Shakar

You make valid points- a Glatorian head remold would be great, and having an universal style for Hero heads would increase compatibility; on the other hand I loved the 2.0 helmets and I feel their huge potential wasn't exploited to the fullest, so I'd really like to see them again..

Thanks Aanchir! I'm actually intrigued by the book now. It's cool to hear Core Hunter does nasty stuff on screen. And speaking of him...

Maybe we're just pointlessly speculating, and they're going to use the 1.0 helmets again.

Well, I wouldn't mind 2.0 helmets- that is, keeping the top helmet part and coming up with new gear designs. You know, I'd love to complete my Stringer/Bulk/Rocka 2.0 MOCs without resorting to painted pieces.. Can't believe we haven't had pics yet. I'm not complaining (I know scanning the catalogue is a very risky thing to do), just a bit surprised..

I mean "being reused after 2012". I like their uses in Thornraxx and Black Phantom. I agree darker colours should be just used as accents- I don't want HF to fall into 2004 or 2008 Bionicle levels of grimness. A white and earth blue set would be excellent.

Brown isn't going to be used, simple as that. I'd like underused colours like dark azure and dark red to return though.

That's a first, isn't it? How exactly does that happen, Aanchir?

The princess set sounds interesting- new princess+new horse! I hope it's cheap.

Indeed, he and Evo don't seem to have recurring themes. I guess that makes their sets more..unpredictable? As I said before, the Heroes we're getting are the 4 who were released as mid size versions this year. Maybe in Summer we're getting mid size versions of this year's small size Heroes (Evo, Surge, Stringer, Nex). Since the XL form is going to Furno this time, I guess Stormer is going to be a mid size set. Of course this is just speculation, but I'd love to see, for example, what crazy equipment they could give to Nex thanks to the higher piece count. As for the "small Heroes vs mid size Heroes" debate, I'm going to say I'm ambivalent. The 2.0/3.0 design was perfect for small Heroes. I prefer the Breakout design on taller Heroes, due to the more streamlined shape of the new torso plate. I modded the small Breakout Heroes (well, I'm missing Nex) to make them as tall as Furno and the others, but I did make them all shorter by 1 module (well, except Rocka and maybe Bulk in the future). I like how Heroes look smaller, more chibi-ish than Toa in any case. They look..cute. Badass cute. I wonder if they're going to come with a new torso plate, by the way..I'd be fine if they continued to use the Breakout chestplate, really. I love those chest designs.

If the Villain names are indicative, the list order might hint at the matchups: Furno XL vs Pyrox - both fire themed Bulk vs Bruizer - they follow The Big Guy/The Brute trope(s) As for Rocka vs Scarox and Breez vs Ogrum- don't know. Breez's theme is wind/sky, I guess- so Ogrum may be a flying villain. As for Rocka- what is Rocka's theme supposed to be?

I just hope the Villains are varied in style- this year, 9 Euro Villains= somewhat animal looking (with some VERY creative designs) and 13 Euro Villains= more regular humanoids (with more ordinary builds). My fear is that they're all going to be humanoid, since they are all at 13 Euro. After a year full of variety like 2012, it'd be a shame.

So the Ehlek claw is old. I thought I was just mixing things up. The Inika body is new, right? I guess it opens to some Toa-mod possibilites, though AFAIC it's all about MOCing with HF these days.

Well, that's much better than "he was imprisoned together with his bike". "Ultra-Mach Speed Cycle", eh. Flashy name, I like it Funny how they included the Wing Blades in the bike description. Aren't they supposed to be those huge gold Ninjago katanas SD wields? How are they considered part of the bike?

Really disappointed they didn't include the new "boot" armour piece (and, less importantly, Stringer's shoulder armour), otherwise all the great new stuff is here (woo, friction extenders!). I can't believe they've yet to include Thornraxx's and Splitface's heads though. Now, if they only added this stuff on Pick Brick..

Well, it seems they like making a new XL every year, who knows what 2014 has in store (IF they do continue HF in 2014). At this point, much as I'd love a 10th Hero, I doubt we're having one this late. Summer 2012 would have been the best time, but it seems they want to stick to the 9 Hero team they established.

@ Zachattacx Going by the pricing, it seems we're going back to the old formula of small size Heroes and mid size Villains. I personally liked the size variety of Breakout (maybe kids didn't? : /), though it's interesting to note that the 2013 small Heroes are all characters who were released as mid size in Heroes in 2012. I wonder if they're really planning to swap the Heroes sizes (12.99 Euro Stringer/Nex/Evo/Surge/Stormer vs 4 8.99+1 19.99 Villains?). But this is just speculation. Still, we all saw Furno XL coming from a while away, didn't we? : P Not going to say anything about the villains. EDIT: Purpl'd. Doing it on a mobile is a nightmare.

I have a better idea- a purple and azure girl. Hey, I can dream.

We definitely need at least one more colour for the Hex shield- it's such a lovely piece. Some shade of Tr. Blue would probably be the best, as it would follow the sort-of-parallel between eye colour/shield colour Rocka and Breez estabilished. A blue shield on Stormer would look great and it would fit him. And yes, we need 4M shells in more colours. They are tragically underused- they come in just 3 colours! It's a pity, they're so useful. Then there would be the 8M shells (Drilldozer/Waspix) but it seems the designers gave up on those..

I think the reason they don't use tr red is because it doesn't glow as well as the neon colours (like the tr reddish orange they use). Not that I wouldn't love to see it. That said, I agree. 2012 brought a fourth colour, 2013 might as well bring a fifth one to the range. Aside from red I'd like tr yellow or tr purple.

IIRC, Savage Planet parts started to appear on PaB in late September. I hope they add the new Breakout II parts, and hopefully Ultrabuild Super Heroes parts too. I want lots of friction sockets, hole-ball-hole liftarms and double C socket joints. And a few XT4 torsos of course. Speaking of PaB, I bought another black/green Breeze katana (from Black Phantom's weapon), once again the blade was lime green instead of bright green.

So, I ended up getting XT4 yesterday. I quite like him, tough I didn't like the assymetrical placement of the weapons, so I switched out the upper right arm with the lower one (the claw+laser arm). And I didn't like the tubes sticking out of the stomach, so I solved it by connecting them to a ball socket I attached to the middle ball joint of the Waspix bone. Finally, I gave him a narrow shoulders medium size torso: not that I disliked his look, but the new small torso was a bit "wasted" on him. I really wanted to have one readily available. Which brings me to the main reason I wanted XT4 so much. My, the new small torso. The pics just don't do it justice, nor can my words describe just how cool it is. It's just fantastic. Like, "I want a dozen of them" fantastic. This is THE ultimate small torso, far superior to any attempt shown by Lego so far. It's small and full of holes- in other words, crazy versatile. I can't believe they finally made this.

Brain things? Maybe VN uses them to brainwash Heroes. HFish stuff.in the new theme- part packs, part packs everywhere.

Pretty much, I'm basing my guess on past years. Upcoming year set pics always come out around September/October, didn't 2009 pics leak around the end of August? When did the Winter 2012 set list appear?

Heh, it's been a while since I last posted here. I didn't even update my progress bar, despite the fact I got my last 2 sets almost a month ago. So I'm halfway through the Summer line, Bulk, XT4, Nex and SD are missing. Really happy with the ones I own, aside for some minor issues. I'm going to a large mall Sunday, I'm thinking of getting XT4.. Can't believe we're getting the first 2013 pics in about 2 weeks lol. This year passed by quick, but I'm excited for them.

Meh, should've been Kapura. Caboose's got a point BTW.