TalonCard

Alright, I get this set isn't universally popular, but is it really necessary to insult those of us who plan to buy the set? It's the only pirate set we've had in years, most of the reviews are positive, the price to piece ratio is good, and it has sails and minifigure parts that will be expensive and hard to get after it retires. For those who like the classic aesthetic and didn't get the Eldorado Fortress or Imperial Trading Post the first time around, this is a good opportunity to experience parts of those at a reasonable price. Not everyone is going to like it, absolutely, but no one is a sucker for buying it.

Keep it! The governor's hat is pretty cool and the big flag is a sweet update. I also like the green torso pirate torso in that set; never miss a chance to pick one of those up.

I really love the little escape hatch in the prison, that looks great and I'm a big fan of secret passageways and trap doors. I did raise my eyebrow a bit at the assertion in the instructions that the Eldorado Fortress came packed with the Golden Medallion comic--that's the first I've heard of it; anybody remember this? There were lots of similar promotions that I had no idea existed like the treasure island game, so it's not impossible. Eldorado Fortress was off the shelves in my area by the time I got into Pirates.

Off topic entirely, but I completely missed that the dragon is a figurehead that is also a complete seperate construction that can come out to play. That is freaking adorable.

This...seems like an overreaction? I'm deeply invested in the Pirate lore, but as others have pointed out the vast majority of it is incredibly obscure and very nearly all of it outside the original comic was exclusive to certain regions: The detailed storyline from the set boxes was (to my knowledge) exclusively a US and later North American thing. Boxes for the European and Asian markets did not have similar text printed on them that I'm aware of. And outside of character names, this storyline didn't have a lot to do with the events of the more widely available comic book. The audio books were only ever produced in German, and to my knowledge the main source of knowledge about them for the wider non-German speaking internet has been the translations by Runamuck on this very forum. The storybooks were made for a UK audience and don't seem to have been widely available outside of that market either. Even the original comic book, while widely distributed, was only around for about as long as the original wave of sets. If you came into the theme in 1992, it's possible you missed it entirely. It is pretty cool that even though all the storylines are widely distributed throughout the world, there is a remarkable degree of consistency there. But it's a consistency that has had to be teased out after the fact, and I don't think it's an overstatement to say that this forum has been ground zero for much of it. It's very very niche. But we don't even know that there's any kind of attempt to "ignore" the rediscovered amalgamation that is the original lore with this set. We haven't seen the instruction manual. All we know is that there's an "admiral" included. Maybe the website text is incorrect in assuming the figure is an admiral. Maybe the admiral is an older De Martinet. Maybe one of the new soldiers is Camilla, all grown up. Maybe the figure is supposed to be Broadside--the Imperial leader with a fancy hat and coat from 1992 (in the US) and 2009 (in LEGO Battles) were also said to be Broadside in order to continue the story even though in the latter case it resemble him much. If anything the indication is that it's a continuation of the Barracuda Bay storyline 20 years later, which is loosly tied back to the original lore.

They *can* be whatever you want them to be. :) The bluecoats were based more on the French and the redcoats more on the British, but according to the lore both are from the same intentionally unidentified fictional European empire that has elements of both armies/navies. The blue coats are the colonial military that serve the governors, while the redcoats are the Imperial Guard who explore and protect in the name of the King. They are often used interchangeably too, blurring the lines somewhat.

The original raised baseplates were actually one of the most expensive parts of the set; Niels Milan Pedersen (the designer of the original Eldorado Fortress) said in this interview "...the raised baseplate, that is probably one of the worst things I ever worked on." "Also, they cost so much to make that if we put a baseplate in a box, it didn't leave much money left for other bricks. I am not sure, but I have to think that the LEGO Group lost money on all the boxes that those baseplates were in." It is basically a lot like the original set in the default model form, but one of the things I like about it was that they managed to break it down into individual components that can be rearranged, so not only do you have the form of the original model; it's also a lot more versitile than the original. Not quite as neat a trick as the base-to-ship transformation of Barracuda Bay, but it's pretty cool.

I suspect this set is, like Barracuda Bay, picking up 20 years after the original theme ended, so maybe that's Admiral De Martinet and not Governor Broadside? He did manage to strike a pretty big blow against the pirates in this comic posted here...

Do it, it's fun! I didn't get a really good look at the alternate configuration until just now, but that's actually pretty awesome too. I wonder if they considered having that be the main model and the classic Eldorado as the alternate, ala Barracuda Bay.

We do know from the LEGO lore that the 18th century Imperial militaries were more inclusive than in real life history: there's Miranda Valentina in the LEGOLAND Florida stunt show, lady Armada officers in LEGO Chess, and Cadet Rita LaQuay from LEGO Legacy: Heroes Unboxed. I like this set a lot--cheers to those bold enough to speculate that the Imperial Trading Post ship would be included, I'm shocked but delighted; I didn't think they'd really do it!

You're right; "turkey" as an insult is pretty old fashioned. Izzie's dialogue is actually filled with oddly anachronistic phrases; I'd like to think it's a character choice and not the writers struggling to do convincing dialog for kids in the 2020s, but we'll see... According to the Dreamzzz cover story in Blocks Magazine 103 and IMDB we'll be getting 10 more episodes for a total of 20.

On that note, I gotta put in my usual appreciation for the Metalbeard pirate hat--they went full minifig on it and I actually prefer it to the 2009/2020 hats.

Added the Spring 1990 Brick Kicks.

There was a reference to Galaxy Squad, oddly enough, though possibly in the context of it being an in-universe franchise. (The kids retrieve what the characters initially believe to be a holographic star map, and someone says "Oooh, are we doing Galaxy Squad?") I think that Izzie's alarm/ringtone is possiby a remixed-to-the-point-of-almost-being-unrecognizable version of "The Loud Song", a recurring in-universe pop hit from LEGO City Adventures. I think that there's probably another batch of episodes to be released as "season 2", if not "season 1.5"--in addition to the dangling Castle Nocturna, Zoey's backstory, and Nighthunter's origin plot threads, there's a mysterious lady dream chaser mentioned frequently that I suspect is Mrs. Castillo. Overall, the series isn't nearly as funny as LEGO City Adventures and doesn't have the atmosphere of Hidden Side. I'm interested in the deeper Dream Chaser lore, though, so I'm hoping the show will go on for a couple more seasons at least.

Added the Winter 1989 Brick Kicks.

I've scanned the Pirate articles from Brick Fanatics Issues 3 and 9 here, as the magazine is currently unavailable. :) Hope this is helpful, enjoy!

Added the Fall 1989 Brick Kicks.

Dang, that's a cool sticker. I'll have to pick up that sticker sheet from Bricklink. Are we sure about the translation? Looks more like Redbeard than Brickbeard to me.

I could see them going any which way with this one. The conceit of Barracuda Bay was that Redbeard's ship wrecked when he was on his way to Eldorado Fortress for a final showdown over the ancestral treasure that was the focus of the original 1989 storyline, essentially retconning all of the previous pirates sets as taking place during the little story in the original Black Seas Barracuda box. So it would actually make a lot of sense for his next destination to be Eldorado Fortress to find out what happened to the treasure in the intervening years. If they wanted to straight up reuse the Redbeard from the Barracuda Bay set, they could definitely do that. (He's a great figure, after all.) They could also redesign him to be slightly older too. (There was some joking among the designers that if they were to continue Redbeard's story he'd be Graybeard instead.) But it's also been long enough since the Bay was released that they might just go back to the classic version in some way. The Space minifigures from the Galaxy Explorer and Blacktron sets are very close to the original figures, while the Castle remakes have been updated graphically but still in the classic style. I'm intrigued to see which direction they take these. I'm hoping for a textured ramp so that minifigures can be posed on it. The original is iconic but the ramp is pretty useless from a playability standpoint since minifigures pretty much slide right off. Unlike the Castle and Space themes, wheeled vehicles were uncommon in pirate sets so you could maybe roll barrels or cannon down the ramp, but that's about it. If it is a large single piece I'd like to see it used to access any hidden areas under the fortress.

I'm no expert in Ninjago lore, but I think the Desinty's Bounty was originally a pirate ship complete with a crew of more traditional looking pirates, years before Ninjago. Every time they do another version I keep hoping they're doing that one.

I'm sorry I didn't reply to this sooner--that's fantastic, a great find! If there are any gaps in the Klick/World magazines online I'd really like to see those scans! :)

I think you're both actually right here; the archives file date image makes sense given the minifigures, but the Secret Life of LEGO Bricks book does state that Europa was considered as one of the historical follow-ups to Castle, along with Western and Pirates. Multiple elements were put into development with the understanding that they could be used across all three themes: The soldier minifigure accessories (and possibly prints?) aren't mentioned but it would make sense if they also shared some common elements with Europa during that early development period. A clue could be that the bicorn as used on Captain Redbeard looks quite different from Niels's original design. One key takeaway from the book was that most theme proposals weren't dropped immediately and hung around to be redeveloped and re-pitched for decades. Western obviously came back, but even Adventurers had an early proposal in the 80s that was dropped to avoid similarities with Raiders of the Lost Ark. So it makes a lot of sense that even though Europa was around at the time Pirates was developed in the early 80s, the pictures we have are probably from an updated proposal in 1994. Also note that the theme was "eventually dubbed 'Europa'", which could mean that this is the name itself wasn't around until 1994 and earlier versions used a different name or no name at all. Another recurring theme in the book is that the LEGO Group's hesitancy to depict any kind of conflict had a huge influence on the development of themes, but the inevitable trend toward story based conflict play meant that the designers had to come up with increasingly far-fetched excuses for factions and weapons. The early Castle swords weren't just designed to avoid appearing threatening, the designers even nicknamed them cake knives. Pirates were allowed to have early firearms and cannons because the designers argued that these early weapons were notoriously unreliable and inaccurate, and that the soldiers and pirates would be too busy chasing after treasure to spend much time fighting anyway. This was ultimately one of the main reasons Pirates was chosen over Western, with its more modern weapons and genre focus on shootouts, and Europa, with its nation-based conflicts. (This is probably why the soldiers and later Imperial Guards don't have a definite nation assigned to them by their flags or story material.) Regarding the Brick Fanatics issues, since the magazine is out of print I'd be happy to add the Pirate related material to my scan list. TC

Oof, Chief was the first one who came to mind when you mentioned the project--now that's an expensive head! As far as the Armada figures go, they're definitely not exclusive to the US; the '96 wave was released in the UK. But they're bound to be quite a bit rarer than the other Pirate heads, as you've discovered, since they were only out for two years at the most and probably in much smaller numbers than most of the Pirate sets. If you don't have any of them your best bet is probably to find a "good" deal on an Armada Flagship since it includes all three heads and trade or sell the rest of the parts--you'd probably make back a good bit of what you'd paid for it initially since that set has a ton of rare/unique parts. How many heads do you have in your collection currently?

I think I've seen a few indications that some were available in certain Asian markets as well; it'd be worth investigating. Fortunately the 1997 pirate sets didn't have any exclusive head or torso prints, so you're in the clear there at least. Best of luck with the rest though; it's crazy how expensive some of these rare parts are getting.