HawkLord

Yea, the General Mills Pops were pretty short-lived. Currently, I'm keeping my eye on Star Wars TFA Wave 3. And I can't wait for next months Smugglers Bounty which is reported to have two Pops.

I've not noticed a lot of sales on UCS sets.

That's a very adventurous build! I don't know anything about Gundam (other than that they're cool looking robots), but that thing is most impressive. Have you worked out the balance issue? It looks like it's gonna be a bit back-heavy.

I'm a fan of variety, so I prefer the Airport Battle. Spider-Man is great and the bridge is definitely on my list, but it would always have been after Airport Battle.

It definitely is in terms of design, just not in terms of collectibility. This item is acquired very differently than those other ones listed. It's hard to make it feel quite like a companion piece in that regard.

Oh, my. If that pic is legit, I'm glad I don't need to worry about this set. Granted the piece count is low and that effects the design, but the Falcon could have been better and the slug could have used bigger pieces.

That's the risk you take with any product. Nothing is guaranteed. SDCC comics can have creases, toys can have bad paint or other unseen damage, and products degrade over time. You mention regular play and damaged minifigures. Most other people who have commented have indicated their minifigures stay on display with little or no play whatsoever. Scientifically, this makes for a trend - play with the minifigures and you risk damage. Keep them on display and not used and you reduce that damage. Everything degrades over time. Unfortunately, this is not a frequent enough issue that Lego is going to reinvent the minifigure over. Whether that means a redesign or more materials added.

UCS doesn't automatically mean its flagship. UCS is the top of the price point, but I would argue sets in the $100-150 are more flagship, as they're the ones people generally spoil themselves with. And, again, Lego may have dropped the ball with regards to veteran AFOLs on this one. New collectors, who haven't been buying years of Hoth material, may find this set useful.

I think some sets will be discounted, but I doubt much more than 20% tops. I don't have any secret knowledge on this, it just seems that in the past couple years the discounts haven't been as deep as prior.

Meanwhile, in non-sand green news, I just got some light blue 2x4 plates, orange 2x3 plates, blue 1x2 plates, and some 1x1 printed eyeball studs. Nothing exciting, but it does help me with stuff I'm working on.

I look at this as Lego being just super busy. They have more licenses going right now than ever, with more and more material coming out all the time. This is a Lego boom. With that said, Hoth is easy to design and with several prior sets to work off of (which haven't been in stores for years), it's easy for them to use that material which may not be as well-known to people who have not been Lego fans long. I definitely feel like this set was phoned in, but I also understand the demands Lego probably receives from LFL/Disney and Lego's already hectic schedule.

The mods have already explained that there's too much wishlisting and guessing about the 4th set. Redirecting the people who are not providing information, but are rather exhausting a conversation on "what if"s, seems the most useful. This thread can and has de-evolved into just blatant misinformation at times.

I assemble minifigures completing - heads and legs are fully inserted on day one.

Wow, Deadpool with Mr. Incredibles' arms and red hands looks about as close as we can get currently. Thanks for posting those. Question - are the red shades a solid match between the two or is there anyway to tell them apart at all? Also how is the clutch on the arms? I know sometimes the CMF minifigures can have loose clutch.

Do you have a pic or link of this poster?

Star Wars, LOTR, Hobbit, Marvel, DC, Ghostbusters, Dimensions, City, The Lego Movie, CMF, Harry Potter, Jurassic World, and Ideas/Cuusoo. In all those themes that I have multiple sets from (and in some cases multiple copies of the same sets), I just have one minifigure with damage - a crack on the face of one minifigure from the Lego movie line. And he isn't even a main character. Otherwise everything else, well over 300 minifigures is in perfect shape. No damage, no breaks, no misprints, nothing.

What's silly is that collectors may be paying big bucks just for a box. If the contents inside aren't anything special (and they aren't - no minifigure, no printed pieces, etc), then you're really just paying for a special box to house a set of common pieces. That why the other con exclusive mini-sets never impacted me - my days of collecting cardboard boxes because someone says they're "special" are long over.

Jabba only made a licking gesture. Hutts are fat slobs that eat a ton - for all we know he was saving Leia as a snack. Nothing in the movies explicitly refers to sex with regards to any character. There's only two instances of sex in the whole movie series and one is immaculate conception. Just because the EU makes any other references, doesn't make it fact. ;)

I'd be fine with a OT Stormtrooper battlepack that maybe had less detailed printing. Then keep the detailed printed ones in the larger sets. That way, at least the front Stormtroopers in a display could be fancy and the back-row ones could just be filler. But I definitely see the "carrot and stick" sales tactic with the current distribution.

Oola was a dancer, Leia was arm-candy. There was no sex implied in either character. "Slave" is different than "sex slave".

At 160ish pieces, I doubt the Space Slug will be that impressive. The Falcon will probably be something similar to what's appeared in Advent Calendars.

Anyone who asks about the "4th set" should just be directed to the first page. If people engage the conversation then it just perpetuates it.

It seems to be a LUG event that some people have received invites to. I guess it depends on if you have a LUG in your area and they've been able to get it on this. If you didn't receive an invite and don't have one from being in a LUG, there's really no point in showing up an hour early.

This is true. As the event is by invitation only, even if you do show up you won't be let in during that first hour - just the invitees will be. And during that time is the only time you can get the exclusive set.

Now that the cat is out of the bag on this one, I can say I'm extremely disappointed in how Lego handled it. Essentially, if you have a LUG, you have to hope for a spot, as most LUGs probably have over 28 members per store. If you don't have a LUG, you have to hope your store is participating in the event. All for the "honor" of spending $150 for a brick-built set. Fortunately, as a brick-built exclusive set with no minifigures, it shouldn't contain anything overly special, like printing or brick color. But since most people seem disappointed in the Stormtrooper polybag, this would have been a great way to offset that. Even still, with Star Wars are huge as it is, why limit something so easy to manufacture to such a small crowd? Why not just offer two May 4th promos - spend $50 get a Stormtrooper polybag or spend $150 and get the brick-built set? There are so many people getting into Lego and Star Wars right now, that Lego would make a ton. Instead they're limiting themselves to just 28 sales for that one hour. Again, it's a brick-built Space Slug and micro Falcon. Not a huge loss. But it does make me wonder how we went from the days of chrome minifigures and Darth Revans to this.