David Thomsen

I don't really mind at all - it is supposed to appeal to children after all, and it tends to be internally consistent within the theme. I really just think of it as the charm of Lego, and when I was a kid, I didn't think twice about a cannon in a rowboat.

Wow... it should at least be programmed to recognise when a 'dirty' word is part of an innocent larger word. I'll never be able to look at fruit the same way again. Next step... try to find something dirty that gets accepted because the software doesn't realise how dirty it sounds when you say it out loud.

It seems to me that the more I keep track of Lego news online, the less the actual experience of finding newly released Lego sets in the store excites me. One of the latest ones I'd been waiting for, the Helicopter & Limo set, I was so familiar with the image at the front of the box that I almost overlooked it when I first saw it in the shops. I remember when I was just emerging from my 'dark age' but before I'd found places like Eurobricks and Brickset, how exciting it was to see new Lego sets for the first time on the shelves. It was the same way things had been when I was a kid. You know, you walk along the Lego aisle expecting to see all the same stuff from the last six months, and Bam! There's this wacky new range called Exo-Force, just out of nowhere! And you can look at the high resolution, final, official pictures on the box that don't have any watermarks, and pick it up and turn it around and hear all the bits rattling on the inside! These days I have a thirst for knowledge and the means to acquire it, but it means I find myself squinting at low-resolution thumbnails of new sets with confidentiality watermarks on them long before the sets are actually released. There's no longer the experience of seeing something new on the shelves, picking it up and buying it then and there. Does anyone else miss the old-style Lego experience, but at the same time can't resist squinting at leaked images that probably don't accurately represent the final product?

That $49.99 deal for the Soldier's Fort is fantastic, pity I'm saving every cent for the next two months to pick up the Fire Brigade and the Grand Emporium when Toyworld get them in. Take that, obnoxiously high shipping expenses! I second RONC's question - anyone know anything about the POP sets? They're on the S@H website for other countries apparently, so I don't know why NZ are lagging. I'm worried they won't be coming here if they don't think the market is big enough for them.

Um... this might be a stupid question, but how do the last colours exist at all if they aren't in any sets?

I haven't been able to think of any other dream Lego licenses other than Pirates of the Caribbean. I love the films (mostly), and in the absense of a proper pirate theme, this would be almost as good. I guess if I were going to include dream licenses that are never going to happen, I'd suggest Order of the Stick Lego as well. I love the comic, and a Lego-built Dungeons & Dragons world would be awesome. Of course, where POTC seems quite likely to happen next year, OOTS Lego is at the far end of the impossible spectrum.

Like I said, TLC are unlikely to consider revisiting Western if there is no interest generated in it. That's why I phrased it as, 'I think of Western as', rather than 'Western is'. For something that was only released for two years, Western has generated a lot of long-term affecion. That's why I think of Western as an important theme. I don't see why you had to be so mean spirited. I'm just trying to think of ways to increase interest in the theme.

I know this is a reasonably redundant topic, but I wanted to know what has been happening in Western discussion lately and found that no one has so much as mentioned cowboys in the last few weeks. Every other major theme has a perpetual discussion going on, but Western seems to have fallen off the radar. I'm wondering if the theme needs some kind of life injected into it... maybe some kind of MOC competition, like 'pillage the village' but called something like 'lampoon the saloon' instead. Or maybe a Lego ambassador could do what Napoleon did for the pirate forum, and compile a report of what people want to see in the Western theme in the future, and submit it to TLC. I think of Western as one of the main themes besides city, castle, pirates and space, I'd like to see it revisited in the future but that seems unlikely to happen if TLC sees no interest in it from the fans. Okay, how about this. The cowboy and native American who are part of the collectible minifig range... they need names. Who can think of some good names for them, in keeping with the Lego style of naming minifigs?

I saw the Helicopter/Limo set for the first time in Farmers yesterday... not sure if anyone else has seen it.

I actually can't choose one or the other. They're both such excellent models, and I nominated them for 'best (non-exclusive) set from 2009' in another thread.

Okay, I wasn't originally going to get these sets, but I'm beginning to change my mind... these minifigs, now that I can see them, are really quite good... I think I want to see what will be available in the next wave, though. I mean, if there is a next wave... Also I want to know if there's likely to be a sequel, and therefore even more toys... I like collections that grow over time, so getting five sets and that being 'just it' doesn't do it for me. Also: Long hair for a guy! AT LAST!!! I was tired of all my long-haired male minifigs having distinctly girly hair. Oh, and a new colour rag hat for my pirates. Eeeexcellent. [edit] Apparently the rag hat has been seen in black before, but only in the 'Pirate Tank' since I started collecting again, and I have no other interest in that set.

It was a January promotion, buy anything from S@H and get a free Atlantis sharkman keyring. Incidentally, shouldn't this thread be renamed by now?

I think the Persians themselves could be made into Persian Pirates, if you gave them the right ship... although unfortunately they'd be fleshies.

I saw the new Ben 10 sets at Moore Wilson's in Wellington. I mean, not that anyone would care... but I thought I'd throw it out there.

I'm becoming more and more aware of the amount of damage some Lego sets force you to do to their bricks. The worst offender I can think of is the Corner Cafe, which asks you to bend a black tube 180 degrees and jam a bunch of snow shoes on it. My tube is in pretty appaling shape by now, and in fact was since the first time I used it. But I've also begun to notice the amount of damage in my pirate sets done to soft plastics by clips. I hadn't noticed before now, but every time I've been putting a musket on a musket holder, it's been leaving a little mark. Quite a lot of my muskets have little impressions on the barrels by now. I don't mind so much the cutlass handles, because any damage done to them by clips is going to be disguised by the clip itself, but having these marks on the muskets is very annoying. And then there's the masts of the Brickbeard's Bounty, which are flexible tubes that have lines all along them from being jammed into the sockets. The thing is, I want to be able to revisit these sets year by year for as long as I have enough room to store them. And I want to be able to construct them without worrying about their preservation.

What is the statistic specifically measuring, though? Units sold or profits? It does say 'sales', which makes me think of units sold. And that's interesting. Say 19 sets are sold to children, and one is sold to an AFOL. Which sets are the children going to get? On average, ones with low price points. What about the adults? Much higher price points. Say 19 $19.99USD sets are sold to children, and 1 $99.99USD set is sold to an AFOL... the AFOL would contribute to almost 20% of actual profits. Which is a huge amount for a kids toy, although more realistically I'll lower it to something like 10% - I buy quite a lot of small sets as well, and some lucky kids are going to get the bigger sets. On the other hand, I'm quite sure I'm the only person I have ever known who has a Lego collection as an adult, whereas every child I have ever known has had a bathtub full of Lego. So maybe the 5% is made up the profits of the few millionaire AFOLS who have entire stories of their building filled with Lego.

For exclusives, I have to say Medieval Market Village. Just like everyone else. For non-exclusive, I have to go with Fighter Plane Attack. I know it's not one people go on about, but those are high quality model planes as well as toys.

Okay, am I the only person not to notice that the vest is identical on two of the different pirate torsos, and so is the striped shirt? The brown vest on the one with a bare chest is identical the blue vest over the white and red striped shirt, which in turn is identical to the white and green striped shirt on yet another torso. I just wonder why they did it that way. Were they short on time? Did it save money? I don't know.

Any better pictures? I'm assuming it's an MOC, and not the fabled prototype of the Indiana Jones tank.

I agree. It's a bit over the top. I had no idea the Fort was supposed to be designed to withstand an actual seige. Here is a list of positives: I love the colour scheme. I love the new torsos and faces. I love the new accessories. I love that I got an opportunity to revisit my favourite childhood theme, and that I could actually afford all the sets this time. I love the similarity between the new sets and the old sets. I love the Imperial Flagship. Although I wish it could have gone on for the next seven years, I'm extremely grateful that we got these sets at all. :pir-wub: :pir-wub: :pir-wub: :pir-wub: :pir-wub: :pir-wub: :pir-wub: :pir-wub: :pir-wub: :pir-wub: :pir-wub:

There's still the question of whether on not the printing will be consistent, and that can't be answered with just one review. Call me a moron, but this is one of the first samples, so it's more likely that all the printing is going to be fresh and aligned. I'm going to wait for them to be mass produced by the millions before I make a call on whether they belong in my collection. Quality control involves more than just the type of plastic used.

I think one of the problems with the fort was that they were experimenting with small-scale modular sets. The Modular Building range is fantastic, could they do something similar with several small buildings in one set? I think it was an experiment worth trying, to be frank, and I thought the result was quite good. If only they'd added more modular harbour building it could have been amazing - instead they cancelled the line. Poos. That's the only thing I feel cheated about, that Pirates is my favourite line of all time and instead of having it as a constant range, they keep having poinless one-off licensed themes with no future. Pirates deserved better than that. Also, I love the new colour scheme. I love the richer shades of sand and wood. [edit] Incidentally, I'm wondering if the title of this thread shouldn't be changed to something like 'Final impression of the 2009 Pirates range' or something, the current one is too negative IMHO.

Does anyone know anything about 7684 "Pig Farm & Tractor"? It's on S@H now, but I haven't seen it anywhere. It had better not be a bastard K-Mart exclusive because I have to take a train ride to get to the nearest store.

I want a whole bunch just for spare parts. These weapons aren't as durable as they should be, and this set includes a gun, a rifle AND a sword. If this is the end of pirate Lego, I want to be stocked up on spare parts.

I'm a combination of several of those things - I limit myself to a few themes, but at the same time my credit card is pretty much permanently maxed out, and if I see something I need, I HAVE to have it regardless of the price. (One notable exception being the large Millennium Falcon). Fortunately for me two of the themes I was collecting were Pirates and Indiana Jones, and I already have the Imperial Flagship, so 2010 is going to be a (relatively) cheap year for me. Just the two latest modular buildings and a couple of city sets. Depending on how my finances go, I may add Kingdoms to the list of ranges I collect. Unfortunately I'm still behind on my Transformers collection... hardly any of the ones I want come out in New Zealand.