Missing Brick

Really nice. I liked it so much I decided to take the plunge and bricklink the 500 odd tiles, rounds and bricks-with-stud-on-one-side needed to make my own Derfel tower - about £100 in total. Thanks for the inspiration guys.

The UK price listed on S@H has gone up from £120 to £150. Not pleased. £120 seemed about right for a set which is somewhat smaller than the modular buildings. The price per brick is now 34% higher than the Town Hall. OK, so it's way cooler than the Town Hall, but 34%??? Think I'll wait for a discount.

130E for Helms Deep = $165 compared to Barnes and Nobles $99 price. Think I'll wait a few months to see if there are any UK discounts instead of paying the early adopter's (mug's) premium.

There are no trees on the page you linked to so not sure what your question is. However there are many good tree making instructions on flicker and YouTube. My favourite is eilonwy's tree weaving technique for small trees: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eilonwy77/sets/72157629804759804/with/7130734507/

£35 / 480 parts = 7.3p per part. The PAB price of a 1x1 tile is 6p, and the bricklink price about 4p. By comparison the Medieval market village price per piece = £72 / 1602 = 4.5p and this includes many useful pieces: doors, windows, arches etc. Conclusion: The UK price of £35 for this set is way too high. Should be £25 tops. Thanks for the nice review though.

Love the portcullis, the spiral staircase and the epic scale! Makes Lego's Helm's Deep look like a tiddlywinks set!!

Nice. Have you thought about using the SNOT technique found on the front of the modular Town Hall for the pillars? I was thinking about bricklinking parts for a 16 pillar MOC for my Roman Centurion minifigs...

Unfortunately, when importing from the US you can expect to receive an additional bill for 20% UK VAT from HMRC -assuming the exporter declares the full commercial value of the sets on the export forms. When I imported stuff from the US via FedEx I used to get a bill for the VAT a few weeks later from FedEx. The only way to avoid is to hand carry it thru the 'nothing to declare' aisle at the airport while trying not to look nervous....

Thx for the positive comments all. Yes, coins are probably better.. I was surprised at how small the ballast box was on your trebuchet. I ended up going thru 3 versions, each with a bigger ballast - just to get a decent range. It would also help if I disconnected the winch during firing since that adds a lot of friction but I wanted to avoid having to mess with the string after every launch. One idea I had was to use a larger diameter reel to reduce friction, then have separate winch gearing which could be disengaged during firing. But I decided against it since the gear box was getting too big and I wanted something simple that looked good.

Same here. Nothing on Google, and TLG tweets won't specify a date either. Frustrating. I guess they'll just show up one day without any fanfare - same as they did in the States. Not sure if the '11 days' guy was just talking about a general June release - rather than a specific date for the UK release.

While waiting for the UK release of the LOTR sets I thought I'd make some siege weapons for my future orc army. Stats: - Can fire a brick 3.5m when the ballast is loaded with 3 x AA batteries. - Minifig-scale controls at the rear allow safe ratchet winching, loading and firing. - Ballast can swing freely after firing without bashing into the structure. Hat tip to the awesome trebuchets of ZCerberus & Mvelic for the inspiration. The siege tower is an 8-wide version of Lego Set 6061 - with a Mordor make-over.

I've been considering this set but the thing that puts me off is the bright red roof. Being an AFOL with a big stash of Lego from the 1980's I already have a tonne of bright red roof bricks - and they're pretty hard to find a use for. If only the roof was dark red or black... I'm thinking a second MMV might be more useful for MOCing. ( also MMV is 30% less at 72 GBP for 1600 pieces vs 99 GBP for 1525 pieces ). The brick built castle walls are nice but I'll prolly have grey bricks coming out of my ears once the LOTR sets come out.

A word of warning: I own a Carribean Clipper which I bought in 1989, and even though it's been kept in a sealed container, some of the parts have perished: the blue flaps over the cannon holes and the clip on flags at the top of the masts. They've completely lost their spring and become brittle. So something to watch out for when buying sets from that era. I hope Lego have improved their plastic formulation since.

Classic Pirates for me. Why? Well, while the first PoTC film was fun, the 3 sequels were awful. Killed it for me.

A good source of the dark red slopes is the bionicles set 'battle of metru nui'. It contains 8 single slopes and a whole bunch of double slopes and other dark red parts. If you're lucky you can pick up the set for less than £10 in an eBay auction. I bought 3 of them.

Great job Andybear. Excellent use of the mini wing pieces at the front. They really capture the look. Funnily enough I was admiring Ralph's 7-wide routemaster pics only last night. See I like andy's 8-wide routemaster, but then I also like Ralph's 7-wide routemaster. But which is better? There's only one way to find out: FIGHT!!!

I prefer GE: You get 40% more frontage plus lots of cool features: The 'shop' sign, the 45 degree corner, the chandelier, escalators, sky light, billboard, green domes, revolving door, mosaic and easy internal access for play. By comparison the PS has fewer outstanding features and the interior is cramped. I like the blue Petshop half but I'm not so keen on the brown town house: The 2 stud overhang on the top floor just doesn't look right. You can't close the front door from the outside. And the wall light on the roof patio should clearly be on the other side of the door. Just makes no sense having it crammed into the corner behind the door. Overall PS is still a great set but the GE is way better.

Fat rimmed windows? Tut tut. That won't do at all. Actually I replaced mine with regular glass windows because the guests kept complaining about the drafts :)