bamaker

It's GrE-AT!

Took advantage of the May the Fourth deal on S@H and ordered 10195 Republic Dropship and AT-OT. Now I just have to wait til mid-June for the backorders to ship.

Oh well, I was keeping my fingers crossed for the white Boba Fett. Does anybody know if the bronze Fett is actual bronze, or just "bronze" plastic? It's nice to see some of the high $$ items marked down, though. I may have to pull the trigger on picking up the Dropship/AT-OT, finally.

Went a little crazy this weekend... 7641 City Corner 8014 Clone Trooper Battle Pack 8084 Snowtrooper Battle Pack 7146 TIE Fighter (eBay) 7166 Imperial Shuttle (eBay) 7186 Watto's Junkyard (eBay) Rebel Trooper + Hoth Turret (eBay)

Thanks for that quick little picture review. I'm actually pretty happy with this set; but what is going on with the pilot's face -- is he supposed to be wearing some kind of pull over face protection? Is there a reference photo of the pilot that the LEGO designers may have been using to come up with this? Also, the fact that some are unhappy with the interior is perplexing to me. How many LEGO Star Wars sets have great interiors -- maybe the 4504 Millenium Falcon and the 10188 Death Star? This set is comparable to Star Wars set offered in the past. I've been happy by and large with what LEGO has offered, and I'm happy with this one. (But the prices -- oy vey! )

Decided to take advantage of the Toys R Us BOGO-1/2 off sale and picked up another Home One set for $90 and the ARC Fighter for $31.50.

Ran in to Wal-Mart to pick up some trash bags and tape, and came out with these: 3179 Repair Truck 7567 Traveller 7789 Lotso's Dump Truck I didn't see any of the other summer Toy Story sets. Oh, and I got my trash bags & tape, too.

That's a great MOC. I think the best parts are the arch over the entry and the architecture around the windows. Beautifully done. The only nitpick I have is For Sell is incorrect -- it should say For Sale. It's a common mistake and I'm sure easily fixed with the correct letter tiles.

Up until a couple years ago my LEGO purchases were exclusively Star Wars. My first Castle purchase was an "I'm-bored, spur-of-the-moment" thing. I started small with this set: 7091 Knights' Catapult Defense I liked the set so much I quickly added all of the Fantasy-era sets to my collection.

I think he is trying to say "I'm serious, this is my first and last review..." but, well, I'm just guessing and might be wrong -- in which case I have no idea what it means. My teenager doesn't talk like that. Looking at some of Daniel Williams's other posts, it appears to be a typo. All of his other posts are well stated, without errors.

Done with the survey. Agreed with: Improved color separation on the instructions More AFOL sets in the licensed series Added: Greater emphasis on $10 - $20 USD sets in the System-scale lines.

I don't spend a lot of time in the City forums, so I missed this review. As alway you've got some fantastic photos, and wonderful explanation of the set and it's many features. I've been really looking forward to this set, but didn't know it had already been released in the U.S. Imagine my surprise when I saw it sitting on the shelf of my local LEGO store last night -- can't wait to put it together. I might even get my other Farm sets out and work on putting a little scene togehter.

Great review and really convinced me to pick up this set. I finished it last night, and had fun with all the features. I'm hoping to convert it into the hiding place of the Holy Grail, as seen in IJ and the Last Crusade -- we'll see if I get around to it. I did notice that the new color bricks, what are we calling it? nougat?, don't seem to grip as well as the traditional color bricks. Has anybody else noticed this?

Finally purchased 10193 Medieval Market Village last night. I went by the LEGO store but they didn't have it in stock. The sales-girl told me it was going to be discontinued soon (not sure how reliable that news is), so I went ahead and ordered it through their store. I ordered the 7078 King's Battle Chariot, too, just to complete my Fantasy Castle collection. Best part -- they waived shipping and still gave me the VIP points. Oh yeah, I also bought 7684 Pig Farm & Tractor.

Last night I picked up some sets that have been on my shopping list for a while... Went by the LEGO store and picked up 8037 Anakin's Y-Wing Starfighter -- used my VIP points to take $5.00 off -- and finally filled my Free PAB box that I received during the Christmas holiday promotion. Then stopped at TRU to take advantage of the BOGO 1/2 off sale -- got 7079 Drawbridge Defense, 7747 Wind Turbine Transport, 8061 Gateway of the Squid, and 8075 Neptune Carrier

Damn! That's a great review! It's always a treat to read a review that has obviously had a lot of time and effort put into it. Thank you for that wonderful job. ::applause:: Now, for the model... I've never owned any of the UCS sets so I really like seeing what they look like all put-together. This one looks a little too greebly, if that's even possible. Everything behind the "head" of the Y-Wing just looks "nude" in a mechanical kind-of way. I know the Rebels are a rag-tag bunch, fighting with out-dated starfighters, but geez! That's like driving your car to work, only all the paneling is stripped off, the front & rear hoods are gone, the hubcaps are off, and all you've got is a windshield.

I'll echo what everybody else is saying. With a few exceptions, most of the exclusives, set #10xxx, will see an increase in value, doubling or tripling the retail price shortly after being retired. The real guessing game comes with the regular releases. Looking only at sets out right now I'd guess the 10 most likely to see a significant rise in value will be: 6253 Shipwreck Hideout (2009) -- female pirate 7195 Ambush in Cairo (2009) -- great minifig selection, esp. Marion Ravenwood 7199 Temple of Doom (2009) -- popular film + popular scene + all exclusive minifigs (except Short Round) 7593 Buzz's Spaceship (2010) -- only set with Zurg minifig 7594 Woody's Roundup (2010) -- standard Jessie minifig, only set with Stinky Pete 7595 Army Men on Patrol (2010) -- WWII MOCs 7637 Farm (2009) -- black & white cows 7749 Echo Base (2009) -- only set with Tauntaun 7754 Home One (2009) -- only set with Ackbar, Gen. Madine, Gen. Lando, Mon Mothma 8083 Battle of Endor (2009) -- tons of minifigs, esp. ewoks A lot of these are sets from licenses that have a proven track record. Indiana Jones is a little iffy, but as a bankable product Star Wars & Toy Story have been going strong for nearly a decade now, selling films, books, toys, clothing, bedding, etc. I don't see any reason for demand for their LEGO sets to wane in the next few years.

Glad I was able to let everybody know about these. I've been trying to find out more about them; I know the 1st version had the dark knobs on the end (you can see them in the link I provided -- the set that's at a discount), but the 2nd version come with clear acrylic knobs so they're less visible. Here's a thread from 2007 discussing the 1st version. Scroll down and you'll find photos of the flexidisplay stand holding up the models from 7190 Millenium Falcon, 7163 Republic Gunship, and 7133 Bounty Hunter Pursuit. I don't know if the 2nd version has the same weight limits, but I'd think they'd be pretty close. Based on these pictures, I'd bet they could hold up most of the System-scale models, but maybe not some of the bigger UCS models (of course those already come with stands).

I haven't purchased any, but these may be what you're looking for Flexidisplay They're used by Rebelscum (a Star Wars collector site) for photographing Star Wars vehicles for their photo archive. I'm sure they'd work just fine with LEGO sets, too.

None of the sets I've put together I would call difficult, but some required a lot more attention than others. Of course, I've still got a Death Star, Cafe Corner, and Green Grocer waiting to be put together some day. But to answer the OP question, I'd have to say it's either 8635 Mobile Command Center, 10144 Sandcrawler (treads, treads, and more treads), or 10178 Motorized Walking AT-AT. The Mobile Command Center is the only one I had to deconstruct half-way through because I'd made some mistakes. The Sandcrawler just tried my patience. And the AT-AT was probably my slowest build because I double-checked and triple-checked what I was building every step of the way.

Bought a 7196 Chauchilla Cemetery Battle (first one I've seen in months) and 8188 Fire Blaster yesterday. Put together the Fire Blaster last night and will probably build the Cemetery set this weekend.

Yep, I do believe that is an A+ answer if I've ever seen one. Seijitai thanks for the great insight into how the numbering works. Since you seem to know quite a bit about this subject, I have another quick question, is there any rhyme or reason why some skipped numbers are returned to for new minifigures? The silver stormtrooper is a good example; its number is sw097, a number that had been skipped at one time.

Great review, and pictures, and a nice blast from the past, too. This set helped bring me back into LEGO and had a nice old school feel about it. Reminded me of all the great times I had building & playing with the classic space sets when I was much younger. Sadly I sold my set during my great purge sometime around 2003 (needed a new car). Anyway, thanks for this wonderful review!

Well you can pretty much tell by looking at my signature, but if I had to rank them... 1. Star Wars 2. City - Farm 3. Power Miners 4. Castle 5. Toy Story 6. Creator Houses Past favorites include... 1. Agents 2. Indiana Jones 3. City - Coast Guard

Thanks for all of the replies, so far. I don't poke around too much in the BL forums, but I may do that just to see what info is there.