Legoist

Ok I really don't understand the point of army-building, so I hope I don't sound rude. But... what is it that excites you in having 34 identical soldiers? When I say "identical" I don't mean that they have the same clothes and equipment, THAT I do understand. But if you build an "army", why don't you make it also more realistic by making them all slightly different, varying at least the FACES of the soldiers? If you do that (and I'm sure you can), then I will certainly appreciate your "build", but if you keep them totally identical then I am really left unimpressed, it's not much building it's just buying...

That's a great MOC! I love seeing some MOC for once that isn't as big as a modular. Plus, I nearly had a heart-attack seeing this... This station with its tan & dark red colour and the snow-covered roof is just the same (except smaller) as the place where me (brown-haired with glasses) & wife (blond with ponytail) had our first kiss!! Now I only need to figure out... who's that redhair impostor in the back stalking her?

Isn't that going to be a little hard?

I'm usually the cheapskate around here, but this time I have to say that this set does seem to me very fairly priced. I was thinking something similar to MojoLego: Only I had in mind slightly different prices (just imagine these being sold separately and compare them with existing sets): Bus 30e: it's about about as big as the Lego truck and slightly bigger than the gas truck Tram 40e: definitely a good 30% bigger than the Bus Cleaner 10e: almost as big as the repair truck or electrician's truck, but probably smaller Car 7-8e: more or less like the red car set ...and all the structures would easily more at least 15e Personally I probably won't buy this set, I like the Tram and Bus a lot (but not their colours) and the Car is fine, but the rest would just end up recycled in MOCs. Also these vehicles together don't make much sense to me, I agree with those who would have preferred separate sets for these, but no problem. Anyway I warmly thanks TLG for this set because... the design of the Bus and the Tram is just amazing. I think I am going to study the parts required, make some minor mods, and build them myself in different colours

Of course it is!

Thanks for the new review! Are you going to do reviews for all 12V trains? I voted 3/5 but maybe that was a bit ungenerous. The train design is pretty good... The locomotive is quite standard (i.e. good) design of 80s Lego, and the refrigerator wagon is IMHO one of the very best cargo wagons of that era. I think the other two wagons are less good.

Ok I see, if Bricklink is the reference then yes it makes sense I bought a 2nd-hand 7710 in great condition (practically new except dusty) for ~60e on eBay, so that 150 seemed way out of line.

Thanks for the tip! Those two are shop chains I actually seldom visit, I'll keep them in mind in case I don't find the A.C. in my habitual stores. PS Not to divert the thread, but do you possibly have any idea if any Finnish shops have "Hard to finds" as in this page: http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Leaf.aspx?cn=245&d=100 ? (I know "Exclusives" are instead S@H or Lego Stores only) Maybe Idea Park or BR-Lelut chain?

Well, what I'm trying to say is that IMHO they have so far an undecided (or careful) strategy. Many posters are saying that these series are hard to find, and get sold out quickly. To me this suggests that TLG management just wasn't sure it was a good idea and took a "safe tactic": limited production to see how the first series go, and made in China to keep the costs minimal. They picked their budget for a bunch of designers and a number of pieces to produce so that series 1 would make a profit if at least XX% of the bags were sold, now they've seen they sold 100% and they will increase production for series 2. Also I am not angry at all with TLG for this! Believe me, with so much Lego out there to possibly buy, there is no single Lego set or minifig I cannot live without. I'm a parent too however, and while my kids are still too young for these, I am already thinking whether I should keep them away from collections in general, or if I should let them try and learn from their mistakes. I do have a very negative opinion on "collectable toys" and collecting hobbies based on close collections, I believe they are as unhealthy as gambling. So for me the matter was very simple: since they're sold at random, I didn't even consider buying them, no matter how nice they look. Once I found out about the barcodes, I bought 5 that I though were cool, maybe I'll buy 2-3 more, and that's it (since we already know the barcodes are over in series 3). I understand your concerns for people who buy 500 of the same minifig, which combined with the scarcity of the whole series makes it almost impossible for regular children to complete their collection, but normal people would use the barcodes to help their kids complete the collection for a smaller price. I don't see how this "cheating" can possibly be less moral than the industrial strategy you explained well yourself of tricking children into buying 30 minifigs to get 16.

I'm not a fan of seaside sets, but I have to give this one a 5. Yes there's only a bunch of bricks, and lots of empty space, but the design is quite clever in my opinion, and you get 3 minifigs (!) and plenty of accessories. I think it would have been worth buying 10-12 of these to use in a large seaside landscape.

Thanks for the review! I think this train is pretty much a classic. The design is essential but definitely good, there is room for adding your own details on the interiors. Personally I never liked the colour scheme (I prefer the blue-yellow of 7710) which is a bit too strong and makes it look too much toy-like, but maybe that's just me. The locomotive is however definitely an improvement over 7710 (that's basically the only improvement, but 7710 was already good itself). Just a note: how can this really be 150$ second hand nowadays? It's not even motorized...

Because when I look at their rarity rates, they don't make a huge difference, and when I look at their choice of rares vs average vs common, it looks random to me: Common (5 in a box): Ringmasters, Traffic Cops, Karate Masters Average (4 in a box): Mexicans, Witches, Vampires, Lifeguards, Mime Artists, Weightlifters Rares (3 in a box): Spartans, Jungle Explorers, Pop Stars, Skiers, DJs, Surfers, Pharaohs In collectible games, the rares are usually "boss characters" i.e. most unique or (if there is a game based on these) powerful. I would say an example of unique (meaning that most people won't probably want/need 2 identical ones) is the Pharaoh but so is the Mime, while the Spartans or the Cops are the opposite, they are exactly the kind of minifig that you want a bunch (to make an army/squad of clones) or none at all. I rather think they based rarity on the Coolness Factor, but this is a blind guess: what is cool for me is not cool for you. Maybe they did make some calculations, but seeing the results I believe their strategy must be still in its infancy If they really want these series to turn into a collector's dream/nightmare, they should learn for example from Wizards of the Coast, makers of Magic The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures, which made a ton of money from them. Instead I have the feeling that these series sprung up more because some designers at TLG were themselves fans of collectable games and pushed the idea up to the management which were a bit skeptic and accepted only on the condition that these were going to be made in China (cheaper, minimizing risks). After all, these series probably end up being a small percentage of TLG revenues. Vapaavalinta and Prisma now seem to have boxes of them in all their shops, and I seriously doubt that there are enough AFOLs in Finland to plunder the boxes for Pharaos (or whatever they prize most, which so far it's clear to me it's Spartans...). With the barcode in hand, you should have absolutely no problem getting your missing fig! Well but if the mexican wasn't stereotypical, how could you tell it was a mexican? The female rarity problem is real but only AFOLs care about it, and perhaps these minifig collections aren't the best place to look for gender equality. On a totally unrelated level, if female rarity is a problem for you consider if this help: take one minifig with female face and hair, use the female face with a gender-neutral hat and the female hair with a gender-neutral face, and you've suddenly doubled your female population

I really don't think people at TLG thinks like that By the way, are the 3/4/5 minifigs per box really a fixed rate? Is the content of every box identical? That is quite a small difference between the rarest and least rare, compared to rates used by other collectible series. And about spartans, they have little use for most people because they hardly fit into any existing theme. Army builders are the only AFOLs who are going to want tons of these, but they are just creating their own problem: if it's too hard or expensive, they could have just built a different army.

I'm not an expert on Advent Calendars, in fact I've never bought any... But this one looks very impressive, the minifigs are just a great selection and the extras are quite nice too. If I ever find this in shops I might get it, but here in Finland I have only occasionally found A.C. on the shelf and always for a short time.

What's flat plastic? After I read about the barcode trick I've been tempted to shell a few euros on a bunch of these, at least because I like half of the minifigs in Series 2 (contrary to Series 1, of which I liked 2-3 only), but I refuse to buy them at random and I have no interest in collecting, just using these in our MOCs.

I think Series 2 is definitely better than 1, so I voted 4/5. Still not good enough for me to buy randomly, but I have to say that I like about half of the minifigs here. There are many civilians, which perhaps for KFOLs makes the series more boring than Series 1, but for my personal taste at least they're useful... The only drawback is that a lot of them only have one accessory, for 2e a minifig they could at least put more pieces.

I waited to vote for Series 1 until I knew about Series 2, so at least there is some grade benchmark... All these series are going to be mixbags of minifigs from totally different themes, so obviously each person is going to see different strengths and weaknesses in a series. Let's say a series is good if it provides new subjects, new pieces (hair/headgears and accessories) and new prints, however the latter is pretty much going to be a given. Series 1 has 5-6 unprecedented minifig ideas, so only about 1/3 of the total minifigs. There is a nice bunch of new hair pieces if I understand right, but only 3 new accessories (ponpon, trumpet and club). Not much... I'd rate Series 1 only 3/5, as it's not bad but it fails to impress me, and I've read that the quality of parts is inferior to normal Lego standards, which is quite a nonsense to me since I would actually expect a "collectable" series to be of equal or even better quality than normal, especially since the price per minifig is the highest ever. I cannot confirm if the quality is really lower, since I don't have yet any of these... I think I'll probably stay away completely from Series 1 (which anyway is already hard to find). I certainly would not buy these randomly, as there are only a couple of them which I find plain cool to have (Clown and Cheerleader), and a few more which would be useful for me anyway (Magician, Skater, Forestman).

Thanks for the review! I think this was really a nice train. True that there were many black steam engines in 80s trains, but that cannot count as a disadvantage, and in IMHO this one is one of the very best steam locomotives released. The open freight wagon is basic but well done, and the cargo mounted is definitely nice in its simplicity. The third wagon (the mail car) is really solid design both outside and inside. I don't want to be hard on the ugliness of the battery wagon, there is no choice in 4.5V system, you just have to have such fake wagon in your trains. All the downsides of this set are because of 4.5V, otherwise the train design is just perfect (for its era, of course).

I think the answer is pretty clear from various previous posts: a tunnel requires too many pieces, most of which will be basic bricks of the same colour or two, unless shading is used (like mixing different greys). If you add vegetation on top of it, it's many more pieces and they will be laid out more or less randomly to achieve some good realistic result. None of these features are good for a set on retail sale, which should be cheap enough, fun to build for kids (pseudo-random patterns of rock and plants are fun for AFOL but not for kids), and fun to play with for kids, which a big piece of mountain really isn't :) In the best case, an exclusive set could be conceived. Still, I think it would cost 200e at least, and for that price even AFOLs want a "wow" factor that a piece of mountain cannot achieve, unless it's really massive.

It must have happened gradually, as Lego increased the variety of minifig parts, particularly heads and torsos. Those who've been kids in the 80s have played with minifigs that all had the same face, and the torsos variety was much less... Being one of them, I am not especially interested in collecting figs. However I do understand why many MOCers (those who create scenes with their MOCs) nowadays collect minifigs: having lots of variations means to create more realistic scenes, where no two people are identical. That obviously doesn't apply to army builders who want the minifigs in one army/division to look identical (although heads don't need to be).

I just realized I never even paid attention to minifigs in Lego Trains... I mean, I have my favourites among Lego choices for uniforms for police, firemen, astronauts, etc. but in the case of trains I don't even feel the need for consistency. Maybe for the on-board stewards, but not for the locomotive drivers and the men-at-work. Any would do :)

For a second I thought you did a PhD on Lego. But nevertheless congratulations :)

Great review! I think this train set is on the lower end by Lego standards, I'd give it a 2/5 grade only. My favourite details: - brick-built front definitely an improvement over the previous passenger set, pity that the result still sucks - PF system has better components than RC system Should have been better: - the train is just plain ugly... :/ the windows are too big, the roof is too massive, and there are no doors - the track should have definitely had straight tracks instead of the flexitrack - the train has no lights - at least a couple of more passenger My ratings: - Parts 6/10, there is practically nothing very interesting here - Design 5/10, it is neither beautiful not realistic, it seems like it was rushed to the market - Minifigs 7/10, the passengers are actually very interesting, unfortunately only two of them - Playability 6/10, obviously limited by the track size but also by the lack of door or other operating parts - Price 6/10, considering it's only 3 wagons with no special parts, it's quite expensive for its value

Great review! I think the set is very good, 4/5. My favourite details: - solid design and colour choice for the locomotive - basically all wagons, especially interesting the containers wagon's bottom - having two cars on the same wagon, also very realistic to have two very similar cars but in different colours - the track provided is the best you can get for the size - small battery box Things that could be better: - the crane, I am just getting tired of the giant-sized legs for every crane, make them brick-built (I don't believe it would cost more, they can use few normal bricks) - there should have been 2 small containers or none, having 1 gives a feeling of incompleteness - very small nitpick but the white car could have been another colour since the standalone tiny City car set is white - the only thing I dislike about the locomotive is the "door" system, there should have been side doors - while the truck looks very nice, I would not have included it in the set, thus making it ~30e cheaper - price still too high My own ratings: - Pieces 7/10, lots of interesting parts but also quite a few too large parts - Build 8/10, some really good moments (the containers wagon), but also some elements are made too simple by their large parts - Minifigs 5/10, not many and a bit too standard - Playability 10/10, hard to beat the playability of a powered full cargo train :P and the track parts provide some flexibility - Price 6/10, by my standards it's still beyond the average family range, and in fact over here I've yet to see this set in any retail shop

I prefer the European models because they're more familiar to me and because IMHO there is much more variety, but obviously I like the American models too.