Sir Fred

The chances of a price drop are next to nothing since the set is sold out and they usually don't make a second run of the advent calendars, once they're gone, they're gone unfortunately for you. I think the city one usually has some sort of price drop since it doesn't always sell out but I'm not sure on that one since I never really pay attention to it.

I intend to punch all of mine anyways since to me I don't see the point of using it as an advent calendar if I can just grab everything from it at once. Just a few more days until it can begin to open!

I was expecting Toronto be the next place getting a Lego store in Canada, then probably Vancouver. I figure it's going to be a long time before one shows up anywhere near here on the East Coast...

I'm using mine as a traditional advent calendar, it's been taunting me for several weeks, but soon I finally get to start opening it!

The past couple years TRU has gotten the January wave sets in about mid-December. About a week before Christmas usually.

The crossbow from the Fantasy Era had the description about defending the forest and we never got elves (series 3 minifigures don't count for the line), so I wouldn't really trust the gear to be hints for what is coming in the future of the line.

So the Toys R Us figs for Bricktober are older figs being re-released for this sale?

In recent years Castle sets have been released in the Summer, not the Winter. Seeing as we're just getting to see prelims of the January sets now, I think it's a little early to expect to see the Summer sets. Usually pictures show up around end of January early February if I'm not mistaken, but I easily could be.

This theme seems absolutely insane so far. I can't wait to pick up some of these sets, it just seems so ridiculous that it has to be awesome.

I recently bought a Knight's Showdown in Canada that had proper white printing for the Lion, there may still be old stock that's red though.

This was by far the largest set I had as a kid and even today parts from it easily work their way into any MOC I do since it's got such large sentimental value to me. One of my fondest childhood memories was building the sub model for the first time. I was just so fascinated by all the little moving bits in it.

If you get just one copy of the sets, yes, the Dragons come up worse for wear. However, it is very easy to buy several of the Wizard at which point the poor little Lions just can't put up a fight. If you're somewhere that can get the battle packs, get a few dragon battle packs and the numbers are a lot more even (or in my case since I haven't bought the main sets yet, completely unfair) for the Dragons. I'm honnestly not feeling like there are less sets this wave because they mostly cut out random siege engines, or at least that's what it feels like to me. I'm fully expecting next wave to get a nice fort for the dragons along with a proper leader.

With my dorm room last year, I brought 1 48x48 baseplate along with some figs and actually some of the larger more <insert that tiresome argument> pieces. I'm mostly a Castle collector though so the large "<insert that tiresome argument>" pieces in that theme aren't to awful. Basically, for any sort of building, think small. I had a box that was probably about half the size of a shoebox and I allowed myself only to bring what could fit in that box, other than the 48x48 plate of course. I was fairly happy with what I had last year, probably bringing about the same amount this year again, maybe a little more since I'm more experienced with setting up a dorm room to be space efficient. Last year I was really lucky and actually had a double room all to myself though so I just put all my Lego on what would have been the roommates desk.

I bought three dragon battle packs and on all of them there was no noticeable quality difference with the shields to those from regular sets.

Well I suppose it's nice that we're getting more Lego stores, but when are us East coast people going to get some love? Ari, could you get a picture of the special promo item? I'm just curious what it looks like.

The four quadrants overlap as seen here. This was one of my more pronounced ones, most of them the orange line is much thinner. Sorry for the blurry pic, all I have is a camera phone right now, but you can still kind of see the orange line between the two bottom quadrants. The glossiness of these figs seems to be a bit less than that of figs from regular sets, but mine do have some glossiness to the torso printing. I don't know if the orange line is a problem in regular sets as I only have one shield for the dragons from the regular sets right now and don't even know which one it is anymore.

I got three Dragon Battle Packs. I found the printing to be spot on on the torsos. Slight problems on the shields (orange line between quadrants). 5/15 figs had problems holding on to their shields. So basically slightly below quality but also not terrible. I'd prefer the quality to be on par with the regular sets, but it seems that is to much to hope for.

This is the first set I can remember getting. Recently picked up a copy of it MISB, probably going to leave it sealed, so many memories of my childhood in that little box.

How do you get yours capes to look so proper Asterios? Since I've been tracing old capes then cutting them out with an exacto knife on the paper for mine and they look a lot more ragged.

Happy 143rd Canada!

Good to know I'm not the only AfoL to come out of Moncton, how long ago did you leave?

I used to build boats to sail in the bathtub, sometimes I'd have naval battles which would leave giant rubble piles floating around. Lego's quite buoyant, though "The great waterfall that supplies the planet's water" known as the faucet would destroy and/or sink ships pretty quickly.

Since I only have two I use them as heros. Once I get Vladek's Dark Fortress I'm going to use them as a Power Rangers faction that do a bunch of silly things in a castle world.

I have yet to get a nurse. But then again, I've gotten ten forestmen so far...

I wasn't in the right part of the country to feel it, but I felt the effects, as in the Help Desk I work in that gets most of it's calls from Ottawa was really slack.