AmperZand

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but they're now officially available in Europe albeit from very selected stores. I picked up the following from three shops at Legoland Billund yesterday: Rogue/Ranger x3 Banana Guy x1 Arabian Knight x1 Devil Boy x1 Teenage Mum x1 Ice Queen x1 Penguin Boy x1 Antarctic Photographer x1 I must say the staff at Legoland were super friendly. Some had gone to the trouble of pre-identifying minifigures while others searched for the ones you wanted while you waited. Oddly, the LEGO store at Billund Airport didn't have any S16s or for that matter anyone working there.

Because I posted it before, soon after CMF S15 came out. Some - maybe most - people here will have already seen it. On the other hand, it would have been strange to have not shown the MOC again given that it had been chosen, so I compromised and put a link in my OP to the BrickWarriors page that shows it. For anyone with a slow connection or for whom the link isn't working, here are the MOCed minifigures again:

Cool! I do get the impression that one of the elf archers on the back left isn't taking things as seriously as he should. Going to war is nothing to be smiling about! Also, it appears that one of the riders is the standard-bearer of the elf lord Starbucks Venti-Latte.

2010. TLG was showing CMF series 2 to the trade but hadn't yet produced all the prototypes of the Spartan's accessories so used BrickForge parts instead. To be clear, TLG wasn't trying to pass the BF parts as its own. If asked, it was freely admitting that those parts were stand ins produced by a third party for demonstration purposes.

Thanks! The fame is actually becoming a bit of a nuisance, what with the paparazzi snapping my picture the moment I step out my front door and the hordes of screaming groupies chasing me down the street (and if you believe that, you'll believe anything).

Totally agree. One might imagine that TLG would be martinets when it came to purism, but at the end of the day, as several others have already observed, TLG makes decisions primarily on commercial grounds. Almost exactly that did happen once. TLG used BrickForge parts a few years ago in its marketing. Admittedly, it was to the toy trade, not to consumers, but they didn't hide it from the general public either.

As a collector of mostly fantasy, mythology, horror and historical minifigures, I like all the CMF series so far. Each one has had several minifigures that appealed to me. My favourite series though is no 4. It contains the musketeer and gnome - two minifigures I had been hoping for for a long time - plus the geisha, Frankenstein's monster, werewolf and viking. The individual CMF minifigure I like most isn't from series 4 however. It's actually the elf from series 3. I had yearned for an elf minifigure for years and there was no great way of MOCing one, not even with third party parts. When it was released, it did not disappoint: the way they did the ears, the look of the face and the detail of the body printing were all perfect.

Woohoo! My MOCed Series 15 CMFs were chosen as BrickWarriors' MOC of the Week: http://www.brickwarriors.com/blog/lego-moc-of-the-week-moced-series-15-minifigures-by-amperzand/ I'm famous!

What a great creation! Wonderfully gothic and atmospheric.

I don't know the definitive answer, but here's some speculation about why TLG changed those names: It could be as simple as which names were more effective marketing-wise. It's possible that TLG did some market research in English-speaking countries (or more specifically, the US) and found that kids wanted minifigures called Desert Warrior and Mariachi more. Maybe (US) kids didn't know what serenader meant, but knew what mariachi was. The early release of S16 in the US may have caught TLG's marketers out. Maybe they weren't expecting to have to finalise the names until later. It could be because of IP, that is, that those names infringe or risk infringing someone else's intellectual property. It could be for political reasons. TLG may have decided that singling out one ethno-linguistic group in the case of the Arabian Knight and whitewashing the Mariachi to make him seem less Mexican were not in keeping with the company's politics. Possibly TLG wanted to use the Arabian Knight and Serenader names for other products, maybe even future CMFs, so had to find alternatives for the S16 minifigures. Personally, I prefer Arabian Knight and Mariachi (and Teen Mum for the Babysitter).

That might work in a stationary machine, but do we know that that's the case here? If the whole machine moves - especially in 3D such as in a plane or sub - the motion of the machine could affect the contact between the steps. Also, when the rotation of the assembly starts - both initially when the machine is powered up and when it restarts if the rotation is intermittent - there is an efficiency loss and time delay as the steps engage. If my understanding of the step part is correct, in the resting position, the steps would dangle in a row. Of course, in a MOC, an efficiency loss might not matter. But if the machine is being used as a model, the loss and delay may not be ideal.

I was talking about ice. It's what ice people are made of. It's hard. And cold. What did you think I was talking about?? I prefer Banana Man without the printing. I generally don't like stickers but on this occasion I think they should have used one. It would give you the option of using it or not, and if you did choose to use it, it would be most appropriate. After all, bananas often really do have a sticker on them. There's irony in printing being used to represent a sticker.

So do I although I've had a MOCed Ice Knight for a few years. I've been planning to display him with the Ice Queen since I heard about her. The Ice Knight is hard thanks to the Ice Queen, but he's also frustrated because she is frigid.

No, it isn't. That misconception has come up on the EB board before. "Eskimo" is just a very broad category in the same way that desribing someone from Belgium as European would be. It's not offensive, just not very specific. Almost all Eskimos are members of one of two ethno-cultural groups: Inuit and Yupik. As "Inuit-Yupik" is a bit of a mouthful in English, "Eskimo" is a perfectly acceptable alternative.

That one doesn't bother me so much. At least Arabian Knight makes sense which Dog Show Judge doesn't. It's an allusion to and play on words on Scheherazade's Arabian Nights and possibly also a nod to the 1960s-'70s cartoon Arabian Knights that featured a bare-chested, green-turbaned, goatee-sporting character.

Can we please stop referring to the Dog Show Judge? I just watched just2good's 16-pack opening on YouTube and he called the minifigure that. So did Jang in his video review. It's not a judge! Why would a judge be wearing a rosette? It's the Dog Show Winner. W-i-n-n-e-r.

Buddhism uses both orientations. I believe Hinduism and Jainism do too. I seem to recall that some Native American tribes use the symbol, but I'm not sure which tribes or what orientation. The penguins in the photograph only show a figure-ground Nazi swastika when seen from the pictured side. If you rotated the four penguin assembly 180 degrees around the axis between SAnthonyK's fingers, the swastika would appear reversed.

Very cool. I had something similar in mind but series 16 isn't available where I am yet.

It's both. Obviously, these are shuriken-throwing Nazi penguins. Obviously.

Sounds like you have a problem with limescale. I haven't had a problem with limescale on LEGO so I haven't tried any solutions, but conventional limescale removal sprays for cleaning kitchens and bathrooms should do it. Alternatively, clear distilled malt vinegar will work: the acetic acid will remove the limescale. After using the limescale remover/vinegar, you probably want to rinse the parts in distilled water. Before trying any of the above on your Tower Bridge, I would recreate the staining on some spare test pieces of LEGO, seeing what works to remove the stains and checking that the LEGO part isn't damaged.

Thanks. I was wondering about that. It's the same way I had a minifigure hold a microfigure-as-a-baby a few years ago: http://www.brickshel...kings_court.jpg In one of the earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons there was an occupation (termed a "class" in the game) called "thief". In later editions, the publishers wanted to dispel the notion that the game encouraged wrongdoing such as stealing, so changed the name to "rogue". They claimed at the time that they had updated the name to reflect the increasing variety of characters who fell into the category, not just thieves. Whatever the reason, it stuck and spread to other games and entertainment media.

I thought the ones sold by Minifigcat were by SI-DAN. I didn't realise they did any others.

1. Fireman 2. Chef/cook 3. Pilot/aviator 4. Marie Antoinette 5. Cow costume person 6. Evil elf/dark elf 7. Troll 8. Aztec 9. Uncle Sam 10. Highwayman (Dick Turpin style) 11. Heracles style Greek hero 12. Entomologist 13. Basketball player 14. Space alien (insectoid) 15. Lion costume person 16. Egyptologist

No, I don't think so. My guess is that the European release date will be 1 September as originally planned. I believe that Argos, for example, is still saying that.

Don't get me wrong. The rogue is my favourite too, but if the dark red parts were dark green, it would be even better. Those are great! Thanks for the pictures.