MAB

I had one replaced last year, from a new sealed Helm's Deep. Even though they might not be available for sale on PAB, they might still have stocks for replacements.

Plus I don't think it is necessarily about saving money. I think the BDP is both a concession to the AFOL crowd (call it community engagement or whatever) and a way to placate the same group when they say LEGO doesn't make what AFOLs want.

There were Lord of the Rings MOCs long before there were official licensed Lord of the Rings sets.

I imagine the 5% of net sales is more than in-house designers get.

I think quality is a bit subjective as what is important to you can affect quality. I'm with you on printing light colours over dark. LEGO still messes this up (but not all the time). Also important for me is printing across parts matching. I find it so annoying when a print goes from torso to legs or dress, and lines are not perfectly aligned. Even if they are, there is still a border where LEGO do not print all the way to the edes. Clone manufacturers et round this by printing torsos and legs together, so there is a perfect match and continuity.

But a shame he was poked in the eye. I hope those ears are light nougat. Customzing is a pain now they have the wide variety of fleshtones.

And optimistically, there are three 25th movie anniversaries coming up! I think such sets would be unlikely but would be a nice surprise.

Quite a few MOCs on eurobricks now seem to be motivated by commercial interests. It used to be IDEAS submissions, now BL Designer Program. It makes sense as a large, successful, sold out BDP set earns the designer up to about £/$/Eur 400,000 before tax, it is no wonder some people take it as a job and heavily promote their submission on every site they can. But that is at the different end of the spectrum.

Very little, if anything, that is exclusive to CMF ends up in online PAB. For the regular set there is a small chance but errors putting licensed items on there are less common than they used to be.

For the book. LEGO licences LOTR from Warner Bros, not the Tolkien Estate. They might get away with mentioning the book anniversary in advertising, but anything they do would be movie related. I imagine a 25th anniversary of the movie is more likely for LEGO than a 70 or 75th anniversary of the book.

I don't mind this, but then I don't consider LEGO sets to be historically accurate to any particular time or location. Or also that these vegetables are correctly sized. Turnips and swedes and so on can be made quite easily with a minifigure head and a green flower on the end but they still look a bit like a head with a flower on the end, so getting some better shaped vegetables to mix in is good even if the real world vegetable didn't exist in the real world place at the real world time we believe this action is taking place. In that sense, it is not really that different to so many female soldiers in the castle. Historically unlikely, but fine for a LEGO set. The oversizing of many LEGO vegetables and other food, such as the huge carrot, could also mean that the pumpkin is not a pumpkin but a vegetable similar in size to a carrot or turnip or similar.

And very clever too. The big set might be out of the price range of many players or felt not needed unless they are an AFOL and a D&D fan. Yet a cheap entry point in the CMF series, very clever. Players buy CMFs until they get the character they want to use in the game. They get the others for future use or other players or for customising. Their friends see them using LEGO minifigures for their characters, so they get some too. LEGO then becomes a standard for representing characters as they are cheap, relevant and easily customisable. Then players realise they can make nice bases for their characters to stand on. Then they need some bigger brick built scenery. Then they need a brick built dice tower. And they need that big set. And so it goes on ...

There is no reason to believe LOTR can't get a CMF line. It just doesn't. If the D&D one is true, it sort of makes sense if they want to tap into (non-FOL) D&D players using LEGO minifigures for their characters in game. It is a very cheap entry to LEGO and if they find it useful then they might start buying more LEGO to expand their character selection or more importantly, start building scenery or other brick built items to use in-game. If they can convince D&D players the standard is to use a LEGO minifigure for their characters because that is what others they play with are doing, they instantly tap into a huge market.

Personally, I don't consider Ninja as part of Castle at all, so it is very low profile to me! I think Wolfpack is really quite different in that even though it didn't have many sets, those sets where part of Castle and Wolfpack easily sits alongside Forestmen, Crusaders/Lions, Black Falcons. They may be "bringing Wolfpack back", but they are doing it in a very minor way by doing a figure. It is a nice gesture for nostalgia seekers but they are doing it in a way where they don't bring back any Wolfpack sets. From my perspective, that is ideal. It will mean I can buy a small band of Wolfpack figures and I'd build my own designs anyway, so it's just perfect without any new sets. For people that don't know what Wolfpack is, the inclusion makes no difference but he still fits. They cannot really put a Ninja character into a Castle set without people wondering why there is some weird Ninjago-like figure in the wrong set. It has been noted a number of times, Ninjago has done Ninja builds better than Ninja. Not the whacky techno stuff, but the traditional Asian architecture. There are some beautiful builds. A one off Ninja set just becomes a not quite Ninjago set. True, although I imagine it is also still far easier to put in a single knight with bull heraldry on the shield and/or torso into a regular castle set than a Ninja. A nice Easter Egg that might go unnoticed by some but loved by others. The bull did already reappear in Nexo Knights as Axl (slightly adapted in shape) [edit: just spotted that was referenced above, it was on the next page] and was in almost the original form on a power shield for NK too. I wouldn't mind a few more torsos and matching shields with individual heraldry on like that, same for the boar from CMF where they did the shield. Just doing one character is enough if the torso is generic enough to reuse for an army. Just like a single new wolfpack torso is fine for basing a small band of rouges using different cowls, masks, cloaks and legs.

Depending on how much effort you are willing to put in selling on parts you don't want, look outside of traditional castle themes. Over the years I have found Star Wars to be an excellent and cheap source for castle parts. It is not just that they have a range of useful parts/colours but that they have sought after minifigures (sought after by others). It depends on the set and ratio of parts/figs but you can often get 75-85% of the value of the set quite easily just selling the minifigures and maybe decorated parts that you won't use. If you get the set at a discount, that can mean free parts. If you hold the figures for a couple of years, you can often get even more if the figures are ones not repeated often. For a while Harry Potter sets used to be similarly useful for extra tans and browns, but they have repeated the main cast in just about every outfit so many times now, that unless there is a lot of unique figures in a set the value of the figures to set price is quite low now. There is only limited scope for yet another Harry/Ron/Hermione in school uniform. It can work with some unlicensed sets too, but minifigs from licensed themes tend to have wider appeal and so easier to shift at higher prices.

I doubt it. You have to look at the contents and not just the number of parts.

I cannot see how an ICONS set based on a TV show, movie or video game could be seen as anything close to a return to the Ninja theme. That is like saying SW is a return to Classic Space or LOTR or Harry Potter is a return to Castle. If they did a licensed ninja based set, it would be a licensed ninja based set and not the old Castle Ninja subtheme. The recent reimagined sets have all been classic sets from classic themes. I cannot really think of anything in the Ninja theme that would have a similar status.

Mines of Moria? Presumably as they see LOTR as an adult franchise.

VIP points, GWP, better prices for minifigs and some exclusive prints, unlimited quantities of new parts. But for basic parts (and retired parts), BL is better.

It is a limit. It doesn't mean a design has to have that exact number, just that it cannot go over the limit. It is there to stop the minifigure pack submissions, with minimal parts and all minifigs.

That is an adult thing though, isn't it? I don't think I've ever seen a younger kid buying or using other people's MOC instructions. Parts acquisition (and time) is a major hurdle for other people's MOCs, whereas kids typically want to build with what they have now.

When they purchased bricklink, they said they wouldn't compete with sellers on the site. It would be detrimental if they did. For many parts they are more expensive and have poor turnaround times. And the narrow range of parts they stock means they wouldn't be able to fulfill many wants lists. But, just them going back on their word would drive sellers away to brickowl. BL would become PAB and brickowl would become the marketplace.

I think it needs a modern head. The simple smiley looks strange on a more detailed torso.

It was also the same back in the 80s. Some kids would like building and some story-telling (and everywhere in-between). I think that is probably why minifigure based sets of the 80s and onwards seem to be remembered more fondly than sets of the 70s (and before). These were the first of the real LEGO as a complete all-in-one toy. Some may argue it was before this, but I recall LEGO in the 70s was just another toy that got played with other toys. The Legoland cars and so on got played with next to Matchbox cars. LEGO was use to build train sheds, shops and houses to side beside Hornby railways. LEGO was used to build furniture for small dolls or ships for Kenner Star Wars figures or Little Big Man toys. But the presence of the minifigure shifted it towards you only need LEGO to get the all-in-one play experience. My son likes Castle building (he had some in 2012/13) but he also still occasionally plays Nexo Knights and Chima. I imagine they will be remembered in the same way as Ice Planet. Knights Kingdom (version number whatever) or Adventurers. Nostalgic for kids of the time but not really important if you weren't.

Yes, I did something similar with my kids when they were young. Partly as it is much cheaper to get a large quantity of bricks. Remember also that different kids play in different ways, and in different ways at different ages. My son always liked building from a young age, so preferred mixed up bricks. With sets, he would build them then take apart and build into something else. It was rare for anything to stay built for more than a month, unless it was something special like a train set. Whereas my daughter didn't like building when young. She was much more into role play once the set was built so tended to keep sets (and other builds) together for much longer. For her, play was more about storytelling than building. Now she is older, she likes building but still story plays as well.