MAB

Magnets, superconductors and liquid nitrogen. Yeah, probably best that LEGO avoid that. It reminds me of this .. Although I don't think that realistic play features are that important. For years kids have played with spaceships, swooshing them around. Way before SW came on the scene. The app idea is interesting though. I imagine my kids would like to build a ship, photograph it from multiple angles to build a 3D model and then animate it flying across a space scene.

There is a new yellow-skin chef torso: Note this is different to the CMF one - no cuff printing.

What do you mean by asiatic here? Those sets look more western to me, but could fit into any City scene.

Not for minifigures they haven't. The "greener solution" parts are used in botanicals, https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news-room/2018/march/pfp, mainly softer polythene parts. Although polythene made from sustainable sources is the same chemically as polythene from oil based sources.

No. If you buy from an established seller, you are very unlikely to get Lepin.

Expensive. Use bricklink and you can get them significantly cheaper. Of course you will pay postage so order multiples at a time.

At 10 minutes for 340 parts, that is almost two seconds per part. I wouldn't call that a speed build. You could easily speed up the video by a factor of 3 or 4 to get it down to about three minutes and people can still see the build at that speed.

How would a non-licensed superheroes theme work? You really need a back story for any superhero, and if LEGO need to develop these and then have them compete for shelf space with the (mainly) Marvel and DC brands, they might as well put that effort into something a little more unique - like they did with Ninjago, Chima, Monster Fighters, Nexo Knights, etc.

Neither of them fit well with the modulars, as they are completely different style builds. But it is really up to you. Do you want a donut store in your city? If you do, go with that set. If you don't then go with the other one.

If you want people for a city scene, why limit yourself to just large packs? The Collectible Minifigures line has produced loads of 'regular' people minifigures - butcher, baker, plumber, mechanics and loads of other jobs, plus lots of more civilian style people. Many are still readily available.

It is not just the Vatican or the Roman / Latin Church. Crossed keys (the keys of heaven) are used to denote St Peter across most Christian faiths. For example, Leiden in the Netherlands has them on its flag, due to their large church dedicated to St Peter. They are dotted around York too, as York Minster is devoted to St Peter, same in many English cities like Exeter, Winchester, Gloucester . We also have a lot of pubs called The Cross Keys, and they are nearly always found near a church dedicated to St Peter. But the origin is the same - the keys of heaven, so it is strange that LEGO are using them given the link with religion. That would be Leicester Square (hence the Lester minifigure), not Lancaster Square.

Isn't the point of being in-house that they would not name such inspirations anyway?

Often it is due to larger pieces, especially if there is train track.

Yes, eras overlap because eras are not well defined. It is like trying to put music into eras, but with a constraint that you are only allowed one era to be active at any one time.

They have also done it to different tiles. See the BL post.

While there are not volcanoes in the city, there ARE volcanoes in City. Similarly, City is near the sea, the jungle, swamps, etc. My kids have got multiple sets from different subthemes of City, including Arctic, deep sea diving and volcanoes, and have never been confused about it.

See here, a couple of posts down from the start.

I don't have the tattered wings, but do have the bird and dragon wings and the tattered ones as based on the latter: These are some of my favourite parts. I prefer them to LEGO's equivalent wings. The muscles do not bother me. LEGO arms don't have muscles as they choose to use the same plain arms for all characters or similar ones like the bat-wing types. However, the torsos often show highly detailed muscle patterns, so having it on the arms is not a problem for me. Another of my favourite parts are the molded capes. To me, being plastic, these are more LEGO-like than LEGO's own cloth ones. There is never any problem with them creasing, or shifting to the side, or fading, or getting dusty. I am surprised. I have always been impressed at how good the quality of both brickwarriors and brickforge parts is. I did once get a short-shot from brickforge, but other than that I have never had another molding problem and I find the colour consistency is good.

Usually very consistent. You have probably made a mistake feeling them, or have been sent a box that has been tampered with.

To answer that, you have to buy and then build them all. :-)

I agree Galidor was different to the rest of LEGO's production. Action figures with interchangeable arms and legs is, to me, a decent idea. After all, being able to take a minifigure, break it into parts and mix those parts up and being able to rebuild a completely new figure has made LEGO billions of dollars. Why not for action figures too? It had also been done in the past, for example, Kenner did it with The Six Million Dollar Man: With Kenner you could buy the individual sets of arms and legs, and Maskatron also had similar detachable limbs. LEGO may not have made action figures at the time, but they came up with a very good way of attaching limbs and body parts together. I think the production values were equally as good as those in Bionicle, for example. Why did it bomb? To me, it was not to do with the parts, it was the media. Taking a risk like that producing different style of toys compared to their normal portfolio had to be backed by a decent storyline. People were not going to buy them because they were LEGO branded, as they were not normal LEGO. There had to be a reason to buy them, and the reason was not very good. However, if they had used an external, well-known license such as Star Wars or Superheroes, they might well have taken off and introduced a whole new range of LEGO figures. For me, the toys (and parts) were decent in themselves. There was just no reason to buy them. Ninjago is now a huge success. Yet if that had not taken off after the first wave, it could have similarly been cut and seen as a useless experiment. The same with Chima and Nexo Knights. Of course, for these the parts are always useful since they are based on the normal LEGO system. If the storylines bombed, the parts were still parts. Galidor had neither the system nor the storyline, which is two risks at once. If it had paid off, people would look back with hindsight and say it was a genius move. If it didn't (and it didn't), people look back and say it was a dreadful mistake.

If 50% off, then yes for a parts pack. Otherwise no. I'm not sure who it is aimed at. As an AFOL, I'd prefer one decent modular than two of these. Whereas as a parent, there are many other sets my kids are interested in. But I guess there must be a market for them otherwise they wouldn't make them.

Another alternative is to buy some LIPO batteries for a remote control car / boat / plane. You can get various different physical sizes with different capacities. You can either get ones to hide inside an official battery box - and they are much easier to remove than AAs - or just build your own connector. The PF connections are well documented. The PF battery boxes are a nominal 9V but the motors work fine on 7.4V, the voltage of a 2-cell LIPO. You can get a 5000 mAh 7.4V battery for about £25 in the UK. If all you want are lights, then get a cheap small capacity single cell LIPO, they are fine for driving LEDs. As lots of RC people use them, they are not too expensive.

Discussions of his designs have come up many times now over the years and it is great to see how many of the original ones have been made, but so many great ones that never made it. His whole Mythology theme as well never materialised but gave us quite a few Romans and Greeks and Classical style Gods.

I don't buy their figures, but I have loads of brickforge and brickwarriors parts. They fill a gap that LEGO haven't filled.