Tereglith

Release a really awesome selling point of a large set all by itself? Not likely. Still, some people might split up the set and sell it individually on eBay. And we might get a sleeker (than the jet-copter) ADU fighter with a second wave. These sets can't come soon enough!

That's basically a particularly succint definition of what Dieselpunk is, and this MOC is a good example of its aesthetic. And yes, I do like it! That engine is great!

Also, the idea that seems to be governing recent themes isn't "no guns" or even "no violence" - it's closer to "nobody that kills other human beings is the good guy". The emphasis on almost every theme is humans vs. x, where x is non-human (aliens, skeletons, trolls, drones, more aliens, sea-creature/human mutants, mummies, more skeletons... you get the idea. Only pirates '09 and liscensed themes among recent sets have human enemies). So a psuedo-military force shooting the crap out of aliens is different from a military force shooting the crap out of another military force in TLG's eyes. I think the underlying assumption of this is that kids are impressionable, and while they might have the chance to shoot a guy after role-playing it, they'll never have a chance to shoot an alien after role-playing it. Is this a reasonable assumption? Maybe not. But it seems reasonable to TLG, and also to the people who might sue them.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of too. I feel like something of the sort has happened with another past theme, too, but I can't put my finger on it. Mars Mission? Fantasy Castle? Eh, I'm sure it'll come to me. I just know that that pattern of set release was already there enough in my brain to be the first thing I thought of when I read the calendar.

I read this as (and the back of the calendar bears this out) that only two or three AC sets are going to come out May 10, with the rest to follow later. Note that the middle panel calls what we're going to see a "first look", and the pictured set is the Alien Mothership, not the Earth Defense HQ as one would expect. That, coupled with the fact that they mention five themes to be spread across only 20-24 new sets says to me that only half the theme is going to be released May 10, with the rest to come later. Which is still cool, just not as cool. Of course, I may be wrong, but that's what the calendar seemed to say to me when I saw it on Brickset earlier. (Also, if the sets that they're releasing are the two saucers, as the minifigures on the front of the calendar would indicate, then it would give kids a couple months to terrorize their town, then just as they get bored of that, BAM! Earth organizes a defense force that hits shelves a month or two later. Staggered release dates would sort of add to the storyline, is what I'm saying.)

Reading this I realized that the Jet-copter's Alien ship is quite similar in execution to the UFOs in Battle L.A. It would probably be pretty easy to modify their design so that they would snap together into a circle like the ones in the movie. (Somewhat off-topic: I saw Battle L.A. the other day. When it comes out on DVD I'm certain it will result in many deaths as people try to do Military/Alien Invasion cliche drinking games and get alcohol poisoning. But it is the first of a whole host of Alien movies coming out this summer. I suspect that this theme was made based on the recommendation of the same trend forecasters that Hollywood was talking to three years ago.)

These are adorable! I particularly like the walker - great use of the sextant piece in the legs. I'd love to see some more vehicles in the same scale!

You most certainly aren't. The Jet-copter is right at the top of my list. i think it looks like one of the best $40 sets in a while.

Great review! I would certainly buy this set after reading it - if I hadn't just gotten Shuttle Adventure for Christmas! Still, the rest of the new City space line looks promising as well.

I think one of thep principle problems with making ST MOCs is the fact that almost every federation ship and a lot of alien ships are just plain spindly. Any large scale Enterprise MOC would be a nightmare to support. It seems to be a bit more poplular with the mini builders, because it's a lot easier to capture those unstable shapes in a very tiny scale. Even I've made some little Enterprise models. But yeah, I think the main reason is that it would just be so difficult.

Daft Punk's epic "Tron: Legacy" soundtrack. I just got it over the weekend, and I've listened to it about six times already. Undoubtedly the best part of the film.

Splendid! The bottom part is great, it looks very cohesive yet is also very steampunk. The gold trim used throughout is a nice touch. I've made a few steampunk airships myself, but I tend to cheat and use the balloon from this adventurers set instead. That brick-built one you managed is certainly impressive!

Giant alien robot is a must at some point in this theme (as soon as I read giant robot, though, I pictured the Iron Giant in attack mode. I should make that out of LEGO. The Iron Giant is epic). I also think that, given the strong civilian presence in the minifig lineup of the first wave, the second wave might include a few wrecked building or bunker-style civilian structures, as there are only so many variations you can do on a round disk with an alien in it. In any case, I have finally finalized my purchase list for this summer, and it includes a lot of Alien Conquest (Jet-Copter and Tripod Invader are top priority). All there is now is to wait.

I definitely agree with you on this one. I almost never go for sets (well, main theme sets anyway. I've got my share of 10 - - - series exclusives) that are more than $60, but I think this one has a huge draw. It looks great, looks like it plays great, it has that epic alien pirate figure and all sorts of useful blue pieces, and it's only $90. That combined with my increased cash flow this summer makes it VERY tempting. Really the only thing that makes me hesitant is the promise of stationary base for the humans should this theme continue for another wave or two, but even then...

Definitely not. People are going to army-build the tripod like crazy, and once they get one or two businessmen, the rest are going to go straight to Bricklink. He'll be going for a dime a dozen (not really) on there a month after the theme reaches wide release.

Thanks! I just found it out at FBTB's flickr. At that price it'll be the first one I buy, along with Tripod invader. There's articulation at the 'shoulder' and at the 'elbow' (none at the 'wrist'), but it's limited by the fact that it is composed of two pieces moving in tandem. It ought to work such that it will automatically take steps when the "upper arm" is lifted, but it will cause a 1:1 correspondence with postions of the upper arm and lower arm, i.e. each position you put the upper arm in will allow for one and only one position of the lower arm corresponding to it.

I tend to go solely by piece count as well, but in outstanding cases I'm moved to make exceptions, and I think that the sheer epic magnitude of this set is enough to convince ME at least that it's worth $60. Do I have $60 to spend on it, though? Not after buying everything else I want to buy. So despite the fact that I think it actually adds something to the theme through sheer scale (It's going to make the Earth Defense HQ look tiny! No better way to up the ante than to have your HQ dwarfed), I, like you, will probably not buy it, at least not right away. I don't quite get why the handle is objectionable, though. I think it's rather discreet, considering how hard it can be to get a handle (no pun intended) on large cumbersome sets. To me it's just like the clear pieces holding the two parts of a podracer together - a necessary attachment for the logistics of the toy that you can ignore while in play, or remove on display. Try this on for size. The articulation will be limited, but I still think that design is rather clever - sturdy enough to support the set's weight, designed to keep the 'shins' vertical, yet still allowing a reasonable degree of motion in the 'thighs'. It ought to be able to pantomime walking fairly well for young kids, but posing for dioramas, not so much.

Worked fine for me . I'm still holding out hope that there may be a bit more to it than just pointy bits - see how there's gaps for them to move up and down in between the curved 6x6 plates? I think that tonight has solidified my "to purchase" list for Alien Conquest. The last piece of data I need before I can finalize it is the price of the Jet-Copter. Has that showed up anywhere?

I'm a bit disappointed as well, but it's not really that much of a stretch, because this is one of those sets where the lack of total parts is made up for by the fact that it's SUPER MEGABLOCKSING HUGE. I counted it as 56 studs across. 56. That means it will comfortably hover over the entire Medieval Market Village. It will dwarf the Batwing in both dimensions, and be as long as 4504 Millenium Falcon at its longest point. Put straight up and down it will have two stories on The Burrow, and stand just a hair taller than Shuttle Adventure. It's going to be ENORMOUS.

I've been combing through the pictures, but running into a lot of 503 errors (I guess a lot of other people are trying to do the same thing ). My big question is - has the price of the Mothership shown up anywhere? Or the Jet-copter, for that matter? I'd be much obliged if somebody would post them . Supposing they're known. EDIT: nvm on the Alien Mothership front - I just zoomed in on one of the pictures and found that it costs $59.99. Not as bad as I'd feared, but definitely not great for a 400 piece set. Also, I've spied with my elf-eyes in the same picture that the Abduction set costs $29.99 as feared. Anybody care to check my work? It's picture 21 in the Pop Culture Network feed.

Thanks for the link to flickr, Baylego! It would appear that Jet-Copter encounter is definitely going to have two identical alien ships, then. Very cool. I'll start the bidding saying it's $40 USD, and I'll also lay 2:1 odds it's a TRU exclusive. Step right up and place your bets

You're right on that - it definitely appears to have two identical fighters in that preliminary image. However, on the top of the box there's only one alien shown in the minifig line-up. So I guess it's a matter of which side of the box is in error. It would be neat if there were two though - I usually feel that any LEGO 'fleet' will be a bit too irregular, because all the small ships offered as token resistance are different from each other. Even just having two identical ones would help the look of the fleet. (With this theme it would be easy enough to just buy multiples of 7049 to round out the fleet, but that's not always the case)

Since all the cool kids are doing it... Whatever abduction mechanism is inside the UFO Abduction set has to be able to fold up inside the underbelly of the UFO. That rules out anything too grand or large. However, this is likely a $30 set, and it's not terribly large, so the abduction feature is going to be its main selling point. So I suspect that the designers were given however many technic parts they needed to make it work. So given the reports that it involves many tiny pieces and that it's, to quote Huw, "clever", I supect a rather complex but also compact technic mechanism is in the offing. From here it's mere conjecture, but given that we see what is clearly a new, strong, long type of clear piece in the boxart for the Podrace set, I'm going to make a leap of logic and say that that piece will also be present in this set, perhaps as an X-arm type of extender controlled by a knob somewhere on the ship (or if they're feeling really clever, by spinning the outer rim of the ship itself!) As for grabbing the minifigure, again this is mere conjecture, but the solution that presents itself readily to my mind is putting a pair of the 2 x-axle holder rubber pieces on the ends of the extenders. So if I'm right, you would twist the outer rim, the red light would turn on, the clear arms would extend down from the underbelly with a scissoring motion, grab the farmer using friction from the rubber pieces, and then fly away. If I were a Lego designer this would probably be what I would do, but then again I'm not one, so I'm probably completely wrong. Hopefully the NY Toy Fair can put all of this conjecture to rest

I think this is a VERY clever move of LEGO to make for their board games. The gimmick has always been with the Lego Board games that you can change them around and mess with the rules a pieces, but I wonder how many people actually did that and messed with the carefully controlled gameplay factors that make a game work. Having a D&D style modular game world, however, is uniquely suited to the capabilities of LEGO. Once the initial rules are understood, anybody can make their own world to play in. And unlike pen-and-paper games, you could theoretically add a third dimension to your world, make it a proper landscape MOC. Well played, LEGO, well played.

At least they aren't stealing crystals. Golly geez have I had enough of people/things stealing crystals. Plus, it's really easy to pretend that instead of stealing intelligence, they're stealing brains. You know, as a fine delicacy. Also, I paused the video and counted up just how many studs across the Alien Mothership is. The sucker's coming in at a radius of TWENTY SEVEN studs, plus fins/guns. That's right, nearly sixty studs across. I think this is going to be one of those rare cases where the size of the finished set is equal to or even exceeds its size on the box