bamaker

Really good review, Siango I almost purchased this set yesterday for a rainy day activity, but the price scared me off. If it ever goes on sale, I may pick it up and try to mod it to have a Power Miners color-scheme

I just ordered my sets of minifigs. I purchased the Yoda set (need all 3), the Darth Maul set (need a loose Darth Maul), and the Boba Fett set (need a loose Leia and I can always use an extra Royal Guard). Used the BSCD28 promo code to get $5.00 off, too! This is such a great offer -- LEGO just saved me $155 USD by offering the Yoda, Dooku, and Mace pack. I'm so glad I held off spending $170 to buy the 3 sets these mini-figs come in.

I voted Agents as the best new line and the best overall line of 2008. The introductory sets for the Indiana Jones line really underwhelmed me so I couldn't vote for it as best new line. Best overall was between Agents and Castle, and unfortunately I couldn't think of any Castle sets that really jumped out at me this year (I consider the Medieval Market as a 2009 set) like the Mobile Command Center and Volcano Base sets from Agents.

Not sure where to really place this .... if it needs to be moved, please do so. A couple of weekends ago I was talking with a man from my church; he is the manager of NorthPark Center in Dallas (for those unfamiliar with the Dallas area, NPC is the chic shopping area in Dallas; it's where the celebrities shop when they visit Big D). While talking about the depressed economy and the terrible Christmas sales-season, I asked him if NorthPark is having any problem keeping tenants in the mall. He told me that in fact there is a long list of tenants waiting to get in -- they're turning stores away. But, he did let me know this bit of news -- NorthPark Center is getting a LEGO store! He told me that the Libby Lu store, which has now closed as of January 31, would be the location of the store. I tried to play it cool, but I think I may've weirded him out by how excited I got. The store space will have to be remodelled, but should open in a few months. Great news for the north Texas area. I told him that Dallas was the largest metro area in the U.S. w/o a LEGO store and the nearest location is all the way down in Houston -- 4 hours away (pretty much stuff he already knew). Anyway, NorthPark is a mere 6 miles from my house, so I'm pretty excited (and I'm sure my wallet is going to be hurting). As a side note: We're supposed to be going on the same ski retreat with our church in late February, and I plan to pull any further information I can from him.

Great review, and can't wait to build my set. Though I'm disappointed to hear about having to disassemble the driving compartment just to access it. As a side note, I found this at TRU the other day. It was priced $9.99 on the shelf, but it rang up at $14.99. Needless to say I received a price adjustment for $9.99, but the young manager promptly removed the incorrect price sticker from the shelf and mumbled something about it being the wrong tractor. So check your local TRU to see if they made the same mistake.

Great work on all the set designs and I thought the destruction of the poor family farm was depicted very well (unfortunately for the poor farm). I would call it a fun, whimsical story, but there's too much truth to it (I mean, who doesn't see Rock Monsters around their town everyday?). The only bit that through me off was the reveal of the Rock Monster where the caption says: I thought Jill was the daughter and Jane was the mother. Jill was swept up during the demolition (only to end up as a street performer/hooker?) and Jane was last seen with two construction workers. Did the construction workers feed Jane to the Rock Monster?

I guess I'm in the minority. I'm a Star Wars fan but I don't find the Clone Wars boxes all that appealing. I don't like the blue/white theme of the boxes, especially when they're all placed together in the stores -- the white boxes give the appearance of empty space on the shelves and the blue does not capture the consumer's eye. There's just Star Wars images floating on empty shelves. For best overall box theme, I'd go with the Castle line. Having never been a fan of the classic castle sets, it was the box for Skeleton Tower that finally got me to purchase a set, and I've really enjoyed all the new Castle boxes. But for best individual box, I really like the box for 8637 Volcano Base from the Agents line. Vibrant reds & oranges, against dark brown with a dash of lime green, all framed by the metallic "Agents" header make for an appealing box (plus I really like this set).

What a great review of this set! I'm not a huge City fan, but I've been anticipating the Combine ever since the first images came out. I'll have to stop by TRU after work today and see if it's made it down to Texas. I'm going to mod my set and replace the white bricks with green. I'll have a nice John Deere-ish Combine sitting on my desk to remind me of all the harvests I spent in Oklahoma bringing in the wheat.

Since I'm nearing 40 years, my memory of my childhood toys is quite fuzzy when it comes to the order of toys received and did the toy belong to me or my brother. That being said my first LEGO set was either: 709 Police Boat 462 Mobile Rocket Launcher or 442 Space Shuttle I'm inclined to say the Police Boat actually belonged to my brother, and I may have received the two Space sets at the same time. But all three sets were played with for many years, and were the cornerstones to a lifelong enjoyment of LEGO.

Sticking only to the sets that I purchased... My favorite set for 2008 would have to be the Agents Mobile Command Center. And I'll echo the sentiments of many others on these boards; it's simply a well-designed large set with so many features and tons of play value that it took me several hours to complete the model as I fiddled with all the buttons, doors, missiles, and vehicles. Look upon its splendor and gaze in awestruck wonder. My least favorite set for 2008 is the Dwarves' Mine Defender. This was a set I bought out of obligation to complete the Castle collection, after putting off the purchase for several months. I didn't really like the model concept. It's a catapult with spinning blades -- aren't catapults usually far from the front lines where spinning blades serve no purpose? Also, how is it propelled into the fray? Is it just pushed downhill, flinging boulders into the air, dooming the pilot to a bloody death at the base of the mountain? Even if you can accept that this is a fantasy model and that dwarves might have catapults with spinning blades, the spinning blades do not even work very well. Sure you get another Dwarf in a cheap set, but that wasn't enough to make me like this set. Meh.

Yesterday, I bought the following two sets: I put the Thunder Driller together last night -- great set.

I had a 20%-Off coupon for TRU, so last night I went and picked up: 7699 MARS MISSION: MT-101 Armoured Drilling Unit

This past Saturday I picked up 7646 MARS MISSION: ETX Alien Infiltrator 7648 MARS MISSION: MT-21 Mobile Mining Unit

Went to Toys R Us on Monday and they were having a buy one set, get 50% off next set of equal or lesser value (excluding Star Wars and Buckets), so I had the girl at the register do 4 separate transactions and got the following: 6243 PIRATES Brickbeard's Bounty for $100 7644 MARS MISSION MX-81 Hypersonic Operations Aircraft for $40 (1/2 off) 7649 MARS MISSION MT-201 Ultra-Drill Walker for $70 6253 PIRATES Shipwreck Hideout for $20 (1/2 off) 7245 POLICE Prisoner Transport for $11.00 7942 FIRE Off-Road Fire Rescue for $5.00 (1/2 off) 5612 POLICE Police Officer for $5 5613 FIRE Firefighter for $2.50 (1/2 off) The Police and Fire sets will be stocking stuffers for Christmas Last night I picked up at Wal-Mart: 5619 Crystal Hawk for $3.50 7645 MT-61 Crystal Reaper for $50

Sunday I picked up 6253 Pirates Shipwreck Hideout and 7649 MT-201 Ultra-Drill Walker at Toys R Us. On Monday the 6190 Aquashark's Crystal Cave I won on eBay for $8.50 was on my porch waiting for me to get home from work. And I'm now anxiously awaiting the 6066 Camouflaged Outpost and 6074 Black Falcon's Fortress that I got off of eBay, as well.

I and my generic avatar are in.

I didn't even realize I could make my Brickset page public until I saw this thread. What a great idea for a thread (thanks for raising this one from the dead). ... here is my Brickset page.

Well, despite what I wrote two posts above about being done for the year, I just made another purchase. Found a really good deal on another website. A collector was selling some of his 2002-2003 LEGO sets and I picked up the whole lot. 4475 Jabba's Message 4476 Jabba's Prize 4479 TIE Bomber 4480 Jabba's Palace 4500 Rebel Snowspeeder 7113 Tusken Raider Encouter 7119 Twin-Pod Cloud Car 7127 Imperial AT-ST 7139 Ewok Attack 7200 Final Duel I 7201 Final Duel II I was able to get the whole lot for just under $175.00 shipped -- which is only slightly more than the original retail price.

Didn't buy today, but my most recent purchases at TRU (about 2 weeks ago) were: 7038 Troll Assault Wagon 7726 Coast Guard Truck with Speed Boat 7739 Coast Guard Patrol Boat and Tower 7773 Tiger Shark Attack 7774 Crab Crusher 7775 Aquabase Invasion ...and just won the following sets off eBay 6107 Recon Ray (I'd hoped to bundle this with a bunch of other Aqua sets the seller had listed, but it turned out this was the only auction of his I won. Oh well). 8801 Knight's Attack Barge 8876 Scorpion Prison Cave I'm pretty tapped out for now, and these will probably close out my LEGO purchases for 2008 (unless I can find the other Aqua Raiders for cheap ).

Yeah, LEGO bricks being used they way they were intended. Great job on all those; I especially like the satellite you created.

Great videos. Best parts were your displays of exhaustion and triumph in the 2nd video - just like a real marathon.

With the state of the dollar here in the U.S., I'll gladly accept a check so long as it's redeemable for euros. But send it quickly.

GAH!! He's gluing the bricks together!! Clicky then clicky Watch the Video on the upper right of the screen. But, wow -- what a supply of bricks he has.

Edit by Hinckley: Warning! What you are about to read is a JOKE! If anyone wants to go halvsies with me, send me the money first and I'll run down to the flagship store here in Dallas and pick these up.

Wow, that was fast! I ordered my 7979 set last Thursday (as I'm sure many North American collectors did) and it arrived at my door yesterday. I put all the little sets together and sure it's a might skimpy for the ~$35 it cost (incl. shipping) but I'm glad to have it a part of my collection. I noticed in one of the reviews, rather than a knight & an archer as shown on the box, the reviewer found two archers in his 7979. I point that out, because my set did have the knight and 1 archer. Has there been anybody else that got two archers instead of an archer and a knight?