MAB

So now you just need to find a manufacturer that will do an individual pick a brick service of good quality parts cheaper than LEGO. Picking parts is very time consuming, and it is not worth automating a system for individual orders. LEGO already tried that and it wasn't economical. They partially offer it again through bricks and pieces, but they cannot offer it cheaply. There is a demand for just about everything though but it cannot all be supplied. If a small company nips away at the fringes, it is not going to destroy LEGO. Sure, a small clone manufacturer can make LEGO compatible trains and do well in a niche market. Whereas presumably it is not worth LEGO putting more effort than they already do into that market as that would take resource away from other more profitable areas. Even if a clone manufacturer completely dominated the area of brick build trains is LEGO in trouble? I doubt it, they would just lose that small part of the business. Although even then, some LEGO fans would probably still buy LEGO trains as they are LEGO first and trains second. There are many small companies that thrive because they make things LEGO do not, such as military parts and minifigures. It is very unlikely that they will take LEGO's core market though.

Same here, nice enough plane and minifig, horrible stand. Why does it even need to be angled like that?

Everyone wants something more than what is already offered though. Not just trains. And for LEGO to satisfy the wants of one group means not satisfying another group. Of course, LEGO could pump out five trains a year and make multiple different curve sizes. But that may mean they have to cut down on technic or Modulars or something else to divert resources to it. And that would not be worth it, as LEGO is not a train company.

I'm not sure they will do another medieval theme IDEAS set. There were a number of ones that reached review similar to the fishing store, by the same designer, and all failed to pass. If they want to do more adult aimed medieval sets, I imagine they will do them outside of IDEAS.

I can't think of any. There have certainly been parts that were valuable on the secondary market that were brought back into sets and made available on bricks and pieces, making the price tumble, but that is different.

You still have to have people turn away from LEGO though. Inertia due to snobbishness over other perceived inferior brands is a thing.

I don't think they existed, LEGO was just a product sold in other stores then. The first brand stores were early 2000s, and there were Imagination Centers back in the 90s.

I guess everyone sets there Castle themes in different ages. I set mine around English civil war times, and also use Musketeers, Conquistadors, etc. for their clothes and armour. Plus the morion helmet for pikemen and so on.

Nearly Headless Nick is, he looks good alongside CMF Actors and Shakespeares. Similarly Dumbledore is often useful for wizards, McGonagall, Sprout and Flitwick are useful too. Lucious Malfoy in the black coat, and some of the torsos from Diagon Alley. And the executioner.

It was available on b+p back in 2017 too. It was cheaper to buy the complete Lester on b+p than buying the polybag!

Some people do army build more ramshackle groups than regular armies with just a single torso design. Using other accessories, turning parts around, covering parts of the print with beards or armour, different heads, headgear, legs, arms, and so on all help vary the characters. But yes, peasant crowd builders would like more variation than army torso prints. Those two both have "full fat" bodies. Not slimmed down like this one. Those extra shaded regions make a difference as it is a sign of a female torso. Of course, if you can ignore it then you can use it for a male. However, it looks odd when all other men don't have them.

It has been up and down all day, currently completely down.

The indents at the sides are for female torsos. Why would you build an army of civilians? Because often people want many peasants working in fields or similar. Plain old style rag clothes are therefore useful, hence why they are so expensive on the secondary market.

The green torso is not really an army builder plus it has female curves at the waist which limits the use. If they had done a revamped forestman torso, like in CMF S1, whether it had a female head or not in the sets then I imagine it would also be selling out at B+P.

It is also yet another element to take care of that needs to be located and stored and that of course means associated costs. If they already have a similar design, then they might well use it. Although sometimes we see new prints in Creator 3-in-1s, they tend to use generic or already produced parts. It still wouldn't surprise me if it is the Robin Loot / hunter from the latest IDEAS sets although I hope for a gender neutral peasant torso, so it can be used to create both male and female peasants. No buxom cleavage, and no hairy chest.

UK stores (in addition to Amazon) that have sold new sets at 20% or more off in the past year: Smyths, TESCO, Sainsburys, ASDA, The Entertainer, ALDI, Morrisons, Argos, John Lewis, Costco, IWOOT. There are probably more.

Released this morning, and these are already on offer in the UK. Beatboxes are £11.99 at Smyths and Amazon instead of the £17.99 LEGO set as the RRP.

Yeah does look good, and male. When I said from the name, I meant just the name before looking at the figure. Chief Mamma-tus sounds very female to me.

First time I've seen him. From the name I assumed it would have been female (like the origin of the cloud name) and would have gone for MAM-mah-tus or even MAM-MAH-TUS.

It depends. Check the prices for all the parts you need from one seller if they can fulfill the lot, then compare what would happen if you split the order between two sellers and keep going until the price is acceptable.

Not really. The market for these is incredibly small, at these prices. Having a band of resellers selling to a fixed pool of buyers just means less income for the originator.

The downside (or upside, depending on opinion) of Creator is brick building even small animals.

LEGO can afford to lose fans, especially those that want them to continue to do things the way they were done in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. How many LEGO purchases are driven by someone after attending a fan event. I would imagine an incredibly tiny amount. Even hard-core fans can afford to be lost. LEGO is stagnating in Europe and the US not because it is doing badly, but because they have reached saturation. It is probably at a maximum fan level now, more than ever. Which of course is why it is trying to expand in Asia and elsewhere. Do I think corporate LEGO is good? No. I don't think their customer service is great any more. However, their output is still very good, even if they don't make what I want them to make. That they sell out very quickly of sets shows that their supply cannot keep up with demand, which can be seen as a positive (loads of people buying) or negative (they don't produce enough). Should they increase production through new factories? Probably not as they expanded too rapidly on the back of TLM and that lead to job layoffs when that growth did not continue. There have been exoduses of fans before. When they first started doing licensed themes, people complaining that SW will ruin LEGO. Same after the colour changes of LG/DG to LBG/DBG, some people stopped buying LEGO. I was too young to notice at the time, but I imagine people also got upset about the introduction of the minifigure and moving away from people-less town plan style builds. Things change. Fans leave all the time, but they have continually been replaced. It would not surprise me if the European and US sales fall in future years, but will be bolstered by Asian sales. And LEGO will probably take that. Until the Creator set comes out / is leaked, there is not really much to discuss. Just wants lists and complaints about other licensed and non-licensed themes stopping Castle making a comeback.

Revenue and reputation indices seem to say otherwise though. • LEGO: group revenue 2019 | Statista

Yeah, I am not arguing that the only themes that can sell are media based ones but that any non-media based ones have to coexist with media based ones on the shelves. We often see an argument that LEGO didn't bother to advertise Pirates 2015 or Castle 2013 properly, compared to the media driven themes. This is exactly the issue. Without media, the competing themes get much more airtime and hence better advertisement. Then when the non-media themes don't do so well, fans blame LEGO for not supporting them.