGO had already paid a lot for the LotR licence, Castle was deliberately starved of marketing oxygen by LEGO.

It's not a bad thing that LEGO explores new themes, but they need to go about it in a smarter way. The ranges that do best tend to be the ones that kids, not AFOLs, can identify with culturally or that have cultural capital for kids. So popular licences for kids such as SW and DC/Marvel superheroes, girl-focused ranges such as Friends and Elves, and perennial themes such as ninjas, knights and spaceships have done well historically. The themes that don't do well tend to be ones where either the cultural identifiers are confusing for kids e.g mash-ups of space + insects or space + police, or where they have low cultural capital such as focusing on the baddies e.g. Alien Conquest, and not-so-popular licences, e.g. Scooby-Doo and Lone Ranger. There will, of course, be exceptions. But as a generality, it seems to be true. If I worked for LEGO - I don't - I would suggest a Greek mythology theme. LEGO has many of the necessary moulds already thanks to CMFs so can avoid expensive tooling and it's a theme that most kids in the west cover at school so would resonate with them. I wouldn't bother with a space theme: that's already covered by SW.

Very true, see MOC below. Some of the NK bad guy minifigures are actually quite appealing to a fantasy buff like me. But if I had to choose between another theme that was only useful for one faction or a more traditional fantasy theme like Fantasy Era, I'd go with the latter every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Fishing line and the nylon clear non-stretch beading string that I mentioned before is the same thing except that the beading version comes in some of the same thicknesses as fishing line plus some thinner ones. As Vindicare has indicated, its tensile strength does not diminish over time. If the string is going to snap, it will do so the moment it takes the strain. If you think the line might not be strong enough, hover your hands just under the MOC to take its weight just in case. In the unlikely event that the string isn't strong enough, either try thicker string or distribute the MOC's weight with more strings attached to additional fixing points. I have had good results using two sets of U-shaped strings, the top of each U being fixed to the ceiling/rafter. A more likely failure is at the fixing points. Again, easing the mock into its cradle and having hands beneath it just in case should ensure there is no problem, but it's worth checking periodically that the fixing points are holding strong.

If you have any MOCs of flying things (planes, dragons etc) that are structurally sound, you can suspend them from the ceiling using nylon clear non-stretch beading thread.

I'm selling: 76053 Lego Batman Gotham City Cycle Chase - SOLD 70901 The Lego Batman Movie: Mr. Freeze Ice Attack - SOLD 30522 Batman in the Phantom Zone All are brand new in their factory sealed boxes/polybag. All are from a smoke-free, pet-free, mould-free, odour-free home. You can buy them separately or combined. Free UK P&P. 76053 and 70901 are £16 each (including UK P&P). 30522 is £5 (including UK P&P). And some parted out Nexo Knights vehicles and minifigures. They've never been touched. Interested in any of the above? Please PM me.