MAB

Yeah, although online they will probably be in both categories. For example, the "Unikitty! Collectibles Series 1" can be found when browsing both the Unikitty! theme and the Minifigures theme. I think the Juniors sets are the same - although The Joker Batcave Attack is in the DC Super Heroes section, it can also be found via the Juniors selection too. You are probably right about licensed Minifigure themes too. Currently, the Harry Potter series is formally in the Minifigures section, but also viewable from the Harry Potter section. It would make sense to do it the other way around (not that it matters much).

I'm sure it would be interesting to visit, but I'd get diverted into the STROOPWAFELS store next door.

Even LEGO is not consistent with the naming - although they do not use the term bracket at all. These "brackets" all have different keywords: PLATE WITH PLATE UPWARDS, ANGULAR PLATE, ANGLE PLATE: This one is officially know as: PLATE WITH VERT TUBE. It is interesting to note that the key piece in naming it is the 1x2 plate, not the 2x2 tile part.

Forget about the number of parts in a set - it is not a good number if you are MOCing. Look at the number of USEFUL parts in a set. Are you after mainly 1x4 bricks or 1x2 bricks for your buildings? If so, then look at the number of those, and in the right colour schemes, in a set. You will probably find bricklink is the cheapest place to buy them, probably used condition. It does depend on the colour of course. Street type buildings are popular (as are castles and space ships) so any colours used in those in useful sizes tend to be more expensive.

I think that is a clear indication that LEGO has a definition of what a minifigure is and Unikitty does not fit it. It is not a surprise to me that they have gone with calling these CHARACTERS rather than MINIFIGURES.

There is also a lack of interest in D2C Star Wars sets, they simply do not sell in such numbers as small sets.

There has always been that conflict between being a catalogue of what Lego issued and what sellers and buyers want. They are starting to relax it a bit, for example, by allowing large figures such as Groot to be listed as a figure.

I reuse jiffy bags and Royal Mail will be delivering to my street anyway, so there is no ecological issue for me.

Maggie Simpson in two different CMF series: Base plus THREE parts in each case.

Do you have a picture of the bag or box confirming that this is the official name? After all, LEGO don't use "CMF" at all in their descriptions. They call them "Minifigures Series". I'm not disputing it is a Minifigures series rather than a Characters series, but it seems strange that they would put something that they seem to have always avoided calling a minifigure in the product descriptions into a minifigure series, or into a bag where the contents explicitly state that it contains a minifigure. If they do call a brick-built animal such as unikitty a minifigure, then they might as well use the same term for droids and so on.

And isn't the reason for that because there is not enough interest in them (that is, sales of the sets) to justify making specialized new parts for that set.

I imagine that points to them thinking there isn't the demand for a full line (or even set), but enough interest to do this. Of course, they also need to fit them into the movie, but then some of the TLM characters that were in CMF were essentially cameos anyway, so it is probably quite easy to shoehorn in a few extra characters in production. It will be interesting to see how much screen time they get.

If you are ordering over £50, then postage is free if you add a single part from PAB (or about 6p if you include the cost of that part!)

One of my kids got a clone set for her birthday (I think Block Tech, I didn't look too closely). I was a bit uneasy with her getting it mixed in with the normal LEGO, but it turns out the clutch is really quite good. In fact, I'd go as far to say as good as LEGO. And the really good thing is that she wants to keep it built and not mix it in!

Although they still distinguish between minidolls and minifigures, and minidolls are more of a minifigure than unikitty. In the description of Sweet Mayhem's Systar Starship "Includes 5 THE LEGO® MOVIE 2™ characters: a LEGO Emmet minifigure and Lucy minifigure, plus a Sweet Mayhem mini-doll figure and brick-built Heart and Star toy figures." And SW droids are still not minifigures, being mentioned separately to minifigures. But then in the Lucy Box, they also imply unikitty is NOT a minifigure: "Includes 2 THE LEGO® MOVIE 2™ characters: a new-for-January-2019 Lucy minifigure, plus a brick-built Unikitty toy figure." Have the new packets been seen yet? Do they say "1 LEGO MINIFIGURE" (like CMF of old) or "1 LEGO CHARACTER" (like the unikitty series.)

I'll take that as proof that Jedi mind tricks actually work. Or maybe just a coincidence.

Brilliant!! The only improvement I can think of is using this droid instead: or maybe the snowman R2-D2.

I'm not a winner (yet!), but good luck to everyone else as we enter squeaky bum time. 4 days left ...

Thanks for the answers. I agree about it being a bit of a con when they use essentially the same thing but make it incompatible just to make old ones unusable - if there is no functional change they should try to keep things as similar as possible. I'm always hacking things so I've never bought into mindstorms (it costs too much to break it!), preferring arduino or raspberry pi, where of course the electronics and connections are much more open source.

Yes, thanks for bringing these up. I know customisers have done similar ones before but the amount they were charging for the helmets and shields made it very expensive to make an army. I've gone for a small army of these, and will use just the Gondor parts to add to LEGO minifigures. Now can they make a proper Witch King helmet too? Then I'll be content after LEGO's missed opportunities.

I've never used one, is there some non-standard connector on it? Can you not just use a LIPO or similar rather than damaging / gluing an existing part (which also has some value)? Normally on things like this, if you can get to the contacts where the battery connects you can use a third party solution if the right voltage.

That part was around long before Nexo Knights. It was first in some large figures but then also used in a number of Chima sets. Whirling vines came with two dark green ones, especially good for plants, and anyone that collected a large gorilla army that way will have loads!

And some will say "Wow, that's Big Show" before they even think of LEGO.

I imagine "only" meaning not good enough to be considered (after all 1000 is just 10% of what is needed), while implying it was still a good effort to get to 1000.

There is a difference between the contents of a new set and a used set. For example, a Jungle Boy set contains two knives which are a single part on a sprue. For the set to be new, this single part should not be broken apart into two parts (two knives). Whereas for a used set, you only need one knife. The knife should really be listed as an alternate part to the two knives on a sprue, since only one is needed to complete the used set. However, the way BL works doesn't allow that, as if it is an alternate part for a used set, it is also an alternative for the new set. Unless BL keeps separate entries for both new and used sets, there is no real way around this. If the knives above are listed as one knife in the set and one extra, then it is not strictly correct as they came as a single part in the new set. The current way works for new sets better than for used. Whereas listing them as one part plus an extra works better for used sets. I don't think extras are affected, if they are single extra parts - aren't these dealt with the way they always have been. I think part of the reason for this is for when BL starts to import inventories from LEGO. As sprued parts have one number, then that is what LEGO supplies in the online inventory and also in the paper copy and that is what will be in the BL catalogue. The same as LEGO, as they import inventories direct already. So sprued parts will be the sprued parts, not individual ones.