Section8

Neat designs and very simple. They remind me of things lying around in Knights of the Old Republic.

Space Police 5 Classicness, 12 Technology, 3 Team, 4 Aggressiveness Your results: Classic High-tech Goodguy Warrior Guess I better change my avatar!

good idea, but why limit yourself to just 32 x 32 plates? You could have a restaurant or other module that doesn't sit on any plate, but merely bridges two other modules. As long as the bigger modules have their airlocks all at a uniform place (i.e. the middle of the 32 x 32 plate) then bridge modules would work if they are the same length. There could also be just bridge parts to bring everything in line at the end, like how the old monorails had different length curves and straights to make everything mesh up well. And the corresponding city spaceport is an excellent idea, I've been wanting one for awhile. But ditch the space shuttle design, the boosters and tank are way out of scale. I'd prefer a larger 6454 without the light and sound unit so it has a big interior. A good idea, one I've never thought of despite much contemplation of a new city space port.

Welcome to the group. What kind of lego themes do you like?

My parents dislike it, as they did most of my other now-defunct hobbies. The only thing they approved of me doing was learning to play piano, which I despised. Most of the people who come into my room make fun of my hobby, but my roommate also likes Legos (although the more grown up technic, not the System sets I collect). I did have my other non-Lego roommate asking alot of questions once the 787 Dreamliner set was finished and displayed on my desk (yes, it is that much more impressive in person). In short, I'm still in college, so Lego as a hobby may not be less expensive than my peers' hobbies (if you can call them that) but it is far less destructive, both to myself and to other people/property/possessions.

I own both The World of LEGO Toys and The Ultimate Lego Book. While both excellent books, neither supplies set lists, prices, or anything of that sort. They are both historical texts, and I prefer The World of Lego Toys for its very in-depth coverage of the beginnings of the company and mid-1980s nostalgia.

I'll be getting one of all the city sets in this thread except for the large and hideous dump truck. The gas station, harbor, and new train station are all superb, and the recycling truck and cement truck are pretty decent designs too. The harbor crane is going to be modified to move on a track so it will have greater range of motion (I knew I bought all of those straight rails at PAB for a reason) and the Gas Station likely will be moved onto a baseplate matching my town's road color (old light grey). Other than that, the sets are great the way they are. I'm saving my money now for this summer... I'm just wondering if they'll make train cars that use the new larger containers. It would be nice if everything meshed together they way the old 4-wide containers did. I'm not happy about the switch, but I don't own anything that uses the old containers so I'm not as mad as I could be. :-/

One important thing, BrickMiner: The Speed Regulator only puts out a full 9V when cranked to the max. I compared it to a standard 9V battery box with a micromotor and lights and they only worked at full speed with the dial all the way up. So the speed reg. puts out voltage up to 9V max, so you don't have to worry about burning anything out. I assumed the max setting would put out more than 9V due to how fast the train motor runs at that setting, but I was wrong. It's pretty elegant how Lego designed the speed reg that way. The micromotor spins at 33 RPM, so making it go slower might not have the desired effect. I would probably use a standard box and gear it up or down. The speed reg is great for slowing down those old high RPM technic motors though.

You missed the point of that post, he was wondering why the castle gallery, over 24 hrs old, was not public when his 2 hr old MOC one was, which he linked to for proof. Does brickshelf hold off on leaks like some other community sites do? I should hope not, since it's the best way for us to share photos without an account at an all-photo sharing site like photobucket. I've come across the actual BS folder for some new stuff before I found the topics here or elsewhere, so I hope BS is not actively censoring info.

These Sets are great. Though I dislike the move to 6-wide vehicles since basically everything I own is 4 wide, they did a good enough job to look past it. I was personally hoping for brick built ships instead of the 1 piece floating hull because of the use of the bow pieces in the Jabba's Sail Barge, but oh well. I've been waiting for a seaport for a long time. The Octan gas station has me the most impressed. The old big gas station (the one from 1992 that was rereleased a few years ago) had such a large canopy that it detracted from the set in my opinion. I like the smaller canopy much better. The little fan dryers on the car wash are a neat detail! The container transport is take or leave for me, I'll likely only get to increase my container inventory. The recycling truck is nice, since it's been a long while since we've had a decent waste disposal truck. The Cement mixer puzzles me due to it having 8 wheels. I've never seen one with 4 wheels in the front in the US. It's still pretty good looking though. The best part of the new sets? They keep all the old logos. The Octan logo, the cargo logo, the recycling logo. These will integrate seemlessly with my old city sets. Lego switched up the logo on the airlines twice (5 striped logo to the Aeroline logo to the new whatever-it-is) and I haven't bought any of the newest airline sets because of it. I'll get all of these new city sets, that's for sure.

I found this on the Lego Main Page: Lego Factory Hobby Trains Looks like Lego is going to cater to us hobby rail fans for a little while longer, and I can't find the RC trains anywhere on the US S@H site. Most of the 9V stuff is sold out or backordered on the site, but then again many other sets are due to holiday demand. However, the RC rails are only in the hard to find section, not the trains section. I downloaded the train template and checked it out, they supply a motor in the base design of the set, which resembles the RC motor, but no way of powering it. So has RC trains flopped, or are they just pushing the old 9V stuff to clear out their inventory?

A new western theme would be great, I never got any of the older ones but liked the set designs alot. There's plenty of promise for new and old Lego themes. They've echoed this sentiment with their decision to redesign and release new space and castle sets next year. Perhaps these are tests of interest just like Playmobil does. Are people still interested in Space Exploration and such that isn't a major license? Are people still interested in more realistic medieval sets opposed to fantastic story-based sets? I think both answers will be yes. New lines or deviations of existing lines are also possible, like the Ninja line of castle sets they tried out. And I doubt we'll ever see a WWII lego line. Lego's biggest market is still Europe, which fought against itself during the war and Germany occupied Denmark. There's too many bad memories and social concerns in a WWII line, or any European war theme for that matter.

Great review. I'm still in the hunt for one to compliment my BSB. It always confused me why there were 4 gunports on both the BSB and CC, but only 2 cannons on the CC. I guess with only three sailors (the admiral wouldn't stoop to firing a gun!) there would be no reason to have four. Still an amazing set, way better than the two good guys ships that came after it, partly because of its wider hull.

The Aquazone sets were always futuristic enough to mod into space sets. The only problem I have is that everything would be yellow...at least the canopies make for some creative builds.

Indeed. I'd definitely get the Skyline if they made it half-off, that would be a great deal. Plus there's more useful parts for a town guy like me in that set.

My guess is that they are trying to get rid of excess curves. I was at a lego store this weekend and all they had were curved sections, no straights (a lot of curved too). So I would assume that yes, they are reducing their 9V inventory across the board. And I hope the backorders on the straight tracks (and all other track types) on the US S@H site is due to holiday demand and not a phasing out of the 9V track.

Way too much. I've abstained for the last month or two, but I'm headed to a lego store tomorrow. Will probably get the 787, Tower Crane, and 9V train track. I probably average $50 a month total, some months I spend $0, some way above that.

I also would like the seaport subtheme to come back, it sounds like they're off to a good start with the seaport and containers sets next year. I've been hoping the spaceport theme will come back, with the realistic launch towers and support sets, like those released in 1995 or so, not any of the newer sets. They could abandon the space shuttle this time around and make the new CEV or a Soyuz craft instead. A big mission command center would be cool too. Lastly, I liked the unofficial subtheme that was the outback/outdoors sets. I'd like to see wilderness cabins, campers, and other sets along those lines. I'd love to see an oil rig set but I don't think that's too likely.

Not in the review, but also completely unimportant to the greatness of the set, is the 'dressing room' and movie camera that comes with the set. A director fig also comes with it. The dressing room is just a chair, table, mirror, ghost shell and batwing helmet. The parts don't detract from the set in any way. I loved the review, any chance for one of the 1381 Vampire Crypt?

Sadly, the factors of a heavy courseload and the sets not being at my current location have come together to make sure this won't happen soon. I also planned on putting it on the base from the new hospital, which I have yet to get. I have been toying around with a micromotor to motorize Dr. Frankenstein's machine, and I've bought some spares of parts in 1382 to go in the MOC, so some progress has been made. I wish Lego would have made a Headless Horseman set (like my current avatar). Would non-Americans have recognized this as much as they do Frankenstein or Dracula?

I bought all four sets on the secondary market for a decent markup and I don't regret it one bit. The Vampire minifig is my favorite minifig out of everything lego has made. The castle in 1382 is pretty cool, but the crypt in 1381 is nothing special. Still, there's enough in every set to warrant paying a small markup for. I wish I had gotten at least 2 of the Laboratory. There's so many great parts and figs, like the pumpkin head, brain in a jar, Frankenstein, etc. One of these days I'm going to combine all the sets into a large scary castle. I'd say that this was my favorite sub-theme.

Let's see...from my youth I had a small collection of non-Town sets compared to my large town collection and I always tried to incorporate them into my town. For instance, Saber Island became the old watchtower in the town harbor that was still standing, and the BSB was a docked museum. The space sets were models at an amusement park, and once I had them be experimental aircraft. Castle sets were much harder, aside from the old town square or renaissance fairs. I usually knocked them down and used the wall parts to build town models.

You could fit more guns on a ship if you have more than one deck. All of lego's ships have only one gunnery deck, which is usually the bottom of the ship. I began designing a ship that had 22 guns on two decks with only 5 center sections. You could also fit many more guns if you brick-build them out of smaller parts instead of using lego's premolded cannons. You could combine them too, ships often had more than one size of gun.

I really hate all the non-standard smiles of late. It was fine when they improved upon the classic smile with sunglasses, stubble, mustaches, etc, but lately it's gone too far. Especially when the classic smile is now the rarity in sets. I also really hate the pupils in the eyes. I haven't gotten too many new sets, but the ones I do have all get replaced with classic smiles.

This year's line doesn't have me excited, but it doesn't have me yawning either. I'll get the landing craft for sure, and probably at least one of the Clone pack to get enough rifles for the rest of my older figs. I don't like Grevious's starfighter or the new x-wing or y-wing, but others do, and the more people who buy SW sets, the more money lego has to take a gamble on other non-SW lines (think Aquaraiders, 9V trains). I don't care about remakes, lego seems to balance between a few remakes and a few new sets each year. I really think they should go into EU stuff, making some of the most popular items. I never got either Falcon set because I didn't like the designs of them; however, due to its blockier design, I'd likely be first in line for a Ebon Hawk set, even at $100.