AFOLguy1970

If you register online or in the Lego store as a VIP member, you get a number and eventually a card. Present your number or card to the Lego store cashier or make sure you are logged in when making online purchases. Normally, every dollar spent is one VIP point. Every 100 VIP points earned is a $5 reward which can be accumulated. In regards to the Lonely Mountain set, if October is the release month AND the Saturday before Thanksgiving repeats the Triple VIP offer like it did last year, that would mean this set earns 387 VIP points, which is almost $20 in rewards. That money can be applied to any future purchase. It would soften the blow of a $130 set to some extent at least.

Well, the new photos indicate that there is not really anything to the left of the photo from yesterday. The good news is the October release date. If they do triple VIP points around Thanksgiving again, that would be the day to get this. At least, I recover some of the cost of the set to use on something else.

I dont think many LOTR fans actually expect an advent calendar. Most of us were saying it would be nice if they did one. It is sometimes fun to speculate what one would look like. As for if any scenes were not covered, you might want to look at the History section and see the LOTR future sets thread. Some major scenes, factions, and characters have yet to be seen.

Perhaps Faefrost is right. It is not necessarily a bad set. It is just that the price is not bad, rather it is downright terrible. A lot of people speculate the price is so high because of Smaug. By the question must be asked: is Smaug that much larger than the Castle dragon? Looking at both dragons, I do not think Smaug is leaps and bounds larger. In Dragon Mountain, they managed to make a set with a molded dragon, 5 minifigures, and a reasonable build for 49.99. Now we are looking at a $130 set for a dragon that is not much larger, and we still have 5 minifigs. Looking at the released photo of Lonely Mountain, a LOT of the pieces are cheese slopes and round 1x1 plates. Lots of greebles in this set. If this thing had been $80-90, i would probably be raving about this set. The only complaint left would probably be the exclusion of Thorin. On the topic of main characters, hopefully they will continue to sell the DOS sets coming into the next wave. That way, they would not have to rehash Gandalf, Azog, Thranduil, and Beorn. Otherwise, I fear they will take up valuable slots in BOFA. My worst case scenario for a BOFA set would include Gandalf, Azog, Thorin, Dain, a Gundabad orc, and Thranduil. Add either a warg or eagle to that and a wall build behind it. Who wants to see that? Oh yeah, dont forget about Legolas and Tauriel. If they get major action in this last movie, they are going to appear again as well. The Lake Town windlance (without its intended target) set might absorb them. It is beginning to look like the Witch King vs Elrond/Galadriel set will be the best deal overall.

Now that I have had time to think about this, some thoughts.... (1) Hopefully seeing what is cut out of the photo will justify the hefty price at least a little bit more. I know a dragon takes a lot of plastic, but still, 5 minifigures in a $130 set? (2) I totally agree with Wesker. The exclusion of Thorin in this set diminishes my hope for the BOFA set. By default, Thorin MUST be in BOFA. He will not be fighting the Witch King, nor will he be in Laketown. So far, it would be reasonable to assume that Dain, Thorin, an elf (armored Thranduil?) , and at least two bad guys (one possibly being Bolg) would have to be in it. That does not leave a lot of slots open for generic unnamed army builder types. What about Beorn, the token Gandalf, a generic Iron Hill dwarf, bear, eagle, warg, stag, boar etc? Someone or something we would really like to see is going to get left out. (3) This set is obviously geared to kids, however I believe the "Pirate Ship Ambush" mistake from LOTR has once again reared its ugly head. You created a set kids would love, but most cannot afford. It is going to be a tough sell trying to convince Mom and Dad to get you this for your birthday or Christmas. The only reason I would want to get this would be for Smaug. it will be interesting to see what the going rate is going to be on Bricklink for a Smaug assembly. I cannot believe Lego put the dragon in the most expensive set. Actually, yes I can. They do the same thing with Darth Vader in Star Wars, which explains why I have yet to own one. It just seems like having the dragon in the Lake Town set would have made more sense and made it affordable to the target group, kind of like Dragon Mountain with the Castle line. (4) Is that the secret door at the bottom below the bucket of gold? To the right of that, there appears to be a golden slide. Is that how Bilbo gets down into the room? I would think that the door would be higher up since he has to descend. Also, what is that box thing with the oversized lid? It is empty. Could that be a tomb for someone? Yeah, I have a lot of rants, but there are positives of course. Smaug does look good, much better than the castle dragon to be sure. The set is more colorful than many with the gold and sand green pieces. It will certainly include some useful pieces. The arkenstone might not be too bad. It could be a printed clear piece. The new printings on the characters look good, and I too would like to have a blue Bilbo. I will probably end up buying the set mainly for Smaug. Maybe the use of the light brick and other functions will make the set more appealing once they are demonstrated.

So far I am underwhelmed. Smaug looks decent, but the rest of it looks like a combination of Mines of Moria and Orc Forge. If it were not for Smaug, I feel I could build this right now.

Last year, I bought the Tower of Orthanc in Denver. Before flying back home, I took all of the bags and instructions out of the box and put them in my carry on backpack with the camera equipment. They did not seem phased when they had to X-ray the bag. I was anticipating having to explain what all that stuff was.

October would be great, mainly because of Brick Friday in November. If it comes out in October and they offer Triple VIP points again in November, then that would be a great time to pick up Erebor. If you have a December release just like the last two years, not only do you miss the triple points, but you might not be able to get it in time for Christmas.

Ahh, the good old Pirate Ship. If this is the end of the line, this set will take a lot of the heat from LOTR fans from stealing that crucial Gondor slot even if it is not the case. Mouth of Sauron will be accused of bumping out the far more important Witch King as far as use of molds are concerned. The ship really puzzles me. Of course kids like pirate ships, BUT as mentioned it is a $100 set. I see plenty of these sitting on shelves just waiting for the clearance sticker reduction to come. Don't get me wrong, it is a nice set and I bought one, but it was a poor choice in my opinion, especially if they planned on this being the last wave. Maybe kids love pirate ships, but far fewer of them have the $100 bucks to spend. AFOLS are more likely to have the money, but they might not have as much interest. So, you have group of people who would like to have the ship, but do not have the money. Then, you have a group that can afford it, but would rather invest in other things. End result: lots of Pirate Ships on the shelves. Walmart, Target, Toys R Us, and the Lego Store all have them in large quantities. I still think wave 2 was not planned as the last wave. It just does not make sense. The scenes depicted seem to be on the periphery of the major scenes not covered. The pirate ship literally(no bad guys). AFOLS wonder whey Gimli and his launcher were deemed to be necessary. It seems like Lego tried to make everyone happy with that set. Then you have the Wizard Battle, which is essentially duplicated in the Tower of Orthanc, making it rather redundant. It is hard to believe sets like Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, Khazad Dum, Mount Doom, and the Witch King are going to be left out.

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My MOC is designed to provide an interior in addition to the exterior. However, the priority of the design goes to the exterior. Once this is finished, I would like to "furnish"? the interior with microbuilds to provide some nice detail.

When my first MOC is finally done, I can see keeping track of the number of pieces. LDD can provide that information in the spreadsheet. As for how long it took, that will be easy to calculate. With that said, I have no intention of determining how much it all cost me. Some things are better left a mystery The "instructions" would be the LDD files since that is how it was initially designed and this was followed to put together the different sections so far. Is it for sale? Nope.

So far.... (1) All parts must be Lego (2) new and used mixed together are fine as long as all pieces are presentable (3) Minifigures can have yellow or flesh faces. Friends would probably not blend in well. (4) I might consider custom made stickers for tiles for accenting certain things.

This will without a doubt be an expensive year. Just my MOC alone is taking up a lot of funds, but its construction has been somewhat spread out in order to get other sets. Parisian Restaurant was a Jan 1 buy. We also got the Hobbit sets. Then, the Lego Movie sets came out, so we got Cloud Cuckoo Palace and the three vehicle 2 in 1 builds. We bought the Batman Riddler Chase, Lex Luthor vs Superman, and the Batman Penguin encounter set. Benny's SSS was a June 1 purchase. Then, the Ghostbusters set was another deemed "must have" The Star Wars sets look appealing, especially those from the original trilogy. I would like to have the Sandcrawler, but we do not have any winning lottery tickets to cash in. I might get the Star Destroyer. Cantina and AT AT look interesting too. My son loves trains, so we might have to get one of the new city ones. After the beating my wallet will take from these, and gathering parts for the MOC, Christmas will be upon us. By then, we will probably have the next modular and the final wave of Hobbit sets upon us. Yes, it is an expensive year. With no Middle Earth or Lego Movie next year, we might not have to spend so much.

I have the Parisian Restaurant and Grand Emporium displayed on top of a bookshelf. Room in my house is very limited, therefore the Pet Shop, Palace Cinema, and Fire Brigade occupy a closet shelf bagged up in long term storage (assembled) in order to prevent dust. I would like to be able to display all of them. We will simply have to wait until we move into a bigger house that can have a dedicated Lego room. I am also working on my own modular MOCs which I plan on keeping intact. My hope is to eventually have a blend of the best of the official modulars and anything I have been able to design. Designing a modular is enjoyable. It teaches you a little bit of architecture as you try to find a good way to keep the structure stable. It also mimics construction, because it always costs more than you think it will, takes longer, and gets modified. It is worth it, of course.

Plates could easily take some of that bottom space. They are very useful to all ages alike. The closest Lego store to me is not really large, therefore does not have a large PAB wall. It does seem like a bit of overkill to have 2x4. 2x6, 2x3, and 2x8 in the same color taking up four bins. Then, you have the parts that are now required to be at all stores for a given month, some of which I am glad to see. Likely, the larger stores have much more leverage for what they can offer. If only I lived near Downtown Disney! They had a wealth of parts there. Of course, I might be near Rockefeller Center in NYC before the end of this summer, so I have my fingers crossed.

If they made that many horses for LOTR, then they probably had a lot of other stuff prepared for the much hoped for wave 3. Now, if we start seeing a lot of white "castle builder" type pieces in those PAB bins, then it will would a big clue. Also, watch the build-a-minifigure bins and see if swords, axes, and pikes start showing up in the utensil section.

It makes me wonder how often the Lego themeparks and places which have outdoor brick built exhibits such as the Lego Store in Downtown Disney have to replace their sculptures and update them. You would think they wouold get sun bleached in a hurry.

Dallas had a lot of the same parts as well. The stairs and horses could be useful. I jammed a couple of them in the cup just in case. Got the azure plates 2x4, blue jewels, yellow jumper plates 1x2, the medium blue 1x1's, some red and white 2x4's needed for a project, and then stuffed all remaining spaces of the cup with the little greeble parts. Needless to say, if you are doing any kind of cavalry army building, now is the time to go to the Lego Store. Took my boys to their first minibuild. The line was crazy with another hour to go, but we held out. Fortunately, it moved fairly fast once 5:00 came around.

The skeleton is nice, but I am also a big fan of the telescope and star chart. Astronomy is sometimes another hobby of mine. The minifigs are not too bad. They are all different enough. So far, it seems liked the Lego Idea's/Cuusoo sets have had also come with booklets that provide a little more than just the instructions. The Ghostbusters one is pretty nice, as is the box. I wonder how this one will be presented?

I would really like to see this in the US. One has to wonder if it would cannibalize Exo suit sales, because the prime reason many people are wanting the Exo Suit is because they anticipate a white Classic space minifig. I would be among those people and would much rather buy this than pay $35 for a set when the main attraction is the spaceman. We already have Lex Luthor's warmech, a hero factory set, the Ent from Orthanc, and plan on getting Emmet's construction mech and maybe Metalbeard, so we feel like we are well covered with those type of creations. Benny's SSS really seems to be a hit with many kids and AFOLS alike. It recalls Classic Space, but to me, one critical thing was missing from that set: a viable spaceman. The problem with Benny is that he has an artificially busted helmet in addition to the faded space logo. I would really like to have a pristine spaceman in the classic attire, and that has yet to surface. What you have pictured there would be ideal, because it looks a lot cheaper than the Exo Suit.

Perhaps the detective's office would be two rooms. One would be the office itself, and the other would contain the receptionist, after all you don't just walk into the detective's office unannounced. It seems like every old style movie or show with a private eye has a receptionist. I like the idea of having other nonrelated parts to the building such as apartments or perhaps another business.

The Lego Stores tend to keep the sets from the same themes together, whether they are large or small. If you start separating themes because some sets may be perceived to have the highest risk of being shoplifted, many people might not know to ask or have an idea where to look for a specific set. In all honesty, I would think the items with the greatest risk of theft would be the build-your-own minifigures and the Pick-a-brick walls. We all know that these areas could not function if you had to have them locked up.

As of 6/4, Benny's SSS is out of stock on the US site with an expected date of 30 days to ship. Looks like it is going to be very popular this year.

This looks like a nice little set. Hopefully it will not be too expensive as it does not appear to have many large parts or a really high part count. While watching the video, I could have sworn the lady said "Coming in August 2014". Did anyone else catch that? If this is true, does that mean the release of Exosuit will be delayed again?