Aanchir

Samurai X Cave Chaos had a lot of big parts like BURPs, wall panels, and large plates and tiles. According to BrickLink it weighs a whopping 2435 grams, which makes it the heaviest Ninjago set besides the Temple of Airjitzu. Dragon's Forge seems to use a lot of smaller parts, especially on the fusion dragon, and not nearly so many big and bulky parts. So while it has a similar piece count, it wouldn't surprise me if it weighs considerably less. That said, I'm as happy as anyone about this price. For how beautiful the set is and how much play value it offers, $80 is an outstanding value regardless of what the weight turns out to be. Loving Kai and Nya's new face prints with the glowing eyes! We'd previously seen these faces on the Wu-Cru Level 11 badges. However, previous pics of the sets made me question whether they'd actually be appearing in the sets. Now that new face prints are confirmed for Kai, Nya, and Zane, I hope the other three ninja also get new face prints to match! Kai's new face print still has his scar, which I know will disappoint some people… however, I personally don't mind the scar, and if the creators of Ninjago wanted to make the show and sets match, I'd kinda prefer it if they gave him a scar in the show rather than having the scar he's had all along in the sets abruptly disappear. The new key visual is lovely, and I hope LEGO releases a downloadable poster of it on Facebook like they have for many of the other recent key visuals.

My first with a sticker price over $100? That'd be either the 9719 Robotics Invention System or 9735 Robotics Discovery Set. My dad definitely had multiple $100+ Technic and Trains sets before that, but they weren't really a part of my collection and I generally wasn't allowed to play with them, at least not without his supervision. However, the first set I got that equates to over $100 in today's money was probably 6082 Fire Breathing Fortress, which cost $64 1993 dollars (the equivalent of $109 2016 dollars). Other sets from my early days as a LEGO fan that cost what would today be more than $100 include 6195 Neptune Discovery Lab and 6339 Shuttle Launch Pad, but I think I got 6082 before those ones.

LEGO started uploading TV ads for the new sets to YouTube for Denmark and other Scandinavian countries, so it could be that the official release of those sets over there is imminent. Jestro's Headquarters TVC: Clay's Falcon vs. Three Brothers TVC:

I definitely disagree on that. When I was a kid I loved getting more varied colors in brick buckets (as well as in art supplies like crayons and colored pencils). And the broad color palette of the Classic theme is one of the things that helps establish it as one of the most gender-neutral themes, since it includes a balance of both the bright, bold primary colors that characterize themes like City and Ninjago and the more nuanced color harmonies that characterize themes like Friends and Elves. I also think the broad color palette of the Classic theme extends its appeal with older builders, since having a more varied color palette makes them feel less like an early childhood toy for kids with limited color vocabularies, and more like a creative tool that can be useful to builders who understand the differences between blue and cyan or red and magenta. It enables and challenges builders to create models with more complex and varied color schemes, and helps ensure the bricks can supplement any kid's LEGO collection no matter what themes they enjoy and what colors those themes use. Do we know the prices of these two sets?

Counterpoint: they've never done a teaser like this for a licensed series, either. It may just be something they've decided to start doing in the manuals from now on, now that they no longer have LEGO Minifigures Online to promote.

The LEGO Ninjago Products page is beginning to tease the Hands of Time sets!

The varying scales of furniture and fixtures are why I brought up the beds. Even things like countertops in LEGO Friends aren't all that oddly proportioned compared to ones in themes that use classic minifigures. The kitchen countertops in Emma's House are exactly the same height as those in the Parisian Restaurant (both in the downstairs kitchen and upstairs apartment), whereas the countertops in Heartlake Pizzeria are anywhere from one to four plates lower. Likewise, the checkout counters at the Downtown Bakery and Heartlake Juice Bar are the same height as the ones in the Winter Village Bakery, Pizza-To-Go, and Bike Shop & Cafe. As I said before, the size of furniture and fixtures seems to correlate more to their level of detail than the type of figure they're designed for. And in general there tends to be quite a bit of variation in the size of those fixtures not just from one theme to the next but also from one set to the next, even among sets and themes that use the same type of figure.

In the past three decades LEGO has had been three glow-in-the-dark colors: 50 Phosphorescent White (1990–2005), 294 Phosphorescent Green (2006–2011), and 329 White Glow (2012–present). These are the only glow-in-the-dark colors that actual LEGO bricks come in, but LEGO did have non-brick-based glow-in-the-dark products in the 1950s like the Indre Cross

If anything's wrong with your pre-assembled windscreen I'm sure LEGO Customer Service would gladly replace it with the newer, separate frame and window glass parts. But if you just want the separate frame and glass for MOCing purposes then yeah, BrickLink is probably the way to go (or you could wait a few months and buy them from LEGO Customer Service's Bricks & Pieces site, but during the holiday season Customer Service only fulfills orders from people who need actual replacements and not just people who want to buy parts). No, they do not, unfortunately. Even the most recent sets to include a version of that part like Keetongu do not have replacements listed for it on Customer Service.

Is the scale difference for the sets themselves really anything unusual, though? After all, even LEGO themes that use regular minifigures are often out-of-scale with each other. Just look at the cars and trucks from LEGO Agents compared to those from LEGO City. The Agents vehicles are around twice the width of their City counterparts. And as buildings go, LEGO City and Creator 3-in-1 buildings often feel tiny compared to, say, Creator Expert modular buildings or Simpsons buildings. When things in mini-doll sets are scaled differently from things in minifigure sets, it often has more to do with the specific themes' or sets' economy of detail than with the type of figure those sets use. A classic minifigure certainly wouldn't look out-of-place on a 4x6x2 bed with a plush comforter like the one in Emma's House, the Dolphin Cruiser, or Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle. And in fact, Pet Shop features a bed around this same size. But City House, Deep Sea Exploration Vessel, and Battle for Ninjago City are furnished instead with meager 2x6x⅔ slabs not unlike those featured in LEGO City prisons. It's not because the type of figure would somehow make a bigger and fluffier bed seem silly. Rather, it's because these sets are from themes that emphasize action over comfort and livable spaces. Truly, it's a pleasant surprise when themes like City or Ninjago feature such "creature comforts" as beds and toilets at all.

I saw Moana yesterday and it was AMAZING! I'm still listening to the soundtrack and loving it! I'm glad LEGO has already got Moana sets out but I hope that they sell well so there can be many more in the future. A

First, a little background: Four or five digit part numbers are "Design IDs" that generally refer to that particular shape of part. Six or seven digit part numbers are more specific "Element IDs" that refer to the shape, color, and any decorations it has. All parts have both a Design ID and an Element ID. In the past there was a different version of this part with the Design ID 6567 that came pre-assembled. As far as I know, the glass in this version was not interchangeable. Set 60007 High Speed Chase was the last set to use this pre-assembled version. In that set it was Dark Blue and had the Element ID 6018430, but this part is not listed on Brickset or LEGO.com/service. In 2013 or 2014, it was replaced with the newer 13756 and 13760, which do not come preassembled and have interchangeable glass. Later copies of set 60007 use these parts instead of 6567. The specific colors of these parts that came in later copies of set 60007 have the element IDs 6051432 and 6051437, respectively.

Yeah, in general, the AFOL community often surprises me with how fondly even weak, short-lived themes are remembered. I guess perhaps it's not so apparent in the Castle community (I rarely see much nostalgia for, say, Fright Knights, aside from people fondly recalling the enormous height of Night Lord's Castle), but in the Space/Sci-Fi/Action-Adventure side of the AFOL community I see way more nostalgia for themes like UFO, Insectoids, and Rock Raiders than their late 90s designs alone would seem to merit. Compared to those themes, Nexo Knights already has some not-insignificant advantages: more detailed and complex set designs, a longer lifespan, and a more developed multimedia story. Perhaps its biggest disadvantage compared to those themes, nostalgia-wise, might be existing in a time period when there are so many other well-designed sets and themes to choose from, rather than a period when LEGO designs in general were in decline. But anyway, I think this talk about "how well will Nexo Knights be remembered when it's gone?" is getting kinda off track… after all, Lyi's comment about Knights' Kingdom II was never about whether or not it was fondly remembered. It was just as an example of the way Castle tends to be largely reinvented every three years instead of having a more linear, straightforward continuity like, say, Ninjago. This comment kinda got overlooked but I agree, there have been a lot of castles and castle-ish sets this year. There have arguably been more than six castles if you count the Minecraft Fortress. And that's not even getting into things like the ongoing glut of LEGO dragons or the many other sorts of medieval fantasy buildings available from LEGO Elves. Next year doesn't seem to be offering quite as many castles from the get-go (of what's been announced so far, I think it's just the two new versions of Elsa's ice palace from Frozen), but I suppose that's alright considering many of this year's castles are probably going to remain available through next year (plus, we still have little idea what to expect in summer 2017). Before anyone takes this the wrong way this is not an indictment of those who feel sets like Jestro's Volcano Lair, Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle, or King Pig's Castle don't fit the feel of their LEGO Castle universes. Some people might have no use for these sets except as parts packs, others might have no use for them at all. However, it remains true that 1) there's a lot of types of castle to choose from, 2) kids still seem to love castles as a concept, 3) plenty of useful castle parts are still in production, and 4) the design standards official LEGO castle sets will probably continue to evolve even in lieu of an ongoing capital-C Castle theme. There are plenty of LEGO themes whose fans have had to make do with less than this.

Hmm… you may be able to fill in that space in the center of the back a bit using one of these and a 3M shell.

This is adorable! You did a great job with the shaping and patterns! And it's just the right scale for Speed Champions. Some eyelids would help but I don't think they're essential. Fantastic work!

Ooh, nice! I like the color scheme, and the silhouette is really distinctive. It'd be great if you could take some pictures of this MOC from some more angles or in some different poses.

That may be a sort of a limitation as far as AFOLs are concerned, but I'm not sure it's a huge factor in the LEGO Group's decision making, considering that "big bang" themes like this are manufactured in huge numbers and most of the Chima head/headgear pieces were used for several different characters across several different sets. It does, perhaps, make it unlikely that LEGO would bring Chima character designs out of retirement for more limited products without reviving the entire product line. But if they did see a market to revive the product line, I don't think the animal molds would be seen as a serious obstacle to overcome. Certainly no more so than the inevitable dino molds for any dinosaur theme.

Perhaps they may have in some ways, but LEGO was very strict with designers about anything that might make LEGO play violent or morbid. For instance, the "Yellow Castle" was originally yellow because LEGO was worried that kids would make war machines like tanks if they had a large supply of grey bricks. Niels Milan Pedersen, the other participant in that BrickJournal interview, also shared a funny anecdote on the LEGO Inside Tour last year about how one time (long before the introduction of official LEGO ghosts and skeletons) he cobbled together a custom minifigure skeleton as a joke and put it in the dungeon of a Castle set that was being presented to upper management. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, the CEO at the time, didn't find it funny, pulling him aside and telling him "if I ever see a dead LEGO man in another set, you are fired." It was many years before Niels worked up the courage to pitch that idea again! Fortunately for his career, by that time the company was a lot more easygoing about that kind of thing!

Regardless of how many sets adult "army builders" buy, it's safe to say the overwhelming majority of sets (including Star Wars battle packs) go to children. Also, I think a big purpose of the working blasters in recent battle packs is to make up for the relative lack of excitement in the rest of the set. Bigger sets have more room to work play features into the actual builds, tend to include more exciting and beloved characters, and also will already be attractive to kids simply by virtue of being bigger. Working stud-shooters for the minifigures in the battle packs give them a little something for kids that the bigger sets don't already have. There was something similar in the launch wave for Bionicle generation 2 in 2015. The big $15 and $20 figures, the Toa, had play features like gears to swing their arms, weapons that could transform into things like fins and skis and surfboards, and golden masks to seek out. The smaller $10 Protector sets, on the other hand, had no gear functions but had custom weapons using the new rotating six-stud shooters. That way, the bigger Toa and the smaller Protectors each offered something that the other group did not. If you already had a Protector, you still had an incentive to go back and get a Toa, and if you already had a Toa, you still had an incentive to go back and get a Protector. Another potential factor: in general, smaller sets tend to be simple and aimed at younger kids, while bigger sets from the same themes tend to be more complex and aimed at older kids. That extra play value from the handheld stud shooters might be more enticing for younger kids, while more realistic weapons might be more enticing for older kids. In that sense the differing weapons boost their appeal with the audiences most likely to enjoy them, and might even help steer those kids towards the sorts of sets they'll be most likely to enjoy. I quite like the stud shooters myself, especially as somebody who loved the old megaphone-style blasters. But then, I don't really collect Star Wars sets these days anyhow. Most of the LEGO themes I collect are original IPs like Ninjago, Elves, and Nexo Knights where authenticity is less of a factor (since the story material is based on the sets, not the other way around). So I'm not really in any position to weigh in on which type of weapon I'd rather see in battle packs or larger Star Wars sets. But I think the fact that LEGO has kept going with stud shooters in battle packs suggests that it has improved the sales of battle packs for them

Jens Nygaard Knudsen. He worked for LEGO from 1968 to 2000. BrickJournal volume 2, issue 6 has a really good interview with him, though mostly about his work on LEGO Space (which he worked on from the very start all the way through M:Tron).

Sorry for dredging up a month-old post, but I didn't spot this post until the topics got merged, and I've gotta disagree. Perhaps for people who don't follow the Nexo Knights story, it might feel like the baddies are generically evil, but when you follow the story it's not nearly so clear-cut. In Nexo Knights specifically, the only character who I'd call purely evil (in his own goofy way) is Monstrox/The Book of Monsters. Otherwise, a lot of the villains are sympathetic or even downright likeable. Jestro, first and foremost, is a somewhat reluctant villain. The Book of Monsters preys on his insecurities about not really being good at anything by convincing him he can be good at being bad. But even though he cooperates with the Book's schemes, he's ultimately a big softie who fills his evil lair with creature comforts like a bathtub and a comfy bed, and mostly just wants to feel like he belongs somewhere. Even without following the story, it's pretty clear from their designs that the Scurriers and Globlins (like the rock monsters from Power Miners, or the Minions from Despicable Me) are more mischievous than outright evil. And among the higher-ranking monsters, although their loyalties are to the Book of Monsters, they're fairly charming in their own right. A special shout-out goes to the monsters' military commander, General Magmar, whose whole section of the real-life Book of Monsters (which is a PHENOMENALLY funny and enjoyable read) is about how he's well-spoken, a good cook, and loves doing whatever he can to boost his troops' morale. Beast Master absolutely dotes on his two trained Globlins, who he has named "Muffin" and "Poopsie". The trod-upon Bookkeeper loves feeling important in his role of carrying around the Book of Monsters. The giant Sparkks and Burnzie are not too bright, but when they're not out looting and pillaging, they're fun-loving monsters who enjoy dancing, ping-pong, etc. You get the idea. Honestly, I feel like the LEGO Group does a great job in most their story themes — Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Chima, etc. — making the villain characters more than just generic baddies with nothing likeable or relatable to their personalities and motivations. And while it may be obvious who's the "good guys" and who's the "bad guys" (which changes sometimes — like how just about all of Chima's year one "bad guys" became "good guys" from year two onward), it's not a situation where no kid would ever want to play as the "bad guys" or see things from their perspective.

Best exclusive/D2C set: 10251 Brick Bank Best large sets: 41180 Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle, 70323 Jestro's Volcano Lair, and 70595 Ultra Stealth Raider Best medium sets: 41179 Queen Dragon's Rescue, 70590 Airjitzu Battle Grounds, and 75828 Ecto 1 & 2 Best small sets: 31044 Park Animals, 70327 The King's Mech, and 71310 Umarak the Hunter Best minifigures: Airjitzu Nya, Nadakhan, and Sira Copperbranch Can't really pick any "worst sets/minifigures" as even those in themes I don't like or collect were usually fairly good for what they were. Favorite theme: Elves Least favorite theme: Palace Pets (I know, not really a full theme in and of itself, but I have pretty positive feelings about the other Disney sets) Most exciting new molds: 1x1 round plate with Ø3.2mm shaft, Ø3.2mm shaft with Ø5.9mm ball, and Mask of Control

The GB version of shop.LEGO.com has posted coming soon listings for the new Nexo Knights sets so you can browse the pictures more easily and read about them in more detail!

The GB version of shop.LEGO.com has posted coming soon listings for lots of January sets, including the Ninjago range! Lots of great pictures and descriptions there!

New set, featuring Robot Hoodlum the forestman-bot! 70358 Aaron's Stone Destroyer Box Aaron's vehicle Another angle