Aanchir

Yeah, I'm not expecting a Beast+Machine combi model since so far this year has used largely textless comics to demonstrate potential story roles for the combi models, and a Beast+Machine combi model wouldn't be nearly as conducive to that. Even if you could come up with an explanation for why a beast uses lots of mechanical-looking parts or a machine uses lots of organic-looking parts, it would be hard to express in a short, two-page comic with nothing but pictures and sound effects. And also, Tunneler Beast has neither Azur or Tr. Light Blue. But of course, the color scheme for the first wave's combi model didn't suffer from the colors being too diverse, since the main color was a neutral black and the others were primarily accents. So a few splashes of red here and there wouldn't be disastrous on a summer beast combi model.

I wouldn't say the mammoth would be impossible to work with. The trunk isn't nearly as weird-looking as the bony ones on the minifigures, and furthermore, depending on how it's built, it might be possible to replace with a more streamlined trunk. It depends on whether the ball joint is molded into the face mold or whether the face mold snaps onto the center ball joint of a basic beam. It looks like the ball joint is black, so I'm guessing it's the latter, and in that case a custom trunk would be much easier to create! I have never actually tried to make non-humanoid animals from the Chima constraction sets. Perhaps I should! Unfortunately, all I own so far are CHI Worriz and CHI Razar, but perhaps I should start experimenting...

I fully expect to see more combi models next wave. After all, combi models have been a rather heavily-marketed part of the theme since the introduction of the new building system. Sure, the 2011 villains didn't have any combi models, but since 2011 the heroes have always had pictures of a two-set combi model in their instruction booklet and instructions for those combi models online. I am not sure what combi models there might be, but one of the three new beasts is a definite possibility. A combi model of Breez Flea Machine and Bulk Drill Machine could be quite cool, but that leaves the question of what Rocka Crawler might combine with. The only other machines are Surge & Rocka Combat Machine, which is so large that the few parts in Rocka Crawler would barely make a difference with the rebuilding potential of its parts, and the walker from Queen Beast vs. Evo, which doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would be included in a combi model... though I might be wrong. Anyway, it's possible that a combi of Rocka Crawler and one of the mid-size machines and a combi model of one of the mid-size machines with Surge & Rocka Combat Machine might be more likely. I don't expect to see a combi model like the Evo XL Machine combi model in the first wave, since the Surge & Rocka Combat Machine doesn't seem as suited to attachments from the other machines, and the other machines don't have distinctive weapons that could be as easily transplanted. Say what you will about the Evo XL Machine combi model, but it definitely benefitted from the model's large size, spacious silhouette, and numerous unused connection points. The silhouette of Surge & Rocka Combat Machine is more compact, so adding attachments from the other machines to it would result in an even more cluttered-looking model. And how woud you possibly attach Bulk's drill or Breez's claw to the available connection points on Surge & Rocka Combat Machine, even if you rearranged some parts to make more loose ball joints available? Since they are attached to their respective machines by Technic, a ball-joint based connection would be impractical. That's not to say there won't be a combi model of the four new machine sets, but if there is, I have a feeling more rebuilding will be involved.

Building instructions for the HF Minimodel are up! They even show how you can add the cockpit to Evo XL Machine's shoulder, which I was not expecting.

No, not usually. So far all of them have been side-stories without incredibly specific placement in the show's timeline.

Don't get me wrong. I KNOW the Serpentine's "history lesson" was seriously whitewashing their incredibly checkered past. But I think they were telling the truth about giving up on their desire to conquer the surface dwellers and deciding instead to live in peace underground. After all, that plan hasn't exactly gone swimmingly for them — first they ended up following Pythor's mad plan to awaken the Great Devourer, which was just as much a threat to them as it was to the people of Ninjago, then they suffered defeat after defeat when they started working with Garmadon, and then they finally ended up sealing THEMSELVES underground by mistake. Honestly, if they were still trying to rule Ninjago at this point I would really question their intelligence. Pythor, of course, is still dreaming of ruling Ninjago, and still trying to manipulate an evil force beyond his control in order to do so. Keep in mind that despite being a cunning manipulator, Pythor is not entirely sane. Unleashing the Great Devourer was as foolhardy a decision on his part as it was for the other Serpentine. I wouldn't be at all surprised if his ambition and confidence in his own powers of manipulation comes back to bite him yet again. I don't think the Overlord will be any more willing to share his throne with Pythor than he was with Garmadon.

How do Scorpio and Black Phantom fare in your ratings? Anyway, I mostly have to agree with Lyi on this one. Evo XL Machine is probably the best set to be actually referred to as "XL". If we include all $20 or larger sets, I think Dragon Bolt comes out slightly ahead, because I had so much fun building it and so much fun playing with it. Really a work of art — easily the most swooshable constraction set ever, and boasting a great, unobtrusive play feature to boot. I guess Witch Doctor is also a contender, since it was extremely innovative in terms of its building techniques, and still unmatched in size... though I was not fond of it when it came out since I felt like its reliance on Technic building styles was avoiding the challenge of creating an elegant titan with Hero Factory building system rather than confronting it head-on. Black Phantom came the closest to perfecting Fire Lord's build, but like all sets with that build, it was crippled by absurdly exaggerated proportions. Stormer XL and Furno XL both have redeeming qualities, but also have extremely conspicuous flaws. And the inconsistent design of Scorpio's legs still bothers me. I'm not fond of Jet Rocka's Rocka figure. I feel like the jetpack should have been designed to accommodate smaller figures rather than paired with an unnecessarily gangly version of a character who had been portrayed far more elegantly at a smaller scale.

Fragility is far from the only issue. There's no way you could fit a Zamor sphere into a part like the Super Heroes chest plate without it being tremendously bulky (i.e. about three times as thick as the actual Super Heroes chest plate). I fully understand that the pop-out CHI function wouldn't work with any existing torso shell, but I personally don't feel like it was worth the sacrifice. Every previous torso shell has had at least three connection points (a ball snap and two holes for 3.2mm bars). The Breakout torso shell had five (including the two on the utility belt) and the Brain Attack torso shell had seven (including the four used to attach the locking clamps). So you can understand my disappointment that the first unique torso shell for the Legends of Chima theme has only two connection points, including one that's next to useless for anything besides housing a Zamor sphere. I'd have much preferred a new part for the CHI core which could be used with a more versatile connection point. The new blade isn't bad, but I probably wouldn't use it for Hero Factory models. I like the shape (these sets already demonstrate its versatility with four different weapon designs), but it's too ornate to fit into a theme without Chima's heavy fantasy aspects. I preferred last year's Chima weapons from a MOCing perspective, despite them having fewer connection points, because their design was simpler and could be used effectively for sci-fi, fantasy, or anything in between. Plus, I really like the sense of power (whether mystical or technological) that those brighter translucent colors convey.

From Brickset: 70727 X-1 Ninja Charger £34.99 70728 Battle for Ninjago City £89.99

The country listed on his profile is Norway, so I think he's referring to northern Europe.

I just realized that the tire of the Speedor in that set is gold. That's pretty cool! Otherwise, still not thrilled with the new Speedorz designs.

We got photos of them at New York International Toy Fair, and I guess you're going to be disappointed. This gallery includes pics of the August wave. 70149 includes Worriz, 70150 has Cragger, 70151 includes Voom Voom, 70155 includes Fluminox, and 70156 includes Laval and Sir Fangar. I'm not sure why 70152–70154 were not included. Maybe those are a later September/October wave, or maybe they were omitted for the same reason as the constraction sets, whatever that reason might be (it's still a bit vague, but they may not be coming out in North America). The new Speedorz sets are... unusual. They seem to have been re-imagined to depend more on Technic. Functionally, I'm sure this helps them. Aesthetically, it's not too bad... although the decorations on the new Speedorz are a far cry from the old ones, unless those are just preliminary. And the building potential seems significantly lessened by the change. Constraction fans might like the new Speedorz because decorative, Technic-based parts work well for many constraction-based building styles, but even as a constraction fan I am not thrilled by the change.

In any case, I'm pretty sure it's the same tail piece from Witch Doctor, Pyrox, and the Ben 10 Alien Force sets. When you look at it in this image you can see that the upper side is hollow towards the base. Plus, it's too large to be the classic dinosaur tail piece that was used for Dragon Bolt's horns. New parts in these sets include the new torso shell, the new silver blades, the new gold shell detail, the new claws used for Panthar's toes (also available in Tr. Fluore. Reddish Orange and Tr. Light Blue in the Chima playsets), the new wings used for Vardy and Fluminox, and of course the various new heads. I haven't spotted any other new parts. On a side note, who else is pleased with all the constraction parts showing up in the Legends of Chima playsets? There's quite a variety of them, including some exclusive recolors like the Dark Brown torso shell in 70145 and the Flame Yellowish Orange paws in 70144. Even the parts that aren't in new colors, like the "fur" detail pieces in Dark Red in 70146, should be good for constraction builders because they'll probably reduce the price of these parts in the aftermarket.

Since I don't believe anyone's mentioned them yet, here are the product descriptions for the two sets:

70206 CHI Laval Package 70207 CHI Cragger Package 70208 CHI Panthar Package 70209 CHI Mungus Package 70210 CHI Vardy Package 70211 CHI Fluminox Package 70212 CHI Sir Fangar Package There are two more pictures for each set, but they're just the package from slightly different angles. They don't reveal anything new about the product, since the front side of the package is all you can really see in any of them. For ease of browsing, Brickset has pics of all seven sets, though they're not entirely consistent (they got the package pic for CHI Laval and the out-of-package pics for all the others).

I don't know much about the person making these theories, but at this point many of them are just pure speculation. For instance, in their most recent post they mention we don't know anything about new episodes for 2015. We have actually gotten confirmation from a Cartoon Network press release that the series is returning with new episodes in 2015. So there's no risk that the movie will be taking the place of the TV series next year — in fact, I wouldn't even count on it coming out next year, since we don't even have a tentative release date yet. They've also gotten some key details in their "final theory" wrong. Needless to say, I have no doubt that SOME parts of this theory are accurate — if the titles and synopses they're based on are accurate. But it doesn't tell us anything with certainty besides what the synopses already say or imply.

They might make more revenue. That's not the same as more profits, because profits are only calculated after you've subtracted all the distribution costs. Keeping something limited to one region means distribution costs are much lower. Running a global business isn't as simple as making every product available everywhere, because unless every region has the same demand for the products, it's a lot harder to justify making them equally available in every region. Generally, the LEGO Group succeeds admirably in making their products globally available, but it doesn't mean that they don't care or don't understand economics if in certain instances they deem it unwise to make a product globally available.

What makes you think it would be for no reason whatsoever? From what I've heard, Legends of Chima has been far more successful in Europe than the US, though much of that is anecdotal. If the LEGO Group has reason to think the sets will be more successful as a Europe-only release, then better to do that than cancel the line entirely.

I think the Serpentine's story is revisionist history at its finest (it does, after all, seem to conflict with much of what we know of Ninjago history), but I feel like that's more of a sign that they want to try and erase the errors of their past than that they are seeking to deceive and take advantage of the Ninja. Skales in particular seems like he's trying to put his past behind him.

For a set, yes, that'd be great, but for a book that is supposed to have an exclusive fig as a selling point, I don't know that the reduction in production cost would really be worth the figure's likely failure to measurably boost sales the way a true exclusive might.

That's entirely possible, but it'd be rather underwhelming since most of the fire variants of existing characters seem to have identical costumes, so a fire-variant Rogon would not be likely to feature any unique prints. Not certain, of course, since Eris has both a unique headgear print (with a red crown instead of a gold one) and a unique torso print (since she is the only returning female character). Maybe Rogon might be another exception.

In any case, info direct from a person authorized to represent the LEGO Group deserves a little more credence than your typical rumor. Generally "rumor" refers to speculation without ANY verifiable source, such as the "BIONICLE is returning next year!" rumors that have been floating around since 2010. This info HAD a well -known and verifiable source, so even if it is subject to change it is still more than a rumor. I know that sometimes official LEGO reps have made mistakes, such as when we were told purple sets would be going away or that Ninjago was ending and being replaced with Legends of Chima. However, trusting these sources was frankly the best we could do under those circumstances until we got info to the contrary. Now, regarding this particular issue, we now have info to the contrary, but it is not any more verifiable than the previous info, so there's no reason to dismiss either possibility. The best thing to do now is wait cautiously and stop arguing over which possibility is more likely. If you simply can't wait for clarification, why not contact a LEGO CEE team member like Jan Beyer or Kevin Hinkle yourself for an update instead of simply dismissing the info because you didn't get it directly from their mouths or fingertips?

Seems like a cool idea, but at the same time, my brother points out that Wyldstyle's hood piece is fitted to a regular (cylindrical) minifigure neck. I think it can sometimes be easiest to predict which minifigures are designed to appear in physical form and which are not based on how much effort went into giving them unique, distinctive designs. For instance, Jay's parents' clothes are palette swaps of existing minifigure decorations, as is Nya's party dress. On the other hand, Nya's new costume in the show is completely unique and has strong "branding" in the form of her trademark phoenix emblem, so it seems like it'd be a really viable candidate for appearing in physical form in one way or another. The most likely avenue through which a new character costume would appear in physical form this year is the Character Encyclopedia. But here's something I hadn't considered — do you think that there might be a promotional minifigure for preorders of LEGO Ninjago: Nindroids like there have been for so many other LEGO video games? In that case, we might see not one but TWO figs that are not available in regular retail sets.

Well, actually, LEGO only gives feedback at 500, 1000, 5000, and 10,000 supports. And I'm not sure if they even leave comments at 500 supports anymore. I don't see any such comments on more recent projects to meet that threshold.

You can see all the Mixels and their names here. So your Series 3 favorites are Torts, Scorpi, and Magnifo My favorites from each tribe? Infernites: Vulk Cragsters: Krader Electroids: Volectro Frosticons: Slumbo Fang Gang: Gobba Flexers: Kraw Glorp Corp: Torts Spikels: Hoogi Wiztastics: Magnifo