Legoist

I have no idea what are TLG plans with these, but let's also keep in mind that KFOL are always the main target for retail shops "sets", and KFOL's time perception is different compared to AFOL's 6 months is a long time for a kid... of course what matters is not really the time between 2 series but between completing the first and see the second coming out. Also, it might get harder later to design more unique minifigs, so TLG should probably not go too fast in these series releases. I have seen this happen with Dungeons & Dragons collectible random minis: after a few series (I think they were releasing 3-4 per year, each of which had maybe 60 figures; I don't really remember the right numbers but this is just to get the point) the minis became repetitive and they started to make "new versions" of the older ones. TLG minifigs are only 16 per series, but keep in mind also that D&D has literally thousands monsters and characters to base their minis on. TLG is at the same time more free in their design (there is no limit to what a Lego minifig could represent) but at the same time they actually have to come up with ideas (while D&D minis designer can just pick their ideas from hundreds of books published in the last 35 years). I think they can continue with collectable minifig series for still quite a few years, but perhaps they don't want to cause inflation to their own design.

We don't know if Kingdoms will later have non-human characters like Castle did. But you can be more than sure that Kingdoms is not going to be the last medieval theme of Lego. When Kingdom ends, it will be replaced by something similar, and that might have more fantasy elements eventually. There will always be a castle Lego theme, as long as TLG exists, and fantasy themes may wax and wane in popularity but never disappear completely. Actually, fantasy themes always have more "action factor" than non-fantasy equivalent themes, and that makes them more attractive for KFOL which are still the customer base. Just see how many of the current themes are "fantasy/action" compared to those which are more "normal/quiet" We AFOL may want more medieval villages and historical castles, but the KFOL want battles and monsters. I don't think we need to wait more than a couple of years to see monsters returning to the medieval theme.

I don't believe those prices in euros. They seem to be underpriced.

Not exactly sale news, but possibly interesting for those living in central Finland... This weekend at Tampere Pirkkahalli there is a toy exposition (Muksumessut). If I understand right, there will be some Lego creations including some sized City and Pirates diorama. Both TLG and Finnish Lego club Palikkatakomo have a stand. I doubt however that there will be anything on sale. http://www.muksumessut.fi/tampere/ Unfortunately as usual the exposition have a quite expensive ticket or 10-12e, so it's worth going only if you're interested in more things beyond just this.

I am sure it does, I see no reason why Prisma wouldn't distribute them in all its shops! (I guess you have Prisma in Lahti as well) Or if you have to pass by Tampere, I'll send you the coordinates of the exact shop that has it for sure

That's a pity. My daughter would have loved that... and I would be happy too to have more female minifigs.

Hobby Hall is selling the Kingdoms Advent Calendar for 20e only until the end of October. You have to factor in the delivery fee tho (5e if you buy the Calendar only), but if you are planning to buy other stuff from Hobby Hall, then it's good considering. Anyway some shop chains like Prisma have it for 22e only.

Definitely. I suppose 1/45 was calculated by the height of the minifig, but then their width doesn't match. If you go viceversa, you have the same problem. If you try to average all the dimensions (height, width, head circumference...) you just get another out-of-scale result. But ultimately this does give you freedom of doing it the way you want (if you want to be funky, try a scale by weight), because there is no "right" way. The truth is, minifigs don't have the proportions of humans, at least not the adults: they have the proportions of human toddlers, which is why by the way everyone finds them cute

I wonder if there's any online source where you can see the rules, just to get an idea...

I guess your first problem will be to choose to stick to the old greys, new greys or mix the two of them. If you choose old grays, you have to resort to second-hand bricks. Bricklink is good to find these old bricks in "near-new" condition. Alternatively, eBay is cheaper (especially for whole sets) but you will probably get many worn-out or discolored pieces. If you choose new grays, you can get them new and cheap from the current sets, Kingdoms in particular (although I guess you'd want to resell the minifigs and medieval accessories). I think many people would warn you against mixing the two, many AFOLs think they don't look good together.

I'm looking for troll minifigs (not giant trolls) to use in RPG games. I will consider anything in "like-new" condition or even MISB sets (but presumably small ones, since I don't need the rest of the set).

Heh, it's pretty clear that everyone is now drooling for those column pieces That's a brilliant move from TLG... they will be so popular for AFOLs wanting to create Roman/Greek MOCs.

This theme is really a surprise for me... I know that quite many people were talking about an "Egyptian-flavored" theme but I could have bet it was only wishful thinking. I am not particularly interested in the theme per se, but it seems it will provide cheap options to get a lot of mummies (in our case, useful for RPGing): there's two in the 10e set (the motorbike) and two more in the 20e set (the airplane). Edit: they seem to be quite steeply priced however... are we sure they aren't a licensed theme based on some upcoming movie?

Pretty much nothing interesting to me in City 2011, which is actually a good thing... this way I won't have the desire for any set in particular and I can focus on looking for parts. I should be MOCing more...

I was wondering the same, my wife saw Creationary in a retail shop and immediately wanted to get it for Christmas, but the others look like they might be too simple for adults. However they do seem to be good for parts, depending on an AFOL's need. For instance, the new "Banana Balance" and "Frog Rush" will be great sources of apples and snakes . Maybe not very cheap, I think the ratio is about 10c/piece but nearly all pieces are really tiny.

Odd... I don't collect them either but I do not want any chance at all. In fact I didn't buy any of Series 1 or 2 until I found out about the barcodes. But it's not a big deal, if I can't buy what I want, I'll just not buy any. That said, I think it will still be possible to guess the minifig inside in the old way, i.e. by touch. I think there are 2-3 minifigs I like in Series 3, so as long as I can guess by touch I'll probably myself buy the Fisherman, the Hawaiian and a bunch of elves. Everything else doesn't interest me, so I certainly won't take the chance.

Fantastic, I also love the lights and the snow. What kind of product did you use for the snow? Was it easy to remove from the bricks afterwards?

I don't think that quality-wise this is an underrated set at all.

I think this is quite pessimistic. Indeed some sets last 1 year but I would say that "generally" 2 years is more likely. There are clearly sets that last longer, I think the average could be somewhat higher than 2.

That piano is just awesome!

I think Peeron is already a fantastic website, but I would welcome this further addition! I guess the algorithm shouldn't be difficult to develop, but perhaps it might take a while to get the results of "trying" building all the existing sets. I would also like Peeron to drop their "feature" of not showing building instructions for sets of the last few years. It's a "courtesy" that TLG really never asked for, and it certainly bothers a few users.

No way... BL is cool if you're hunting for specific pieces you need, but to get yourself a "mixed bag of parts" for train building (like the Hobby Train set) you end up needing to buy from many sellers, summing up all the mail costs. If you prefer having new parts, it ends up even more expensive than buying a MISB Hobby Train from eBay.

Actually, it's not a long time ago when TLG sold wagons from S@H (the Santa Fé cars and the Intermodal Stack Container), so it's definitely not impossible that there will be something like them again. What is really unlikely IMHO is to see wagons sold in retail shops. Personally I loved the Emerald Night, and would have loved the Santa Fé and BNSF had I been out of my dark ages when they were still available. But these exclusive sets are/were so good that I don't have the heart to tear them apart for pieces, and I need to MOC... therefore I would so much more prefer to have "sets" like the Hobby Train: a box full of useful train-oriented parts in a limited selection of colours.

I don't like the colour scheme much, but still I had to vote 5. The truck is really good, the fact that it's a clone of another set doesn't affect my vote negatively. Yes the shop is really tiny, reminiscent of 80's sets, but the interior details and accessories are just great. Also the minifig amount is pretty good for a set of this size.

Thank you Solscud007 for the tech summary! But I didn't get the warning about getting a "cease and desist". Those companies that are making a business out of it like Brickarms and Brickforge aren't infringing anything unless they're replicating also the "Lego" logo/stamp on the bricks. As far as I know the issue on producing actual bricks has already been in court and TLG lost, in fact TLG isn't sending any "cease and desist" to any of those. However this is a further topic.