David Thomsen

Lately I was thinking about the pros and cons of licenced sets. It goes something like this: Con: Not as much world-building potential with licenced sets. If you collect city or castle or pirates, you get complete buildings and vehicles and if you put them all together you tend to get a complete 'world'. Licensed sets tend to have lots of bits of buildings, like 'Dobby's Release' and 'Jabba's Message', which don't really build a 'world' when you put them together. This is my major beef, really. I have all the Indiana Jones sets, but have never built them all at once because the resulting scene would make no sense whatsoever. The inside of a temple in Egypt is next to the inside of a temple in Peru? And there is a flying wing inside them both? What? Con: Pink minifigs. Why divide minifigs between yellow and pink? It's absolutely pointless, and majorly reduces compatability. Con: Price. Licensed sets tend to cost at least 20% more than they seem to be worth. Pro: New parts that wouldn't have been made otherwise. The ever-useful lightsaber handle. Dastan's hair and katana holder. These pieces are used to enrich the regular sets, and I have no problem with this. Ooh, and the cowcatcher from the Toy Story train, which hopefully will be used when they bring back the Western theme. (Cough) Pro/Con: Characters. This may not appeal to everyone, but I like the idea of minifigs having set characters. Only a few figs from regular sets have 'characters', like Captain Brickbeard, General Broadside and all of the collectable minifigs. Lego is one of the few toys where the figures don't have biographical information, which is one of my favourite things about the other toys I collect. At the moment it seems there are way too many licenced ranges for the few benefits.

I actually wish people would stop bumping the thread without pictures... every time I see a new post my heart jumps. Man... I'm sure it's not emotionally healthy to be this invested in a toy. I'm probably not even going to get it anyway. Yes... believe it or not, I did have to think several times about bumping the topic to say 'stop bumping'... but ha! Now I have outwitted you by replying to your next post without bumping the thread at all, and you still have the last bump. I win.

I just watched the film. It's fantastic. The film actually makes me want to own the toys... unfortunately I'm saving up for a Tower Bridge right now.

They've had this for almost a month, and still no one has any pictures of it? I'm sure the ambassadors (who have probably had pictures this whole time but are unable to share them) are laughing...

There have been a lot of sets recently that have a couple of things I want, but don't really want the whole thing. Like, I want the taxi from the new train station, but not the station itself. And I want the crane and some of the carriages from the new cargo train, but not the track or the train itself. And I want the bus and the car and the sweeper from the city transportation set, but not the tram. If these things were available individually, I would definitely buy them. As they are... it's a bit too extravagant to buy a set with more than twice as many pieces as I need. I actually wish BrickLink had a way to buy and sell set components, instead of just whole sets or individual pieces. Like, selling bag two of a set with instruction manual two and all the stickers relating to model two. Has anyone looked into this? I think it would be brilliant.

Saw a lot of new Space Police sets today in Farmers and the Warehouse, including the Limo which I think is wicked rad. I like the 'undercover cruiser' one, though I thought it would at least be in different colours from the Police, to make it look more 'undercover'. I was tempted by the Limo, but I can't buy one set from a range without buying the rest of the range. Is anyone else getting addicted to the minifigures, who originally intended to buy only one or two? I got a couple of random ones, then I had to get the caveman because I quite like the caveman, then I got the cowboy and Indian native American hunter because I missed the Western theme the first time, and if they bring it back next year (fingers crossed) I'll have a couple of extra figs for it, then I thought my Castle sets could do with a Robin Hood... I'm pretty sure within the week I'll have found an excuse to buy every single one. I haven't had any misprints yet, which statistically is better than non-Chinese Lego, which always seem to have things slightly off.

This sounds fantastic... I wonder if the vehicles will be vintage, or modern? When I think of a London bus, I can only think of the old red 'routemaster' bus, so I hope it's nothing too moden. I was hoping they'd eventually produce something minifig scale larger than a modular building that isn't anything to do with Star Wars, and this sounds like it. Or course, what I really wanted was a six-story modular building 'tower' to add to my modular range, but I might buy this anyway... if there's absolutely nothing else to buy in 2011. That's the only way I can afford it.

There should be an option for 'sometimes'. Most of my soldiers have no backpack, but there is one soldier who works on his own and can track a pirate for days through the jungle, and can shoot him dead without him even knowing he's been followed. He wears a backpack. edit: Actually, I've been considering giving my regular soldiers all my spare Indiana Jones satchels. There should be a poll option for that as well.

Lyall Bay Warehouse in Wellington has them among the Lego section. I didn't expect to see them there so I hadn't printed out my cheat sheet... my caveman will have to wait for another day.

A co-worker of my girlfriend found a UCS Millenium Falcon in a dumpster. Our theory is that someone who works inside the building threw it in the dumpster with the intent of collecting it and selling it later, but someone else got there first. I don't think you can possibly have a luckier Lego find than that.

Actually, Mister Phes has condoned the continuation of this thread back in this post. Otherwise it would have been locked by now. Maybe it should be retitled 'Petition to bring back pirates in 2011', since they're obviously not coming back in 2010...

1. I haven't bought any of these sets, but if I did, it would be for the model rather than the parts. 2. If I could afford any, I'd only buy models that appeal to me. 3. Something minifig scale with minifigs included. That's the only thing that would tempt me. Maybe something like the Mayflower, or the Orient Express. The space shuttle is a good example of this kind of thing. 4. One (or all!) of the below: a) A Western hotel, the same size as a modular building. Downstairs, a bar. Upstairs, some rooms. A balcony, a pole to tie horses to, some horses, a safe and some modernised cowboy figures, including women. I've seen some excellent MOCs of this kind of thing, and would love to be able to build my own. b) A Pirate harbour, like the Medieval Market Village but with a place to tie up ships. A custom house and a tavern, maybe. c) A castle, or even just a large detailed medieval fortified outpost, to go with the Medieval Market Village. Weapons room, kitchen, hall, sleeping quarters for the guard. 5. Themes like 'Power Miners' and 'World Racers' don't appeal to me much. I prefer archetypal world-building themes like Castle, Pirates, City and Western, in which a proper world can grow over time with buildings and vehicles of all sorts. Something like 'World Racers' only has vehicles, so I can't build a proper world for it.

If you were to value them by rarity, then they would go from most valuable to least valuable: Neon Orange/Medium Blue Purple Yellow Clear Blue Dark Pink Green Neon Green Dark Blue Red That's a very quick estimation, and doesn't take into account how old the sets are that they appeared in, and how expensive the sets are. Or how common they are in Bricklink, which might be another indicator. There are a lot of things to take into account, but I'm sure it can be done. Sadly I have no neon orange or medium blue or purple... how disappointing.

$5.99? That's ludicrous. I understand $3.99 because even though they're cheap plastic, a lot of time and effort has obviously gone into their designs and new moulds, which requires monetary compensation. It's like the way greeting cards cost over five dollars, not because they're expensive to produce, but because people need to be paid for the design, administration, production and distribution and retail of these cheap bits of cardboard. But 150% of RRP... no. I wonder if they aren't selling them so expensively so they will eventually be in a position to have a promotion to give them away free with any purchase over a certain amount of dollars, and not lose anything from this.

S@H New Zealand has updated with lots and lots of stuff, so I can see the prices of things I want. Cargo train... $399.99. Might have to wait for another sale to get this one. Train station... $99.99. I think I'll stick with my old yellow one from 2007, it looks better anyway. Level crossing... $39.99. My city really does need a good level crossing, so I'll be getting this one. Doesn't include the Family House or the City Public Transport, though... It also has World Racers and Kingdoms and some other things that I also can't afford to also be interested in.

I bought and built my GE today. I have to admit that I was disappointed when I saw the first pictures, two of the floors look identical and kind of repetitive and beige, but having built it, it looks perfectly wonderful. It looks great next to the FB, which I also got recently and still have standing. My favourite detail is the green frames down the centre of the windows, which at first I thought was a bit odd, having the windows offset like that, but now I can see why and it looks brilliant. Like all modular sets, you have to see the real thing to really appreciate it, not just the pictures. Incidentally, the FB doesn't look out of scale to me... the ground floor is a fire engine garage, so it makes sense for it to have quite a high ceiling, like most garages. And by 'garage', I mean vehicle workshop, not just a place where they park the thing. The first floor... well, some rooms do have high ceilings, you know? I'm having trouble reconciling the old fashioned fire engine with the modern escalators in the building next door, though. I think it will be a museum piece that they keep around, sometime taking it out for charity runs and stuff.

I got mine at Moore Wilson's in Wellington. They turned out to be a spaceman and a crash test dummy. I'm not really satisfied with the quality of the plastic for $4.50, so I don't think I'll be getting any more. k_r_brown: There's a barcode on the back that tells you which is inside the package, if you have some kind of barcode reader. I tried to feel-guess my bags after I got them but was completely wrong both times. Despite my reservations about the quality, I do think it's worth getting a couple of random ones just for fun.

They also have the Lego Truck (didn't catch the price, was too excited to be getting GE to pay much attention) and the Minifigures at $4.50 each. Still more expensive than S@H, but cheaper than Toyworld will have them. I got two... don't know what they are yet because I'm going to let my girlfriend pick one for herself and we can open them together. I know they're different because of the barcodes on the back.

I think anyone who wants to get into pirates now is in the fortunate position of already knowing that the line has been discontinued. When I collected the '09 pirates I thought the line would go on for at least three years, so it was a betrayal when they said they had never planned to go on for more than one year. If I had known it was a one-year range, I would still have happily collected them. Also, now is the perfect time because the sets are still available, and it's easy enough to find them discounted somewhere.

It was the one in Wellington... I wasn't going to mention it on the forum at first because I didn't want them to be inundated with people saying 'I hear you're giving away 20% discounts on $299.99 toys a week early, can I get a discount too?' The situation isn't that I'd wandered in off the street and just asked for the discount... part of the reason I got the discount was that I'd pre-ordered the set months ago and for me not to get the discount would be 'unfair'. And I'd shown up at least once a week since then, usually with some question or another. Plus I'd been shopping there for years anyway. The only way to repeat my success is to have started a prolonged campaign a very long time ago...

I was thinking of not getting the Fire Station, just because it really doesn't fit in with my CC and my GG. In the end I decided that I would only get it if I could have a 20% discount for Queen's birthday, but they told me it might have sold out by then... and then they gave me the 20% discount in advance because I'm such a loyal customer. Awesome. And that's why you should go into Toyworld every week and ask when the next new Lego sets are in. It's a great set though, so I don't mind that my modular city is architecturally inconsistent.

Yeah, that's almost definitely the Red Beard Runner... in the picture with the two ships in the background, the one on the right has the Red Beard Runner sails and the one on the left is the Brickbeard's Bounty. I think it's just a couple of ships they're fond of. I too would love to know what's coming in 2011, but I'm not seriously anticipating any news until August at the very very earliest. And then only grainy leaked pics if any.

I have nothing to buy until the modular buildings or the next range of trains are available, so I'm not too disappointed that I missed the sale... I'm really hoping that at least some of these things are in stock before the Queen's Birthday sale, but time seems to be running out.

For $5.49, I could by a police officer with a dog and a speed camera and some other bits and bobs (21 bricks) or a BBQ stand with a chef, two bottles, an umbrella, a chicken drumstick and a container (22 parts) or a traveller with luggage container on wheels and a signpost (21 parts) or various other things, all including a minifig and at least 20 parts... also, I wouldn't have to play Minifig Roulette. Considering this - and especially after the fact that these are all made in China to reduce costs - I really can't say I'm that keen on them any more. I'll probably buy a couple anyway though, just for that thing known as 'fun' I all too often forget to include in my Lego decisions.