Shakar

According to my local Lego store (Padua, North East Italy), they're coming out in June. The guy even showed me the seller's catalogue with the figures and the "Giugno" tag. Since Italy sucks at Summer releases, that means June is most likely the official worldwide release. No way we're getting something early. Sorry if it's old news.

Chill out, he wasn't hating. Let everyone suggest their ideas.

As Aanchir said, there really are many paths Lego can take. Think of it- not many Lego themes are unique, most of them are just very creative reinterpretations of already used concepts: Castle, City, Space, Underwater themes. Adventurers, etc.. Likewise, HF already took Lego's past concepts and revamped them: the first two arcs are set in a futuristic city a la Metru Nui, Savage Planet is one big tribute to 2001 Bionicle, Breakout is kind of everything, Brain Attack's Heroes have a medieval flavour. Really, who knows they'll do in 2014. I know for sure they have a lot of options they can choose from. As for the building system, the new building system satisfies me in ways Bionicle never could (get your mind out of the gutter). It just gives it so much freedom. So I'm happy with it as long they develop it each year. with new skeleton, cladding and decoration pieces (and recolours of course).

I was talking about dark blue, indeed (which I excepted to show up in Summer 2013 HF, but things went differently, and by no means for the worse). Perhaps for the next (possible) wave things could be mixed up a bit - Kings, warriors and other ranks: Lagravis, Crooler, Eglor, Rawzom, Windra, a Fox/Skunk/other tribes...

A lack of second wave would make me sad. We definitely need Chi Eglor, and you know why.

After Jang's reviews, my thoughts slightly changed. Surge, Stormer, Evo and Frost Beast are confirmed as must buys. Stormer is just so gorgeous with his colours, his weapons, his helmet and the overall style: he's even better than I thought. Frost Beast is only slightly disappointing as far the back is concerned, but he's still great. Surge is nearly perfect (the upper arms being the weakest part IMO) and Evo is very cool. Aquagon is slightly better than I thought, but he's still incredibly bland. Parts pack indeed. Dragon Bolt is a good set, but probably not the one I need. I've already got a dragon HF MOC built, and I'm pretty happy with him. The parts don't interest me much either, I have enough blue shells already and I really have no use for blue spikes, yellow katana and another brain (I don't know how to use them in general TBH). Now, Rocka interests me less than before. I sorta saw the non lockable wings coming (at Toy Fair, the wings were always closed- hmmm..), but that's not even it. The jet looks clunkier than I thought, Rocka just looks weird..but overall, it's the sense of "uselessness" that tips me off the most. It's far from being a terrible set, but like Dragon Bolt I'm not sure if I need it. And of course, there's the feeling of "another Rocka? Really?". I would've rather had Nex/Stringer as a 9 Euro set to replace Winter Rocka, who isn't very exciting anyway (parts wise, the only loss would've been the gold shield- everything else is already available elsewhere). And I've sorta fallen in love with Stormer+FB. I really like the extra arms covered in tr. shells especially: they remind me of energy wings (like those four Ginjou from Bleach sprouts in his Bankai form). I'm actually thinking of giving 4 of those to Stormer or another character. EDIT: I realized I had left two sentences half complete...fixed it.

Thanks a lot for the pictures, Kalhiki! So that's how the MTIS attaches to the back, quite clever. As I excepted, the shoulders are weak- that can be easily fixed, though. I really like the helmet myself, and I'm very happy they actually kept the lightning motif on the sides (I excpeted them to be removed, for some reason). Lastly, the lightning pieces look a lot better in these pictures, the green is kind of weird but I like them. Wow, Jang's already begun with his reviews..without a doubt they're going to give us a far better glimpse into the sets (and they're going to actually show the building phase >.>).

I say post some pics (clear, high quality pics > any video ). I'm especially interested in more head shots (visor raised) and how the jetpack is built. And probably a clear shot of the lightning pieces (I can't tell the exact colours used). Thanks in advance! (BTW, I edited my earlier post with the embedded Stormer video, nothing more)

I'm not surprised at Frost Beast's back really, Lego just chose to spend the money/pieces budget in the brains, cutting out parts of the figure's design in the process (sets like Pyrox, who barely looks like a 9 Euro set, suffered a lot due to this). It's a choice I don't agree with (some of these year's villains are along the worst HF sets Lego made, IMO), but I can't outright call it wrong, since they intend the brains to be a selling point (they even made an app about them!)...whether this gimmick proves to be money making or not, we'll have to see. I just hope, due to my personal tastes, they don't make something similar in 2014. Meanwhile, Surge looks awesome, as excpeted. Just watched the review, Stormer is gorgeous too. I'm impressed at how much the new helmets manage to be similar to the "old" ones.

I'd say not, some of the sets this year use Technic, but they rely on their own building style that is different from anything Lego created in the past.

It still looks different to me, Cragger's Boat Rawzom's headgear isn't quite as bright and detailed as his Sky Joust version. I'm confused, though. In that picture I posted, his helmet/crown has a scales pattern and no ruby in the forehead area (unlike Sky Joust Rawzom), but his headgear looks different here. I don't have the minifig, so there's obviously something I'm missing out.

So Rawzom gets a new headgear? Looks very cool, though the unprinted beak is odd. My complain with Rawzom is that he looked too "noble", he looks more like a proper leader of thieves now.

Unlike in the minifigs (where things are spiced up a bit, ie Rawzom), for the Ultrabuilds Lego seemed rather adamant on making a clear division in the armour colours between heroes and villains: good guys wear gold (yes, Laval is fully gold, but has some decorations on his accessories too) and villains wear titanium metallic.That's why Gorzan's chest is gold. It was actually titanium metallic (or silver, it was hard to tell) in the prototype.. I have a MOC idea built around the gold chest, but the prototype would've been more useful (grayscale=more versatile, of course).

Gorzan's arm attachment works and is much sturdier than I thought. I excepted a larger back armour, like another 2.0 torso plate or a shoulder shell, but I wonder which is the biggest shell that would fit. The overall set looks great, too. I'm getting him for parts, but he's pleasing to the eye and I might get some MOCing ideas from him. Well yeah, a flying gorilla was pretty much to be expected from the set description, and I immediately thought of that as well.

IIRC Front mentioned in a topic that, since transparent pieces use the same plastic as solid ones, transparent bones would be very much possible.

I think you should replace Surge with Frost Beast in the second list. And it's kind of noteworthy that he's only set with tr. light blue 3M shells.Lego went all out with transparent shells this year, though I'm disappointed we didn't get a new size for tr. yellow (8M shells are hard to MOC with! No wonder they stopped using them in sets). I wonder if we'll get more tr. colours in 2014, yellow, red and purple are my prime choices.

That was probably me Back then, we didn't even know Furno's cape used two holes: if I knew that, I would've have had much less faith in my theory. I still hope we'll get the cape in more colours in 2014 and beyond, however.Anyway, I'm impressed, he looks properly reptilian without looking goofy (very fierce and kind of scary, in fact ). Cragger, Razar and Worriz look more formidable than many of the often rather puny 2013 HF villains, IMO. I got two colour related questions (thanks in advance!): 1)The weapons: are they fully solid red or translucent red (kinda like Vahki Vorzakh's brain/eyes)? It looks like solid red, which is fairly disappointing. 2)The small curved barbs he's got in his arms and back (you got one of them in spare parts shot): are they silver?

Heh, I dis​agree they're good for parts only, but yes, these guys do have a lot of nice pieces. I wanted tr. blue cladding ever since Ordeal of Fire, I can't believe we're getting it AND in two shades. :wub:Surge, Stormer and Frost Beast look better than ever. Dragon Bolt is a cool set, but I will probably skip him since I don't have enough space and he doesn't fit in my HF universe well (just like all brain-infected beasts: I prefer criminal villains like in Breakout). Aquagon and Evo are part fodder for my ultimate version of Evo. I happen to like Jet Rocka much more now, that angle looks really appealing to me for some reason.. EDIT: Thank you Aanchir! Those look glorious! Surge's helmet in hi-res...

I'll buy the smallest set and that's it. Really, the only appeal for me are the bad guy minifigs, especially the soldiers. Unlike many, I happen to like the heraldry a lot.

Ooooh joy.

ToysRUs has the Summer sets online, with the alternate pics from that German shop site, but bigger.

Yeah, I totally expected Laval as well. Then again, griffons have eagle heads.. I wonder about the other 2. Depends on how they combine the characters' features.. But Gorzan with wings and Razar's head would be cool, I can deny that.

Very good review! You covered everything, I think. Unfortunately the only pieces that interest me are the 3M tr blue shells (already found in Aquagon) and the axe blades (I'm sure I'll find another way to get those). I don't need more white or gold, so this is a pss for me. Gorzan and Worriz are still the sets I'm interested the most in. Get Aquagon! He's less expensive and has more versatile parts, I think. Laval's cool pieces are the swords, the gold torso, the tr. blue 5M shells and the fur pieces..and that's it. Everything else can be found elsewhere, and is pretty useless unless you want more gold pieces.

Yeah, that makes sense. It's much better this way, colour variations aren't terrible but they often limit MOCing potential. I assume Laval/Aquagon's swords are in the same colour. Correct, it's called Olive Green and it made its debut in 2012, along Thornraxx's Medium Azure and another greenish yellow shade whose name I forgot. I'm very happy to finally see HF pieces in this colour. Whoops, I read that wrong. Sorry.

Weird, I was pretty sure of that. But as you said, it might be just a plastic thing: Stormer XL's swords and Stringer (Breakout)'s torso are both in tr. blue, but due to the plastic one is translucent and the other fully transparent. This might be a similar, but far less extreme case: Eris's axe pieces are translucent like all "energy blade" weapons this year, but they might look slightly different due to the plastic. Another example: Rocka's sword and Black Phantom's blade are both tr. bright green (which, in translucent form, looks like a pale lime if you notice). Yet early versions of BP featued a more greenish blade (like the one in my BP) as opposed to later productions (I bought 2 extra pieces on PaB) which include the blade in that pale translucent lime I mentioned.