Faefrost

Hmmm? At that price it probably means it will be a TRU exclusive. I'll have to rewatch the episode now to remember what his helmet looked like. But oddly the one from the Jekk 14 Bounty Hunter set looks to be color matched to the Obi Wan "Rako Hardeen" fig. All it needs is a clone or Mando rangefinder. Weird that they put the helmet in that set and not this one?

There are a lot that mainly focus on sub themes. There are a lot of City types that will just focus on Fire. Or a fan of Space may like Galaxy Squad, but not Space police. Or only collect one faction of a theme, such as the Star Wars fans that only collect stuff from the Original Trilogy or Clones. It's your collection. Build it how you want. Nothing about doing that will make you any weirder than anyone else around here.

The "Plain Bane" is kinda hideous. It really seems to be missing something without his rebreather and "Lee Van Cleef" gunslinger jacket print. Granted it will be nice to have a regular Duros head, but still if they were going to make him plain, why not put him in a prison jump suit? And why a Nikto Guard? Still no word on whether the Jedi Defender is in fact a reality? I'm sorta losing hope :(

LEDs are actually cheaper in Yellow, Red and Green then they are in Blue/White. Straight yellow will work for incandescent lighting, a red/yellow mix for firelight.

I think we will be left to MOC up a larger Rivendell. Really there are only 2 other Rivendell scenes that seem distinctive enough to make a set. The statue with the Shards of Narscil, and that high promontory with the crystal table that Elrond read the .moon Runes in the Hobbit. Everything else in Rivendell is mostly just variations on the council setting. (Dwarves eating, white council from the Hobbit, etc). The problem is Rivendell is large, gorgeous and very very static with no real play going on. Now with that in mind, wouldn't it be cool if they started doing fictional subjects in the Architecture line? Imagine small desktop display pieces of Mina's Tirith, Rivendell, the Shire, etc or Hogworts or Mos Eisley? Avengers Mansion? Wayne Manor? the Baxter Building? Lots of possibilities.

It's not a matter of getting "canned". It's more a matter of how hey plan things, and how they desire to keep the shelves fresh and new. They actually make most of the life cycle decisions long before they ever see sales numbers. They intentionally plan some sub themes to be only 1 wave ( such as PQ, Dino and MF) or 2 (sp3, original plans for AC, Mars Mission, Agents, Power Miners, etc) very very rarely will a line get three or more waves. Typically only themes backed by major multimedia pushes and products (Ninjago, Chima, Bionacle) or Broader continuous evergreen sub themes (city police, fire, etc). Galaxy Squad feels like a two wave theme. We may get lucky. Atlantis got a very small extra third release. But that seems to be very unusual for TLG in the past few years.

That would be pretty standard for space these days. They seem to only plan a sub theme to be 2 waves, then move on to the next.

Good plan! If we don't tell them about the 2x4 milled brass bricks covered in precious woods or the working mindstorms steam engine then they probably won't yell at us.

I think I now realize why the didn't give us a troll maxi fig in this set... It would be able to see over the wall.

Oh dear... I think this is going to cause some consternation in those regions that don't get the Master Builders Academy program and sets. The level 4 series has been teased in this months Lego Club magazine... It's Steampunk! Lego.com/club Enter the code L4MBA

Hmmm? A few interesting tidbits in the Lego Club magazine hat showed up today. Mainly regarding the Yoda Chronicles and the Jekk 14 Stealth Fighter. I'm not sure if we have seen the 4 Minifigs from that set identified or given any background? From the SW minifig checklist it identifies Jekk 14 as some sort of Sith experiment or experimental Sith. The Blue Suited Stormtrooper is a Special Forces Clone Trooper and the other helmeted dude is a Bounty Hunter. Perhaps more interesting is the little Yoda Chronicles blurb that seems to imply that te story may in part involve a truly classic SW EU macguffin. The Kyber Crystal. Holy 1978 Batman! (Granted this is not in any way a cannon story, not even close. But kind of cool to use that reference.)

My vote would go towards FB as the most fun build. They are all great, but FB has the most little moments and sub builds and neat details, while at the same time being big and open enough to really enjoy it all. The front brickwork and the facade on the FB are just wonderful as you see it going together. It doesn't have that "stacking layers of bricks" feel that the massive TH can have.

3 day Nerd Riot over the Next XBox requiring always on Internet, finally broken up with tear gas, water cannons, and a truckload of Taco Bell Doritos Taco's to lure off the participants.

I think that's the first time we have seen a brick separator in one of the low cost sets? I love Arwen. However I think last years video game pre order Elrond looks a lot better than this one.

I've given up trying to predict TLG's subject choices for licensed sets. They rarely if ever seem to go for the obvious, expected (or loudly begged for) subjects.

I noticed that they added a "Most Viewed" sort option on the Discovery page. It is both highly informative and kinda depressing. The Poptropia Dr Hare project sits at over a million page views. And it drastically falls off from there with most of the projects in the top 25 sitting at around 20 to 30 thousand views. The secret to the whole thing is obviously getting eyeballs on the projects pages. Something the game related subjects have been better at doing.

Remember that teasing rumor awhile back about Lego in talks with the people behind things like The Simpsons? While some assumed they may be working on a Simpsons license, another possibility is they are working on a much broader license with Fox. And Fox has an XMen movie coming out later this year. So we can hope...

Lego stores will have it.

This one is really growing on me. I'm still debating between this one or R2D2 as my first UCS type set, But I am really liking this one. Is the cockpit printed? Has anyone worked out scale on this one? I would love to take one of those Kenner/Hasbro figs and replace the head with a Lego one to seat a pilot? May 4th between IN3 and new X Wing will be a very busy day,(must get Wife Drunk while watching Tony Stark, this was Lego smuggling succwwds, Woot!)

How close together do you view "at the same time"? The 10240 Red 5 X Wing is releasing May 8th. The new Star Wars wave will start showing up in stores mid May to early June. It includes 2 retailer exclusive sets that we know of (well one we know for sure, the other one still a bit of a mystery) The 75024 Starhopper and the 75025 Jedi Defender. Last year how close were the release of Palpatines Arrest and Pre Vizla to the R2D2 UCS set? I suspect that the 10xxx sets have their own release schedules and windows, that are entirely independent of the regular retail waves and their attached retailer exclusives. They may match up, they may not match up. They really don't have a lot to do with one another schedule wise beyond the factory production schedules.

Keep in mind we don't know how much of the markup is Lego and how much is at retailer insistence? There is one other cost differential between US and Europe that we rarely think on. The actual cost of retail shelf space. The real estate costs etc per meter. Outside of a few large cities the shelf costs in the US are almost negligible compared to Europe. There is a reason that Big Box stores started out in the US. Land is comparatively dirt cheap. Combine that with the simple fact that transportation and energy costs in the US are less than half those in Europe and you account for a big chunk of the price differences. In looking at those seemingly random markups between the sets, it would be interesting to look at the packaging and box sizes. Just to see if a patern emerges there.

I think the summer releases and Orthanc are all we will see for LotR this year. Everything else will be Hobbit related. We may luck out with the third Hobbit movie being pushed back, I am betting we will see a third straight up LotR wave next summer.

Retailer exclusives are a little different than the direct Lego S@H/Lego store exclusives. The retailer exclusives tend to be smaller or more mid priced sets. They aren't necessarily per theme. Rather the retailers tend to prefer an exclusive in the more popular fast selling themes. Most often Star Wars, Ninjago or City that tend to sell really well. TRU tends to be more prone to get exclusives and they tend to also ask for or permit larger and more expensive ones. (ie Palpatines Arrest). Target and Walmart tend to get sets in the $30-50 USD range. There are exceptions to this (Target got the MF Zombies set, and did astonishingly well with it.) I would be surprised to see any of the retailers wanting a LotR exclusive at this point, given that they aren't directly backed by a current movie. I would bet that any such sets will be Hobbit only, like the "Drunken Elf Fest" set.

That's his sister Ten Nunb the B Wing pilot. Nien was Lando's copilot on the Falcon when they attacked the second Death Star. His face shouldn't have the pilots breathing mask and he should be wearing more civilian clothes, not a flight suit.

Walmart can be tricky. They are not often in the Lego aisle. They sometimes end up in with seasonal stuff (Christmas, Easter, Halloween, valentines day etc) and I have frequently found then amongst low cost toys in the clearance aisle. For Taget it can be the same deal. The Polybags will either be in the seasonal displays or they may be impulse purchases near the registers. They are rarely ever near the Lego products.