MAB

Some of those will depend on the license that Lego has, especially the superhero ones. It also depends on whether they intend to keep the license open and produce more in the future. Missing out Gondor Soldiers, to me, is like not having any Scout Troopers or possibly even Storm Troopers in SW. As for IJ, they covered virtually all of the main characters as I remember them. Maybe Walter Donovan from Last Crusade (but not very interesting) and the chief Gestapo guy from ROTLA, although he is partly made up for by the number of German Soldiers.

There is a customer angle / problem with not "completing" the sets too. If Lego gets a reputation for not completing ranges and missing out really quite important chunks of film series, it may damage sales in the future for similar ranges. Say another film trilogy comes along, and Lego brings out a range to complement it. Do you buy into it, knowing Lego has a reputation of missing out important parts of the film but will put in fairly inconsequential sets later on? Or do you just think you'll get enough sets to get the key characters (maybe just the something like the Fellowship, whatever is appropriate to the film) or not even bother with the sets and bricklink the small subset of key minifigs and forget the rest, since the rest will not be complete based on past experiences. So in LOTR case, forget getting Haldir and Theoden, forget Eomer and Rohan Soldiers, since what is the point of those if you don't have a Witch King and Eowyn, and so on.

Free building for me too. Buy a load of cheap parts in cheap colours to start with too. Who cares about colour for practice. I will often build something without caring about the colour, then order the parts I want to build the MOC second time around. Chances are you will rip it down and start again many times anyway until you are happy, so having a range of parts rather than the correct colours really helps. The way I build, I also disagree with the "have a plan" route (although it is essential for LDD). Don't have too much of a plan. Just build and see what happens.

I am also a customiser that prefers gender neutral torsos (or male torsos as they are normally referred to, since if it hasn't got curves, then it normally isn't female officially). There is also another benefit of gender neutral torsos - and that is possibly more females in a set. If we got away from males have straight torsos and all women have curved ones, then lego could introduce a two sided face. One side with make up, one side without. Then the child / AFOL could decide on the sex of each character, where appropriate. So a set might have 1 obviously male character, 1 obviously female and 2 down to choice by turning a head around. If they are hat-less, then it might cost lego an extra hairpiece or two. That set is then either as high as 75% male, or as low as 25% male depending on how the person playing with it wants it to be. I'm not suggesting doing away with all curved torsos, far from it. Use them where it makes sense. So a buxom pirate woman, or a woman in a dress would keep them, but a police officer or scientist wearing a lab coat wouldn't need them. It's quite rare to find a printed female torso in which curves are not present in modern sets, but lego did let one slip through. Strangely enough, it is a scientist in a lab coat too. Is she still identifiable as a woman despite not having the "necessary" curves? I'd say yes.

In the UK, the whole of Wave 2 of the Hobbit has been 50% off. I think every Wave 1 Hobbit was also 50% off. For LOTR, 9471 (Uruk army) was £12 for a while (RRP £30). Elrond's Council I got a couple at £6 each. Most others in Wave 2 were 50% at least. Wave 1 was harder. I bought most at 33% off (3 for 2 deals), but occasionally they have been better. For example, mines of Moria was meant to be £70 RRP, but TRU had it at £44.99 and then did a 3 for 2, meaning £30 a set when you buy three. You just have to keep your eyes open, and know when to jump. I'm not really a reseller. I mainly buy for myself, or buy two/three and sell one/two to cover the costs of my one. Finding large numbers to be a proper reseller at those sort of prices is harder, but was perfectly doable for Hobbit Wave 2.

It is a real shame they didn't continue with the signs of the Chinese Year / Zodiac. 2013 brought us the Year of the Snake set, with the lovely door plaque. 2014 ... nothing. If they had brought out a similar 2014 set with the same style dated door for the Year of the Horse, they would have had my money for the next 10 years.

The whole series of them has been fantastic. I'm looking forward to a photo of the whole company together.

In terms of minifigs, army builders are the ones to go for, as people always want multiples. There are not so many in LOTR / Hobbit, as these tend to focus on the main characters, and normally most people don't want huge armies of the same specific character. The one that does do well is the Uruk-Hai army, 9471, with the Rohan Soldier doing well in particular. Even then though, the price compared to retail / RRP is not great. But the time to buy is when they are 50% off.

That sure is a crazy contraption. Now it needs a sensor, so it only starts creeping up on you when your back is turned.

There are also a couple of considerations not mentioned. - There is also a weight difference - That you need to also purchase the charger for the rechargeable one - another £20 in UK, probably $30 US? However, I prefer a third solution. A non-purist one. A rechargeable 9V battery and a cheap battery connector connected to a cut-up lego extension cable. It's light, it's small, it's easy to have a spare charged up ready. If you want to make it compatible with the other boxes, you can even build a 4x8x4 box to put it in. You can also easily add a switch and an LED if they matter to you.

There is a supply / demand ratio that causes the high prices, but that also exists for minifigs in regular sets too. For example, the exclusive minifigs to Ewok Village or Arkham Asylum are expensive to buy compared to other minifigs in cheaper sets. Should lego also address that imbalance, and make sure that everyone, even those that can only afford to buy $12 sets, gets a chance to buy whichever characters they want in a cheap set? Just like there are complaints everytime a CC comes around, there are also complaints about minifigs being exclusive to large sets and the need to pay a lot for a set just to get one minifig. Of course, it is not as extreme, you just have to shell out $250 or whatever in one go to get what you want. Personally, I don't mind the exclusives. They do a job in that they get lego advertised, they get lego talked about, they get people going crazy. If every exclusive came out in a set in the next year or two, I think the hype will still be there, but will be diminished. I know some people (and this is from the UK), that have traveled to a CC (NY instead of SD) in the past, just to see the lego stands and get a chance to get hold of the exclusives. If the exclusives were no longer exclusive, would people be as willing to go? I think a good alternative is to keep the exclusives exclusive, but for popular characters to later re-release the same character in a different print - like has been done with Green Lantern. That way general collectors get to have all the superheroes (or whatever range) they want in at least one form and the real collectors still get something special to aim for. But then, I'm also for keeping things like Marina Bay Sands in the architecture range special to the location, and not having it available worldwide at the touch of a button. Same with even little poly bags like the New York Taxi. Keep it exclusive to NY and it is a little more special (I know they later appeared at US TRU stores).

There is the problem with the flex track that if you go for maximum curvature and maximum speed, then you can often get your train to fall off. But that is down to physics rather than an inherent problem with the set. It is also slightly noisier than regular track.

I think you have to be a bit careful the way you describe the sellers of exclusive minifigs. You say many people can or will ever be able to go to SDCC, for example. Why is that? Anyone can apply for tickets, travel there, stay in a hotel, go to the convention, etc. Nothing is stopping anyone that wants to. Except money and time. Bearing that in mind, calling people that do decide to pay a lot of money to attend conventions leeches, scalpers, pure greedy profit seekers is not necessarily correct. They are selling something that often people are willing to pay a high price for as a way of recouping some of the cost of attending the convention. How would you describe a lego fan that gets an exclusive but decides to sell for $500 as they know what they can buy with that $500 instead of having one exclusive minifig? Are they still a scalper? If you could buy something in a local theme park to you for say $20, but there is an entry fee of $100 to the park, then how much would you sell it for? $20 as that is what it cost? $120 as you are recouping the cost of entry to the park, even though you got to enjoy the park for the day too? And what changes if you know that I am willing to pay $200 for it?

My point was, I doubt we will see a large / decent non-licensed castle set or range if they are going to reboot the non-licensed pirates. I expect they will either give castle another rest, or keep it highly <insert that tiresome argument> if there is going to be a pirates set / theme aimed at older kids / afols. Pirates and castle, although different themes, appeal to a similar set of kids and there will be a large number that would want both. Personally, I don't think that the current non-licensed castle range overlaps with LOTR (or Hobbit), and that non-licensed pirates are probably closer to non-licensed castle than castle is to LOTR. The current castle sets are very child oriented sets, in comparison to LOTR. Especially when you consider this year's offering of 10676 is a juniors set. In fact, they were producing 70404 and 70403 (both older kids / possibly afol oriented sets) in 2013, and Joust in 2012, during waves 1 and 2 of LOTR. So they had more afol oriented sets coexisting with LOTR.

Another difference is that Bard has already appeared in a set. Normally the exclusives have not appeared in any form. So this is not necessarily an exclusive like all others before. Superman was a NYCC exclusive, but soon turned up in a regular set whereas Batman and Green Lantern didn't. Which suggests that there is no fixed rule. Plus there is nothing to stop them releasing the torso and legs but with a different head print, and still calling that minifig exclusive. Or have a safety stud for the head in a set vs solid stud for the exclusive, like they did with the chibi landspeeder Luke.

The problem with Castle is that their new (rehashed) thing next year is going to be the return of the ship. There was that teaser image in the yellow box. Plus Castle has been running this year, with some pretty lacklustre sets, mainly aimed at the more junior end of the market. I would have preferred that Gimli was left out of the Council of Elrond set rather than the Corsair ship. It does make sense him being in the Corsair ship set, at least as much as Aragorn and Legolas, and some people won't have bought every set (although why they'd just buy the ship is beyond me). In the Elrond set, he could have been replaced by one of the unnamed elves or even a statue for Rivendell. And Samwise Gamgee. And Shelob herself. I think Shelob Attacks is a great little set. Three main characters and a larger brickbuilt character that is also an important part of the story.

That's fairly similar to what I hope to use it for. Backed this morning. Good luck.

Homer as a devil Homer as an angel Teenage Homer Underpants Homer Mumu Homer Safety Salamander Mr Plow Homer Santa Homer Stone Cutter Homer Isotopes Mascot Be Sharps Homer Radiation Man PinPals Homer Astronaut Homer USA tourist Homer Sanitation Commissioner Homer

They weren't all male. You just assumed they were as they weren't wearing lipstick or had large breasts and / or curved hips.

Next factory set.

Duplo IS Lego. Calling the larger Megablok parts Duplo is just as bad as calling the smaller parts Lego. :-)

I doubt it. The theme is done for now. They will probably do another Dino theme in the future, but would they really want a very similar product on the shelves at the same time as Kreo?

Most themes aren't aimed at a neutral market though. And in many themes it is not always easy to identify who the leader is. Who is the leader in Galaxy Squad for example? Friends doesn't have a hierarchy as all the girls are equal in the sense that there is not one dominant girl. This is a good marketing decision, as different girls are likely to favour different mini-dolls based on their looks. My daughter has a couple of minidolls that she has amended to look like her, and names her as such.

Just look through the CMF line .. S5 fitness instructor leads her class S5 zoo keeper is in charge of animals S6 Surgeon is more important than any doctors S6 Lady Liberty is Libertas, goddess of freedom S7 punk girl leads her band (probably S2 singer is the same) S10 Medusa didn't answer to anyone S11 Scientist is a professor, so leader of a research team. There are a number of others that could either be team players or leaders - roller derby girl, intergalactic girl, etc. And obviously above all S10 bee girl is the "Queen Bee".

Nope, but the parts list is mainly greys, black, red, white and green with a touch of yellow.