SirBlake

While I can appreciate how a direct match to Fantasy Era trolls would be fun, the fact that this new Orc doesn’t match a 15 year old theme faction 100% shouldn’t keep it from being a great minifig in its own right.

That’s how I interpreted things too. This new Falcon is pretty great.

Don’t ask me. I haven’t looked. Either it’s true or Nate is lying for no reason.

Indeed it does. Tree bits, lots of brown tiles. Good call. Wait, is that foundation made of Thor’s hammers?

That’s big news!

I really like this! The scale and detail of the environment and the knight looks great. Can’t say I’ve seen that lance design before but I dig it.

Good intel, thanks!

To be fair, D&D did a lot of work to codify fantasy dragons, including the variety of colors and their features. Green is as legit as red as far as the lore goes. That said, I do prefer the recolor. Changing the roof color to blue also makes for a more well rounded pallet.

Hobbit Laketown Guard. This is awesome!

It may feel like “generic fantasy”, but only because LotR is the template from which most fantasy books/stories were written. It’s fair to prefer either the books or films based on your own preference. I’ve read the books more than once, I’ve seen the movies many, many times. The movies are much more accessible than the books to me, and Tolkien was a master of many things, but some of those things included dispersing tension before it has a chance to build and under-describing action. Obviously, two of Jackson’s strengths. Both great in their own ways, but I personally view the movies as darn-near perfect. I’ve read fantasy books that I think are technically better than LotR books in many ways, but it has earned respect for being the progenitor of fantasy as a genre.

I find this answer to be woefully unsatisfactory. I think it’s doubtful that any of these retailers have data so detailed that they can accurately assess the performance of one CMF series vs another, and if they did have that data, it would take work to parse, and they would have zero motivation to do that work and share it with a stranger on the phone or over email. The burden of proof on the claim that we have insight into individual SKUs via retailers is in you, and no proof has been provided. note: I don’t mean to sound as prickly as I may be coming across. I’m simply trying to define “is”, rather than “feels like”, and I think any firm assertion one way or the other when it comes to an individual series performance, and I maintain that we as consumers lack the data to make a firm assertion either way.

Target, Walmart and Kroger publish sales data on individual product sales? Do tell.

Given that TLG doesn't publish sales figures, this conclusion is likely based on anecdotal evidence. What that can be useful and it's not conclusive.

That mixup of Orc parts looks great!

Your schedule is not my concern. Get to work! Lol

In both Targets I saw, they were opposite the actual register, surrounded by snacks. Just a generic photo I snagged from the internet, but the area next to this guy in the blue shirt & tie. One store had them on the top level, one store had them on the bottom near the floor.

I've just found them in the store. So far, only Target, and only on pegs by the register.

Holy cow! I must say, I’m surprised, but I’m certainly not disappointed. It’s a great looking entry and I’m sure TLG will do good things with the translation to the official set. Can’t wait to see how this shapes up.

They tend to be if they come in the branded box, but if you’re not the first person to go through it, odds of it staying in that order are pretty slim.

Hah, that’s a heckuva Castle build. Funny video too.

I’ve found them in two Targets and both had them stocked at the register, but not all registers. One Target brought me the box from the back and it was plain cardboard, full of loose bags, not the usual printed box. I counted over 70 bags in that box.

This is just a joy to behold! The color, the scale, recreating the details, brick building the panels…the sign is exquisite. It’s a great concept that’s expertly achieved. Now please do the rest of the classic sets in this style. :)

That's pretty good too. I just figured that since this is the flexible fabric kind (as opposed to the kind of cape that feels like paper and can crease), and the original fig's red princess hair presses on it too, this wouldn't be too bad.

I posted pics on my Instagram (sirblakebricks), but I found that you can sandwich a quiver between the two loops of the cape on the falconer. It looks really good!

Same here, but that was before TLG revamped PAB and made it much, much worse.