David Thomsen
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Review: 31036 Creator Toy and Grocery Shop 3-in-1
David Thomsen replied to mostlytechnic's topic in LEGO Town
Hmm no? When the buildings are folded together the baseplates are all 16 studs wide, with a light grey baseplate bordered by dark grey tiles. The Toy & Grocery Shop may take up more space on the baseplate but these two sets are clearly intended to be compatible, just as the modular buildings always share the same dimensions and pavement style. And the modular buildings have at least four different architectural aesthetics, so it could be argued that they don't go together either. :) -
Review: 31036 Creator Toy and Grocery Shop 3-in-1
David Thomsen replied to mostlytechnic's topic in LEGO Town
Reviews for this set really should picture them next to the Bike Shop & Cafe, which it's intended to be compatible with right down to the size of the baseplates and grey tiles around the edge. It doesn't look that great on its own, but if you add the two sets together you get something that begins to look like a street scene. -
6-8 studs wider would be huge! I don't think I'd be able to afford a ship made to a scale that size. I'd actually prefer a set of hull parts 2-4 studs thinner. I already have one huge ship (The Imperial Flagship) at the upper end of the scale I would want a Lego ship at, two mid-sized ones and I wouldn't mind a couple of smaller ships as well. To answer the actual question of this thread, I'd go with the Imperial Flagship. It has actual decks, a kitchen (galley?), even an organ.
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I'm thinking of the Fantasy Castle theme from 2007 to 2009 that ended with the Medieval Market Village in 2009. I wasn't that interested in the theme itself, but I love the MMV. Quite often a good D2C set is worth an entire theme - if I could only keep one or the other, I don't know whether it would be the entire 2009 Pirates theme or just the 2010 Imperial Flagship. I suspect I would keep the latter. So in my mind a Fantasy Pirate theme that ends with a good non-Fantasy D2C would be an excellent compromise. And the Fantasy Castle theme had plenty of non-Fantasy castle elements as well.
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I totes did the same comparison in post #101 of this topic but didn't post any pictures to prove what I was saying so whatevs. The white upper piece does suggest that the mould for the piece has been slowly deteriorating, I wonder if they'll bother fixing the mould or if this is just the way it's going to be from now on? It makes me worry about any future D2C sets using the same piece.
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Out of curious, did anyone get a BB with hull pieces that fit together perfectly? Some people got the correct head and some people got the new head but I don't think I've read of anyone who got satisfactory hull pieces. From what someone said in another thread about white hull pieces, it sounds like the mould for these parts has been gradually deteriorating, so it sounds like all hull pieces in the BB will have this issue unless they had some old pieces left over from the BBB.
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I'm going to say 70412: Soldiers Fort because it is the largest set within that budget. Actually, that and 70410: Soldiers Outpost come in under US$50 if you buy them together, and they attach to each other to make a larger fort, so perfect! You get three ranks of regular Soldier, the special 'female' soldier, three pirates (although only two sets of unique pirate parts sadly), two cannons, two different kinds of sea vessel, a selection of pretty much every possible kind of pirate-themed accessory.
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Just look at the evidence: Rock Island Refuge Shipwreck Hideout Shipwreck Island Forbidden Island Treasure Island Soldier's Outpost Treasure Chest Loot Island Volcano Island Shipwreck Defence Raft Raiders Kraken Attackin' Shipwreck Island Castaway's Raft Renegade's Raft Shipwrecked Pirate Pirate Survival See my point? The Pirates are constantly building shelters out of their shipwrecks and building rafts out of the flotsam. When did the soldiers ever go to sea in a raft, or live in anything other than a proper building?
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I find it very hard to vote either way on any of the sets against any others, they all have advantages and disadvantages. The only set I really feel really fails against the other is Loot Island. If you take the baseplate away, there's not much else to it. It's not like earlier sets with baseplates where there was sufficient building on top of the baseplate. And one thing I have never forgiven it for... the baseplate has a cavity where you can hide treasure, and they don't even use it to hide treasure! What's up with that?
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I think judging the 2015 fort as it is is like judging the 2009 fort with the jail cell removed. It's intended to go with the outpost. You could criticise Lego for selling it in two parts but I think it makes the sets more accessible to people who wouldn't be able to afford a whole large fort. The 2009 theme didn't have any decent soldier-themed sets under the price point of the fort. I think it works this way. One of my favourite set's as a kid was Sabre Island, that was the most expensive Pirate set my parents ever bought me.
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I carefully deconstructed the front parts of my BBB and my BB and swapped the top parts over and it does appear to be this part, not the base. I've ordered a replacement on BrickLink. Better to do that now while the market is still 'clean' of the new ones. I guess I am that much of a perfectionist after all. Also, Guybrick, you need a minifig avatar of Guybrush Threepwood.
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I guess I've seen it too many times as the 'goofy' head (pirate with banana in chess set) or a kid's head (winter toy shop, easter boy dropping egg) or lower ranking Castle soldiers to really take it seriously as an Admiral. "Harsh and embittered' is exactly how I expect an Admiral to look.
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Just curious, but which is the 'wrong' head? Is it the one https://www.bricklin...em.asp?M=pi149a pictured here? Because I find that preferable to the one I actually got, which is the one in the instructions. Also much more rare. The one I have looks kind of wrong for an Admiral or whatever he's meant to be. When the new head is more common on BrickLink I'm going to get it and swap my 'right' head for the 'wrong' one. I'd order a replacement hull part if I knew I'd get a better one, but it's impossible to tell. I'm just going to live with it. It doesn't affect my appreciation of the set and I don't notice from the angle I look at it anyway. Actually, which part is faulty - the base part, or the piece that goes on top of it?
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Sorry, I was ambiguous... yes, I prefer the hard plastic flag as well. But while I'd rather have a theme with all hard plastic flags than all soft plastic flags, I'd rather have a theme with all soft plastic flags than mixed flags. It's an inconsistency that bugs me for some reason.
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I don't think the missing hull piece was to save money, the BB actually has more pieces to compensate for the loss of the aft piece. It would probably have been cheaper for them to use one large piece there. And the result is a more realistic hull.
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Yeah, I don't think the 2015 faces are any more silly than 2009? Except for the guy in the Pirate Building Set with his somewhat cartoonish grin and eyepatch. And yes, I'm sure every figure had back printing. I have all of my 2009 sets built alongside the 2015 and aside from some stylistic inconsistencies here and there, you could barely tell they were designed six years apart. The new sets use a different shade of green for the foliage, but also has some vegetation with traditional green. The two Skull Islands obviously look completely different. The ship's stern is different. The flags are different (this is the point that bugs me the most, the switch from flexible to solid plastic flags). The fort now has the new brick piece instead of stickers. On balance I'd say the new range is slightly more AFOL-appropriate, but not by much. And I tend to stockpile any available gold coins whenever I make a BrickLink order, so no problem for me there.
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That was my feeling... I'd rather have a strong Pirate theme every five years or so than an ongoing theme where pirate ships are powered by Wind Crystals that are hidden inside Temples of Ngc-t'churang.
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It's odd that themes like Castle, Pirates and City never get their own tie-in media like other themes do. Maybe it's because they tie in with 'real life', so they don't need to tell you why you should buy toys with animal heads?
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I was going to point out that the 2009 Pirates competed with series like Ninjago and they still brought it back in 2015, but apparently I'm wrong, Ninjago started in 2011. It just feels like it's been around forever, especially for a theme I thought would last one or two years. And now we have Chima as well. And for kids who in previous years had collected Ninjago and Chima, I imagine they'll be looking for the new sets in those ranges and barely notice the Pirates stuff. So, if Pirates were around for more than one year, and had the same kind of media presence, would it build up the following that those themes have? Or is there something more inherently appealing to children about fantastical ninjas and animals and stuff?
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Yup, also I think the 2009 had a similar ship in the background before the Imperial Flagship came out. I've never been a fan of the way people sometimes find 'clues' of future sets in current themes, but in this case I feel there might be something to it.
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It sounds like a very expensive long term project, but totally worth it. I rebuilt the one I had. The only classic Pirate set I've BL-ed is 6260 Shipwreck Island, just because the modern Pirate sets can't entirely substitute for the sets I had as a kid.
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Have just completed the Imperial Flagship again, and seeing it sailing between the BB and the BBB is a dream. The colour similarities between the BB and BBB aren't so obvious when a third ship with completely different colours is introduced. But now that I have bluecoats as well as redcoats, it actually looks like more of a bluecoat ship to me. The only red features are the pennants and the flag, and they are easily swapped out for blue ones. It make me hope that if they do have a Bluecoat Flagship next year, they don't just give it the same colours as the Imperial Flagship, which I'm not entirely confident in given their lack of effort with the BB and the BBB. Another reason I'd prefer a D2C version of the Imperial Trading Post.
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Lego fans can be so brutal...
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You have gained an enemy this day.
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Working on the assumption that the rumour is true (or has nothing behind it but there happens to be a UCS set anyway), if it is a larger set than 10210 I kind of hope it isn't just one big ship. I feel like the Imperial Flagships pushes the upper boundaries of how big an official Lego sailing ship is without going into ludicrous Metalbeard's Sea Cow territory. Very large MOC ships are impressive but I'm not sure I'd want to own one. Alternatively, the size could be referring to the piece count rather than the actual size of the ship. The BB has a larger piece count than BBB but is actually slightly smaller, with the extra pieces being needed because of the way the cabin is supported. I could imagine a ship equivalent to the 10210 having a larger piece count for the same reason. I hope the next time rumours pop up, there is something more substantial behind them.