Legoist

...just spotted Series12, or whatever it is called, anyone the CMF series based on the Lego movies... so apparently for some inexplicable reason we just "skipped" Series11

It's not that, because Series 11 is not available in some countries even via the Lego official website.

Weird...

Sorry for such a "localized" topic... :) Until Series 10 I had no issues in finding Collectable Minifig in Finland, but I've never seen Series 11 in any market chains I regularly visit (Prisma, Citymarket, S-Market, Vapaavalinta...). I haven't be actually searching for that Series so perhaps it's just an overlook, but it seemed strange I haven't seen it anywhere. Anybody else living in Finland, have you found Series 11 normally available, or did you also noticed it was not availble in market chains as previous series?

Nice thread! Our 6yo daughter is becoming a fan of Friends, she has something like 5-6 small sets. We've talked about minifigs vs minidolls before, and after reading this thread I briefly interviewed her again on the topic before posting :) She says she prefers minidolls first and foremost because they look more real. She spontaneously mentioned a specific issue she has with feet: she says she likes how minidolls show skirts & trousers design as well as shoes, while minifigs normally have one-colours legs without shoes. She also likes that minidolls have names. OTOH, she doesn't seem to think models or colours to be a reason for her preferring Friends sets to City or Creator sets, in general she simply favors houses, plus anything that has to do with animals. As for me, I largely prefer minifigs hands down. Minidolls cannot walk and cannot sit. As an AFOL I am interested in building and not in action-playing, although I do that with my children, so in theory I shouldn't care if a character could or could not walk properly, but still... I think movable legs should be fairly easy to make on minidolls too, so I hope for a 2.0 version. In general, as an AFOL I have always wanted more female minifigs, and at least I'm very happy that 2013-2014 City (and not only) sets have clearly more female characters than before. I also think that in general Friends sets themselves are well done, and since for myself I would buy sets for the bricks rather than the models, I really like they provide interesting and useful parts, unusual colours, and plenty of minifig accessories. It's really just the minidolls I dislike. I would have much preferred Friends to have minifigs and thus be like a re-envisioning of the Paradisa theme. I couldn't agree more! :D But minifigs can still be improved without changing their shape at all. With reference to my own daughter's comments: - feature printed shoes (or at least different colour at the legs' end) more often - give a name to each minifig in a set

Lego is keeping up a great job! We're already overwhelmed with minifigs from previous series (and we usually only get 5-10 each series...) but I won't be able to resist getting at least 3-4 of those Medusas for use in our RPGs. Probably also 1 each of those fighter-types (the Amazon, the Tomahawk and the Roman).

Thanks for the great review as usual, it's very informative! :) This series is really top-notch in quality... I totally skipped Series8, but I think I'll try to get at least 12-15 from Series9, especially a bunch of cyclops to use for RPGing. At least the new distribution policy has a bright side... for me at least.

I am a nostalgic Lego Trains fan and I've never had this one when I was a child (and never will since the typical collector's prices), so this would be my pick: 7740-1: Inter-City Passenger Train Set

1. castor-troy - 1 6. watzking - 1 14. alex54 - 1 26. psyche - 1 27. Myko - 1

1. AllanSmith - 1 7. Sebeus I - 2 10. LegoJalex - 2

7. Kit Fisto - 3 13. Inconspicuous - 2

It's quite a stretch, but they could have made every Cusoo work similar to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickstarter. Which means that every vote is essentially a preorder, if the minimum number of preorders is met then the product is made, otherwise no one gets charged.

At least my local Prisma shop is disposing several licensed sets with 40% discount at the moment. I don't know for sure but this could be the same in all Prisma shops in Finland, so you might want to check... In our case it was Cars and NinjaGo sets, from mid-size upward. I remember at least the following sets being 40% off: 8487 - Flo's V8 Cafe 2263 - Turbo Shredder (not sure, could have been a similar set) 2504 - Spinjitzu Dojo 2507 - Fire Temple In case you don't know, Prisma usually has fair prices (except for Trains which I think they are overcharged) so the 40% is quite good... for example the Fire Temple is 89e - 40% = 53e.

I am absolutely of the same opinion! Don't they say that producing a new mould is expensive? Then why haven't they e.g. put out more cows?? The only 2 sets with cows have been the mid-size Farm and the large-size exclusive MMV, and only 2 per each set Should they put out a "farm animal set" and a "zoo animal set" (similar to the minifigure city packs) on the 10-20e range, IMHO they would sell like mad. Also... Duplo has zoo and circus, Playmobil has zoo and circus, clone brands have zoo and circus... what scares TLG so much that they aren't making these? At least TLG made farm, but IMHO they didn't make it that well... the biggest set was quite ugly, and 2 of the other 4 sets were off. If the small pig farm had cows instead, it would have been much more popular.

Why not, I suppose? 1) Rollerskate girl, with tiny rollers 2) Jazz saxophonist, with saxophone 3) Scarecrow, with broom and crow 4) Female skier, with same skies as S2 but different colour 5) Hospital patient, with flebo 6) Roman noble, with cup and grape 7) College-suit girl, with printed book 8) Amazon warrior, with bow 9) Curling player, with whatever-they-use-to-play-curling 10) Witch-doctor, with skull and voodoo doll 11) Queen of hearts, with scepter 12) Panda-suit guy, with apple 13) Judge, with bible 14) Kung-fu master, with nunchuck 15) Pope, with tiara and curled staff 16) Motorcycle driver, with winner's cup (and muddy clothes)

Those suggestions in the last few posts (steampunk, retro robots, 1900 explorers) would be absolutely fantastic for AFOLs, but I'm highly skeptical they would work as an "action theme", which is always targeted at KFOL. Old sci-fi and exploration don't have almost any appeal to the current generation of kids*, unless there is a movie or TV series around them (like Indiana Jones), in which case they would be licensed themes. Personally I think Pharaoh's Quest was as far as they can go back in time for an action theme, and apparently it's not been a huge success. *edit: I don't know you guys, but I was a kid in the 80s and even then we all hated those old sci-fi concepts because they felt terribly outdated. Only as an adult I was able to give them some appreciation

Not really going to happen, but I would like to see action themes with more than 2 factions... you know, like World of Warcraft where there's the Alliance, the Horde and (IIRC) an undead faction and a demonic faction. Not counting WoW which would be a licensed theme, I'd like to see something based on elements, such as fire, water, earth, air, ice, lightning... same idea already used in NinjaGo, but each element (not necessarily all of them... pick 3 for a start) developed into a faction with its own creatures and stuff.

I love that strip, good luck! But be careful about intellectual properties when posting your MOCs, the OotS characters are protected by copyrights. This may not be an issue on EB forums, but if you create your own website/blog it might become a problem. You may want to contact Rich Burlew directly to help on this issue. I did, and he was kind enough to give me some explanation, but I was asking about using his OotS style to depict different subjects (and this is allowed), not about depicting his characters in a different style (which unfortunately it is probably not allowed). But again, it's possible that for a few pictures of your MOCs there would be no problem at all, just ask him to be sure

Hilarious! The colours chosen really give the impression that there's some kind of "shadow" hanging over the city

On of the most realistic stations I've ever seen! My favourite details is the roof and brick walls pseudo-random tiling, and the tank wagons simple yet neat design

I think that TLG is basing the marketing of many themes upon a backstory, the backstory's excitement burns out quickly, and it's easier to run out of ideas for the story than it is to run out of ideas for actual sets. What surprises me is the rapid downfall of Pharaoh's Quest. The excitement around this theme (for AFOLs) was very high, because people started to think that an egyptian theme could even have a potential not far from that of Castles, and because of the mass production of tan/sand bricks. But if you tie the theme to a story, when the story ends or "jumps the shark", then KFOLs (the bulk of customers) are going to look elsewhere for more excitment. I think the same happened for Atlantis and Alien Conquest (and Power Miners and Agents before) and will probably happen for Dino, but these themes IMHO have definitely less potential than Pharaoh's Quest. My opinion is therefore that if they had made it Pharaoh's Kingdoms (a more-or-less static world) instead of Quest, they would have probably created less excitement, sales would have been somewhat lower among the youngest KFOLs, but the theme would have last longer. But I think we all know what is more convenient for TLG... anyway they have to keep up with 400+ new sets released every year including at least 3-4 novel themes. Unfortunately it's how the yuppy economy works. Now for the bright side... to AFOLs it means it doesn't take long before a theme's sets are massively discounted Atlantis has been already "purged" from a few shops around here with discounts between 30-50% in the last few months. I didn't buy any PQ sets, but if I see the same discounts I'll start thinking about it. [edit: oh and by the way, it won't take longer than 6 months or at most a year before a new space theme... it's just too easy to make space sets and I don't think a gap would last longer; all they need to do is pick a new colour scheme, although personally I thought the AC purple+grey+lime scheme was ghastly]

Yep, I actually thought I was posting that comment in the other thread... then I found the real thread but it seemed too cheesy to copy-paste there.

As I mentioned in another thread, I did look at the website and now I am more convinced that this theme isn't shallow at all. The colours are definitely girly. The characters are only mildly stereotypical however... there is much more stereotype in all the police, firemen and construction workers sets, why isn't anyone complaining about that? With the exception of indian chiefs, we practically have the entire Village People range in Lego "for boys" all the time every year These Friends characters could certainly be less girly. Do you want policewomen, firewomen, female construction workers? You get them, just check the 2012 City sets, they all have women in those roles. We might get some later also in the Friends theme. Overall the Friends theme is a step towards gender neutrality, but it cannot be too neutral if the whole point of introducing this theme was because people thought that Lego did not have enough girly things!!

I checked this site briefly and all I can say is... WOW. Seriously, I think TLG is doing a masterwork design of this theme, and the sets (which are good, as we can now see very clearly from the EB reviews) are only one part of it. There is so much conceptual work behind this theme, especially in the defining and designing the characters. I am not going to buy these sets for myself, since as an AFOL I'm interested in MOCing thus I mostly buy sets for parts (and I personally dislike pastel colours), but if my daughter wants these I'll be very happy to buy them for her. I sincerely hope the Friends theme succeeds beyond the best expectations, and wish it might even become permanent. Regarding the "feminist petitions"... check out the theme's website above and read the concept/decription of each of the 5 characters. That is in NO WAY sexist. The five girls are conceptualized as: - a scientist/engineer type - an animalist/veterinarian - a musician (presumably expanding to also actor later) - a particularly social type - a fashion lover The most "girly" of the bunch is the fashion lover except that she's not a dumb fashion-user or someone who just buys, but she is a fashion designer, someone who makes fashion. These first 5 models, in my humble opinion, are truly positive role models for girls. They are in no way dumb, they are in fact models of very active and potentially brilliant women, not passive sunbathers and shoppers! As such, I think the Lego Friends theme should be exposed by feminists as an example of a very much feminist kind of toy

Good points indeed.