MAB

Watch out! Soon they will be removing all straight track from sets, saying that this is because their new wheels more are efficient than old wheels on curved track .. It also reminds me of washing powder/liquid adverts - wash whiter than ever - our new product is much better than the old. Or shaving razor adverts - 2 blades are better than 1. 3 blades are better than 2. 4 blades are better than 3. 5 blades are better than 4. ... so what they are really telling us is that for 30 odd years they stuck with an inferior system.

The other issue is what are you printing on? Some decal paper is really bad for small decals. Larger prints from a distance look fine, but up close cheaper decal paper can really bleed ink. So even if your decals print well on normal paper, they can look terrible on the decal paper.

You can already get Mordor Orcs, although these are direct fakes of the LEGO ones. They are LEGOing brand rather than Koruit. I still hope for a Witch King, although I guess the helmet rules him out. Although they do plenty of one-off (non-army builder) characters across LOTR, Hobbit, GoT, SH, etc, I guess these tend not to have new specialised moulds.

Now available at S@H in the UK.

This isn't a fact. It is also somewhat contradictory, like your other statement about nobody asking but you told them. If they have recently started and it has also grown to 40% then that suggests that before recently, it was ZERO. Otherwise it hasn't recently started. So it has gone from 0% to 40% "recently" whatever that means. Yet AFOLs that have been lego fans for many years know that LEGO has listened to AFOLs and produced sets for AFOLs for longer than "just recently".

I guess they need the 10 point stuff to make it look like they have rewards to give away. If they remove those and the "SOLD OUT" stuff, there would hardly be anything left.

I'll upload some here once they are finished. I only got time to do the base coat last night, and still have to file off the sprue marks.

Yes, they do. For example, the creation of the Modulars and the whole of Creator Expert. UCS Star Wars sets, the majority of larger technic sets. They don't make these for kids. They listen to AFOLs , just like they listen to feedback from kids. Of course, that doesn't mean they are going to listen to every idea from AFOLs, especially if this goes against their ideals or interferes with other product lines. And then there is the IDEAS theme - what is that if not listening to AFOLs?

I haven't got around to ordering those yet, so I'd be interested in what you think. I started painting the elves helmets and shields with a metallic gold paint last night. They look so much better with metallic gold than pearl gold.

I agree. I have had that happen before twice and I've complained. One time, they offered VIP points (but not enough in my opinion) and I refused and returned the item. The other time, I just said I wanted to return. I don't think I ever buy from S@H unless there is a good promotion on, I'd prefer to spend my money elsewhere and usually get more for my money.

Atlantis sets were on the shelves at the same time as PQ and AC in 2011.

Probably because there are no constraction sets this year and technic is the most "non-system" left.

Best theme: Hidden Side Best minifigure: Executioner from HP (hp183) Best set: 77903 Batman vignette. I don't own the "set" but BL'ed it. It is a fantastic little skyline vignette with some play features too. Otherwise a toss up between the Lunar Lander and the 1989 Batmobile (neither of which I own yet). Worst theme: Lego Originals (one awful set) but if I am not allowed that then Collectable Minifigures - two licensed sets with little interest for me, then a fairly poor non-licensed one. When only about 4-5 out of 60+ sets interest me, it has to be poor. Worst Minfiigure: Monica from Friends / Central Perk or most of CMF S19 if only as they could have been so much better and we end up with that Carebear, pizza man, gardener, mountain biker, fire fighter, dog sitter, etc. And Frozone from Disney CMF has to be up there too. Worst set: Wooden minifigure 853967 Most anticipated for 2020: Nothing much yet. Probably the Mandalorian Battle Pack. Or maybe the un-licensed CMF S20 but I imagine it will be contender for worst set of 2020 (like S19 above).

I think also it depends on the builder. I buy a lot of the large panels on BL, not for me but for my son. He likes using them for castle walls as they are quick to build with and he can get on playing at castles. Whereas I prefer to build walls with bricks as I tend not to play once the build is done, for me it is more about the build.

I just received my first batch. I have some similar impressions. The colour is horrible. The pictures make it look like the shields and helmets are metallic gold, but these are more like pearl gold. Whereas the Gondor soldiers were a metallic silver. Still, never mind I will paint them metallic gold. The helmets are really nice, the shields are probably a bit too detailed but will still look good. I got mainly daggers, and yes these are nice. I don't mind the capes. They are narrower than LEGO's ones, but with enough of them I can equip an army and for them not to look odd next to the bigger LEGO ones. Overall I am happy with them. I bought them for mainly for the accessories and will sell on the bodies as I prefer to use genuine LEGO for minifigures.

I'm not sure many people do buy them just for the freebies. It is more that they time their purchase of an expensive set to make sure they get the freebie. And if they cannot get the freebie, then they might as well put off buying the expensive set.

Why do you need plastic? What sort of adverse storage conditions are you trying to protect them from? I'd keep them in a cardboard shipping box. Or in a plastic storage box if humidity is poor.

For the most part, I don't mind specialised parts such as the plane windscreens. You cannot build something as smooth looking as those out of regular parts. If you want a brick built plane, you can do that. If you want a smoother looking one, you can do that too. However, parts such as that one above are annoying as they are essentially a lot of bits glued together. I'd prefer to have the component parts than the lump.

But only when the robbers are likely to get caught.

In this case, the big set in question 76139 is actually an adult's building toy. And at the price it is going for, I imagine 40433 is going to remain an adult's building toy too. The lack of stock of the freebie small one put me off buying the big one. That other people were able to get one for free does make it feel like I would have been ripped off if I had paid full price and not got one. And in that case, it is worse than there not being a freebie with the purchase. If it remains exclusive, I'll wait for another promo. If it goes to retail stores, I'll wait for a discount.

I like the designs of both, but not the colour of the house. A small row of houses would be nice though, so I'll just steal the design.

This is where experience / knowledge helps. Although the language used in part titles sometimes varies, knowing what search terms are likely to appear can make it easy to identify prints relatively quickly. If I get anything like that and I don't know what it is, I usually identify the parent part type, then first go to colour, then part type, then see how many parts there are of that part type. If I can identify the shape of the part, I use that. If lots of parts are still possible, then I search for keywords, if not (so a page or less) then I go by eye. I can usually find most unidentified printed parts in under a minute.

If you want multiples of the same characters, then you are welcome to them, especially at that price! I'll buy some for parts when reduced to 50% off.

It shouldn't be too time consuming, if you know how to use bricklink searches efficiently. You don't really even need to find rarer parts or prints to do this, common parts work if you have some that are stuck together. For example, if you find two or three parts connected together, then the multiple search will help with this: https://www.bricklink.com/catalogIn.asp?viewMulti=Y Choose two or three parts that you can identify easily and enter both the part and colour for each, and you will get a list of the sets that those three parts appear in. Even for three relatively common bricks, the lists are surprisingly short. However, if you can identify one less common part, often the list is very short. For example, if you find two of these on top of one of these then they appear to be relatively common parts. The lime green 1x1 slopes are in 82 sets and the white 2x2 slope is in 366 sets. 82 is a large number of sets to start looking through. Yet together, those two quite common and easy to identify parts occur in only 8 sets and you can quickly and easily check the set pictures to spot that combination, or start to look for other common parts that they are connected to that will restrict the search. If you have five or six reasonably common parts connected together (and it is a real set) then chances are you can identify the set unambiguously using a couple of multiple parts searches. Of course, this will only help if there are remnants of sets with some parts still connected.

It is probably easier to not give him any alcohol references. After all, Homer drinks beer, thinks about beer, makes beer and advertises beer, yet they still made him.