eti

Anyway. I will join it as soon as I'm Canadian!

Hey thanks! I only clicked on my name in "Logged in as eti" and that won't work... so now I now! It means I do have to locate at least one of my post before being able to enter that context menu, right?

It's great work, it looks really convincing to me. The only thing is that I love Milne's and Shepard's creations and I hate Disney's bland version of it - to a point that we don't give Winnie the Pooh toys or clothes to our kids. But that does not make your creatoin any worse - if ever you decide to do the Carl Barks figures (Donald , uncle Scrooge and all the rest) and they're the same quality, I will order a set or two!

are people getting these ranks instead of their regular eurobricks ranks , then? complicated! well i never look at people 's ranks anyway because there's so many of them that I have no clue what it means when i see somebody is a citizen or a walrus or whatever...

Hi Erik, I'm Erik from the Netherlands too, welcome! For me too the modular houses that definitely got me back to Lego, but my interests are broad - I like cool designs no matter what theme they're in. I like some sets but MOC'ing is the main things for me. If I see what sets you like, and you like the fish - did you already see the Medieval Market Village set? That one's not bad at all!

And four of the same too! One little set as an extra could be a bonus, but four of the same is highly unlikely. Must be an error, methinks.

Is there a way to view my posts (in order to check for follow-up) on Eurobricks? I can't seem to find it... thanks! erik

What is "YTV"? Can you give a link? edit: googled it. Don't bother unless you're Canadian - apparently this is for Canadians only. If you are Canadian, look here: https://promos.ytv.com/legopowerminers/enter.asp Da death star, maybe you could have added this bit of info... Most readers are possibly not Canadian?

I appreciate your enthousiasm but I truly find these just about the ugliest things Lego has ever made. A car in three pieces! I like that car base, nothing wrong with that, but to have the rest of the car in 2 pieces with an instruction sheet that tells you where to apply the 300 stickers? That's so unlike Lego. And I'm not saying that because I'm from Europe so we won't have them anyway... they should have used the same promo items that we got with a brand of cookies, those were little 30 part polybags.

Your Fabuland review is the funniest thing I've read in ages! I like your MOC too, it works feasible as a set design. It's much better than the official set, which I got yesterday and built today - I agree with everything your say, basically. But you did pick the wrong episode... you based your MOC on the Southern Air Temple (ep. 3) and the set was based on the Northern air temple (ep. 17)... but the Northern air temple also sits high on a rock and it has lots and lots of little towers - it's just a tiny part they used for this set, and they combined things that don't go together (those doors must be inside!)

On the Lego site when you zoom in , those bricks with letters (stickers I think?) seem to be entirely colored in by hand with a magic marker? Are those preliminary pictures or what's up? Also, what color green will it be, dark green?

I looked up the lines in Bricklink - Knights Kingdom I is simply Castle to me, no difference at all. Knights Kingdom II is a line I don't see any consistency in . Half the sets are big Bionicle-like monster things which I can't stand, the other half are minifig scale (so not compatible unless we are in a version of the Middle Ages that had big fighting machines) and those are okay. Like castle but with a twist - not bad at all.

Okay, what's MSRP?

That's right, I had to order them (this avatar set and the other one together) from the US, because nobody in Europe had them. There were two Dutch webshops that had the ship on their site but they didn't really have it... besides, I ended up paying 105 euros for both sets and shipping now, I wouldn't have found them new in Europe for 105.

I'm not really sure what the reviewers academy is or how to join it, I almost never make reviews... I'm more of a MOC'er, normally edit: I managed to find it (for future readers: it's here), and i would like to know what standards for reviews they have, but it's not really worth joining for me (you have to follow a course and post in a hidden forum etc.) since I don't buy that many sets and I normally don't care about writing reviews...

Thanks to Eurobricks I have heard about the Avatar cartoons. After seeing the whole first season I really wanted the Avatar Fire Nation Ship, so I had to order it from the US.... I built it and I'm not disappointed, so I'd like to share my experiences! There are already two other reviews of this set too, here and here. all images are clickable to enlarge them This is what the set looks like when everything is taken out of the bags. Not bad, for people who like dark bley... As you can see in the part list, there's an awesome lot of bricks - especially 2x6 and 1x12 - and 2x4 wedges. There's some black, red and dark red, too - this is the only set apart from the Maersk ship that has 1x10 dark red bricks. Overall there is a lot of bricks and wedges, quite a few round bricks and panels, and not so many technic thingies (only a few to make the catapult). The manual is 84 pages and it has some nice Avatar symbols on the background. Black and dark gray are often hard to distinguish, but not here - they decided to make black so dark that you almost can't count studs, and it's hard to tell how many plates should be put next to each other sometimes. The solution is to place a really bright lamp over your table: The first half of the manual makes the boat hull in 45 steps. It's quite an easy build over all, the trickiest part is trying to distuingish the black parts... and there is no indicator of new parts for every step, so you have to carefully look where some stuff is added. Also, in some cases a large number of parts added, sometimes just one or two. It is a surprising move to have such a large ship - and the thing IS large, you slowly realize it as you are building - entirely brick built. Especialy for what is essentially a playset, a readymade boat hull (good looking and quick play) would be expected. But brick built is more building fun and results in an impressive looking ship, not bad at all. Aang and Zuko are supervising the building activities: So, here is the completed hull. It is so high that a minifig can easily walk inside - on the inside it is divided into several compartments with some decoration. The bit with the flags could be the main hall, the bit with the black and trans-neon-orange round plates must be the engine: Then it's on to the second part of the manual, and the second bag if you have a new set. Here is a surprise - apart from the hull, the ship has a modular structure. There are four seperate pieces that stand on the hull and can be taken off to look and play inside. And there is a little boat that comes out of the big boat in the rear. The four pieces that come off are a hidden cage, a small working catapult, the bridge of the ship (with a chimney) and a chimney: The bridge is a fantastic build. It has hinges so when it's taken off the ship it hinges open to look inside. The trans red bricks give it that fire nation glow, and the actual bridge with the steering wheel is all the way at the top. So, the hull with the smal boat inside and the four elements on top make one complete ship. All brick built and very recognizable from the cartoons. And did I say it is BIG? That leaves us the minifigs - and this is actually the only thing where they could have done better. Tthe minifigs that are included, look awesome. Aang is not really shown in a meditative mood, he's definitely the Aang that is whizzing through the skies with his winged stick - and that brings to a part where they missed out. Why aren't those wings included? Here is a picture of what I'm talking about If this ship is supposed to be a top end Avatar set (well, there are only two sets but they were originaly planning more, I presume) it really needs all relevant figures and their accessories. So, Aang needs his wings, and his flying lemur. And where's Sokka? (well, he's in the Air temple set, like the lemur and the wings...) And a complaint I have heard before - the firebenders have a fire piece, but why aren't there a few water pieces for Katara? Just a few trans light blue waves wouldn't have been too much. I do understand there's no flying bison.. that would have needed to be a separate set. On the fire nation side, the soldier, firebender and Prince Zuko are alright, but I am dearly missing Zuko's uncle. He should have been there, playing a board game and contemplating... Oh, but do look at the back of Aang's and Zuko's head... those are nice details. So, here is my overall verdict: (I'll use a 5 point scale like film reviews over here normally do... please multiply by two if you want a 10 point scale!) Pieces: ***** Lots of pieces, and very useful ones, too, for all sorts of purposes. Only things that are less useful would be the Fire Nation Flags (when it comes to Avatar MOCs, the other 3 nations aren't there) and I'm not sure about that one giant light gray roof part either. But lots of long bricks and wedges in dark gray already make this a great parts pack. Design: ***** Simply awesome. Well, compared to the cartoons, the ship is probably still too small, but in reality it looks very much like the cartoon and it is huge. Where the Harry Potter sets basically had no walls in order to reduce part counts, this is a fully functional (and all brick built!) ship with nothing missing at all. Playability: ***** Apart from the missing figures (see next point) it's all very versatile, you can easily get into all areas, and there's room enough for a big fight on the deck. Figs and accessories: *** The figs that are there, look great. But two key players are missing and there are really not enough accessories. Overall, it's one of the best sets Lego ever made. It looked very promising for the Avatar line and we have to be really sorry that the line was discontinued after only two sets, and that availabilty for these sets was so bad (only in one or two countries and only for a short period!). A missed opportunity - but at least we got this!

It's a great little set - and it is revolutionary, because it's the first time Lego has included real minifigs in a set intended for 4+ kids, and not those Jack Stone like, Fabuland or fingerpuppets figures. Not a bad move, I think - little children love the regular minifis, my kids are only two and they already love changing hats and hairdos.

Personally I have accumulated enough baseplaes by now but some sets really need baseplates and don't have them. The custom car garage would have been nice with a road plate, but it could do without - but the Medieval Market Village really, really needed a baseplate. It has tons of little bits and pieces that just sit around on the floor now and that would really need somet place to put them on. Personally I'm not a big fan of the 3D baseplates, most of the time they look pretty bad I think, with printed on bricks and other things they could have done without.

The only figure I find really, really *~HoT~* is... Poekie de Poes!!!

No, the heads should look like this: except the ears would need to point up!

I think it is good news over all for Lego. Can't hurt for the company to have some licences of popular stuff and Disney makes sure everything they release is popular... now for the sets, Cars will be Duplo only, Toy story could be nice but I don't know much about it, and Prince of persia sounds most promising just by the name because I have really never heard about it. My big dream would be classic Disney - the stuff I grew up with. That's Mickey Mouse, I'd love to see more of those sets (it was sort of like a follow-up for Fabuland, and quite a good one too, except the figures were awkward). And especially the stories we all read as kids (well, I did, anyway), which is the whole Carl Barks universe. Scrooge McDuck, the witch that wants to steal his lucky dime to melt it in a volcano, the inventor with this wacky inventions (sorry, to lame to look up the English names of all the characters!) - all at minifig scale with new head moulds of course. And it would work. Children would love them because they read those comics (at leas over here there's a Donald Duck weekly that is still very popular), and parents would choose those over almost all other Lego themes because they love it too.

(images are clickable to enlarge) The Dutch Lego user group Lowlug had an MMM (Mini MOC Madness) contest with the theme 'Surprise'. Rules were to build max 16*16 studs and send in max 3 pictures. Inspired by the fact that last month it was the first time in many years that we could skate on natural ice, I made a frozen canal with ice skaters. One skater thinks he is rescueing somebody that fell through the ice - but much to his surprise, it is a lady who normally lives in the water! On the background there is a typically Dutch food stand ('koek en zopie') that you'll often find on the ice, and the other skaters are a grandfather with his grandson on a sled, a lady who is just putting her skates on and a customer of the 'koek en zopie'. Here are two more views - click to enlarge: Here is an example of what a koek en zopie really looks like: And here is an example of a hole in the ice - with or without a mermaid in it: And here's the most stunning part - I actually won the contest! Click here to see all entries. Mine was called 'Wak' which is Dutch for 'Hole in the ice'. During voting we were not allowed to show our creations on the web, and the names of the makers were not on the site (only the admin knew who made what). I am almost ashamed to show the result of the voting: When I showed my MOC to my sister, she decided to change it into our ice skating adventures last month - so she made three minifigs that resemble her, her husband and me (I'm taking pictures, as always), and I made a windmill for the background. Here is the real three of us on the ice: And here is a few more pictures of ice skating with windmills in the background: The last picture is the only thing I posted on Flickr and MOC pages before: the little windmill. Posting the ice skating on Flickr would give away that the other ice skating thing was mine too, of course.

Oh, when I said 'crossbow' i just said the first English word I could think of that means 'bow that goes with arrows'... No idea about different kinds of bows at all.

I am a complete outsider when it comes to Star Wars - I have seen one film 15 years ago and found it very boring (I thought it was something Star Trek like but it wasn't... stupid me, of course). Yesterday I saw an episode of Clone Wars at work, because I work for TV. I had to change the Dutch subtitles that somebody in America made into real Dutch. I recognized the characters mainly because of Lego... Anyway, I found it really, extremely boring. The animation was alright, the backgrounds were great, but for the rest it was good guys vs. bad guys and they shot at each other for 20 minutes until the episode was over. The good guys won because Yoda had special powers and could meditate his opponents into numbness or something. I did not find it interesting enough to find out more... So I guess Star Wars is still not my thing! Financially, it is very good that I like Avatar (got to know that show thanks to Lego, too, never heard of it before) because now I have to collect only two sets.....

I don't like the idea that all 'play sets' need good and bad guys. Just put in a number of characters and let the kids decide who's good and who's bad. Mabye most characters will be good sometimes and bad at other times, just like real people.