vexorian

You are forgetting the fact that shop guys are utter liars that won't bother saying "I don't know' or "let me check out" when they don't know the answer to what you are asking...

Hmnn, well I have vague recollections of 6982 giving me difficulties. of course, I was a kid back then and I built it on a bed. But I remember that a big part of it actually got destroyed when trying to attach some part with another and I had to do it again . Still my largest set. Well, that's it, apart from it I have smaller system ships, bionicle robots (the largest being the exo-toa) and a couple of technic sets (nothing difficult in here, my largest one is barely 8465), nothing hard to build. Though I've been lately making mistakes when following instructions, it my be that I am getting old and it is just recently that I got out of my LEGO dark age ... I also wonder if I should get more bucks to spend on more interesting sets, but it is hard already. I think the largest set I can get from my usual store is the SP 3 super ship, but it would be hard to explain to family that I just spent 120+ USD on a huge SP 3 ship (that's how it is priced in this store)

All right thanks. I blame brickset search.

Define new. The gunship was released in 2002 so the white pieces could have gotten affected by the place in which they were stored. I heard plenty of times that if the storage area is affected by smoke the discoloration can happen :(.

According to google, February 14-th - 17-th .

I would have paid 10$ for one tenth of it. Gosh I wish I could find this sort of deals. If only garage sales were an institution in here.

Considering the heroes are actually robots and not humans, the names are actually funny and original in a way. It is just LEGO's way of seeing that they won't be taking themselves too seriously with HF's story. I think many people out there like the idea. So many comments in the blogosphere about how they didn't like Bionicle for the confusing story...

My problem with this is that these figs are being sold with almost same price as impulse sets and those come with actual bricks... It would be very lame if besides of the high cost, the plastic was low quality... Specially because by the time LEGO sets come to my country things raise in price too much already , so I would likely be paying 5 USD for each :/

Hmnn: Connecting the dots, far shot: There will be a relation between the figs in the first wave and the second wave : zombie -> vampire Mexican wrestler -> Mambo guy Ninja -> Samurai ? Cheerleader -> Some sportsman? Probably soccer or American football, imho Denmark + World cup 2010 = Soccer :) Doctor/Nurse -> Surgeon Clown -> Another circus character. Spaceman -> Alien! I'd love to have those cliche gray guys with bugged eyes in minifig, really. hmnn.

It is a very strange rumor anyway. As if TLG for some random reason stopped doing quality control on some things and then was shocked to hear they were lower quality. I doubt the introduction of the cheaper plastic is because some guys at the factory simply thought of it without quality department being aware of the decision until it got sold, and that it kept happening not only in the magnet/board games but also with toy story a whole year after... I don't think it is going to stop unless people stop buying the sets/etc that has the plastic, and that does not seem likely :(

Although it surely does not make much sense to include randomized parts, I don't think we have real confirmation 'by images' do we? I mean, the packaging I've seen so far does not seem to confirm or deny anything.

It is as if they are doing a large effort to stop me from buying these things. I don't care if the plastic comes from China as long as it is not cheap plastic. I am waiting for reviews and stuff before assuming they are using the bad plastic (these are just samples so the quality may vary for better or worse), if it is, it means there is a lot of money I will not be spending on these figs, so maybe it is a good thing... It actually seemed to me that the accessories have that characteristic gloss from cheap plastic. Also, most of the robot's body. I noticed it before I read the other posts but I didn't want to say it before seeing more people's opinion (yeah, sheeple) It could just be the lightning or my clueless eye though. The "square" on the clown's arm could really be lightning, there seems to be a light above the "square".

One of the issue with there being rarer figs is that it is unlikely we'll ever agree on what are the best figs. I bet the cheerleader is a must-have for town fans, but the sci-fi guy inside of me requires me to get as many robots as possible. Crash test dummies and wrestler also sound sort of fun. In fact, most of them are really plain awesome, so it seems that making ones rarer than the others is unnecessary.

I think they are probably still top secret so he is actually just unable to release the information.

bleh, I just don't know anyone in this whole piece of terrain to trade with. And to be honest, now that there are rarer ones trading will get a lot harder to do. If you ever get two robots, you would have to be stupid to trade one of them with a much less rare fig :/ I guess I will have to spend all my christmas money on these if I ever want to get a robot :(

The negation of 'for every' is a single counter-example. Impulse sets are the counter example. The specification comes in the second paragraph. A new mystery: All the other themes manage to sell impulse sets without giving them unique molds. But maybe you are right and the av-matoran are so low quality or so expensive that without the new molds there would be no reason to buy them.

I specified that my opinion was for impulse sets so you may as well stop trying to trivialize things. Sure new pieces are sometimes a good thing, when it is an old piece in a different color or when it is really useful and adds new possibilities. But there is definitely such thing as too many new molds and if the design itself is always the same new molds become an excuse for raising the price tag. There is also a thing like new parts that do just what a bunch of pieces already do when put together, those new molds just limit what you can do without adding any features at all to the game (but I guess they save LEGO a bunch of money). I really think that in the av-matoran case the new molds are an anti-feature rather than a good thing, they are just compound versions of what old pieces were already able to do. But you guys are never going to get it and I'd rather spend my time on more productive things, so I give up, you win. You may now go and buy all Ben 10 sets as they are obviously targeted at you, plenty of new molds in there.

bah I give up.old post: I really don't get why would anyone want new molds on every single set. They should be the exception rather than the rule if we want to call it a building toy. It is not like we collect pieces... The nice thing about impulse sets is getting a small number of utility parts at a low cost. At least that was the point with impulse sets in themes with a healthy fan base...

New molds are such a non-accomplishment, unless it is a weapon or armor decoration it is just the designer's way of saying "I give up". Hands came with every glatorian era set but av-matoran used the normal joints. I would have tried a mahri matoran but I don't have any, I did see the instructions and those guys are very nice in that build using that femur piece as torso. I like how every single LEGO-serving store in this city has not been successful at selling the barraki yet they don't manage to figure out they should make the price drop... Barraki priced same as glatorian, that's so exciting...

Yes, except the new molds are the very pieces I dislike. Anyway nice pics, let me finish with a lot more pics for better comparisons. Fero vs. Garan, Fero is really the only av-matoran I have, but let's pretend it is Atakus, so I replaced his joints with glatorian fists and since Fero has only one blade instead of Atakus' dual blades, I have removed one of Garan's weapons (This is convenient because the other one is in use by some other thing). The parts: I love those gray half technic brick half articulation ball parts. Hence the reason I am always biased towards voyaran since they brought four of those. The torsos: I think it is a much fairer comparison to place the complete Garan torso with the single av-matoran one since both have the same function. I needed a pic to rebuild Garan since I forgot how he looked like, I didn't need anything to build Fero, so it is easier. Go figure whether that is a good thing or not. Garan only has two technic axles BTW, I don't think that's enough to make the price drop that much. The guys complete: Fero does not look 2.66 larger than Garan to me. He is not even 1.5 as large. So I personally don't think price increased linearly with size in this case If bigger molds increase the price non-linearly, the solution was to make the av-matoran torso in two parts. No axles would have been needed for that and both parts would have been more versatile. Plus the reduction in cost... They seem tied in their role playing capacity. Except the voyaran were the brave little guys that noticed that Piraka weren't toa, while Fero is just a random agori they put on Skirmix to justify selling a dinosaur in the bara magna line. This has gotten off-topic and to save the mods from annoyances I will avoid continuing this discussion in this thread, afterall the heroes seem to be a victory over av-matoran, maybe the whole emblen thing has forced them to use more than a single piece for the body and their limbs are not nearly as ugly. The price count/price ratio is much better as well (though all we have seen yet are cgi 3d videos, so maybe they are much worse in real life). Let's stop arguing and ... unite?

I hope so. It doesn't stop these sets from being all clones though. I don't really think they look that different from bionicle.

Since apple would basically not let any app that does something remotedly close to their own apps, there isn't so much choice.

I think it is just like that in the US since LEGO gives the same numeric value to all their target countries, son in the US thanks to the weak dollar it is less expensive . LEGO "adapting" will only push people down to megabloks, and nobody wants that... To be honest, it is going to be hard to justify to me that matoran now cost almost as much as the canisters. Specially considering that it is basically the same plastic from the same company, and on average canister parts are larger than the matoran ones. So, it is probably best to stop trying to continue the argument, I'll remain skeptical so it is not goign to ever end. I was almost sure about that until I saw that they are once again making clones...

Your second image is giving me account disabled. Edit: Ok, not anymore. I would need a pic for size comparison. But should transformers' eternally overpriced costs drag everybody with them?

I wonder if the bike Furno is going to be the same furno as the "impulse" version. They are supposed to change the parts according to the mission, after all.