Sandy

I just bought all 16 from Bricklink - easy peasy! I'm sure they'll come to my local stores eventually, but this saves me the trouble of spending awkwardly long time at the LEGO shelf feeling each bag.

Haha, you were just a victim of the "lovers" role, meaning that when my character died, yours died automatically as well. I don't know if it would've worked the other way around, though.

I bought the beautiful Atlantis Temple today, and having bought the smaller set with the Hammerhead Shark Warrior earlier this month, I now possess all 8 of the Atlantis creatures (counting the golden statue). What a fun bunch they are!

But that was my gripe in my previous post: I didn't tell anyone! Stash just PM'ed me after the conversion that he knew I converted you, and then he turned on me. Shadows didn't actually betray me before Stash made his move, but I'm quite positive that with his support I could've convinced the town to vote for Stash. But I got my revenge on those two posthumously, thanks to Dragonator's efforts. The battle of words between him and Shadows must've been one of the most memorable ones in any Mafia game hosted here ever. It was certainly a pleasure to watch it from the outside. I just want to say that I still love and admire both Shadows and Stash as players greatly. Those two are just the type of players that you can't trust unless yo're sure they are on your side (and sometimes not even then). Looking back on that, I do agree with you. It's just that a host has the biggest pressures to ensure that the game is a success. I applaud Zepher for taking this game to the finish line despite all the difficulties in the beginning. A lesser person would've just given up a long time ago. I just wish you could've put more effort into the visual aspects of this game, but it doesn't seem to have bothered most players.

Thanks for hosting this game, Zepher! And congrats to the winners, as always. I have to say that as difficult as my role was - starting out as a godfather with no allies and everybody's eyes on me after being a host in the previous Mafia game - I also made some very poor choices as well that led to my family's demise. I should've never trusted Stash or Shadows the way I did, because I knew they were going to backstab me sooner or later since I had nothing on them. I did not intend to reveal my converts to them, either, but Shadows knew Alice from her night ability and somehow Stash knew I converted def even though I didn't tell him about that. Could someone please clarify what happened then? So yeah, a tough game for me, could've done much better.

Ho ho f***ing ho, it's that time of the year again when a bunch of masochists sign their lives into a month of torture. Well lo and behold, I'm one of them. Deck the halls 'cause Santa's in town, dammit! (Just getting into character there, hehe.) I just love that Shadows is playing himself.

Those upcoming Kingdoms sets are pure magnificence! Many thanks to TLG for finally listening to its most devoted fans. I have no problem with any of the four sets, they all add up to the existing line perfectly (even making a bond to the MMV). Loving the goats and the hen (even though the brick-built birds were cute as well). The minifigure collection mentioned above is nothing special, in my opinion, since it consists of only pre-existing parts, but of course it offers a great variety of fantastical and historical minifigs to those who lack them.

I so want to play. If I don't get to play I'll go MAD! My Roschach results are these; 1) A crying baby 2) A weightlifter 3) A fat bunny 4) A voodoo witch 5) A wererat Cheers!

Phew, made it before the deadline! Here's hoping that this Moaning Myrtle avatar will give me some HP-tag goodness.

Loving it! It's clearly the Disney-version of Aladdin, with Abu and Jafar and Jago thrown into the mix (where's Genie, though?), but it's also so much more. The busy street actually reminds me of the videogame Assassin's Creed that my fiancé plays. The architecture is wonderful, and the variety of techniques you've used in it makes it really stand out. Good luck with the contest!

Out of the LEGO board games released thus far, I have Monster 4, Ramses Pyramid, Oriental Bazaar and Hogwarts, and the best thing in them is that they all come with magnificent rare or exclusive parts. Out of these new ones, I have my eyes on the Banana Balance and the Frog Rush games, purely because of the parts they provide. I agree that the LEGO board games aren't anything special game-wise, though - and I should know as a board game enthusiast. We have well over 50 board games in the cabinet next to my LEGO cabinet.

You've used many clever techniques to really add the details to this creation, so kudos for that. It's amazing how some people can think so outside the box during their building process. I'd never even think of using minifig legs or skeleton pieces the ways you have. I also love the SNOT floor made with the rounded 1x2 bricks. I have to say though, that as magnificently detailed and realistic as your building is, it doesn't really fit with the image I have in my mind about the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. I don't know, maybe my mind is just corrupted by the movies, but I find there's a distinct lack of color in this creation. The interior should be exploding with color and life - it's a joke shop, after all - but now it looks like your everyday wizarding store. Even the products are mostly white or tan or grey, so they blend in too well into the walls. You shouldn't be afraid of using bright colors, even though you must always be careful for not overdoing them (although it's very hard to make a joke shop too colorful). So yeah, this is an awesome creation that fits well into the Harry Potter world, but it doesn't look like the building it's supposed to be in my opinion.

Heureka! This is a really great MOC, especially because we don't see that many creations about Ancient Greece. The new pieces like the Spartan Warrior's gear and the trident certainly enable more realistic MOCs from that era, and you've used them well to your advantage in this piece. I love the splashes of color you've put into the scenery, so that it's not all white and tan. The temple with the statues as columns is my favorite of the bunch, although they all fit together effectively. Great work, and hope you make more sceneries from that era!

There's a saying at least in my country that says "the stupid one is not the one who asks, but the one who pays". If someone is willing to buy the Hogwarts set for $400, then the seller has obviously made a smart choice in the pricing. If not, then the seller must suffer the consequences. We consumers can affect quite much to the market with our choices, believe it or not.

Whoa! Seeing the figs makes it all better. There's some highly unique and sought out pieces in this bunch (guitar, test tube, rapier, mohawk, sailor's hat etc. etc. etc.), and nice recolors of popular pieces (who else is going to make a dark-skinned elf with the werewolf's hairpiece? ). My personal highlights of this series are the Garden Gnome, the Geisha, the Artist, the Punk and the Figure Skater (although she seems to have a similar cloth piece as the Hawaiian Girl). I don't understand the inclusion second skater boy or the female surfer over more unique minifig ideas, but I guess they just wanted to use the special molds they've made for the collectable minifigs some more. But anyway, yay for more minifig goodness!

I feel obliged to enter, even though I have one of the prizes (Hogwarts Castle) and should be getting another (Hogwarts Express)for Christmas from my fiancé. The 1000 piece limit is aggravating, but on the other hand it makes the contest fairer to those with more limited collections - that way nobody can win just by having an enormous entry with every fig imaginable in it. I'm looking forward what other people come up with, too!

The Burrow from the Harry Potter theme was my top favorite, even though all the other sets in the theme were great and very welcomed as well. The Prince of Persia theme was my second favorite with the Battle of Alamut as it's crown jewel. Both of these themes offered a massive amount of superb minifigs, fantastic buildings and new parts. Even though they're not technically speaking sets, I have to mention the two released series of Collectable Minifigures as well, because they really brought a whole new element to this hobby of ours. I have to say I was a bit disappointed with Kingdoms, because even though it offers a large variety of excellent minifigures, the sets themselves were nothing new, or even worse than their earlier counterparts.

I'm sure I've seen this phenomenon before, but another recent example is the knight statue in the new Hogwarts set. It isn't included in the first bag or the first page of the instructions with the other minifigs either.

Lo and behold, the female roles are once again nurses and housewives. I know you had history to take into consideration, but seriously, women can do more than heal wounds and tend homes, you know? Even in the 50's.

Are you talking about me? All I did was give out my identity to one wrong person, but evidently that was all it took to bring our family down. If it weren't for Stash's betrayal (and my big mouth), I would've lead you to victory, promise!

I thought about it, but unfortunately this creation doesn't fit the requirements of the contest. And thanks for the improvement suggestions, Zepher, but the castle is just a big pile of bricks scattered on the floor waiting to be sorted now. As I've said before, I never keep anything built, and after spending way too many months working on this MOC I'm glad to see it over and done with. But the creation will live on in this topic. Thanks for the lovely comments, everyone!

I'm not going to apply, but I think it's great that they've taken this step to provide future themes with better background stories than they have been thus far. With such an imaginative product they have, it's a shame they keep coming up with these "defeat the bad guys and collect treasures"-type of stories for the themes.

Great job with Medusa. She looks so sweet and innocent while petrifying those poor soldiers...

Thanks for the comments, guys! Oh yeah, I forgot to post this earlier, but this is what happened during the photoshoot when I tried to fold the castle.

I've finally finished the huge MOC project I've been working on throughout the entire autumn. It was something I've been planning to do for a long time, but only now I had the motivation and the resources to build it. I've always been fascinated by fairy tales, both classical and modern. I work in the kindergarten currently, so I'm glad to get to read and hear them on a daily basis. I built this MOC to show my appreciation to the childhood stories that made me the storyteller I am today. Thus, I welcome you to Castle of Legendia, where fairy tales and legends dwell. The fairy tale castle is built on four 16x32 baseplates, so it's approximately as wide as the Tower Bridge set. However, it has two hinge points, so it can be folded. I think it looks the best in the fully folded form. I know there's lots of colors and architectural styles thrown into it, but it's kinda the whole point of this castle (and my collection doesn't give into a more cohesive style, I'm afraid). Anyway, the castle is mostly done in a doll-house style akin to my Hogwarts MOC, so there's room to play with all the different fairy tale scenes and characters. Speaking of which, let's take a tour and see who lives here. I'll add numbers to each of the fairy tales we see so we get a full total by the end of the tour. Running down the front stairs is 1. Cinderella, who as in the classic scene drops her glass shoe as she rushes home from the prince's ball. Other guests in the ball include 2. Beauty and the Beast... ...and the awkward 3. Emperor in his new clothes. Above the ballroom is a hall with a stained glass window. Who else could live there except... ...4. King Arthur and his fourteen Knights of the Round Table and the fabled wizard Merlin. Above that room lies a tower covered in roses and briars. In the tower 5. Sleeping Beauty has just experienced the fatal sting of the spinning wheel. Yeah, I know, the roses grew prematurely. On top of the tower, 6. Little Boy Blue blows his horn 'cause the sheep's in the meadow and the cow's in the corn. To the right from the main entrance lies a curious little cabin. A lonely dwarf, 7. Rumpelstilzkin is moping outside. Inside the warm cabin are 8. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. There's a barrel full of pickaxes behind the dwarves, beyond the camera's reach. Above the cabin is the blue-painted house where 9. Goldilocks confronts the Three Bears. The bears look confused to find a stranger messing around in their picturesque house. Above the blue portion is a medieval tower that has two statues on the parapet, resembling might and magic, or swords and sorcery. On top of the tower the legendary 10. St. George is fighting a fearsome dragon. Since the dragon was attached to the tower by just four studs, I had to add it last before the photoshoot. Now, to the left of the main doors we find a small group fleeing from a shady figure. There's 11. Red Riding Hood with her grandmother, 12. Three Little Pigs and 13. The Boy Who Cried Wolf (but since he had lied about it before, nobody came to help him). And of course it's the Big Bad Wolf himself in the background. When the castle is folded, a door appears onto the other side of the archway. Cool, huh? On a closer look, the black building is revealed to be an ornate oriental building. Can you spot 14. Pinocchio with his elongated nose in the picture above? Inside the domed building is who else but 15. Aladdin and the genie he just rubbed out of a magic lamp. Sorry you can't see them any better than this, the camera just didn't appreciate the cramped space I put the scene into. Moving onto the left-side wing of the castle, we come to the beautiful Secret Garden filled with flowers. There's a majestic waterfall streaming into the pond in the middle. In the pond lives the 16. Little Mermaid with her underwater friends, and also the 17. Frog Prince just waiting for a princess to come and give him the spell-reversing kiss. There's certainly not a lack of princesses in this castle. Inside the white portion of the castle we see 17. Puss-In-Boots and the three kittens from 18. The Aristocats (yay, Disney) chasing a horde of rats. But why are there so many rats? Aha! The culprit is none other than the 19. Pied Piper! Watch out, he'll take the kids next! There's some kids hanging around the gingerbread house located on the roof of this section. Better not get close to that 20. Snow Queen, children. Notice how her icy tower is melting, causing the waterfall? The kids are of course 21. Hansel and Gretel, those hungry little rugrats. The witch living in the gingerbread house greets them with a wide smile... ...all the while hiding the remains of her last visitor behind her. The tallest tower in the castle is naturally the prison of 22. Rapunzel, a princess in dire need of a haircut. And now onto the final section of the castle. On the bottom floor is a secret cave with a LURP that opens. Yay, action features! Inside we find 23. Ali Baba, who knows that "Open Sesame" is the current trendy phrase. At least the words have lead him to a massive fortune. The strategically placed light-up brick under the treasures makes the gold really glitter and gleam. Above the cave, the soldier with a magical 24. Tinderbox is looking for his own treasure, guarded by three (Belville) dogs each more enormous than the last. In the next room, a pampered 25. Princess can't sleep because there's a pea under her mattress. Or should I say, mattresses? On the roof of the tan section of the castle open the Enchanted Woods. 26. Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men (well, just Little John and Friar Tuck, in this case) are practicing close-ranged archery. There's a 27. Unicorn grazing behind them, just minding his own business. 28. Tarzan, the King of the Jungle, is dangerously flinging on a tree branch reaching outside the wall. His chimpanzee Cheetah howls at his stupid stunts. Above all this, 29. Jack climbs the giant beanstalk into the heavens, not knowing what he finds there but he's sure to bring an axe with him just in case. As pretty as this rainbow is, I have to say the beanstalk and the cloud was the most aggravating part of this whole building. I just couldn't get it sturdy enough so the cloud kept falling down during the build and the photoshoot, smashing the rainbow and the beanstalk into pieces every time. I swear that this is the last LEGO beanstalk I will ever build! To counterweight the annoying cloud, my favorite part of the whole castle is definitely the rabbit hole where 30. Alice fell as she went into the Wonderland. I made it with a completely new technique to me, and it was a challenge to fit the round wall inside the otherwise rectangular castle, let alone keep it sturdy. But I think I managed to create the illusion of Alice falling through the various items quite well, don't you think? We conclude our tour into the secret dungeon that holds three old friends from classic horror fiction sharing drinks. The 31. ghost enjoys a chalice filled with ectoplasm, 32. Count Dracula is naturally drinking blood and the 33. Frankenstein's monster is consuming liquid electricity (yeah, I totally made that up). ~*~*~*~ So there we have them: 33 unforgettable stories put into one castle built with LEGO. Finally, all the residents of Legendia want to thank you for reading all this text and looking through all these photos. Please share your thoughts about this MOC. Any questions, comments, feedback?