MAB

I hope the Pursuit of Flight. It is an interesting set in that it is a bit quirky compared to most LEGO sets being a kinetic model, a bit like the pop-up book. Although of course they have since done the dragon dance kinetic model. I like the medieval blacksmith but I don't think I'd buy it, plus it is a bit too niche (would the general public really buy it?) Seven Dwarves - fine if they get the license and include Snow White. Winnie the Pooh, same again - fine, but have a decent Tiger. The Office, no thanks. I like the show, but it is old and not as iconic as The Big Bang Theory or FRIENDS. NASA, we've had enough recently. Thunderbirds, no interest from me. History Museum, no thanks, stick with the modulars. And Haunted Mansion, no thanks, already got the MF set.

Amsterdam is getting a Flagship store, in December this year.

https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news-room/2019/september/interim-results-2019/ In English here. hey also mention Friends, Creator and Ninjago. Plus specifically mention Marvel. Top selling themes in the first half of the year were a mix of homegrown favourites and partner IPs. In no particular order they were LEGO® City, LEGO Creator, LEGO Friends, LEGO NINJAGO, LEGO Technic and LEGO Star WarsTM. LEGO Marvel Avengers sets performed especially strongly and LEGO Movie 2 products also contributed to consumer sales growth. Note that there is also some good news for Dutch fans - a Flagship Store in Amsterdam, coming December this year.

If it ends this way ... Series 13, officially worse than the Monsters Series 14!

Looks good, the shape is definitely there but I wonder if you need a bit of texture on the sides. Have you tried lowering your camera, so you are in line with the mouth sections when taking the shot to alter the perspective slightly, similar to the album cover.

For me, Fright Knight is the best. But that is for parts rather than the figure. Although this series is a welcome change from licensed ones, they have started to lose their charm. In earlier years, I collected them all. But now they are too many in the collection, with too many I won't use for anything, too many parts I cannot use for anything and too expensive for what they are. I'll target a few for body parts and/or accessories but that's it. Depending on how they sell, it might well be that I just buy the parts on bricklink rather than buying the CMFs. It is nothing about this series though, this started back about S13/14 for me and they have gradually gone down since then. I know people tend not to like themed series, but I wouldn't mind if they did say a City themed CMF series, then a Warriors themed series, then a Space themed series, and so on. That way, I might get interested in buying a load at once, and can ignore them again until another interesting series comes up. At least that way, you don't get ones that are completely useless to you.

Yeah, I remember the 11 Doctors set, I think it was £20, which at the time seemed really expensive. This was back when CMFs were new and also seemed expensive at £2 each. But many stores ended up selling the 11 Doctors set at £9.99, so presumably most customers thought £20 was too much as well.

Yeah and it is often forgotten that sellers have to pay such fees when looking at how much they make. It is worse on amazon, for LEGO it is something like 15% plus a fixed fee of 99c for small time sellers. No wonder prices are so high for retired sets on there. Reselling is not easy money!

I think this is the correct answer here. The description could be "We haven't got the complete set, but we'll build what we can and claim it is an older set that people might search for, rather than just a job lot of old castle parts."

I think I would have gone with a lighter wall colour. Where you have the modulars looks quite dark. A good colour (if you want colour and not white) for behind modulars is light blue, so it looks like sky. It is possible to have trains running backwards and forwards if you don't mind doing a little bit of programming and using a small control board like an arduino or similar. Once the train breaks an IR beam or crosses a sensor you can get it to switch direction. But before you do this, I warn you it is boring to watch, more so than a train doing a circuit. Is there room to pull the desk away from the wall? You could always have an insert level with and behind the desk to make it deeper. If you don't like the look of that, you could create a false wall at the back of the desk with a shelf top on it for display, and have a tunnel entrance and exit at each end of the desk. That way the train's return is hidden from view on the desk extension and you don't see it due to the false wall and shelf on top. Alternatively, get the train up high on shelves that go round the whole room above door height. That can look really good.

It is not only shipping, but also payment fees and other fees to sell. If you take payment by PayPal, this will typically cost 4-5% of the sale including charges on postage costs. eBay 10% (or bricklink 3% on goods only). So if something cost you $50 and will cost $10 to ship, and you sell it on ebay a year later, the buyer has to pay you at least $70.60 (including the shipping) for you to even make a profit. That's already 40% more a buyer needs to pay before the seller makes anything. Expecting 10x is way off these days. In the past 3-4x has been doable on some sets. Occasionally there have been better sets of course that are highlighted. But if buying at RRP now, even doubling your money is unlikely. Even getting 50% increase is hard these days. There are so many resellers these days that buy-in price is more important than ever.

Yes, there is a spectrum, but I was making the point that there are different ways of rating a series. Some people will look at the whole series, others will look at what they like from a series and base the series on a sub-set, others will look at whether it is licensed or whether it is themed. There is no right and wrong way. Although it is always subjective as it is based on an opinion of what is good or bad. Unless you define objectives, but even then it is subjective what the objectives should be. You could objectively score a series by the number of accessories per figure. That count is factual, and cannot be queried by anyone*. However, whether that objective is important or not is subjective. You could base it on the number of City style figures, or the number of army builders, or the number of new parts introduced, or how many torsos can be used with both yellow skin and fleshie minifigures, ... etc. Which is most important? It is a subjective decision. If we could objectively score these series, surveys are not needed. We would already know the winner. All we need to do is agree on the objective measures. And of course that is subjective. * Although it might be queried where there are extra parts.

No, if Amazon sold you the defective unit, then that should be your first point of call. LEGO are normally good at replacing small parts that customers say are broken or missing, and I imagine if it was a cheap part they would have done so here. However, the hub is the key electronic part of this set and is expensive. I imagine they get people claiming they have a defective one without even buying the set. So it probably makes sense for them to fall back on consumer law here - although they really should have told you to go back to the retailer rather than just cancelling a request, that is poor customer service. I'd contact Amazon. If they ask you to return it, don't both breaking it apart. Just break it into smaller chunks where possible. If you cannot break it any further quickly, then use a bigger box to return it in.

If you have an existing B+P cart you can click the in-cart link in the store and it avoids the yellowed out "buy replacement parts" links on their site.

What were they? I only noticed a droid head, still quite expensive too!

^ Thanks, so that theory is out.

If you bought it from amazon, then you probably should have returned the whole set to amazon. The part you requested from LEGO is the most expensive part of that set, and LEGO have no proof you bought the set, so them denying it is not so surprising. If you had bought through them, then they might have been a bit more sympathetic although they might have said to return the whole set to get a replacement.

Are the sections solidly built? I once tried to transport a cylindrical tower made by alternating 1x2 bricks and 1x1 round bricks. Diameter was about 12". These are quite weak structures anyway, and very easy to deform unless you put internal struts in. It didn't make it.

It is interesting how and why people vote for what they vote for. As this is a SERIES competition, I don't just look at the ones I like in a series. I also look at the ones that I really don't like and score those too. So while a series might have three great characters, if it has three terrible ones it won't score as well as a series with two great ones and one terrible one. Whereas someone else (if they agreed what is great / OK / terrible) might look and say a series with three great ones beats two great ones.

These have shown up on B+P (but not available) as 76382 with the neck print.  Normally CMFs don't have the neck print and show up as 88585. Has anyone got a picture of all of the new torsos and whether they have the neck band or not? If there is a mixture of with and without, does this correlate with them being inside the inner plastic bags?

I notice that CMF torsos are starting to appear under the 76382 torso listing: Although obviously don't get your hopes up that they will ever be available based on past ones. It is interesting though that they are appearing as 76382 (and have the neck print) and not 88585 (without neck print) which is where most CMF torsos appear. I wonder if this is an indication that these ones are printed in a different factory.

How wide are your buildings? And what is the problem you are having? Too hard to break apart or not strong enough? For my break layers on anything up to 32 studs wide, I normally use on each corner and then usually two 1x2 plates at roughly 1/3 and 2/3 the way along, with studless tiles covering the rest. I find that is enough to align and keep the build strong, but makes it easy to remove the layers of the build.

Out of interest, what qualifies as a Space setting? If a theme is based on Mars or the Moon, for example, is that Space? After all, they are both locations. To me, Nexo Knights was more techno knights than space knights, but if they had travelled to another planet and built Knighton there, would it be Space? If people travelled to Mars and built a life there, would that be Space? Are spacecrafts necessary for something to be Space?

It is a shame that the mermaids never saw light of day, they could have had that as an extension of Elves. Although one thing he says in the CV: Some boardgames I helped launch included: LEGO Phineas and Ferb

I don't know if that is where they originate, but for many years mine have been postmarked from Germany. Compare that to the number of $100+ sets they sell in a day and it is obvious why the bricks and pieces service doesn't get the attention we think it deserves.