Zarkan

Thanks for the review, Brickster! Honestly, this may be the first set in ages that I might actually get more than one of. The cheap price combined with a cannon, two figures, and acessories had me sold as soon as I saw the first picture back in August. The minifigs are especially superb - they're easily some of the best lego figures ever.

This is great news! I knew that Space wasn't totally out of the running yet, and I'm glad to see more info relating to the theme. I sure hope Blacktron's back! Heh, I'm afraid you'll probably luck out on all three of those.

Okay, dunno how I missed this, but... what happened to Omi? What made him decide to leave BZPower? I saw in his blog that he mentioned someone named Lluvio, who aparrently wanted him gone. Someone please explain.

I don't think that will work very well, as LDD is notorious for charging especially high prices, even compared to official sets.

I think this new piece is great, as it looks a lot easier to incorporate into standard constructions. Let's hope we get it in grey with the castle sets coming out next year - maybe in a UCS castle?

I voted above average. True, the set is overpriced and a bit small, but it has a ton of useful pieces and acessories, awesome minifigures, and has a great modular system that is begging to be added onto. Plus, it's pirates - and it's very close to the style of the original theme. I'll be buying it for sure. Eh? Why do we have to love only one set and hate the other? I personally love both of those sets from what I have seen - even though you do have an excellent point about the piece per price count. Don't forget however that the second kit is going to be a Shop at Home exclusive, so we can expect a big shipping price and tax to raise the final toll.

Wow, calvin, I haven't seen you this optomistic since you joined the forums! Good to see that these kits are getting such a high approval rating around Eurobricks.

The new pirate minifigs are easily some of the best figures ever, IMO. So much detail, two sided torsos, awesome new faces, printed hats - they're just wonderful!

Yes, of course I would open it! I always open kits as soon as I get them, and that would stay the same even if I managed to get a rare kit. For me, the potential thrill of building, playing with, and displaying a rare kit far outweighs letting it sit unopened. The only way I'd ever resist opening it is if it was so rare that selling it would get literally hundreds of dollars more than what I paid for it, and only if it was just a rare variation on a normal kit (ie. the kit that Guss posted). But then I'd just sell it and hopefully buy a less expensive version with some of the profit. In short, I'm a lego builder, NOT a lego collector. Sure, I like to display my favorite sets, but my prime enjoyment comes from building and using my lego, not just leaving it in a dusty box for years.

Man, pictures just keep coming! And they are really making me really drool with excitement.... For the most part, the sets seem very well designed. The modular fort, while expensive, is beautiful, and I love that it is modular and doesn't have an abundance of regular yellow - a color that I think looks a bit cheesy when used too much. The ship is very classicly built and has some great new parts. I'm a bit disappointed that it only includes 3 cannons, but I think it will be easy to fix the problem - just move the cannon on the stern and take the unrealisticly carried cannon from loot island, and you can fill up the two other spots with ease. I don't like that the middle of the ship seems a bit empty, as opposed to classic pirate ships, but I love that the color scheme is very subduded and realistic. Overall, I'm loving these kits, and I'm quickly seeing that next year will be expensive as usual - especially since I may attempt to get one $100 dollar sets (I basically never do that). Good think that I'll probably be getting my first real job after I turn 16 in January - should provide a good source of cash. BTW, I share everyone else's hate of the <insert that tiresome argument> tree mold being used in the fort, but I'm relieved that that they at least used individual leaves. Imagine if they had brought this awful piece into production again:

This is great news! I bet that most of the early 2009 sets will be out by mid december - probably only in overpriced TRU though. Personally, I don't see what is wrong with the price of the pirate ship. It's no more expensive than previous pirate ships, and I'm betting that extra costs probably went into reproducing all the pirate pieces. Although, since the price of the line now totals about $206, I certainly won't be able to get all of it until much later next year. Oh, this is going to be expensive....

I know there's still a fair amount of silver, but there's far less than on the original kit. Now it just looks like armor on his body, instead of BEING the main color of his body. The main reason I used that piece is because it's supposed to simulate fire, not an actual part of the sword's construction. In real life, if Tahu was not using his fire sword, the fire would disappear and only the handle and silver pieces would remain. It's been in a few kits - I got mine from the Exo-Force Golden Tower Attack set. I kinda wish they had used this piece on the original Tahu Mata - it would have looked far better than plain red. Thanks for the comments guys! After Christmas, I'll probably have Gali and Onua Mistika, so expect mods of them as well in a couple of months.

Woah, never knew you built any bionicles, Brainbox! Cool. This new version of Gali is very nice. Using the feet as the basis for the body worked out pretty well, and the color scheme is very nice. I likey.

I think you do have a very good point there. Technic is generally geared for older children, and before recent years it didn't have much of a presence in System. I think it probably is a combination of reasons 2 and 3 - lego sets are in general becoming more complicated and complex, and alternate models are far and few between. Still, most themes don't really have that much technic in them IMO - aside from Mars Mission, that is.

Well, I voted for megabloks. Before any of you start stoning me, I chose them because Playmobile is really useless for a lego fan like me, and because 4-Plus is an abomination that I'd like to forget. On the other hand, the Megabloks Pirates lines actually have a lot of interesting pieces, and some of their ships, while not really buildable, are amazing looking. If I had an unlimited supply of money, I would probably pick up some of the old POTC and Pyrates MB kits, because I can see some serious MOCing potential in the parts (and I would know - I've actually built MOC's combining Lego and MB). Gee, I was almost certain that this topic was about pirates, not about Bionicle. But going along with the flow, I fail to see why Bionicle is not lego. It has oodles of technic pieces, the ocassional system piece, you can build them, take them apart, and build them into something else, etc. Sounds like Lego to me...

These are some amazing buildings, Aliencat! I especially love the marbled brick pattern on the Town hall. Man, it's been really awesome seeing so many AFOLS making additions to go with the official modular sets. TLC definitely has a hit on their hands, and it's one of their best inovations yet.

Who says Technic can't be used to build other things as well?

Yesterday I bought the City Coast Guard 4WD and Jetski, and Tahu Mistika. The latter went through some heavy modifications as soon as I finished building it the official way. Well, 2008 purchases are about over for me. All I need is about three more small sets, and that will be it until I get my usual big haul at Christmas.

I'm not happy today, because I feel like the country I live in just died.

What an awesome collection! Despite being a fan of the books, I don't actually own any of the kits (although I have a few pieces from them), but I must admit that it was a great theme that was very true to the creative world of Harry Potter. I also think your minifig customs are stunning, especially considering they are made mostly with official pieces. I can't wait to see reviews - Eurobricks never has had that many in-depth looks at the line.

Honestly, as much as I like the ol' webhead, Spidey just doesn't work well as a lego license or game. The reason is that Spiderman is mainly character based, and that is not what young lego fans are looking for. They want vehicles and gadgets, something that Spiderman is not known for. On the other hand, Batman has done so well because Batsy has so many cool inventions that can be made into lego kits. It's a bummer, I know, but that's the way it works.

Actually, you're wrong about that. None of those are actually officially confirmed - we only know that Bionicle will have a summer wave because it always does. The Indy sets were only rumors, and Galaxy Patrol/Space Police III has made no appearances since the entries on Whung's 2009 set list.

And this is totally leaving out the fact that you can watch all the episodes of Clone Wars on the OFFICIAL Cartoon Network site.... for free. I figure that once a network starts doing that, they have no right to criticize people for watching them in any way. The only thing that IMO is off limits is downloading episodes, putting them on a disk, and selling the disk. But serious, what Starwars fan would even be interested in buying that when episodes are only an internet click away?

There was actually a second sneak peak in the latest Lego Magazine: On the Tiny Turbos page, the logo of the new Pirates line appeared on the front of the green truck. Nothing much, but it's interesting to see Lego sneak something like that in.

I think the first name you gave sounds more female than male, and the second sounds too much like a Rahkshi name. Also, I disagree about the name not conveying Makuta's character. Personally, I think a name based on the word terror sums up The Makuta very well, as he is terifying in every aspect of his character. Also, it sounds far more like a name for a leader than all the other Makuta names, IMO. Ah well, at least we can all agree that Teridax was a better name choice than Zigorakacrax or something.