Shakar

Between the Queen and the soldiers, there has to be someone, right? The upper class...those who rule. The Beasts have their own class for that, the Senators. They're the aristocracy and the army commanders, the top of the society right after the Queen herself. When I saw Splitter Beast's splitting function, I knew the most interesting thing to do would've been revamping the figure into two separate Beasts, each with their own identity. The big one was easy, just put some back armour and change a few things (that's a separate MOC I got planned that I'll complete once I get the set). What to do with the small one, though? I wanted to turn her/him into a mid size figure, I just didn't know how. My first idea was the self explanatory Wyvern Beast (which stayed inside by head, and got shafted because another winged Beast seemed boring to me). Then, I realized we were missing a commander figure (Crystal Beast might fit in with his staff, but he has a different purpose in my universe), and that's what I decided to make. The first version I built was a very standard humanoid, like a Flyer Beast without wings (just some spikes jutting out of the back, like the final version). By then, I had decided the Beast's main colour was one the other Beasts tragically didn't use (except some bits), lime green (I finally got to use those lime bones!). Then, yesterday the big idea hit me while I was analyzing Queen Beast's build. What if I made a smaller insectoid (similar to Tunneler Beast), using the Queen's built on a smaller scale? It'd make sense for the ruling class to look similar to the Queen. So Senator Beast was fully realized. This is a WIP because a few things are missing: another claw/blade (as you can see, I cheated, putting one of them on the staff in some pictures and on the tail in the other ones), the proper upper head, and a more fitting printed shell. But aside from that, I have no reason to not post her (yes, this one is a girl, male Senators do exist though), the model is complete: what matters isn't the head colour, but the design I want to share. If you fear she might be small, don't worry, she's actually pretty big (I tried putting the tail on the back, kinda looks like an high collar now..neat huh?). Adding another blade on the staff, she has 68 pieces. Adding a minifig (what about Stormer himself? He tends to fight against the high ranking villains), they'd reach a decent parts count for a 15 Euro set. As you can see, no weird custom building on her, she has a very set-like quality (which is something I actually like giving to my MOCs).

I might just sig this.

Has anyone figured out how the cocoons work yet? At first they seem like each piece in an half, but then you see three "leave" tips bending outwards, so each piece is actually a third. I know Huw confirmed that in his report over Brickset, I just personally wasn't sure about it at first. If I had to guess, each leave has an axle hole, so you can attack three to one of these to create a full cocoon. Not sure how the piece(s) attach to TB and the Queen though. And the Queen uses two torso bones connected through two of these, doesn't she? What I can't figure out is the size of those torsos. The upper one looks like a XT4 torso, the only thing I'm not sure about is her shoulder width (the XT4 torso shoulders are as wide as a medium torso hips). Could it be that both are XT4 torsos? That would make her rather small, but since sets are getting smaller and smaller since 2013.. The best thing about her build, anyway, is how much you can change her size (which is one of the best thing about the CCBS, really)...two XL torsos would make one huge Queen. Or you could do the opposite, like the MOC I'll post in a few hours. [/shamelessselpromoting]

I just realized, not only Tunneler Beast is the only one without azure whatsover, he's the only one without a printed shell (from what I can see). Which is a shame, I could've really used it. And I totally agree about the Drilldozer chest. I have two of them, and I really don't know what to do with them. One MOC of mine used it, in his first version (he's at his third one now)..I wanted him to look bulky, Core Hunter style, but it just didn't work. And looks like I'm not the only one who thought about the KK figures!

Now we got fantasy animals and extinct ones, I'd say there are no limits at how crazy things can get. So I definitely except Dragons and dinosaurs at least. I'd personally like Gryphons (or however you spell that) as well.

Atamaii did a coverage of the new sets! Sir Fangar's legs use 1-hole bones in tr. light blue. And the new body armour DOES use Zamors! Tr. light blue bones in 4 lenghts. Ooh, boy! And are Vardy's wing/feather pieces titanium metallic? I always wanted a neutral metallic colour for those pieces.. very glad they finally made it (I would've preferred silver, but oh well).

I'm just waiting for Atamaii to post their report on HF. They did a great job last year, showing the sets from good angles. As for Summer sets, I've got my eyes set on Crystal Beast. Transparent shells, claws and bones, printed torso shell, black/lime Quaza spikes.. I'm in!

That's a lot! My record remains 5 copies of Evo 2.0, S@H marked them down at 6 Euro (of course, I didn't know about the wonders of Amazon at that time). As for Bionicle, I believe it was 4 Hahli Mahri (in 2008, at Legoland Billund, you could find some Mahri and Barraki for 4 euro). Now that the parts buying service is available here too, I could change my strategies however.

I agree. I'd argue that gold and titanium metallic are becoming the new silver, and silver..well, looks like things have switched. They definitely need to use metallic colours in a more sensible way.Anyway..now I'm on my PC I can see pics far better, so here are some more detailed thoughts. Warning, I'm in a snarky mood. Good guys: as I thought, lots of tr. reddish orange and gold. And, as I feared, it feels tacky. Especially on Cragger, dark green looks terrible coupled with those colours. And I think it's not gold's fault but..you guessed it, it's the tr. reddish orange. I wrote it on the Ninjago thread too, but I'm starting to hate that colour. Aside from small things like eyes, it looks too intense...and they're using it EVERYWHERE. Coupled with gold, it's just way too much: they're charged with fire, we get it. But they should've used different colour combination to provide a better contrast: for example, tr. reddish orange looks pretty good with silver, while still providing a nice contrast to the titanium metallic armoured villains. However, some designs are interesting (more on that later). Now the bad guys look better as far as colours go: titanium metallic and tr. light blue is a great combination. Too bad the designs are mostly underwhelming (again, more on that later). Now, some comments for each of the 7: Laval: the worst hero. The 2013 version was MUCH better, gold and dark red looked great against tr. blue. Where's the contrast here? I don't know, I can't see it. You can't put all those bright and warm colours together like this. In their minifig form Lions, Laval included, use dark blue clothing. why not using them here?. Recolours include tr. reddish orange (grah) 4M shells (introduced with Fangz in 2011, but now without printing) and gold Beast feet (just what I need for that MOC!). And, he has a printed dark red shell, but I can't I care much about it. Lego doesn't need my money for this one, I know kids are gonna buy the hell out of him. Cragger: as I said, the colour scheme is terrible, but his design is actually pretty good! It seems the arms attach slightly lower, while the shoulder ball joints are used to attach his shoulder armour. And yeah, those are new pieces, and they act both as shoulder and leg armour- which is great, and I'm sure we'll see it on HF next year (hopefully in new colours, but gold add ons have been lacking so far, so I appreciate it nonetheless). Dark green 4M shells..nice I guess, but I can't say I care for that colour. And surprisingly enough, tr. reddish orange bones and hands..not sure if I can find an use for them. The new blade..I don't care much for it on its own, but it has a second axle connector, so it might provide for a fancy giant hilt/blade. Hmm... Panthar (sp): the best hero in terms of colours, because gold actually looks good with black. The overall design is pretty decent (a big yes for the Beast feet and the tail), don't really like the gold arm though. Weapon is extremely lazy, and no, that's not a sword. I don't see exclusive recolours aside from the new small claws in gold- I really like those pieces because they go really well with the Beast feet (Pyrox claws and Exo Force robot arms with something attached look too big!): I hope to see them in new colours, like black. Fluminox: I had a lot of hope on this one, and I'm very disappointed. The colour scheme, again, looks bad. The wings are an insult (still better than Vardy's at least). The crossbrow is horrible. And why, why are the Piraka feet returning? I hoped we would've finally gotten rid of those (same rant goes for Cragger, BTW). It's a pity because the rest of the design does look good, the new armour looks great like that. With Razar/Eris wings, a better colour scheme (orange and silver? Dark red and silver?), Beast feet and a better weapon this guy would've been fantastic. Mungus: a mess. While they tried to make his torso wide, and that's nice, it just looks too skinny like that. Lots of new brown pieces- didn't brown sell badly? I don't know anymore. And there's some white there..why? Don't ask me. The only interesting thing is the tr. light blue mace half (along the confirmation of more tr. light blue bones! And hands, too). Finally, I don't get why the lower leg bone is exposed- we're looking at a 15 Euro set here! I'm getting the feeling the budget is being cut there. The 2013 figures had of things going on- wings, tails, big paws with fingers, back armour.. these sets look like 13 Euro sets at most (well, the two 20 Euro figures look a bit bigger). Which brings us to... Vardy: so THAT's where the transparent saw blade came from. Hmm.. that might make for a cool shield. Anyway, probably the worst figure overall. Exposed bones? Short legs? After what Eris and Razar managed to pull off, at the same price this guy is an insult to any buyer. I thought no wing design could be worse than Flyer Beast's,but they managed to prove me wrong- they aren't even being consistent with the pieces used! Never been interested in tan, but nice for those who like it. A pass, no doubt. Sir Fangar: now this guy looks awesome. Not sure about the spikes over his shoulders, but wow, he looks just great. The only part I really don't like is the weapon. I always hated any Zamor launcher except the plasma gun..and this just looks terrible, at least Fluminox's crossbow was more creative. I fear there might be a lot of Technic involved there, but I still really want to buy this guy and turn him into a HF villain. Finally, just two words on my favourite new piece, the torso shell. I hope we get it in more colours because I'm really liking it. Unlike last year's printed chests, these are actually useful for HF. I've been wanting something like this- a torso you can put a big heartlight in- for a while! If those are Zamor spheres, customizability will shoot through the roof. I think they are because the ice orbs are the exact same colour mix as those ice Zamors from one of the System sets. I knew collecting weirdly coloured spheres would've been useful one day! So, I'm disappointed as far as designs go but there are a lot of pieces I'm interested about. Which is good at the end because I buy these for the parts anyway. I'll get Fangar for sure, I think I'll buy the other pieces separately however.

Oh wow, I didn't realize just how huge the pictures were- even the phone's zoom in didn't do them justice! I can see a few things more clearly. The Queen DOES use a cocoon as abdomen- which does go well with her wings. She also has a chain on the staff tip so to limit how much the blades can open, and another blade on the other end (good thing!): overall, a pretty good staff IMO. The cocoon halves (thirds?) look much more interesting than I thought. I like the color variations and the overall shape. Draiknova( I believe) pointed out a few pages ago that they could be useful for plant-like characters, and I do agree. While they limit the pieces budget like the Brains did, there is no contest on which are more useful pieces: the Brains were completely useless, while these do have quite the potential (and the fact they're already being used in two completely different ways- as cocoons and as body parts- shows it). Other details. Well, the new printed shells for Combat M. and Drill M. look fantastic and I can't wait to see the one(s?) on Flea M. . Crystal Beast's limbs are the second shortest ones afterall (just like in the movie), they're tr, light blue and not azure though (I was looking forward to those- oh well, they're still useful)- which means that yes, he's kinda small (though I guess his long necks makes up for that). I was looking forward to seeing which colours Surge's and Bulk's heads are, too bad we can't see anything. On a final note, I'm surprised no set uses the new claws from Chima..ah well. Oh, and the new Chima and Ninjago sets bring some interesting recolours that can definitely be useful for HF. The obvious ones from the CHI figures aside, there are: Gold Rocka blades Keetorange paws and wing pieces in a new colour (sand purple? Dark bley?) Dark red wing pieces and (maybe) a new colour for the Zamor spheres (keetorange?) Zamors in a new blue/white mix! Those look so pretty!

Couldn't have they given the Overlord a better weapon? And shouldn't his energy/chi/mana/however you choose to call it tr. purple? I swear I'm starting to hate tr. reddish orange, the fact that they throw it everywhere doesn't help..

Is Vardy's head sand purple? The wing pieces on the Ice Vulture are the same colour It's an.. interesting choice, but I'm disappointed they still haven't made that piece in silver. And a new Zamor sphere in white and blue! Looks awesome.. I already know where to use it.

Nice pictures! So Crystal IS all transparent after all. I initially didn't like the idea of his head being azure since that's the colour of the bones, but now everything makes sense - just like Flyer Beast is yellow, he is tr light blue. Is a transparent Beast odd? I don't know, but it looks really cool at that's the most important thing. Tunneler Beast looks kinda boring to me, since he's devoid of azure, and I can't say I care much for a red Beast. Dunno, the other ones look exciting with their unconventional colour schemes, and then there's the classical black and red bad guy. Not sure if I'll pick this one up. I'll edit this post with my thoughts on the other sets later. I can't say much about the other sets, since we knew about most things and the angle is terrible as usual (God forbid them if they shoot 4 photos instead of 2 for those crappy bionicles!). I'm pleasantly surprised that Drill Machine, and probably Flea Machine as well, has TWO printed shells instead of one. Unfortunately, I'm not very interested on those two, aside from some pieces and possibly how they're built. Evo's unnecessary third Machine from the Queen Beast set features printed shells as well, which makes the Machine only slightly more interesting. For what I can see, Combat Machine looks disappointing. The hind legs look wonky, and the use of black Beast feet ruins the dichotomy between the two factions' aesthetic motifs. And the ship looks a bit underwhelming. I'll wait for more angles but I was already unsure about buying it, this might settle it. Now onto the Queen herself. She looks great! Too bad we can't see her abdomen yet, but I'm glad the gold "crown" is confirmed. I need more new gold pieces and it looks fantastic on her. Not sure about the tr. lime shells, they're limited to one area and I feel there are too many colors. I think I'll replace those with black shells.

That might be it, though I was skeptical for Vardy at first (piece number limitations and all). I hoped this year would've been devoid of the gimmicks that plagued Brain Attack (I know a lot of people liked Dragon Bolt's wings, but I personally didn't care much about them). Ah well.. I'm kinda disappointed about Fangar's cape since we're going back to the cliched "Muhahaha I'm super evil so I must wear tattered clothes!". But I can't complain because MAN that's one badass looking villain. I'd dare to say he's one of the better looking constraction figures we've had so far .

WOW, so many recolours! Fangar and Fluminox look gorgeous, not sure about the others but I'm seeing a lot of new pieces (those chests!) and recolours (tr. orange and blue everywhere! Hands! Bones! Wow!). My biggest disappointments are Fluminox's bow the birds' wings, wish they kept the Razar/Eris design which was perfect..

Not on all countries though (you just have to resort to PaB in Italy, last time I checked). Huh, nevermind.. you can buy stuff now! TONS of stuff missing from PaB too, including pieces from OoF! Oh man..

That leg printing looks suspiciously uniform, as if it were one piece. Maybe it's a slope? Some sort of robe would be fitting for him I think.

I know about both his forms actually, I guess they'll adapt his dragon face to a minifig head print. He might get a new head mold, though.

Well, Overlord does look awesome. That head is obviously a placeholder.. I wonder how it'll look like in the final version. Hopefully nothing goofy like the Skeletons, I'd like something serious. Maybe something similar to the Stone Army.

So from what I can see: The Mammoths are olive green (though their main vehicle is brown) The Vultures are silver (PLEASE Lego, make those large wing pieces in silver!) The Sabretooth Tigers are white. Not what I was expecting, but I had no clue on what they'd use anyway (except maybe orange for the Tigers) so it's fine. I like these choices. And I just realized just how great the Ice Mammoth is. I won't be getting it but that's a pretty damn cool set (pun not intended, I swear!). Having the gigantic ears turn into engines is genius.

"..some Breaking Bad s**t?" I guess it's the way Crystal is holding the staff? For what it's worth, the Chima Mammoth vehicle features tr. light blue ball sockets.. Maybe they'll show up in CB, otherwise they're going to be used in the ice villains in the new CHI wave (I'd be surprised if they weren't reused). But CB is looking more..transparent than I thought. Maybe even his head is transparent. As for Drill Machine, that is sweet tr. flame orange! It seems the Chima sets, on the fire side, are using it too.. I'm not sure but it looks too yellowish for it to be tr. reddish orange. One of those transparent pieces is the Pyrox claw in Laval's Fire Lion (which also gives us Savage Planet paws in yellow). I wonder if that means something for the CHI Ultrabuilds. I've been wanting tr. flame orange shells since forever. It'd be great if the boring tr. reddish orange was finally dethroned. EDIT: just realized the colour is being already used in the Heroes' equipment.. there are the rockets in Freeze Machine and the chains used in the Flyer Beast and Splitter Beast sets. It seems a lot less meaningful now, but I'm still hoping.

Looks like the videos have been removed, not that I'm surprised.

Well that's quite the revival.. Anyway, Mephek was making a reference to . Yeah, that's not fanmade, it was a (very odd) official ad.

Rocka Crawler Machine has always been a skip to me, this just confirms it. The Beasts are doing much better at that price point (I love Jaw Beast, and Tunneler Best looks pretty neat). And looking at Crystal Beast again, looks like he's bigger than I thought. If you look at his right arm closely, you can see there's a tr. light blue piece right before his hand, which is very similar to a 3M shell. In the animated movie, his lower limbs used these, but in order to attach a shell you'd obviously need a longer bone with a ball joint. The lower legs look exposed, but that could be just a visual effect of the transparent shells. My guess is that CB was originally a small Beast, but then the set was turned into a mid size one: that would explain the shorter limbs and the missing staff. It's not the first time an animated episode shows sets in preliminary form: in Brain Attack, Stormer's visor printing was the same as Furno's and his sword was tr. blue.

Are the Vultures using transparent wings and pink heads? Please let that be true and be kept in the final versions. CHI Vardy would be awesome if those things found their way in his set. And, I guess they finally made Lionesses because they thought it'd be a cool way to reuse the Panther tribe headpiece. Or it might be the other way around, but I doubt it (creating new tribes comes before creating new members of an existing one, I'd guess).