Etzel

Just a side note about this "cheif-or-not" discussion. You could think of this shaman as the spiritual chief of the tribe whereas this guy is the worldly chief. That's a very common division of leadership in many cultures so maybe the set name isn't that wrong after all.

It's really sad that this set is so expensive in Sweden because this is actually one of very few SW sets that I thought of buying. But for this price I rather not... It's not the worst example, take a look at this: 8091 Republic Swamp Speeder costs 499 SEK which equals €49 or 70 USD.... for 176 pieces. Licensed themes usually gets a mark-up here but this is just crazy. Sorry for hijacking your thread and use it for price ranting, Dennimator. Good luck with your search and if you want to trade away one of your Luke or Ben minifigs when you get them I might be interested.

Thanks for the review! This minifig is a good one and I like that it comes with plenty of accessories This review will fit nicely in the Western Review Index that someone made recently Good job!

I bought 7682 Shanghai Chase for 50% off today It was the only one in the store so I didn't thought about it long before I took it.

A very hard choice, I had to spread the votes to the limit: I Scream Clone - 1 Infomanic - 1 Cap'n Blackmoor -1 maydayartist - 1 Guss - 1 Derfel Cadarn - 1 fonz - 1 Great work by everybody, and thanks to Classic-Pirate.com for holding this fantastic contest!

Very good job, Polish Guy! Those buildings are really great with lovely details. Just like in the Sushi house my favourite thing in your building is the roof Very well performed and it looks really realistic. I also like how you did the servers dresses and the sliding door. Fantastic work, can't wait to see more from your Japanese city.

It could be called Disinfection Thanks for a very nice game Quarryman! I really enjoyed watching it and sometime in the future when I got time I might sign up to play one of your games!

They look fabulous! It really looks like very unique ideas.

OK, here are some random facts about me My real name is Torbjörn and I don't think many non-scandinavians would know how to pronounce that It's an old Viking name and is made up by two names actually. First it's Tor which is the norse god of thunder (Thor in English) and then it's Björn which means bear (the animal). I'm 22 and studying cultural anthropology at the university of Uppsala in Sweden and I have a bachelor of art in archaeology. I have no idea of what I want to do with my life. But I like studying so I'll guess I'll stick with that for some years. I'm atheist or maybe ignostic. I don't believe in any religion and can't think of any reason why I should I like to read a lot. Mostly fantasy and historical novels but I've got a quite big collection of books so a lot of genres are represented. At the moment I'm reading We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen (a Danish writer). I've moved 9 times in the last 7 years and will move for the 10th time this January. I'm getting bit tired of this now I know the flags of all the countries of the world. I've always found flags very interesting and would like to collecting flags too but it's a slow process at the moment. I like to travel. My family used to travel quite often and I've been to a lot of countries in Europe with them as a child. In October I went to Rome with a friend and had a great time there. I really wish to go to America some day, both the North and the South, but I think that will have to wait until I've got more money. I have no taste of music and listen to many different types. Mostly I only like one song by an artist so therefore I don't have a favourite one Apart from English I've studied German and Spanish but I'm really bad at speaking either of them. I would like to learn those languages better but I haven't made myself do it yet. That's it for now.

I don't think it's a trumpet but a signal horn like this: If you look closely you can see the black rubber thing at the end. But of course it could be used as a trumpet too.

Oh, there's a lot of interesting characters in that picture The two-headed guy and the faun/satyr-whatever looks especially cool! Can't wait for the first episode!

And you narrow minded SW nerds needs to realize that there is a whole world of LEGO out there. No seriously, I can understand that it's frustrating with minifigs that don't fit together. I don't like mixing flesh and yellow minifigs and although I really like both of them I wish LEGO could decide to just stick with one of them.

Finally Star Wars catch up with the rest of the themes! I really like this type of head with reflection points in the eyes. All themes but Star Wars have had them for several years now and I think they are far superior to the plain dot eye ones. There is much more detail in the new faces and it's easier to make reconstructions of real persons as minifigs. So I'm all for this change and I think the change came because of what I mentioned above. But then, I'm not a SW collector so I haven't got many dot eyed heads anyway. But it's good from a larger perspective I think.

I've just checked the part list for this set over at BrickLink and now I really want this set! :thumbup: There are so many great parts in lovely colours as dark brown, dark orange and brown! Tiles, bricks, plates... I still don't like the minifigs but that's not going to stop me from getting this set (as long as the price doesn't get ridiculous)

Looks good enough for me! I really like that they choose Dobby's Release and Hagrid's Hut because those were really good sets back in the days (I never got the Hut but I wont miss out this thime). I'm also looking forward to the Burrows set. Very interesting.

Yes, it's new. Here is a better picture: pic

You're from Sweden too? Have you checked out SweBrick, our own Swedish LEGO forum (link in my signature)? Funny that the two reviews on this set that are out so far are both made by Swedes Did you get it at Coop Forum too?

That's a very cool army, timura! The torsos (that are from the Alpha Team theme, Bonaparte ) looks very good and of course, tricornes rules! The officer with the old fireman uniorm is also very nice. I really like that you (like myself) use different faces for your soldiers. It makes the army much more alive IMO. Great job!

This set I'm going to review is a very special one. It was one of only two sets that the faction Imperial Armada had, the other being the 6280 Armada Flagship (reviewed by Inconspicuous here). This is actually the closest we have to an Imperial Armada Fortress Set number: 6244 Name: Armada Sentry Theme: LEGO System / Pirates Year: 1996 Pieces: 67 Minifigs: 1 Price: MSRP: $8.75. Average price for a used set on BrickLink is $16.19, a new set is $30.58 Resources: BrickLink Brickset Peeron I don't have the box for the set, neither do I have the instructions so I stole this image from Brickset to show how it should look: Pieces: Here we have all the bricks that comes in this set, not very many... But the colours are good I think, white, green, black and light grey, all very useful for MOCing. The small blue baseplate is nice too and the white wall pieces are a simple way of making a small outpost. This wall piece is 5 studs wide unlike the wall piece that came in this years 6242 Soldier's Fort which was 4 studs wide. I'm not sure if I like one of them better then the other, I guess they both are useful in different ways. Other interesting pieces are the brown ladder, the red boat and the black string, not uncommon but nice to have. These are the sets most exclusive pieces. The green doors only come in this set and I must say I really like them. I wish TLG could start to use this type of doors again as I find them very useful in a lot of MOCs. I would really like one in reddish brown. Here we have the accessories, two brown paddles, a brown musket, a dark grey cutlass, a lantern, four gold coins and a black flagpole with a red and yellow flag. Just perfect for one minifig I say. The red and yellow flag might be an indicator of that the Imperial Armada is based on the Spanish Empire. I think it looks a bit out of place with the white and green building. Minifig: The minifig of this set is only appearing in 3 other sets, the previously named 6280 Armada Flagship and 6249 and 6296 (maybe 3 more if you consider this to be him ). He seems to be the common soldier of the Imperial Armada and wears the typical morion helmet, made famous by the Spanish conquistadors. I wish TLG could make some of those in grey or some metallic colour, it would fit much better I think. His torso is quite detailed with buttons and belts but I'm not a fan of the colours. I think the red and blue makes it look more like a clowns dress than a soldiers . Building process: We start of with building the boat. Not much of building although, you put the usual 1x2 plates at the bottom and the 2x4 plates on top of them. But it's nice that they are green. the red colour on the boat isn't my favourite, I prefer the brown or the reddish brown since they seem more realistic. Next up is the foundation of the small sentry, I guess this would have been built with reddish brown plates if it was made today but back in 1996 brown was still an colour almost only used for accessories and not for common pieces. But in my opinion black works well as wood too. A little further ahead we can see how the main structure is built. Wall pieces in the sides and a black plate as floor. Simple but effective. The finished product: And here we have the finished set. The green doors and 1x1 cylinder pieces makes the model very good looking and the crane adds some playability. Back view of the set. Here we can see the open back of the sentry and also where the flag and musket are placed. Nothing on the set sticks out on the back so if you would like to add more models at the back that's easy. You can imagine how this set might be only a part of a big port with lots of platforms, bridges and houses. If you raise the platform and change the colour scheme I think it would fit good as a module in the 6242 Soldier's Fort (My isn't built at the moment so I can't check ). Here is a close up picture of the ladder and lantern at the side of the building. The ladder allows access to the upper floor and the lantern is useful at night so you don't walk into the sea. Of course the doors on the sentry can open and close and here we have a picture with the doors open and with the barrel just being unloaded/loaded off/on the boat. Bonus picture: Being stuck on an remote outpost isn't very funny but Miguel was lucky to have such a good friend as José. Time for party! Some final thoughts: Playability: 5/10 Open and close the doors, raise and lower the crane. That's the play features in the set. But with a child's imagination I believe this can be a great set if you combine it with some other nice pirate sets. Pieces: 8/10 Many useful parts. Exclusive green doors and nice minifig. Price: 6/10 Hard to judge since it's not for sale any more from LEGO. BrickLink prices are not the best but still acceptable in my opinion. Design: 7/10 Nothing wrong but nothing extraordinary either. For a faction's base it might be a bit small... Total: 6.5/10 This set offers some good parts and a not very common minifig. I like the amount of accessories and most of the colour scheme. I bought this set of BrickLink for $12 (without box or instructions) and I'm satisfied with that. Many of the parts will be useful in MOCs and the minifig is nice to have (I've already gotten another one). Another reason for me to buy it was actually that it wasn't reviewed on EB and I really wanted to contribute to the community that has given us so many great reviews. It's a nice and affordable set. Not something to go crazy about but more like a pleasant experience. Like coming home and having a cup of hot tea when it's raining outside. Thanks for reading my review! /Etzel

The Emperor's ship is sailing up the Yellow River of China. On board is the evil Lord Sinister, on the hunt for the treasure of the Golden Dragon. So far he has been beaten to both the Golden Helmet in India and the Golden Shield in the Himalayas by Johnny Thunder and his gang. But now Lord Sinister has some good connections, the Dragon Emperor of China. A more powerful ally is hard too find. The Emperor has put one of his ship and two guards at Lord Sinister's command. The ship is crossing between sand banks and reefs with the wind is filling it's large junk-style sail and in the top of the mast two red flags are wavering to please the Wind Dragon. Will Lord Sinister make it to the Dragon Fortress before Johnny Thunder and finally succeed on this quest or will our heroes once again be the one to draw the long straw? Set number: 7416 Name: Emperor's Ship Theme: LEGO System / Adventurers / Orient Expedition Year: 2003 Pieces: 175 Minifigs: 3 Price: MSRP: $20.00 Average price for a used set on BrickLink is $29.04, a new set is $37.36 Resources BrickLink Brickset Peeron Instruction manual No picture of the box, but here is the instruction manuals back and front: The idea with minifig hands holding a parchment with a hole which the set can be seen through is really nice. Much more interesting then just the same picture as on the box. The back of the manual is good too, with a map over the Orient and Johnny Thunder swinging over it in his whip. This instruction manual includes a comic strip just like everyone of the Orient Expedition sets: It seems like Lord Sinister captures the precious gems but Johnny Thunder and his company doesn't seem to be very disappointed. I guess they're focusing on getting first to the Dragon Fortress. Here we have a random shot from inside the instruction manual: There is no piece call out, but the building steps are easy to follow and there is a clear difference between the colours, even black and dark grey. At the end of the manual there are pictures of two alternate builds: The first seems to be some kind of gate/bridge/watch tower with a small rowing boat. The second is a small port with a different version of the ship. I personally don't think any of the alternate models are any good but it's a nice way to inspire kids (and others) to start MOCing. Pieces Here we have all the pieces in the set laid out: Red, tan and black as main colours and some brown and light and dark grey. There is much diversity among the pieces with bricks and plates, big and small, usual and not so usual. The sail is exclusive to the set and are together with the square flag the only printed pieces in the set: I'm split in my opinion on the print of the sail. On one hand I think it would have been much better for MOCs if it didn't have such a large and special print. But on the other hand I think it's a beautiful dragon and fits perfectly with the theme. The small flag is printed on both sides and I think it looks really nice. The brown steering wheel and oars only come in this set but are common in other colours. The accessories: A large selection of accessories comes in this set. Both weapons like the crossbows, musket and revolver, and more peaceful equipments like the sextant, oars and binoculars. Four gems are also included, one in each colour of yellow, red, blue and green. Minifigs Three minifigs come in this set, Lord Sinister and two Chinese Imperial Guards: Lord Sam Sinister is wearing his usual black shirt with a white scarf, belt and holster. The top hat is nice and useful in many places (I've even seen it used as buttons on a radio MOC!). Sinister's face is a bit different than in the earlier sub-themes of Adventurers when he looked like this (Bricklink is trying to mess things up by calling the guy with that face Baron von Barron and this guy for Lord Sinister ). Anyway, the Chinese guards are up next and I think they look excellent with their straw hats (3x3 inverted discs) and nicely detailed torsos with purse and knife. The same insignia used on the square flag is printed on the torsos and straw hats. The heads really got an Asian look with the high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes. Back shot of the minifigs, not much to see here: Back printing was unfortunately a very rare concept in 2003. Building progress Lets start building already! We begin with the bottom of the ship and the rudder. There are six round 2x2 tan plates with rounded bottom on the underside of the ship to let it slide better. Continue with the cargo compartment: Here we store the gems in two brown barrels with black round tiles as lids (with regular lids they would get stuck in the door). Deck and railings are added: And here we have the completed set: Final Model Lets take some looks around this ship: From the front the sail looks really good and I believe it fits nicely in size. The crossbow machine: This crossbow thing might be the weakest part of the ship design wise. I've never been a fan of these kind of war machines that I haven't seen any historical evidence for. But I guess it doesn't make the ship too bad, it still fits nice with the colour scheme and adds playability to the set. Down at the lower deck we find Lord Sinister: Equipped with binoculars and revolver. He's capable of killing at distance. If we move away Lord Sinister we can open the door to the cargo compartment: Here we find the barrels with the gems, but there is room for more. The dark grey 1x4 tile hinders the door from falling down (the barrels do that too, but you might want to take them out sometimes). The second Chinese guard is steering the ship: The sextant isn't very useful when sailing on a river but maybe they use the ship at sea too. The guard has a musket near at hand if the situation would demand it. The design of the lanterns are simple but also very good. Here we have the back of the ship with the rudder and steering oars clearly visible: It seems a bit weird to have both a rudder and steering oars but maybe the ship is especially hard manoeuvred. Otherwise you can always use the oars for rowing the boat gently up the stream... Bonus picture I have a small collection of the Chinese minifigs so I let them come aboard on the ship when it's reaching it's destination: Making this review really got me in the mood of building some medieval Chinese style MOCs. I hope I will find time to make some Final thoughts Build: 7/10 Nice and varied but nothing extraordinary. Playability: 7/10 You can have a lot of fun with a ship and the play features in this set are small but numerous. Spin the crossbow machine, turn the sail, open and close the door to the cargo compartment, turn the rudder and steering wheel. Pieces: 8/10 Many useful pieces in good colours. The red might not be a winner but the minifigs clearly are and are raising the grade. Price: 8/10 Not bad, the price/part ratio isn't ultimate but the amount of useful pieces and 3 great minifigs make this a nice buy. Design: 9/10 Very well executed! The colour scheme is beautiful and fits great with the theme. I really like the one-stud-out railings and the inclusion of a cargo compartment. Total: 8/10 A very nicely designed ship in a not so common size. Compared to another similar ship 6057 Sea Serpent it keeps up good. The part are useful, especially in Asian themed MOCs and other ships, the sail is the only junk style sail TLG has produced. A very good part of the set is the minifigs, I really like the Chinese guards and Lord Sinister is good too. I'm a little sad that the Orient Expedition theme only gave us three China style sets, this one, 7413 Passage of Jun-Chi and 7419 Dragon Fortress. They are all very nice and would make a good stand-alone theme if there were more sets. I think Emperor's Ship is the best buy if you want any of the China sets. Dragon Fortress is very expensive and Passage of Jun-Chi don't give you any Chinese minifigs. If you get the chance, buy this set. Thanks for reading this review! /Etzel

The 2010 sets keep coming up around the world and I managed to pick up this one yesterday here in Sweden. When I came back from the store and logged in to Eurobricks I found out that DarkFader already had posted a review of this set. But I had then already started working on my review so I thought I could finish it. I hope I can add some more perspectives and thoughts about this set and not drawing attention away from DarkFader's great review. It's my first Star Wars set in 3 years and my knowledge about the Star Wars universe isn't as great as many others here so don't expect to much from me regarding nerdy SW facts. But I'll do my best to please all of you LEGO fans who wants to read about the: Set number: 8083 Name: Rebel Trooper Battle Pack Theme: Star Wars / Classic Year: 2010 Pieces: 79 Minifigs: 4 Price: $14.99, €14.99, (149 SEK) Resources BrickLink Brickset The box Finally I have some box pictures of the set I'm reviewing: The front of the box shows the set in action with a lot of visual effects. The back: Here we can see the two new battle packs together. The 8084 wasn't available at the store, so I guess I'll have to wait a little longer before I can pick up that one (I really want that officer helmet). The back also shows the 4 minifigs that come in this set, a Hoth Officer, two Hoth Rebel Troopers and a Rebel Pilot named Zev Senesca. Side of the box: On the side of the box there is some advertisement for starwars.com and LEGO Club + a picture of Yoda to inform about the 30 year anniversary of the Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back, the movie that this set is based from. Content Lets see what's inside: An instruction manual and two plastic bags filled with those vital for life little bricks. Close up on the manual: The same picture as on the box, but much harder to photograph because of the crease on the manual. Random manual picture: The colours are very easy to tell apart from each other and the building process is very short. Remember to not shoot the Flick-fire missiles on big yellow faces. More from the manual: At the end of the manual we can see the same pictures as on the back of the box. Here is a picture of the part list of the set - click on it for a bigger version. Pieces Here we have the real stuff: White, dark and light grey is the main colours of this set. Some interesting parts are the new headlight bricks (Brick, Modified 1 x 1 with Stud on 1 Side) and the macaroni pieces (in white and light grey). One pair of goggles, a 1x1 trans-red round plate and a white cheese slope was the extra pieces. Accessories: Helmets and weapons for everybody! But only backpacks for the officer and troopers. The pilot helmet features a new type of printing that is different from the earlier versions. The rebel headgear is a brand new piece and much more movie accurate than the aviator helmets used in earlier sets. The snow goggles can be put in two different positions but you need to take them off of the helmet when you change the position because of the bill. The minifigures: The reason why people buy Battle Packs. The two rebel troopers are exactly the same with dark tan legs, new torso print, new head piece and new headgear. The new face is very similar to this one but with white reflection points in the eyes and a little red mark under the mouth. I don't know if it's supposed to be a scar or just a marking of the chin? I watched the movie last night actually and I think it's a little weird that TLG choose tan and dark tan as colours for the troopers. In the movie they are dressed in almost only white which gives a much better camouflage in the remote ice world of Hoth. The Hoth Officer has the same torso as was used in 7749 Echo Base. His head is somewhat special, it was centre of a big discussion when the Indiana Jones set 7683 Fight on the Flying Wing came out earlier this year. This guy was supposed to have the brown moustache head but came in many sets with a grey moustache version instead. The mix-up must have been pretty big because when I got my 7622 Race for the Stolen Treasure it came with the brown moustache head instead of the grey as it should . Therefore I now have 2 brown moustache heads and no grey one (if anyone wants to trade a grey for a brown you can PM me ). Finally we have the Rebel Pilot Zev Senesca. The first named minifig in a battle pack which has caused a little stir amongst fans. Personally I don't care that much but I am not a big SW fan after all. I didn't know who this Zev was until I looked it up on Wookieepedia, apparently he is the pilot that finds Luke and Han on the morning after their adventure on Hoth. But since he has a pretty generic face (also being used as a clone pilot in 8088 - ARC-170 Starfighter) I guess he could do well even in a battle pack. His torso is the second version of the Rebel Pilot torso that has ever been made. The older one was used from '99 to '07 with no changes. This one features a more detailed control panel on the chest with silver printings and back printing which we can see in the next picture. Only the pilot got back printing on the torso but since the other minifigs got backpacks it's not a surprise. Building process: As I wrote earlier the build is very easy and quick, nothing challenging but I don't want to call it boring either. The complete set Here we have the whole set with all the minifigs: Looks just like a normal battle pack with a small vehicle and 4 minifigs. It seems the vehicle is supposed to be a Laser ice-cutter. It's only seen very briefly in the movie so it's hard to tell if it's accurate but it seems to be of a fitting size. Here are some pictures of the Laser ice-cutter from different angles: Front view - not the best view if you happen to be a snowtrooper. Side view - the blaster is held by one of the new headlight pieces. Back view - without minifig for better vision. This part of the Laser ice-cutter confuses me a bit. Is this supposed to a storage room of some kind, or is it something else? The grey crate fits nicely in the hole. Here is my little idea of what the space could be used for. Problem is that the cannons on top aren't able to shoot forward when the passenger is in Bonus picture There is a lot of winter sets coming out this season and I like it. Here is a little bonus picture of one of the Rebel Troopers when he's taking a break from war fighting Final thoughts Build: 5/10 Simple and quick build. Nothing special so I give it an average score. Playability: 6/10 This set almost demands the 8084 Snowtrooper Battle Pack if you want a good play factor. If you have both the play features like flick-fire missiles and spinning cannons can be fun and useful. Minifigures: 9/10 The minifigs are the main attractions in this set. All of them look very good to me, the troopers might not be very movie accurate but they are still nice I think. I like the goggles and the new headgear (but it sits quite high up on the minifigs heads) and the best thing about this set is the new heads in my opinion. I really like that Star Wars is starting with pupil-eyed faces too, now they fit with the rest of the licensed themes. Pieces: 5/10 There isn't many pieces in this set and it's hard to build any good alternative models. But the pieces aren't totally useless because the colours are still good and there aren't any stickers. Price: 5/10 Quite expensive for just 79 pieces but that's licensed themes I guess Design: 6/10 Not too bad, the torso designs of the minifigs are very detailed and nice and the Laser ice-cutter is acceptable. A little strange back section on it though Total: 6/10 An average set with focus on minifigs. A lot of Hoth sets are coming out this year and next so I guess this is a must buy if you are aiming for a recreation of a battle scene. I'm a little tempted myself actually to get all the Hoth sets but I'm not sure if I want to step deeper into the Star Wars world, there are many other themes that demands my attention Thanks for reading my review! /Etzel EDIT: I forgot to add the set number in the title Would a member of the staff be kind to fix that, please? (number 8083) Thanks!

Do you mean this one? Link

Lets see... This is what I've bought: x4x2x2x2x2 and this is what I have won/been given: It's been a good year

Sound like a challenge!

ROFL! Well, actually it might be a bad idea eating meat in Denmark right now - especially in public in Copenhagen