Tereglith

There's also a very poor quality 'review' of 3366 somewhere on youtube, although it's really just a kid holding the set's various components in front of the camera and forgetting to turn the sound on. The fact that all of these sets are being sold in places raises the question for me, though, of WHEN they're supposed to hit stores! Is there any hard-and-fast information one this? It's far too early a release for them to come out with the summer wave, but they definitely aren't with the winter wave. What's going on with these sets? I'd appreciate some clarification. Edit: just read Brickviller's comment. Duh . Waiting until March it is, then.

:D I'm very pleased with the way the two biggest sets look in the spieletest video! The Mothership looks massive I'd say at least fifty studs across. And the Earth Defense HQ is very slick. I guess that viewing chamber in the front portion is what was meant by autopsy. Not quite what we were all hoping for along that line, but still cool. And all you people wondering about the dweeby guy in the dark blue suit, good news! He comes with the Alien Tripod set, which looks to be falling into the $20 price point So you can get him very easily! Sadly, in its boxart it looks like he's about to be eaten by one of the head grabby things :P I don't normally go for the largest sets in a theme, but Lego has really outdone itself this time. Unless the alien mothership is revealed to be extraordinarily overpriced, I'll definitely be picking it up, and the Defense HQ is looking more and more inviting as well. So excited!

Well, to whatever degree autopsy is featured, we should know for sure soon what Huw meant, as the Nuremberg Toy Fair starts tomorrow! So hopefully very soon we'll have more than the prelim boxart to go on Does the Nuremberg Fair usually have the little plaquards with price and piece count, or do those come at a later fair? I'm very curious to know what the stats for these sets are.

I think that somewhere earlier in this topic (before page 20) another user sugested implied autopsy, with perhaps an x-ray panel with a skeleton sticker that you can move over the aliens; I think that if autopsy is included as a theme in this line, that seems most likely. Although it might be more explicit - did anybody else think the age ranges for these sets to be a bit odd? I normally don't pay attention to them, because they always seem like TLG saying "grow up, dude. These are a toy for kids", but looking at them in the great big picture at Imageshack shows that all of them, even the tiniest $6.00 set, have age ranges that go up to 14. By comparison, Star Wars (right next to Alien Conquest in that image) has its sets rated 7-12 until you reach the larger ones like the Podracers, where it goes up to 14. I think that, along with the somewhat dark, grim box art, solidly implies that demographically, LEGO is looking towards an older set of kids along the range of this entire theme. Which is cool! tl;dr - The age ranges indicate a more mature target market for AC, making autopsy features a possibility.

I'm really excited about this theme! It looks, to me at least, like LEGO is doing a mash-update (I just coined that phrase) of Classic Space and UFO. Since I started buying LEGO space (or getting it bought for me, anyway) at the very tail end of the UFO era heading towards LOM, I'm very glad that this is the direction LEGO decided to take the Space theme in, as most of my LEGO-buying life has been spent with space idling on Mars, with the occasional drop to Earth in the form of NASA sets (another theme they're bringing back! I'm so happy about space this year.) I've noticed that previously in the thread people have been trying to calculate the prices of the sets and they always seem to run into a problem with the jet-copter, because it has a higher number than EDHQ even though HQ is clearly larger and the flagship set. I think I have a solution to that - what if Jet-Copter Encounter is an exclusive set? Just a thought, but Shadow Snapper came out alongside the first wave of Atlantis and had a higher set number than Neptune Carrier because it was exclusive to TRU in America. Jet-Copter Encounter could be the same way, exclusive to one of Target, Wal-Mart, or TRU in America. It doesn't have its limited edition sticker on yet because these are prelims. That would place its price somewhere in the vicinity of $50, which seems a lot more reasonable.

Lucky you! I'm quite eager to get my hands on these sets to go with my new 10213 Shuttle, and it's good to know that they're beginning to appear in stores, even if only across the ocean. Quite a nice review of quite a nice little set!

Nice one! Building one of these has been at the back of my head, and I kept wondering when somebody was going to do one. You did a really great job capturing that classic town feel, especially, with the little guy driving. It looks like the set LEGO would release if they made the crawler back then!

I got the Kingdoms Advent Calendar this year, only to realize this morning that it doesn't have a Santa Claus analogue! So, taking inspiration from Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather", I sought to rectify this, and twenty minutes later I had produced this: I have no idea whether or not it's accurate or not, but it looks medieval! The sack is made out of brown capes (which I believe is unorthodox use #5 so far) to give it a different texture. I was daunted by the prospect of making reindeer, so maybe next year. Where could Proto-Santa be going next? Why, to the Medieval Winter Village, of course! The MMV and the Kingdoms Advent Calendar go together like chocolate and more chocolate (Which is to say excellently). I've simply been adding the contents of the advent calendar to it all December and it's been looking more and more festive. That's the tree from the Winter Toy Shop minus the lights in the middle. Merry Christmas (or Happy belated Hannukah or Happy Kwanzaa [i've never met anyone who celebrates Kwanzaa, actually...] or Happy Festivus or Happy no holiday at all if you would prefer)and may you find lots of rattling boxes under the tree!

Congratulations! I got the game for my birthday about a month ago. It's really fun to play and has quite a bit of strategy to it. Have fun!

I've got the feeling that the competition will be rather formidable, but I have an idea already. I'm going to get started building ASAP. Those prizes are truly phenomenal!

It's beginning to look like I'm going to give up Atlantis for this theme! Each time newer photos come out, I like these sets even more, especially the smaller ones :D. Thoughts: The scarab is adorable. Seriously, look at it - I'm probably going to buy it the first time I see these on the shelves and then keep it on my desk. It's so cute! The motorcycle set is pretty much just a battle pack (as most $10 sets are these days). It's almost like a better version of the $10 PoP set. The sheer number of accessories makes it worth it (as does the potential for having a bike race MOC with Mutt's bike) The biplane set is probably my favorite. It looks really great from an aesthetic standpoint, and it also just looks fun. The column, the plane, the mummies (their wings!), just everything looks great. This will certainly be the first set of the theme that I buy. The snake is catching a lot of flak, but I don't mind it. It looks fluid enough for something that is, after all, made out of rectangular bricks . It'll be fun to fight it with the biplane (there's good display potential there if I can find enough clear elements). The sphynx is, I think, the weakest set of the line. It's the one that tries the hardest to appeal to small children, and I think that in that respect they suceeded, but in doing so they sacrificed the, for lack of a better word, coolness of the theme. The car in it is the best vehicle, though. I wish it and the car in the cobra set could switch places. The pyramid is so large and play-feature heavy that I don't feel I can make any judgements on it whatsoever until I see a review, except for saying that it looks like it'll be really epic. However, I think my money will be better spent elsewhere (like Diagon Alley!) One thing I'm wondering though - what ARE the final MSRPs in US Dollars? It seems reasonable that they should be the same as those listed in euros in the first post, but then again I've seen different (lower) euro amounts at another site. And then you have bluesecrets on flickr saying the Sphinx was only $45 (at a TRU, no less). But then there's the fact that if you aren't using lego's wacky exchange rates, the euro is worth a lot more than the dollar. So I'm pretty confused

Great review! I didn't notice any dust. Even after this review though, I'm still on the fence about whether or not to buy this one. $20 seems like a lot for so insubstantial a set. I think I may take the middle path and put it on my Christmas list - letting one of my relatives buy it eliminates the risk! As for the cones - I'm not sure on this, but I think they work like this. You (assuming you are a small child) get a friend to come over, and you each operate one catapult, attempting to put the Quaffle through the hoops. When one of you makes it, you take a cone of your color and put it on that SNOT piece up on the tower, so it functions as a scoreboard. First to four 'wins'. This isn't elaborated on in any of the pictures of the set anywhere, but it's the vibe I got after seeing the official picture in which one Slytherin cone is already up on the scoreboard. I may be completely wrong, but it seems pretty likely that this mechanic, not so much a play feature as a gameplay feature, was what was intended for the set all along. It certainly makes certain aspects - the catapults, the cones, the otherwise extraneous SNOT - make a lot more sense, and it adds a new depth of thought to the set's design. I just don't understand why exactly this was never elaborated on in the promotional materials, or presumably in the instructions

Aargh. None of the stores in my area ever got so much as one box of series 1! That rules out Category B for me . Oh well, I can still try for category A...

Great MOC. Where did you ever get that many pink slopes? O_o It looks terrifyingly quaint, just like in the books. The Tudor style works really well (especially the pink flowers in the white bits - excellent touch!) Congrats on getting the canonical date of their date right, too.

Project Constellation WOULD have been in effect very soon, but the Obama administration has decided that spaceflight isn't an important concern in this time of economic crisis (tell that to Cape Canaveral's economy) and the project was cancelled recently. NASA is now moving towards a business model in which private companies compete for the privilege to provide it with spacecraft, with no specific goals set at present except for continued maintenance of the ISS. This doesn't rule out the set being based on the Ares I, of course, because clearly the designs were made long before the project was cancelled.

But will there be a Doctor McNinja ? Meh. I'll reserve further judgement until I see if there are actual sets to go with these multihued ninjae.

Thanks for the information, Klaus-Dieter. That's great news about the space sub-theme! I'm really looking forward to it, as the last time Lego had a go-round with 'non-fiction' space I was too young and short on pocket money to buy any of it. Normally city holds no interest for me whatsoever, but it looks like my buying pattern is going to change a lot next year!

This would be a great idea. There are so many possiblities! Perhaps something large in the neo-classic-space style, or a number of highly detail civilian vehicles in the style of SP3. Or (what I would be most likely to buy) a great big greebled steampunk airship! Any of these would be simply amazing and would probably sell like hotcakes. I don't see why they haven't done one or more yet.

Yes, it does seem like that. There have been three medium entries and so far only one large entry, but something like fifteen rather excellent small entries. However, in my experience (mainly PTVII over at the Pirates forum), a whole slew of larger entries get submitted right near the deadline, because those with the time an pieces to create large, complicated entries will take the time to make them truly outstanding. I have a feeling voting's going to to be really hard when the end of June comes around...

From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: epic - adj - extending beyond the usual or ordinary especially in size or scope This is a twelve-mile-long spaceship crashing into a battle station the size of a small moon; your argument is invalid. In other news, the new pics are up! Tell me how you like it now!

I just got back from The A-Team and, say what you will about my tastes, I enjoyed it a lot. I mean, you don't go to a movie that contains the line "they're trying to fly the tank" for plot and character development. You go for the frikking flying tank! And if you're looking for action of the flying-tank variety, then The A-Team is the way to go. It's really a blast, and it's pretty darn funny as well. I give it an 8/10

Thanks all for your compliments. Good to know I've got the support of the Dark Lord of Denmark I see what you mean - their effect is softened when you see it in real life, but in the pictures the greebles to rather draw the eye. I'll try and make them more monochromatic when I'm revising the tail section.

At first I wondered why you would make a third version of this scene, but then I realized that this one has something different! The actual structure is on a par with the other two that are competing, but Ackbar gives it that little bit more, just like the background does on the first entry submitted. Why are you guys making it so darned hard to pick the best one?

EDIT: I've posted the pictures of the new version of the ship. Some subtle changes, but I think they make it a lot better. Commentary on changes is in purple An A-wing plummets through space towards the stupidly exposed bridge of the Super Star Destroyer Executor. The bridge crew screams, the A-wing explodes, and nineteen kilometers of heavy steel, previously the second most technologically-advanced naval creation in the Galaxy, becomes nothing more than the Universe's largest dagger, stabbing downwards into the Death Star II with a force of quadrillions of Newtons. Explosions wrack its frame and the Death Star's as the Imperial fleet is thrown into disarray. The Rebels have won the day! My scene is one of the climactic moments of Episode VI: ROTJ. The main change is the re-shaping of the aft part of the ship. In the movie it's pointy, and I changed the shape to reflect that. Also, there's no longer the menagerie of colors in the greeblage - just dark grey and dark bley: There's a pretty impressive lean to the ship. Notice the flame coming out from the bridge - that's where the A-wing hit it! It's got the red thrusters... The pointy back comes out over the end by four studs And a Raging Inferno of Firey DEATH! I kept this picture the same, simply because raging infernos of firey death all pretty much look alike. No overhang. Well, there still isn't any, but you can't see that from this picture. I really like this shot, though, in conveys the almost arrow-head like nature of the ship as it falls, and the perspective is really great. The model stands about 11.5 in (29 cm) tall, and it was a blast to build. I wasn't going for complete movie accuracy, but rather the general feel of the scene, and I think it came out pretty well. (At least I haven't had anyone complaining about how it ought to have thirteen thrusters ). Now that it's been updated and revised, what do you think?

This looks very nice! It looks exactly like the White House when I saw it (but minus the Canadian Goose feces covering the lawn. That was nasty). Unfortunately, the piece count puts this at $50 or at the very best, $40, which is too rich for my blood for something that small.