David Thomsen

I actually find this very interesting. The answer seems to suggest that Castle will continue in 2012 in some form other than LOTR and the Joust set. I doubt very much that all they mean is that the MMV will not be discontinued. Hmm. Also, I notice that the Kingdoms sets are still listed on every S@H region except the United States. I have no idea what to make of that.

I didn't have any of the original pirate ships, but comparing pictures online, the sails on the BSB seem kind of saggy compared with the IF, where they seem to be more taut. This is just my preference, though.

Eh, it's usually best to leave this kind of website alone, they're not interested in discussion or debate. I mean look at this comment: Boycotting ALL of Lego because they disapprove of ONE theme, even when their kids WANT Lego? This is the crowd you'd be trying to reason with.

I agree with some of their points, but they could have done a bit more research. Cooking, sunbathing, snazzy cars, garbage collection... wait? For all that 'Friends' is still not quite the step forward feminism might have hoped for, the City range has progressed enormously. In 2006/2007, the doctors were men and the nurses were women. In 2012, the medics wear equal uniforms. In 2010, the pilot is a man and the air host is a woman. The next year, a woman is working at the police station alongside the men and clearly isn't just a secretary. It's true there are still no female fire fighters or dirt bike racers, and there still aren't anywhere near as many women as men (although I like to think a lot of the faces are actually gender neutral), you can't look at any female minifigs in the last few years and say their jobs were not equivalent to those of the men. 'Friends' isn't so much a step in the wrong direction as it is a failure to step far enough in the right direction, and 'City' is making visible steps towards equality.

Last year we had the Log Cabin, the Lighthouse Island and the Hillside House. Maybe they did too many and are compensating by only having one this year. I'm also a bit tired of red roofing, but it does seem to be a Lego staple for as long as I can remember. Maybe they have an entire section of their factory devoted to red roofing.

Hmm... at first I didn't like the slightly garish combination of colours (red roof, blue walls, yellow doors, white trim) but then I realised it's in keeping with how all Lego houses looked over two decades ago, so it's a nice homage. Except the sand is now tan rather than yellow, which I prefer anyway. It's nice to see they're keeping the minifigs in these sets, and the brick-built birds. Also a beach house fits in well with the lighthouse, and I can imagine the cabin being on a stream that flows out to the beach. Not sure where the hillside house fits in, I guess that's further inland somewhere. Very happy, I will let TLC live for another year.

I kind of think the post was deliberately ironic in that sense. If that's not the case, then, well... I think I'll opt out of this discussion now. I'm here to have fun, but something is wrong when I get more fun out of leaving.

When I talk to the women I know about their childhood Lego, I usually learn that they loved the Pirate lego or the Castle lego. I also learn that these sets actually belonged to their brothers. Personally, I like the 'Friends' sets. I think they are cute. But I also see how they are not a correct step in the direction of an enlightened future. It is not that the sets are pink and purple. These are colours just like any other colours, and don't inherently mean anything. It is that none of the 'friends' are boys. Why are there no boys in these sets? It is up to the parents whether to allow their boys to buy sets that are dominantly pink and purple - for Lego to release sets in this colour scheme is not really a bad thing. But the fact that there are no boys in these sets make these sets exclusively 'girly' sets, and I think that is wrong. Even Belville had a fair amount of male figures.

"Price and delivery are unknown! Would you like to be kept informed of product? Leave your e-mail address on the button 'inform me'." According to Google Translate. I was actually hoping for a product description of some sort... How are there still no leaked images? Are Lego really that good at plugging leaks now? Although I guess it is nicer to see a new product in official high resolution, rather than just some grainy photo of a preliminary image in a catalogue.

I'm not sure, but watching one of the trailers... does one ship sail over the other one? I feel like the ship battle is visually spectucular enough without getting silly...

Hmm, this thread really isn't about Kingdoms 2012 any more... and I'm not interested in LOTR, so I'm just following the thread on the look-out for Kingdoms related info. That would be easier if the LOTR discussion was put in a different thread...

I'd love to talk about a possible Tintin licence, but that probably belongs in the 'dream licences' thread. Le Secret de la Licorne isn't my favourite book (that would be Tintin au Tibet), but one of my favourite sequences of any Tintin book is the pirate battle, which of course should be no surprise at all, considering how obsessed I am with Pirate Lego. What would be great about a Lego Licorne is that in minifig scale it would function as the Licorne itself, but in 'real world' scale it would function as one of the small model replicas of the ship. And then you would have to buy three of them.

Are you sure? I thought the wheels still turned when they were that close to the arch.

In another thread I tried to figure out what kind of patterns you can produce by using both sides of the bricks together, and I came up with this: I think it's a pleasant kind of irregular pattern, but without any variations on this brick pattern there aren't many other patterns that can be created.

I'm amazed these haven't been added already: I'm not sure about this guy, since the collar seems to be very Medieval to me: Then there is the dress in the upcoming Joust set: If you gave that guy a cape, and a hat with a feather in it, he might pass.

Ah, but looking back at the Fantasy Era theme, they didn't do a castle twice... they had a castle, a skull tower, a dwarf mine and a troll fortress... so that's four faction 'bases' with only one castle. Kingdoms could have done the same. They could have introduced the Forestmen and given them a Forest Hideout, or introduced the Wolfpack and given them some kind of Wolfpack-appropriate lair... between all the potential factions there's a lot of ground they could have covered without repeating material.

When I was too young to remember, my brother and I were given one of the early castle sets... we made good use of that set for a very, very long time. I was actually just as excited by the idea of more of the same back then as I am now. One of the things that drove me into my dark age was that themes started changing so fast that I felt disconnected from them. I don't think Lego realise how attached children are to the toys they had when they were six when they turn eight. I must have watched each episode of the Transformers at least five times (that is, the original episodes before all of the cast changed and I didn't know who they were any more)

This is so disappointing... do Lego have such a short attention span that they can't keep a theme running for more than two years any more?

Thanks for the pics. It looks like the 6-wide vehicles outnumber the 4-wide vehicles now... Still no pictures of the caravan opening up, which is a shame. Are the trailer hitches the same height on all trailer-compatible vehicles?

Hmm, I really can't say that I think this is my favourite ship. Some ships have really beautiful sterns... this is not one of those ships. I do kind of like the walkway on either side of the ship where people can stand, but that's about it. I was never going to get this, but... pass anyway.

Yeah... I also haven't been able to get on that German website yet. Can anyone else share them, since they don't seem to be confidential? Can anyone see if the bandit's cabin has any bandit-related gimmicks, or do you think it could function as a generic cabin?

Heh. I seem to be the only one who is losing interest in the Collectible Minifigures. They were novel to begin with, but I haven't really thought 'wow I really need that minifig' in a while now. I have three musketeers to sit awkwardly in my Pirates theme, but... what can I do with a Little Red Riding Hood? Or a bunny? Or an Aztec warrior? I really need a theme to give my minifigs context.

Waaait... the original Falcon Knights totally used the colour green! Just look at the flags here: He's a Black Falcon... cleverly disguised using the colours of the original Black Falcon castle. Huh... when I first saw the torso I though it was a bunch of grapes, but couldn't figure out what was sticking out of the top of it... now I see that it is indeed a kind of fleur-de-lis. Unfortunately I think I'll always see the face of a dragon when I look at it now. I don't really like that a 'nobleman' is wearing the Lion colours, but the 'princess' isn't. I think that the nobleman should be wearing purple, or blue - as it is he looks like a Lion prince who wore the wrong heraldry to work. This is why I'm going to replace him with the prince from the advent calendar.

I think that, comparing the Kingdoms line with the Fantasy Era line, the Dragons are unlikely to get a castle... the Skeletons were given a 'Skeleton Tower' in the first year, which is comparable to the 'Dragon Tower Rescue', and they never received anything larger after that. The second year we get the Peasants, who are in a way the third 'faction'. I always thought of them as citizens of the Lion Kingdom, but the way they fight off the Dragons with no assistance from any Lions, I think they can be considered a faction in their own right. And then in the third year we get the Peasants fending off the Wolfpack, and also a Wolfpack tower or something. With also some Dragon versus Lion skirmishes. (I am hoping that if I make enough wild guesses about the future of Kingdoms, eventually I will get something right.)

Yes, I can't quite figure her out either. Same thing with the 'nobleman', what is that on the medallion he's wearing? It looks kind of like the face of a dragon, but why would he be wearing a Dragon pendant with Lion colours? Personally (and I can't believe I'm joining in the speculation here) I think the 'princess' here belongs to the Forestmen faction. I know the Forestmen are supposed to be a ragtag group of outsiders, but if they're to be a 'kingdom' in this theme of 'kingdoms', they'll need to have a king, and a queen... and a princess. Yes, that's right... I think the Joust set has a Black Falcon knight and a Forestmen princess. As for the 'nobleman'... I don't have a clue. Maybe he got the medallion off a Dragon soldier in battle, and now wears it to show off his victory?