jodawill

No, I haven't found it in the store yet. I was hoping to see it in person before I buy it. Did you think that one was a lot better?

Something more along the lines of The Golden Medallion. It's still a story for kids, and it's in a fictional world, but it has more of a basis in reality. This new book is ok, but it feels a lot more childish. The Golden Medallion and the Ladybird books are even appealing to me as an adult, but this one is really just for kids. That's fine - it's just different.

Huh. I haven't read through the discussions on Barracuda Bay, so I'm not sure what other people thought of that set. I thought the entire island concept was a big, sloppy mess. If they had dropped that entirely, the price of the set probably would have been more like $100. And the childish flags on that ship were a major turnoff for me. It's a great ship, but I felt like at that price, I might as well get one of the originals. I didn't feel like there was a compelling reason to buy the new one. It would have left a better impression on me if they had used the 2015 flags. But still, half the set is just a massive pile of crap. I think 10305 would have actually benefited if they had dropped the wizard entirely. Having the skirt, the lack of print, the new beard, and lacking the proper wand, it doesn't even resemble Majisto in the slightest. They could have put that section of the budget toward pretty much anything else. I think the quirks of the set could be easily forgiven if we could get some more sets in this wave. I'd especially like to see a some more variety in the knights (such as a Black Falcon with a dark bley visor on a black helmet), a Black Falcon flag, and maybe even some kite shields. And, of course, more variety in the forestmen would be very welcome. But for it being a single set, I think they did pretty much everything they could. I wouldn't change much about 10305. The only things that really bug me are the minifigures. I would swap out Majisto and the children for more soldiers or peasants. But I'm sure other people appreciate these things. After all, one of the designers singled out Majisto as being his favorite minifigure in the set, although I personally can't understand that at all. Majisto doesn't even belong in this era. But these are just nit picks, and I will correct these problems when I get my copy.

I found the knight book at Barnes & Noble yesterday. The artwork is very well done. I appreciated the amount of detail that went into the buildings. I wonder if they actually built them on the computer, then rendered them with a cartoon filter. If they actually drew each image, that's quite a bit of work. The story seemed like something I would have written when I was seven years old. It's a bunch of random, weird things one after another. My kids enjoyed it. It did remind me a bit of the cartoons in the old Mania magazines. I like how the main character had to build something to solve a problem, just like the Maniac used to do. It was kind of weird though that the balloon pieces just came out of nowhere after they explicitly said he was using pieces from the castle. I had mentioned before I thought it's very strange to have a story about someone in a wheelchair becoming a knight. Well, they're using the concept of a "knight" very loosely here. Apparently in their world, being a knight just means you wear armor and you're recognized for being a good person. In this respect, it kind of reminds me of Fraggle Rock, with the gorg being "king of the universe," which means absolutely nothing. I would definitely prefer a more realistic storyline. But the whole book is sort of a make believe kind of thing, like we're viewing the world from a child's imagination. So in that sense, it works. All in all, I'd say it was just "ok." I'm curious to see how often my kids want to read it. It's not a book I would have picked out if it didn't have Lego artwork. I suppose I'll order the pirate book from Amazon. On a related note, I'm a bit shocked by how much Little Golden Books cost now. My copy of Black Hole from 1979 says 69¢. That would be $2.82 in today's dollars. But they're $6 now. I wonder they cost so much. Interestingly, if you look up Little Golden Book on Amazon, most of the titles are discounted to either $3 or $4, which I think is a much more appropriate price adjusted for inflation. Edit: It's also interesting that they have another book with the exact same name.

That really was a great set. My first choice for another castle revival would definitely be Black Knights. It's my understanding that 10305 is also modular like those old ones, but it uses clips instead of pins so you can have the walls at any angle you want. Of course, that means either creating your own expansion walls or buying multiple copies of a $400 set. It would definitely be preferable if they had some cheaper sets to sell as add ons. Do you mean the one about whether 10305 is the best castle of all time? Did you think more people would think a previous castle was better than this one? Honestly, I'm surprised that so many people don't think it's the best castle of all time. It's definitely hard to compete with the two Black Knights castles though.

Huh. I guess when you're talking about delivering soup to a sick dragon in a hot air balloon, having a knight in a wheelchair doesn't really seem out of the ordinary. I really wish they'd release some more serious stories like The Golden Medallion. I think it would really work well in the style of artwork they have in this book. The art does look very well done.

Hey, that looks terrific! This is exactly the kind of thing I've been waiting to see people do with these parts. I like your tasteful use of the gray panel. It gives it a bit of an old school look. The shape of that cave entrance is really well done.

I've been keeping an eye out for these books in stores so I can see for myself whether they're worth buying. Maybe I'll buy the pirate one first since you say the story is better. From what I've seen in the previews, the artwork for that knight book is brilliant. I love the fact they used the new Black Falcon minifigures. I'm curious about the story in that one. Just looking at the cover, it seems like it might have a message of, "You can do anything, despite your disability." I'd like to see how they handle it. Maybe the idea of being a "knight" isn't serious enough in this book to even make his wheelchair come into play. In real life, someone in a wheelchair wouldn't last a day in medieval combat. I think a more helpful message would be to accept your limitations, then focus on the things you can control. If I'm bound to a wheelchair, I'm not going to be able to be a navy seal. But there are more things I could do than I can't, so I would want to focus on things I actually could do. (Granted, I've never had a physical disability, and I haven't read the book - these are just the things that have been going through my mind as I've thought about this book.)

That seems like a reasonable explanation. What do you think about the differences between the noses and mouth? Different plates?

Yeah, I'd forgotten it was included on the sprue back then. You know, I even had one of those sprues as a kid from Black Monarch's Ghost, and I had completely forgotten that it included that piece. I wonder if I lost that one early on. I was only four years old when I got that set. Still, that piece is $30 on Bricklink! It's absolutely insane. I don't know why they won't rerelease it. I wonder if Lego tries to avoid devaluing old parts. I don't know why they would, but it does seem as if they avoid re-releasing valuable items.

Yeah, I forgot about the outline. They are quite a bit different. Bricklink doesn't note any variances among the old shields, but to me, they appear to be printed with completely different equipment. I kind of wonder if the moire pattern was actually printed from digital equipment in the '90s and the original was clearer because it was made from a stamp. I can't think of any other explanation for this.

Well, I'm near sighted, so it's very obvious to me. I did a double take just now though because I noticed that the graphics are actually different! Isn't the one on the left identical to the 2022 shield? I might have used the wrong one in the photo, but it appears to me that both of these are old brown.

When I first read your comment, I thought you were talking about the small plume, which was exclusive to a forestman minifigure. I would have been over the moon to get one of those here. I was sure I would have known about it if that piece was included in this set because that would be a big deal.

That seems like a different issue to me. My camera wasn't able to pick up the details, but it doesn't look faded; it looks like it was printed with an injket printer. The image of made of a bunch of small dots (like a comic book) instead of being a crisp printing. Were the wolfpack shields dotted or were they just miscolored or faded? That's too bad. I've opened two of the GWPs and all of my shields look great. Maybe I'm just lucky. Or maybe you are unlucky.

Well, that could be also. Does it actually wear into a regular pattern? Maybe the material they used for the stamp held more ink in some spots?

I was looking at my forestmen shields the other day, and I noticed that the print quality is significantly poorer on some of them. I've included a photo below. The photo isn't the greatest, but when you see it in person, the one on the right looks like a dot matrix image, just like the old boxes. I know these shields were produced for both the Forestmen and Dark Forest themes. I'm not completely sure which one is older, or whether prints of both quality were produced at the same time. Only one of my shields has a clear print, and I only have one Dark Forest set, so this makes me think that the original Forestmen theme might have included the poor ones. But I have a Lion Knights shield from the same time period, and the print is very sharp. Does anyone know about the history of this part? When and why did they produce poor prints?

That fish tank is really impressive. I never would have guessed it came from the fire station. These are really fun builds. It definitely feels more like classic Lego to me, like the old Freestyle tubs I loved as a kid.

Wow, that's interesting! I wonder if that's the real reason they stopped outsourcing them.

Wow. This is a really beautiful photo! I need to learn how to take better photos of my MOCs.

Is Pick a Brick available in your country? There's a chance all of these parts will show up at some point, although I wouldn't expect them to be available for very long. I check several times a day because I don't want to miss out whenever the parts drop.

I know that feeling all too well. I was working at McDonald's when the Imperial Flagship was released. There was just absolutely no way I could afford it. It feels really bad when Lego releases a great set like this and you just don't have the money. I was only able to afford one small set when the 2009 pirates came out, but I was really grateful to be able to get something. It does make me upset that they're only making expensive sets in these classic themes now. I wish they'd do a lot more smaller sets. Maybe you could at least grab the minifigures from Pick a Brick at some point.

That cheese wedge would look really good on a small, single person ship. I hope I can get those from PAB next time I order.

The legs feeling lose probably indicates that they're made of thinner material and/or manufactured to larger tolerances. I'm not sure that they were ever prone to breaking. I think they just give the overall feeling of cheapness. We should probably start a new thread on this subject. It would be great to hear from someone who actually has information on this.

I don't know the specifics. Hopefully someone else can shed some light on the subject. I haven't bought enough of them in recent years to notice the exact point in time, but I can definitely tell you the troubadour feels much heaftier than my old ones. I might pull some out tomorrow and measure the thickness of the torsos. I was frustrated with the minifigures in Benny's Space Squad because they felt light and I had one actually crack just sitting in a tub in the closet. So I measured them. If I recall correctly, I think the 1980s Black Falcon torso was 1.4mm, the BSS torsos were 1.1mm, and the new Black Falcon torsos were 1.2mm. I would guess that the older CMFs are 1.0mm or even less, and the legs are probably thinner in areas I couldn't easily measure. I know it probably sounds crazy, but I can feel the difference when I hold each of them. I could tell immediately when I got my new Black Falcons that they were thicker because they were heavier. That's why I measured them. As I recall, the old CMFs also didn't get the color and opacity of the plastic quite right. There's just something off when you, say, look at some white legs from the old ones. They look like cheap knock offs. That's how I remember it anyway. I haven't looked at my old CMFs in a while.

The parts used to be made in China using separate molds and I believe inferior quality plastic. I think this is a large reason the price has gone up so much. The more recent minifigures have visibly improved quality.