MAB

Yeah, the nurse is expensive now.

RI was $30 for three figures, plus vignettes. So I guess they could justify $40 for this, maybe claiming printed parts costs. Then there is the "license tax". Plus the "this will sell like hot cakes anyway so we might as well screw them" theory.

There is always an exception! This guy is three years old:

Also quite a few have two coloured or printed hands. Are they homemade customs are or they made by a third party vendor?

I agree LEGO's competition is with a kids time, but then it always has been that way. But that doesn't mean Playmobil, K'Nex and Meccano are not direct competitors. They are competitors for time, and also competitors on the store shelf. I'm sure many a time a parent or grandparent has decided that little Timmy has enough LEGO already and gone for a different type of building toy for a present. I don't think so, they have had manufacturing presence in China for quite a while, at least as long as the CMF range has been going.

For me (40 years ago), it was a bucket of basic bricks and wheels that could make houses, cars, buildings for my (non-lego) train set, BOLOCs Star Wars spaceships that didn't look anything like they should but I could put my Kenner figures in them.

In the UK, just about every non-exclusive set will be available for at least 30% off at some stage, and many go to clearance. Be it in-house themes like MF or licenses like SW, LOTR, and SH.

I don't understand this comment at all. LEGO has had competition all through its existence. Megabloks is 50 years old now, Playmobil is over 40, K'Nex is 25. Tyco clones were big in the 1990s. Loads of other clones have existed since the expiry of the basic patents in the late 1980s. Before that, there weas competition from companies like Kiddicraft, Bayko, MiniBrix, etc.

They have always had the policy, just that they used to mess up a lot! The operators have always said that you cannot buy licensed parts if you phone them, but allow it if they appear in the database. Usually, if you see a part online in BAP, then they will let you buy it over the phone too. The LEGO Ninjago Movie is licensed, whereas the Ninjago theme is an in-house theme.

I found that lines printed on decal paper were not as sharp as lines printed (with the same printer) on regular document paper. The print seems to bleed into the paper. This is fine for colour blocks but not fine details. I think any printed customising suffers from a similar problem though. If you look at custom printed jobs close up, they always appear to be a bit blotchy rather than the smooth continuous prints on real LEGO or other PAD printed customs.

Yes, £15.

No, they haven't. I don't think any result has been announced. If you are sick of knock-offs, then just make sure you buy direct from LEGO or major retailers.

If you mean this one, it is not a real set. I cannot see LEGO doing a stadium like that, there would be outrage from fans of teams that play in many other stadiums around the world.

I will add though that the very popular figures from early series (Zombie, Spartan, Elf, etc) have hardly increased in value in the past 4 years. They had an initial rapid increase in value but have barely increased since then. Whereas some of the lesser valued ones from the early series have slowly increased in price.

Team GB was also odd (9). If they do a rare, I hope it isn't more rare than one per box. Although even then, if it will be easy to feel then the scalpers will just clear them out. So I hope they do a copy of a common one, just in different print / colour. That way, you will never know unless you open it.

Yes, the Man-Bat ears were much larger, too big for Spock! If they don't come in those new figures, I suggest colouring the piece with a black alcohol based marker pen rather than paint. Then colour the ears by using "lego paint" - dissolve an old fleshie head in minimal acetone and use it as paint.

Still (very) strong for the sought after ones. Still weak for the less sought after ones.

From what they have written on other forums, I don't think they are planning to do anything. This appears to be just a hypothetical question for a thesis. Of course, this may be wrong as multiple threads from similar names have been made elsewhere.

I'm sure minifigs will win the next round though!

I don't know the story source material, but the use of all those excess hammers for the wall is great!

Yes, unfortunately it has been going for a while. The parts it happened on first that really brought it to my attention were these, from the S8 CMF actor: The jacket is not too bad although appears not finished if used on other legs whereas the hips really need a dark green torso to be reused elsewhere. And the one that really annoyed me was Saruman with the dress slope. I think I had to get 4 or 5 before I got decent alignment between the torso and the slope printing. Some were almost 1mm off, which really shows on something this size. And even then, there is still a white line between the two parts, where the print is meant to be continuous but isn't. The same can be said of many necklines too. The S11 constable, for example. Why does he have yellow skin showing there? It appears he doesn't have a shirt on underneath the jacket. If that was printed white instead of yellow, it would also have made the design usable for fleshie customs too. Sometimes they do well though, for example in the S3 elf. No yellow neckline and a belt that stays on the torso and looks OK if you switch out the legs. An easy one for custom figures, yellow or fleshie. The same is true of both Roman soldier torsos, a nice design confined to just the torso (although their legs are for yellow skins only).

They don't have bat-printing on them, but they do have the black semi circular detail that doesn't match up with other roman torsos. It is a shame, if they had just had a belt on them and didn't try to do a continuous print across two parts (that never looks good due to the gaps) these legs would have been so much more useful. Of course, you could pull the legs from the hips and just use those, although this can weaken them significantly). Although the bats on the shield are not too Batman-like, which is quite nice.

That Duplo set was interesting in that although there is clearly conflict, there is no clear steer as to good vs bad factions. They are both "good" characters (white eagle vs lion). Whereas earlier duplo sets had the clear distinction of the bad knights usually wearing black (often with red) and the black dragon insignia.

So why use a lego name that has a specific meaning for something that is not? It is keyword spamming, likely to just annoy anyone that is searching for brickheadz. Even simple things like the shape of the feet are wrong, which could be done using duplo like the official lego models.

It wasn't. It was great. For me, it is one of the best one year themes done in recent years.