Admiral-Ackbar

To kind of summarize what has been said here, the Lego Group does recommend removing the arms of a minifigure, as well as many people who believe that minifigures should be left the way they are, but it can be done for the sake of customising, battle damage or just cos you can. If you don't want to risk breaking the arms or torso of your minifigures or just want to keep your minifigures in mint condition, don't bother.

You can buy the LoTR sets from Argos, Tesco, Asda, Hamleys, Lego.com, and Toys R Us. And probably other good toy retailers.

The window to the left is more detailed and defined, but the one to the right apears to be slightly easier to modify.

This is a fantastic entry! The way the station is laid out and the work crew are great! Good luck to you in the voting!

I thought your first two funnies were funny , but I don't get the last one, maybe you can explain it?

This looks really great so far! I look forward to seeing more of your creations, and more of this one , too!

I really like the Rancor as a proper figure, and not a brick-built figure; it looks much better this way. I'm not so sure I like the set it comes in though. I know it's meant to be playable and all, but it seems a bit bare to me. I'll still buy it though.

I have completed this survey, and I must say, it is very thorough indeed! But I guess it needs to be for a postgrad course.

No, this thread is meant to help others make a decision on what Star Wars set they could buy, as a help guide of sorts. If this needs moved, help would be appreciated!

Hello and welcome to the first edition of 'What To Buy?', where I'll try my best to help pick out the best set for you. Of course, you could do that yourself using the General Questions forum, but it's much more fun to do what a complete stranger tells you, eh? Anyway, I will start this 'series' with the 'band' that I call the 'Birthdays'. I like using ' in sentences. This band covers £100 - £200, which at the moment encompasses 5 sets (not including the upcoming B-Wing Fighter) as seen below: - 7964 Republic Frigate - 7965 Millenium Falcon - 9515 The Malevolence (It's £99.99, only 1p cheaper, so give me a break!) - 9516 Jabbas Palace - 10225 R2-D2 After giving some basics like the price (all prices are in pounds only for now) and piece count, I will grade each of these sets out of ten using my system of: - Piece to person ratio (recommended to be at least price [i.e. £100 set should be at least 100pcs to 1 person]; rounded to nearest piece, lower is better), - Playability features (the features within the set), - Price per piece and (recommended to be ideally less than 10p per piece, over this is less value for money), - Looks (the overall design and aesthetic of the set) And make a final score to determine the best overall set. First off, we have the Republic Frigate: See this set in the Lego Shop Set Name: 7964 Republic Frigate Sub-Theme: The Clone Wars Price: £102.99 Pieces: 1022 Minifigures: Yoda, Quinlan Vos, Eeth Koth, Commander Wolffe and Wolfpack Trooper (5) ____________________________________________________________________ Piece to Person Ratio: 204 pieces per minifigure. 7/10 Playability Features: 128 pieces per feature, 9/10 Price per piece: 9.9p per piece 10/10 Looks: Looks nice on top and sides, but poor from underneath; sizeable gaps in ship, 8/10 Brick Factor: 34/40, 85% (Brick-tastic!) Up next we have the Millenium Falcon: See this set in the Lego Shop Set Name: 7965 Millenium Falcon Sub-Theme: Ep. IV/V/VI Price: £132.99 Pieces: 1254 Minifigures: Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Ben Kenobi, Chewbacca and Darth Vader (6) ________________________________________________________________________________ Piece to Person Ratio: 209 pieces per person, 7/10 Playability Features: 114 pieces per feature, 9/10 Price per piece: 10.6p per piece, 9/10 Looks: Looks nice from the front, but otherwise quite holey and under-covered, 6/10 Brick Factor: 31/40, 78% (Nice one, lego!) Next, we have the Malevolence: See this set in the Lego Shop Set Name: 9515 The Malevolence Sub-Theme: The Clone Wars Price: £99.99 (Oh shut up about it!) Pieces: 1094 Minifigures: Anakin Skywalker, Padme Amidala, General Grevious, Count Dooku, Battle Droid Commander, Battle Droid (6) ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Piece to Person Ratio: 182 pieces per person, 8/10 Playability Features: 219 pieces per feature, 5/10 Price per piece: 9.1p per piece, 10/10 Looks: Looks very nice from above and below, few gaps, 8/10 Brick Factor: 31/40, 78% (Brick-tastic) Penultimately, we have Jabba's Palace (my personal favourite): See this set in the Lego Shop Set Name: 9516 Jabba's Palace Sub-Theme: Ep. IV/V/VI Price: £119.99 Pieces: 717 Minifigures: Jabba the Hut, Salacious Crumb, Bib Fortuna, Gamorrean Guard, Han Solo, Han Solo In Carbonite (listed on box), Boussh Leia, Chewbacca, Oola, B'Ommar Monk (10) _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Piece to Person Ratio: 72 pieces per person, 10/10 Playability Features: 72 pieces per feature, 10/10 Price per piece: 16.7p per piece, 3/10 Looks: This is a very nice looking set, but is a bit small for my liking, 7/10 Brick Factor: 30/40, 75% (Nice one, Lego!) And lastly, we have the giant R2-D2: See this set in the Lego Shop Set Name: 10225 R2-D2 Sub-Theme: Ultimate Collectors Series Price: £149.99 Pieces: 2127 Minifigures: R2-D2 (1) ________________________________ Piece per Person Ratio: 2127 pieces per person, 2/10 (Slightly redeemed by the fact it's UCS) Playability Features: 532 pieces per person, 3/10 (Again, slightly redeemed by the UCS name) Price per piece: 7p per piece, 10/10 Looks: This set looks very nice indeed, and very accurate to the actual R2-D2; I like it!, 9/10 Brick Factor: 24/40, 60% (Not bad, but not great either.) To finish then, in the birthdays band, the set you should be buying is..... 7964 REPUBLIC FRIGATE! In second and third, we have the Millenium Falcon and the Malevolence. If you wish to ignore the stores, and wish to just have the most playable set, buy Jabbas Palace, It has so many features and minifigures to play with! Anyway, that concludes this first post, and if I continue, you'll hear from me soon!

I bought this book a few weeks ago for my kindle and thought, 'Ok, let's see if you can change my mind about Lego' (I keep getting evil looks from my family everytime I buy a Lego set) and about three pages in realised it was a joke! Oh well, I did enjoy reading it. It did feel a little short, but what can you expect from a book that costs less than a pound/dollar? Nice review, Big Cam!

Wow! Who knew that the prices came to the same average? Its a conspiracy! I'm sure if the prices of individual minifigures and even pieces (if you were realy sad) were accunted for, sets like Jabbas Palace would balance out a lot more! Anyway, I may do the same but using pounds. Maybe. Thanks for the chart, DFOL!

This looks like a really good entry! I like the detailing on the speeder, and the brick built astromech is superb! Good luck!

You can buy them online from shop.lego.com or amazon.com, and in the Lego Shops too. Not sure when they will come out in places such as Argos or TRU, but I believe that they are slated for release in August. Not a fun wait!

Pictures of the Rancor Pit set from plenty of angles can be found through this link: Rancor Set Pics - FBTB Enjoy

I would assume they can be pushed in or pulled out to hold the gate in place or something like that.

I don't want to see this picture because I know if I do, I will have to buy both Jabbas Palace and this! My wallet is crying for mercy as it is!

This is most likely the only news for today, but there may be much more tomorrow as Saturday is to be the Star Wars day for Lego at SDCC.

Could anyone explain to me why the Rancor is not counted as a minifigure considering that the Wampa was counted as one in the Wampa Cave? I'm quite confused about this.

Hi. I'd like to sign up for this program because I have many sets and I want to be able to write good reviews.

Wow, the Rancor looks awesome! In terms of pricing, it will likely be very high as the set contains 2 brand new figures, and an updated figure. EDIT: If you have not seen the hi-res picture of the set yet, bad luck for now as the owner has removed the picture. You will have to make do with the pictures here for the moment.

I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but to anyone who has ever asked for a Rancor Pit set, your prayers have been answered! You can now find an official picture of the set at this site: Rancor Pit Picture

Fantastic job on this lovely looking fighter, Brickscape! You've brilliantly captured the colour scheme of the Seperatists and also the ship has a slim but at the same time imposing look! Again good job and hope to see more soon!

I have only said it to 2 people.