David Thomsen

I suspect the brick needs to have a mirror pattern on the reverse side, like this: That way you can make a proper brick wall with interlocking bricks. If all of these bricks have an identical pattern on both sides, interlocking walls will end up looking like the one I've marked with an 'x'.

My brain is going 'I should get that orange tipper truck, but I already have so many orange utility trucks in my town including a recycling truck, a street cleaner and a tow truck... but if I buy the new green recycling truck to replace my orange one, then I'll have one less orange vehicle in my town... but then I really prefer the design of the old orange recycling truck to the new green one...' It's not the most riveting internal debate I've ever had. I hope the recycling truck images are preliminary, it would be great if instead of the non-recyclable junk they're collecting they had the new bottle piece in a different colour, like transparent brown or green...

I actually prefer this station to previous ones. It may be smaller, but the walls actually look brick-built instead just the one-piece walls that make up the previous police stations. How is the cattle stopper made? At first I thought it was made out of these pieces: But on closer inspection it seems to be one curved fence piece or something.

I've been trying to figure that out myself. It seems to transport rocks so that it can... pour them onto the road. It's not quite a cement mixer and not quite a dump truck. It would make sense if it was collecting rocks off the road, but that doesn't seem to be what the guy with the wheelbarrow is doing. I kind of like the similarities between the horse transport truck and the motorcycle transport truck. It makes it look as though there are brands of vehicle in the Lego world, just like there are in the real world. There have been a few vehicles like this in previous years, clones of other vehicles.

There's a hayseed up that there tree... It's nice to see what I'll be spending my money on next year. Here's my thoughts: The car and caravan isn't as interesting as I had hoped... I'll still be getting it of course. I prefer the recycling truck I already have... pass! I quite like the truck with the motorcycles so I'll probably get that. It looks very similar to the crook's truck though, so I'll only get one or the other. I like that the tree at the police station looks like the forest fire trees. Good continuity there. Ooh! The base of the police station has the new brick-patterned bricks around the base! It's hard to tell if they are all 1x2 or if there are any longer ones. Different colour from the NinjaGo ones too. Also looks like it's built on a regular plate rather than a baseplate. I guess the switch was inevitable. The yellow car from the caravan set looks identical to the one from the service station a few years ago. Hmm.

No Creator houses there... I don't think the entire catalogue has been uploaded yet though, so they might still be coming. Just like there aren't any Police sets in the City theme, even though we've seen one grizzly bear so we know they're in the catalogue.

I have to admit that these sets are actually pretty adorable, if I ignore the weird doll things. Hey, they actually have differently-coloured skin in a non-licenced theme! If this means they've started breaking the rules, I want an army theme next. Or at least that tank from Indiana Jones.

Just noticed the new 'brick' bricks that are appearing in the new NinjaGo sets in the leaked catalogues. I had trouble picturing what they looked like before, but they are kind of like these bricks: But with a 'brick' pattern instead of logs or grills. As far as I can tell they only have 1x2 size bricks with these patterns so far, so it would be very difficult to make an entire building out of them. Still, I wonder how likely it is that the 'Town Hall' will include these for detail. It's not unknown for the modular buildings to make good use of recently created moulds. If the 'Town Hall' includes these brick-bricks and the new 2x2 round brick with grill, then I will be extremely pleased.

The minifigs look like they have new head prints... always welcome. I think the guy with the walkie talkie had ash marks on his cheek... I also wonder if he isn't wearing proper gear because it's stored in his utility trailer thing. 1x1 round tiles, one of those essential pieces that should have been created ages ago. Now we need 2x2 L-shaped tiles, etc... I prefer this new jeep to the previous Off-Road Fire Rescue, but I'm not buying the plane as well! Once again I wish it was possible to buy individual instruction booklets and polybags from sets on Eurobricks. I hope we get to see the police sets soon as well. Surely they are in the same catalogue?

I never said anything about the presumed gender of the target demographic for 'City' or 'Friends'. I am saying the sets have been divided by 'civilian' and 'emergency', not 'girls' and 'boys'. The 'City 2012' theme so far has a police station and a crooks' hideout. The 'Friends' theme has a beauty salon and a design studio and a bunch of other things. Until the City theme gets a café or a motel or a motorcycle shop, I see no reason to doubt that all of the potential civilian buildings have been flushed into the 'Friends' theme. Time may prove me wrong, but even by City standards, there aren't normally two new Police buildings in two consecutive years.

A wheelbarrow would be perfect for a return to the construction theme... and considering that when they create a new mould they usually have long-term plans for it already, and also we haven't seen construction in a long time, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a precursor to a return of the theme. If we have fire, police and construction all in the same year... that makes it a very uninteresting year for me. But it's to be expected when they separate the 'civilian' buildings into the 'Friends' theme, all that will be left in the City theme is this kind of thing.

Why is there another robot? I prefer the original robot... And still no pirate-era minifigs! No pirates or admirals or soldiers or anything... after six series. Oh well, could be worse... I could be a Roman army-builder instead. Only thing I really need here is the bandit, although the skater girl is rather tempting as well.

If all of the vehicles are the same price point, then it makes sense that a single vehicle is going to be wider than a vehicle and a trailer in the same set. I don't mind so much if the car and caravan set is going to be more like the original Vacation Camper, one of my favourite old sets. I think it would make sense for the car to be 6-wide if it were a 4WD like the one that came with the horse trailer, but the set description so far is a 'car' with trailer, and car's are generally only 4-wide.

The Imperial Flagship, the Medieval Market Village and the Green Grocer... ...and I already have all of them. I have a very simple process - I want something, I get it. As much as I am nostalgic for older sets, I have to be realistically aware that I spend enough money on Lego as it is without trying to collect good-condition sets on eBay. So although I may idealistically 'want' them, I don't want-want them. I don't aspire to ever own the Eldorado Fortress, unfortunately.

Doesn't look like we're getting any non-emergency buildings in 2012, except for perhaps the Bandit's Hideout, although there is every possibility this will include flick-fire missiles or something. Anyone know what the 'Friends' buildings are going to look like? Any chance that they'll fit into my City?

But we already have one... it's only three floors high and doesn't have a fire escape, but the residential building from the Pet Shop set takes several features from New York style brownstone buildings. Someone who is a little more knowledgable about architecture than me told me this when I asked why it has those weird irregular orange tiles on the front.

I particularly enjoy when they have me build an incomprehensible little feature of some sort, and it's not until I finish the feature and/or attach it to the main construction that I'm able to figure out what the feature was supposed to be, and why it had to be constructed that way. This doesn't happen with many sets though, sadly...

This isn't 'news' obviously, but the Imperial Flagship is still available from Lego.com. I am quite sure it has been on sale longer than the 2009 pirates themselves were available, and it has crossed over with the rival POTC theme quite substantially. This seems interesting to me, especially since the Black Pearl is coming out soon and then there will be three pirate-era sailing ships on the market concurrently, which as far as I know is unprecedented. And none of these ships are 'small', not even the Black Pearl which a lot of people think is too small but which is actually still quite large by Lego ship standards. I wonder - did they just produce too many of them, and are having trouble shifting them? Or are a lot of people adding it to their POTC collection in lieu of an in-theme naval vessel? Does the continued availability of the Imperial Flagship actually imply anything at all about the future of the theme?

I would love to see a large castle set, maybe not big enough to fit a child in but big enough to look good next to the MMV. My other dream set is a Modular Tower, something with five or six floors instead of three. Of course, I could always have a new Imperial Fort to go with my Imperial Flagship. Or even a pirate-era trading post with a civilian trading vessel.

A whole thread devoted to complaining about Lego? I can't imagine this will last long before getting locked... I have one main pet peeve. Apart from Star Wars and City, very few themes last more than a couple of years before they either get completely revamped of dropped in favour of something else. I started collecting Indiana Jones hoping it would last a long time... two years worth of sets. I started buying Pirates with the same hope... one year worth of sets. I didn't collect POTC at all because I was afraid it would have a short lifespan, and the rumours seem to confirm this. I understand the business model of circulating through lots of themes, but look at Playmobil, which has a dozen or so themes that it just keeps building on. To constantly start lines and cancel them is like constantly launching promising new TV shows and then cancelling them before they get a chance to tell their story. This is the reason I have only bought Modular buildings and City sets in the last year.

None of those look like buildings. Kind of sad... three of my favourite sets this year were the Creator buildings. Need more!

Following the pattern so far, every third set is a corner, which means the next will be a side. I think it would work better as a side, anyway... It would be hard to have for a Town Hall to have a grand entrance on the corner, or on a side with 3/4 as much room as a regular modular. I don't think the Town Hall needs to be bigger than any other modulars... the Pet Shop buildings are quite small and make other sets look bigger. Place them next to the Grand Emporium or a Town Hall and you automatically make these buildings look more looming and important. Just make sure the Town Hall isn't next to the Green Grocer... Another thing they could do to make it look bigger is extend it a bit further forward than the rest, so that the building takes up a bit more of the pavement, even if just with pillars supporting an overhanging roof. Also, if the Town Hall actually includes a 'hall', i.e. a large empty space, that's a lot of bricks saved that could be used to increase the height or bulk of the building.

I'll be amazed if they don't include pillars made from this piece: Actually when I first saw this piece I thought it would be perfect for a modular Town Hall. Lo and behold, the next modular is a Town Hall... One thing we can say for sure is that it'll be a side building rather than a corner building.

I'm hoping it's generic... I don't collect Kingdoms sets, but I'm enough of a castle fan to collect any D2C castle sets. The castle eras change every three years or so, and if every D2C set is specific to those eras, then a collection of D2C castle sets over time is going to end up with a lot of random factions.

Oh... what made me think it was a new print? In any case, I'm sure that after five modular buildings they can arrange an exclusive torso print. A town hall just won't be the same without a minifig with mayoral chains.