MAB

It looks like the army builders have now logged on! The Roman is catching up ... now 29/28. As is the swashbuckler / prospector and the battle mech / evil mech. A round of almost equals.

I guess it depends on how you define a weapon. I know of a few people vs zombies MOCs where the butcher uses his T-bone along with the cleaver as a weapon, and the carpenter uses the saw and plank! Mind you, the zombies attack back with both a spade and a chicken leg. There is also the Dino tracker, who has both a bow and a syringe.

Yet if the King beats the Roman (or same with the Spartan or Zombie), then he is obviously more loved by the people and so even more mainstream than the Roman. So next round you will have to vote against the King! It is interesting to see the (current) results of the similar figures ... Swashbuckler vs Prospector, same series and neither was really sought after at the time, almost equal votes. The Mechs, series 9 and 11, both from relatively late series so similar printing on them, almost equal votes. Astronauts, series 1 vs 15, essentially the same character updated, the modern one dominating the older one.

I guess it is a combination of: 1) anti-army builders (the King is not so useful in larger quantities whereas the soldier is, although the King is useful for body parts for army builders and has a nice beard) 2) there is another Roman (the centurion) (even though he is not as good as this one) 3) tactical voting 4) later series have better printing 5) people that don't like ancient history Looking at the close time of Battle Goddess vs Shakespeare, there were times when Shakespeare was ahead, times when Battle Goddess was ahead. When it is neck and neck like that, either could win depending on when you choose to close the poll. Maybe it would be better to set a deadline for voting at the start of each round.

The hood on the Lloyd Ninjago CMF might be useful for caped characters, although the attached hair is a bit modern.

While they may not be space themes, some of the sets made passable space sets if the minifigs and small builds were replaced ...

My feeling too. One licensed set per year wasn't so bad, especially if the parts were reasonably generic (TLM was OK for this). But going to just one unlicensed per year is enough to make me lose interest. I already have. I sold off a lot of my older figures, keeping the army builders and ones I'm interested in using, getting rid of the "for display" ones only. Why though? We already have Sloth, ET, Marty and Doc, Gremlins, the four Ghostbusters (twice and three times), Mr T, Knightrider, Beetlejuice. Why do them again in a CMF series? They probably aren't very interesting for kids - these are more nostalgia for adults. I don't see any market for them, outside of adults that haven't already got them.

It would please Castle fans but I doubt it. A line like that would sell better if released in conjunction with sets - like they did with TLM, TLBM, Disney, Simpsons, ...

Probably because it is a really decent model for the time. Back then people weren't so worried about Nazi symbolism, as it was history. I remember making airfix models in the 1970s and using Nazi symbols on them. Whereas now, it is more politically sensitive.

Adventure Time has been done in Ideas, so I'd hope they wouldn't put out a CMF series based on that - they've got the money from those fans. I've said it before, but I don't think there are enough characters in Wizard of Oz unless they go for a small series, or enough people (especially kids) interested in it. To me, that would probably be more like another The Simpsons series rather than another Disney series. My kids have no interest in the Wizard of Oz (they've never seen it), and I don't think any of their friends have ever talked about it. It has a following amongst older people, but is that enough? All of the other Dimensions sub-themes, I think they'd have trouble filling a whole series. Knightrider - no. A-team - no. Mission Impossible - no. Beetlejuice - no. Goonies - no. ET - no. DC/LOTR/TLM/Ninjago/Scooby-Doo etc already done in normal sets. Doctor Who - maybe, they could fill a series and it has a reasonable following (already done once in Ideas but still a lot of not done historical characters). HP - done already but a long time ago, so maybe. But surely they'd do that as regular sets to make the money from selling the bricks, rather than as a CMF set.

What would the point be though? To give us figures that we didn't get in games from 2-3 years before? That won't be very interesting for people that didn't already buy the games and rules out a lot of impulse purchases for kids. It would be a bit like giving us a LOTR and Hobbit CMF line now, including only characters that were missing from the original sets. That would be great for anyone that collected the line a few years before, but terrible for new collectors. And thus not likely to sell well.

Did it? I don't recall that much. LEGO did a lot of press (video reveals etc) for LEGO fans but not much outside of the normal fan base. Whereas at the same time, Research Institute got tons of national and international press, completely overshadowing the Exosuit.

Surely the money is in the ship(s) though. Unless they put the price up for CMF, where would they make the money on the license. Whereas put out a 2000 piece Enterprise at 10c /10p a piece and trekkies will lap it up.

Yeah, tough. I went for Shakespeare. Not because he is Shakespeare, but because of the parts he provided. Great torso and legs (for medieval MOCs along with the thespians in green), good hairpiece and a feather and ruff. Plus it can be used with either fleshie or yellow characters.

Yeah, Simpsons S3!

At four days it is probably one of the longest, hence the high votes.

Well for Space, they did the Exosuit, apparently a poor seller based on the discounts given by lego themselves, and Benny's Spaceship, a better seller as it was wanted by kids too on the back of TLM. The sales of the Exosuit may have indicated that there isn't that much interest in slightly more adult oriented classic space sets.

Almost double BL price then.

Remember LEGO is family owned, and doesn't have "investors" as such. They are not going to take their money elsewhere if they disagree with the individual product lines. I doubt LEGO would ever declare NK as a failure. In the 2016 report they wrote: Among the top selling lines in 2016 were core themes like LEGO® City, LEGO® Star Wars™, LEGO® NINJAGO®, LEGO Friends, LEGO Creator and LEGO® DUPLO®. The new theme LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™, that combines physical and digital play through building sets, digital gaming and inspirational storytelling, was also a contributor to growth. It may well be that NK never breaks into that top tier of best selling sets - it will never break the hold of City, SW, Friends, Creator or Duplo. The only thing it could possibly knock from the list is Ninjago and that is very unlikely given its popularity. Does that give it the status of perceived failure? We can all perceive it as a failure if we see it for sale at a discount, but then the same is true for City, SW, Ninjago, Friends, Creator, Duplo, ... Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Chima, Monster Fighters, Galaxy Squad, Alien Conquest, Atlantis, ... The fans will never really know what is a failure. Many of us may think LOTR and The Hobbit were great lines sadly cut short, when the reality is probably different. Longstanding fans of those themes are probably not the demographic that NK is aimed at. Brickset indicates 85 NK sets so far, including bags that were given away with comics. Plus another 20 or so "gear" type items. That type of product line, some large sets, many smaller sets and then a lot of media / comic giveaway sets, combined with the app game and other media shows simply that this is a theme aimed at kids. I doubt lego really care what longstanding (and therefore old) fans of space and castle think of the hybrid concept of the theme, as it isn't aimed at them.

That would be great if you can. I downloaded and printed some of the Chima concept art and my kids loved having those for their lego area. Now they are more into NK than Chima, so an update in their wall art would be good.

It would be nice if they introduced a double arch, 7 long (formed of 1 brick, 2 arch, 1 brick, 2 arch and 1 brick) to help get windows in a bit closer together or maybe a 2 wide piece to fill those negative gaps if the arch windows are placed next to each other.

I'm sure most AFOLs think the same too. But the important people are the kids and their parents buying the stuff. I reckon a normal adult picking up Jestro's Lair or the Fortrex would see this as a fantasy castle type set. Futurstic fantasy castle, but still fantasy castle. The CMF line has been good to us for new factions, especially if you are willing to mix and match parts. Forestman from S1 (although that might be too early for many), the elf, dwarf (x2), viking (plus the woman), warrior woman, evil knight, frightening knight, conquistador, rogue, hun, highlander, king, queen, princess, etc. and that is without the more historical type figures from Egypt, Rome and Greece. It is just a case of collecting enough of them then switching the heads and maybe headgear where appropriate for a bit of variation.

Do they though? Legally they do. But if stuff like this gets out, then someone sells it on BL or ebay, those parts will eventually get into mainstream circulation of LEGO parts. A seller could claim they are genuine as they have the lego logos. That is what is good (if that is the right word) about Lepin and so on. Even though what they do is morally (and probably legally*) wrong, at least they don't use the lego name on their parts. *We'll have to wait until the court case to know.

People really don't like The Simpsons or the DFB series, do they? Team GB for another win. It might be interesting to do a reverse poll - vote for the worst of the worst.

There are similar modern parts you can use instead, check a reasonably up to date train, like the red passenger train (set 7938).