Gen. Knowledge

WOW, very nice. I wonder if they ever made a soldier version? I saw the black pirate with the peg leg and hook once, but I think he was made out of Lego bricks and not solid like this one. Spare? If I had $900 spare laying around, it wouldn't stay spare very long. I would share it with my friends on BL. Tony

Looks like your pirates are afflicted with the same brick pattern baldness a lot of my men are experiencing. Do you have any pictures of your 950 pirates? Tony

You had a very nice army a year ago. Have you upgraded your army since? Any new forts? Thanks for the inspirations. I really like your fort. A little hard to see with all that black though. I bought black bricks to build my fort also, but I am rethinking the color theme. Not because of your MOC though. Tony

I wonder if Mr. Kinzcove ever got his 1,000 French soldiers? Even if he had $375 million it would be hard to find 1,000 Imperial minifigs. Too bad he is banned, I would like to see the progress he's made. But then again, I'm also hoping he isn't for real because he could definitely raise up the price of Imperial minifigs and make it a lot harder then it already is to collect them. Tony

Hi Teddy, I brought it up a few days ago. I asked if she wanted to go to BrickCon in Seattle, Washington. She looked at me in anger and just said "are you serious?" She didn't even like LegoLand. She spent the second day at the outlet stores. LegoLand was a bit of a disappointment though. I was expecting to come away with a huge amount of exclusive stuff, but there really wasn't anything good. I did get a cool t-shirt that I am embarrassed to wear. And I got my wife a yellow smiling minifig shirt she wears to bed.

Hello Basiliscus, Thanks for the comment. My army is actually based a lot on Lord Chelmsford's Column. My goal was to build up an army of minifigs and re-create scenes from the movie Zulu Dawn. I made a couple test shoots, and realized it is a lot of work making a stop-motion movie, so I'm giving it up. It would have also been expensive to put together all the Zulu warriors. Pith helmets, yes there is a shortage. I buy mine off BL 4-5 helmets at a time. After a while it adds up. I'm waiting for this person to sell off his piths. Click Here Don't make too much noise about pith helmets or else the price will go up like shakos. Hi Stauder, I have a coastal fort in the works for this army, and an idea for a large barracks. SW will have to wait while I'm on my 18-19th Century Imperial Empire fix. But an Imperial Empire of the future is in the works as well. I'm just buying up Stormtroopers right now so I won't have to buy them off BL at a premium later. Thanks Teddy, Sell? Are you kidding me? That's how I got myself in this situation in the first place. If I didn't loose my Lego collection over 10 years ago, I would have a huge Black Falcon army (my next endeavor), along with a couple hundred more Imperial Guards and Soldier. My wife on the other hand looks at me like I've gone off the deep end of the pool. She doesn't understand why I still like to play with Lego. Last week my sister's family came to visit, and my wife almost gave my soldiers to my niece and nephew to play with.

Hello WhiteFang, Thanks for the comment. I do not keep my army on display. They are lined up on the baseplate, but hidden from prying eyes. I have a 5 year old nephew that would love to get a hold of my army. To tell you the truth, I lost my whole Lego collection over 10 years ago. After we took my nephew and niece to LegoLand in mid June of this year, I started to feel the ich again. I only had 5 Imperial Guards, but seeing all the armies EB, MOCpages, and Flickr members had inspired me to build my own army. Almost 2 months later I have over 400 soldier for my Imperial Empire, over 500 Star Wars Minifigs, and all the Batman and Spiderman sets along with an upset wife. I guess I'm having a mid-life crisis... Tony BL is my new favorite place to go on the internet. I will bid on eBay every once in a while if there is something good. Thanks BlueBard!

I think these clones are great for children. I wouldn't want my nephew playing with my Lego collection, but I wouldn't mind giving him the knock-offs. When he is older (5 now) I wouldn't mind sharing with him, unless I have children of my own. Tony

-UPDATE- I have newer pictures of my army in another thread HERE. **Opps, I just realized I violated the photo posting guidelines buy having my pictures too big, so I scaled then down for this post. If you want to see these or any other pictures I have at full size, click HERE.** Hello, I've been spending so much time on this forum lately. There is so much to see and so much to catch up on. It seems like the discussions aren't as exciting as they were a year ago. I really like seeing other peoples creations and ARMIES! So I thought I would showcase my army. I'm being a little premature because it is not at full strength yet. My entire artillery company and some of my blue and red coats are headless so I kept them out of the picture. My Dragoons are not mounted on their horses. And 98% are not armed right now. I haven't come up with a flag for them yet either. With all that in mind, I hope you all enjoy the pictures. 1st Platoon, A-Company going for a walk in the backyard earlier this evening. 1st Platoon, A-Company A closer look at their Sergeant. Overview of General Knowledge's Brigade. For those like me that like to count. Imperial Infantry Imperial Dragoons Imperial Foot Guards High Command with Home Guards One more overview. The breakdown: 207 Imperial Infantry (white pith) 43 Imperial Infantry (waiting for white pith, but wearing black 3-pointed hats) 60 Imperial Foot Guards (assigned to protect Brigadier General Knowledge) 30 Imperial Dragoons 2 Imperial Home Guards (assigned to protect BGen. Knowledge) 8 Lieutenants 2 Captains 1 Major 1 Colonel 1 Brigadier General --- 355 total shown Not shown: 45 Imperial Artillery Troops (headless and helmet less) 20 Imperial Foot Guards (headless) 2 Imperial Infantry (headless) 1 Lieutenant (headless) 3 Captains (headless) 1 Major(headless) --- 72 waiting for heads --- 427 grand total I know the question is going to come up, so here is my goal... My goal is to have 3 Companies with 4 Platoons each. Each Platoon will have 29 Foot soldiers, 1 Sergeant, and 1 Lieutenant. Each Company will have a Major or Captain in command with a Captain or 1st Lieutenant as second. So 31(Soldiers)x4(Platoons)+2(Senior Officers)=126(per Company)x3(Companies)=378 Imperial Infantry. I also want a Company of Imperial Foot Guards = 126 total One Company of Imperial Dragoons = 126 total Two Companies or Artillery = 62 total (One company of artillery contains 5 cannons (4 soldier, 1 Sergeant, 1 Lieutenant each cannon) and a Major or Captain per company) I will also have a Medical Company with 20 stretcher bearers/male nurses, 10 surgeons, and 1 Chief Medical Officer = 31 Then there will be two Companies from Logistics for transportation and cooking. 19 chefs, 1 head chef, 38 supply personnel, 2 Lieutenants, and 1 Captain = 61 Lastly there is the Brigadier General and his command staff of 1 Colonel, 1 Major, 2 Captains, 1 Sergeant Major, and 10 Home Guards = 16 So my goal for this Brigade is 800 personnel. So it looks like I am only about half way there... **UPDATE - I just read that a brigade consist of 3-5 thousand personnel. There is no way I will be able to obtain 3-5k men ** Any comments or suggestions? Keep in mind this brigade is not based on any factual army form any country. This is strictly the Army of the Imperial Empire. Their mandate is to bring all minifigs under the Crown's rule and to civilize everyone through peace or force... Tony

I like it. Did you put the holes in the sail?

I was responding to a post from Adam, about an eBay auction earlier. I went to a website that was linked to the auction in question, and saw THIS. Wow! I mean you can definitely tell these are fakes, but it makes me wonder how well they are made. Take a close look at some of the minifigs. Has anyone taken one for the team (toft) and bought any of these before? Where are Lego Bricks made these days? Tony

Thanks Adam, I actually saw these on eBay and had to take a second look. Some of the sets look very similar to official Lego sets, like this one HERE I think I will resist and stick with real Lego pieces for building. Weapons...I may stray for the right weapon. Tony

Not too sure if this is a sub-theme or a continuation of the theme, but here it goes. Lego has shown that they are willing to sell bigger models for the Star Wars themes, why not some big ships and ports for the pirate theme. The first set could be a large port made with two 48x48 plates. It would have a merchant ship yard, small merchant ship, civilian buildings, a pub, the governors house, and a military presence. This set would include 1 governor, 1 bar maid, 2-3 pirates, 2-3 merchants, and 3-4 Imperial Marines (New Minifigs). It could sell for around $200US The second set would be a Ship-of-the-Line with 20-40 cannons (wishful thinking). It would have a crew of 4-5 sailors, 1 captain, and 2-3 Imperial Marines. It would also include a longboat with maybe a pirate or three. This set would be around $100-150US The third set would be a medium size pirate ship with a small land piece for the pirates to bury their treasure. They could include 1 Imperial Marine walking the plank. This set would be priced around $80US The fourth set would be a small merchant ship with a small dock that could be attached to the first set. It would include 3-4 merchants and a Harbor Master (new minifig). This set would be $50US The fifth set would be a small seaside inn that could attach to the first set. It would include an inn keeper and maiden with maybe an Imperial Marine and pirate figure. Price, $30US There would also be an Imperial Marine Battle Pack with 3 Marines, 1 Sailor, and 1 Officer for $15US. And one Seaside figure set with 2 pirates, 2 merchants, and a maiden for the same $15US. Lastly there would be a $10US set that includes a longboat, a merchant, and a marine. The following year they would add a big coastal fort, bigger pirate ship, bigger merchant ship, more civilian buildings that would connect to the original port, and a whale. I love dreaming... Tony

I chose Pirates, but it was Lego Castle and Space that got me hooked as a child. By the time Lego Pirates came out, I had amassed a large Black Falcon army. I remember using my small Imperial Soldier forces to recreate scenes from the movie Zulu with the Black Falcons as the under-developed civilization the IS were trying to defend themselves from. Good times... The castle sets from the last 10 years and Imperial Armada don't have the same affect with me. They don't seem to inspire large armies. Although the newer castle sets with the release for the battle packs look promising. Tony

Whenever TLC decides to re-release the pirate theme, I hope they follow the castle and Star Wars themes and release one figure packs for the soldier and one for the pirates. Or whomever the protagonist and antagonist are. I'm crossing my fingers that it will be a continuation of the Imperial Guards and Soldiers. Tony

Sorry Phred, didn't mean to violate any policies. I will not bother any more members about buying their MOCs. I'm just a lowly vassal, please forgive me. Thanks for the link. Tony

Worked for me so far. Using Firefox 2.0.0.16 with Win XP Pro.

WOW! everyone is nominating themselves...is there no humility? I want to nominate the Brickarms guy. I don't know him on a first name basis, and I could look it up on his website, but I am too lazy. I'm sure as he starts to branch out to different eras he will be even more popular. Some purist may not like what he is doing, but isn't that the whole point of carving out a niche, seeing a demand that is not filled and filling it. Now let's hope Brickarms comes out with an 18th century Martini-Henry Rifle with bayonet for my British Army. I'll take 1,000 of those and some pith helmets if you please. Tony

Hello Pickerel, The plot is taken from movies I like and stirred up to make it slightly my own. It is completely fictional and only loosely based on historical figures, places, and events. I will be starting with Chapter 3, and hopefully I'll go back and do Chapters 1 and 2 when time and finances permit. I told my wife the plot, and she said it would be too time consuming to make it into a film by myself so that is why I chose to go the comic book route. Hey, maybe if I win the lottery some day I can hire people to make the move for me... I will hopefully have some pictures of my main characters and my army up by the end of next week. I'm waiting on some BL orders to update my main characters and troops. I'm having a heck of a time getting all the items I need from BL and eBay. Does anyone have any ideas how I should post my comic? Should I register a domain and host it using my .mac account or should I just upload them to Flickr? I'm hoping to release a new issue every month, but my schedule is so hectic that I may not be able to keep that schedule. Maybe 6 issues a year will be good... Trying to come up with Lego-centric names for characters and locations is proving to be very time consuming. Is there a website that will show me how to make chevrons for my sergeants? Tony

That is a beautiful ship! What is this "tumblehome" technique you are taking about? Is there a book or website that would explain it? Tony

Hi Wes, I like your idea of filming on sets...maybe I should have the ships built to the scale of TLC ships and but film them at a distance without minifigs. I wouldn't be able to capture the scene of the army's boarding parade and the disembarking scene... I guess I have to get on eBay and Bricklink to get parts for ships. This will delay my plans but I really need a command ship. Lets see what I can get for $500! This will be fun.

Thanks Wes, I would love to borrow, but being that I am new to this forum I'm sure people are not going to just lend me their MOC's. The other complication is the amount of time I would want to hold on to them. If I ever want to make a sequel I would have to borrow them again. Just too much of a hassle. But thanks for the ideas. Do you have any pictures of ships you already built that you might want to sell? Hello Pickerel, Here is a link to Captain K.'s ship that I really like. http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=277878 I emailed him to see if he would sell it, but I won't hold my breath. My main ship needs to be wide and long enough for me to capture some scenes with the main characters on it. The other two will mostly be slightly blurred-out in the back ground. One of the smaller cargo ships will be sunk in the story, but I will just buy spare boat parts for the scene.

Thanks for your replies. TLC ships are too small for the affect I am trying to get. I thought about buying a bunch of parts and making my own, but I haven't been around tall ships enought to know how to build them correctly. I need a really big ship that looks like it could transport a lot of soldiers and look good enough for an Admiral to command. I also need two more smaller ships that would carry men and supplies. Maybe I should contact some of the MOC ship builders on this forum and see if they will sell me their ships. Tony

Hello, I came up with a story for my army and I want to create a comic for it (I would love to create a brickfilm of it, but don't have the time or patients). I don't have all the parts or knowledge to put together 3 ships for my Navy. These three ships are vital to the story so I would like to buy them or have them commissioned by some of the great ship builders on this forum. Would anyone here like to sell or build me 3 ships for my Navy? Or maybe you could direct me to a BL seller that sells them. Thanks. Tony

Yes, and what pretty arms you have Emperor Bonaparte? BTW, I really like your army. Have you been recruiting lately?