MAB

If it doesn't include traditional minifigure parts, I doubt LEGO will refer to it as a Collectable Minifigure series, a bit like what they did with the Unikitty series. Even the packaging for TLM2 was changed to say Character rather than Minifigure due to one character.

European kids in a number of countries do very well for SW minifigures by buying comics for £4 or similar in Euros. The last couple of years there have been Sabine Wren, Emperor Palpatine, Coruscant guard, Chewie, 501st, Vader, Clone trooper, Tie fighter, Bo-Katan, 212th, Obi-Wan, scout trooper, stormtrooper, ...

I think that you are better off keeping them in plastic storage boxes rather than soft plastic.

Being able to use (all) PAB towards GWP is a big deal. My orders dropped since they changed it.

Why would you want the air out? You could vacuum seal the bag but that would lead to increased touching / surface area between the plastic bag and the figure. That is more likely to cause stickiness on the surface of the figure than leaving it in air.

Yep, 2014 and 2015. And I imagine they design way more than 12 for the original D&D series.

That is not restricted to Technic though, system sets get built and displayed too. People make MOCs with system parts, people make MOCs with technic parts, people make MOCs with both system and technic parts. Just because some people display their sets built with instructions, it doesn't stop others being creative.

Off the top of my head, we have had numerous fantasy CMF characters that come with figures - black bat, black cat, wolf, dark red scorpion, orange starfish, green frog, red spider and probably others. Whether these are fantasy creatures or not when they come with a fantasy character is debatable. Often animals in fantasy look not so different to those in real life, normally because the fantasy element is in some magical power rather than in looks, so when depicted in LEGO would look no different to a real life animal. LEGO also tends to be fairly traditional when it comes to fantasy in that they put a black cat with a witch rather than putting, for example, a two-headed dog or a bat-cat hybrid, simply because the stereotypical witch has a black cat. However, it may look like a normal cat but it could be a magical cat with special mystical powers or even an alternate form of the witch after she has turned herself into cat form. Similarly the bat could be the alternative form of the vampire, and therefore fantasy rather than real. Is the frog meant to be a prince ready to be kissed, and hence fantasy, or just a real frog that has been randomly paired with a figure that looks like a traditional fairy tale princess? I imagine the frog is there because of the traditional Frog Prince fantasy story.

Because rare vintage LEGO in good condition is in demand by collectors and so is expensive.

It is interesting, I learnt to build in technic first time around with the old studded beams, then had a long lapse of 25 years, then re-learnt to build in technic with liftarms. I find when I use studded technic, I think more like I am building system designs with lots of other system parts, just with technic holes and functions as a secondary feature. Whereas when I use modern technic, I use many more technic parts than system, and don't tend to grab system parts (and studded beams) where they might be the solution. When I started building with modern technic, I did need to follow quite a few official builds to learn how to use the parts, especially how to connect large parts together to get the right angles for what I wanted to build. In that sense, the studded beams are much more system like and felt obvious how to use them if you already are familiar with system. Personally, I don't think either is the right or best way, just different. However, when it comes to the look of the final build, I mush prefer the modern studless designs over the somewhat boxy and studded designs of the older sets. As LEGO has progressed through time, I think most people have come to expect designs to hide at least some of the studs giving a cleaner, smoother look. Some people might remember the (system) Beetle of 2008 (10187). Some people like the studs, but this got a lot of bad feedback at the time for being covered with studs when MOCers were already starting to use SNOT techniques to make much cleaner designs. When the Beetle was redone as 10252 with minimal studs showing, it looked much cleaner. I think the same has happened in technic. Not that it always works, sometimes the gaps between panels look unsightly although as builds have become bigger this becomes less of an issue (but cost becomes more of an issue). I think it is also worth pointing out that many of the "old" technic part range still exists and if anything has had a resurgence recently, just that this has been in system sets and not in technic sets. For example, the humble 1x16 studded beam / technic brick has appeared in 27 sets since 2017 but was in just 18 sets in the previous 20 years between 1997 and 2016. And of those 27 sets since 2017, just 2 were technic sets. I think this is an indication that LEGO sees these as system bricks with holes in, rather than technic beams with studs on.

It was fairly good value in the UK at £100, but also regularly available at 30% off. It was the big set of the range and reasonably expensive for a LEGO set at the time, but nothing compared to what soon happened to set prices and sizes.

The battle at Helm's Deep gave us a great castle set and an expansion pack. The Battle of the Five Armies also gave some useful castle parts although it was rather small and a lot of parts dedicated to the siege engine.

Indeed, some people prefer the City type figures to the more out-there figures. It is still possible to have City type figures that might not necessarily fit into a regular City set but the CMF allows them to exist.

Well competition is supposedly good for consumers, so let's hope they become even more widespread than the markets where they are beating LEGO. If people want technic with studs, they can switch brands.

What are the sales of that compared to the sales of similar LEGO sets? What opportunity was lost? And the superiority of the use of studded beams instead of smooth ones is subjective, not objective.

There have been many parts that you might think should appear in a regular set but have only ever appeared in a CMF, like the carpenter's saw, the serving tray for the waiter and waitress, the helmet of the two Roman soldiers, and so on. I guess it might be that those parts are still made in China and so only made for the CMF. So even if that arm part is new it might not appear in regular sets. It might also be a single molded arm and attachment rather than removable otherwise it might need two new parts. We'll have to wait and see.

I doubt GBC would sell very well. You need a lot of them to look good and they are the type of thing that look great at a convention but do people really want one running at home? Plus, I wouldn't want LEGO doing them. They are a fan creation and it would seem like LEGO are stealing the idea if they do them, and I doubt they would be as good anyway. Concerning vehicles in Technic, there is a huge range of subjects even though almost all are vehicles. Yes, there are cars (because they are popular and sell) but also multiple space sets, motorcycles, planes, helicopters, construction, etc. A lot of system sets also incorporate Technic parts these days to allow for movement.

I'd prefer to see official ones. I made a Sauron figure for LOTR but I'm glad they later did an official one. I hope they do the same for the Witch King and Gondor soldiers.

That isn't how it works though. They don't continually produce the CMFs as needed. You can buy blind by going into a store and picking up random packs. You don't have to scan them to identify them before purchase. The new packaging hasn't really changed anything. S1-2 had bar codes, the next few years had dot codes and feeling, then just feeling and now QR codes. They have nearly always been blind but identifiable. Sure they would. There are nearly always one or two army builders per series. That is way more than 1%.

I didn't get that view at all. It would be unworkable too, having to have two versions of sets, with and without instructions. It would probably also lead to complaints that the set they bought is missing instructions when they didn't realise. The alternative would be to have certain ranges or sets not have physical instructions at all but then consumers wouldn't know there is a discount for LEGO not producing instructions. And that does not really give a choice for consumers.

They look really quite good but a second coat might make them better. That is definitely a more chrome like finish than you get with airbrushed acrylic. When I do that, the effect is more like the (BL's name) metallic silver and gold finishes whereas that chrome looks much more mirror like. I might get one of those pens too now.

And army building. Plenty of people buy them as they want them, not to sell. They aren't rare, let alone extremely rare. They might be more expensive than other figures but they are not any rarer. Whereas other people really like army building with readily available CMF. I cannot really understand people that want to collect all the CMF, even though I once did it. Why collect and display figures that have nothing to do with each other, aside from LEGO telling you they are a numbered collectable series and go together. At least the D&D series have some connection between the characters so having a series to display might make sense, but no more sense than someone wanting an army where they customise the characters by swapping out parts. In a sense, LEGO do allow you to buy the ones you want, so long as you do a tiny amount of work. If you could order just the ones you want direct from LEGO and there were fixed production numbers, the sought after ones would be even harder to get. It would only work if they continually produced and replenished the sought after ones.

Maybe Shakespeare's torso and legs, any head and a tricorne hat but stand the figure next to a globe (from POTC or the minifigure head globe).

This won't be a problem unless you are heating your display cases to very high temperatures or exposing them to very low pressures. Both of which would damage the LEGO too.

They could also cover it in Valentine hearts and imagery. Not my thing, but I imagine that would be more popular with the masses than a mythological god. For the cat lover, I hope they break stereotype and make it male.