Aanchir

He looks stylish IMO in the same way Aang looked stylish in the Avatar state, if you're familiar with Avatar: The Last Airbender. Stylish in a powerful-being-about-to-unleash-righteous-fury type of way. Perhaps there's a better word to use than stylish, but that was the one that came to mind when looking at them at Toy Fair. I tend to have a fairly positive view of most themes, just because I'm fairly willing to look past certain flaws if I can understand the reasons behind them, or even if there are just enough good qualities to balance out the flaws. As such, I've understood the charm behind Ninjago from the beginning, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize flaws in it. It bugs me that there aren't any real location-based sets this year, and that the Destiny's Bounty is too small to be a formidable headquarters, and that there was no proper Ninja headquarters in 2011 (the Spinjitzu Dojo hardly counts, even if it's what the Ninja headquarters in the show was based on). It bugs me that the spinner sets are the only ways to get certain minifigures, and that the arena sets this year, in becoming standardized in their design, have also become incredibly boring. It bugs me that the Ninjago online games are mostly just Megaman Battle Network clones with all the fun and strategy minimized, and that we have yet to have a Ninjago online game that truly lets you enjoy the story of the theme like BIONICLE's Mata Nui Online Game without having to do a bunch of tedious gameplay in between story tidbits. But for me, most of these problems come secondary to the amount of hard work and dedication that is going into the design and marketing of this theme. I thoroughly enjoy the books and TV series despite those high expectations sometimes leading to disappointment in some installments. The set designs are imaginative with lots of bright colors and cool functions. The website for the theme is attractively laid-out, and there's lots of great Ninjago content available totally free either there or elsewhere on the internet. And it's no fun to grumble about the flaws when there's so much about the theme that I have no trouble enjoying.

This MOC is fairly generic except for the gun, which I don't think suits it very well. The gun design itself is excellent, but the problem is that it's very big compared to a 1.0 hero, and the 1.0 hero arms don't look muscular enough to carry a gun that big with just one hand. The "weapon arms" of Bulk, Stringer, and Stormer were also fairly large, but they weren't nearly this big and had the advantage of giving the characters bulkier arm designs as part of the package. Overall I like the gun, but I feel it would belong better on a larger MOC.

Teehee! This little guy is adorable and creepy at the same time. I especially like his head. The rest of him is terribly simple, but the body proportions make him look quite cute. It isn't at all the MOC I expected from the topic title, since all but the head closer resembles a lizard than a spider.

I kind of agree, and that's probably part of why seeing Nex in person has helped me warm up to his color scheme. After Toy Fair, I got Surge at Rockefeller Center, and while originally I had intended to modify him by giving him blue hands, I have grown to like the way his arms are entirely lime. Blue hands wouldn't hurt but I no longer consider them essential. With Nex I sort of feel the same way. His color scheme may be organized quite differently than in previous years, but I think the way his shell colors alternate as you move up and down the limbs is very stylish, and having the head the same color as the torso shell might not lend the same effect. From a consistency point of view, I still have some issues with Nex, but to be honest I could say that about any of the summer Breakout Heroes. Really there's nothing wrong with having two distinct "styles" across a team-- in the end it lends variety. My original impressions of the Mistika, from a consistency angle, were the same, but gradually I warmed up to them and realized that while they weren't stylistically consistent with the Phantoka in all ways they remained pretty consistent with each other. I liked the Phantoka and Mistika masks, but I get your point. To be honest, while I take issue with the claim that the Phantoka and Mistika masks were not designed with the Toa Nuva in mind (there are a lot of similarities IMO, especially among the Phantoka masks), the fact remains that the sky setting probably took precedence over consistency with the older Kanohi. If the story plan established in 2004 had been followed to a T, with a third year of Toa Inika/Mahri in a sky setting followed by three years of Toa Nuva versus Makuta, who knows what we might have expected? One thing's for sure: while it's often been claimed about both Hero Factory and BIONICLE sets that sets are designed without specific characters in mind and then later assigned to existing characters arbitrarily, nobody can make that claim about either Breakout wave. The Breakout character designs don't just reference previous set versions of the characters, but also their story roles, considering things like their chest patterns and weapons. Plus we see things like Hero Cuffs that had previously only been in the television episodes and not the sets. I think in terms of integrating the sets and story the Breakout sets are by far the best Hero Factory sets to date.

I'd like to say that I'm VERY happy to see those Aquazone harpoons in the Monster Fighters theme. Those haven't been seen in sets for years!

The story explanation is that they somehow become "pure Spinjitzu energy". Which is kind of amusing to those of us who remember the climax to the last episode of Galidor. I think the NRG Ninja look mighty stylish. Of course, the fact that their transformation looks like it will be an Eleventh Hour Superpower makes these figs less essential IMO than the other more "normal" Ninjago character designs, and so it's easy enough for me to tolerate them only appearing in spinner sets. If I end up interested in getting them I'll happily do so (I have nothing against the spinners and cards), but they won't be the highest items on my wanted list.

It's not a problem with the new version of LDD, it's a problem with many, many versions of LDD, ranging at least as far back as LDD 4.0 and possibly earlier. The thing is, the individual palettes you access for the decoration tool are all programmed independently. The decorations themselves aren't specifically assigned to bricks anywhere in the program except in the default mode's palette (including the Design byME palette, when it was around, and the new LDD palette) and the Decoration Tool palettes. And every update for a long time has added certain decorations to the first of these without bothering to update the second. The decoration tool in general will need a better interface, of course, because if all the minifigure face decorations available on LDD were added I know that my computer wouldn't be able to display all of them. My younger brother's netbook is already unable to display all of this palette's options or even all of the LDD Extended color palette's options.

No, the two sets have them in different colors. The Zane ZX booster pack's kunai are 315 Silver Metallic (Bricklink's Flat Silver in post-2010 sets and the main pearl silver color since late 2010). The ones that come with NRG Kai are 316 Titanium Metallic (Bricklink's Pearl Dark Gray in post-2010 sets and the main Pearl Dark Gray color since late 2010).

They're there-- take a look at this image.

The ghost shrouds do appear to be a new Glow-in-the-Dark color, since the one that has been on the current palette since 2006 (Phosphorescent Green) is far more transparent-- in most cases, it's equivalent to Bricklink's Glow-In-Dark Trans, although in some cases it does appear more opaque due to having a rougher surface finish or a different type of plastic. As for the green leaves in the werewolf set's tree, they are Olive Green, a color new this year which has so far appeared primarily as dinosaur and minifigure parts in the Dino theme. The Orc Forge set in Lord of the Rings has cheese slopes in this color, suggesting that TLG won't shy away from using it for standard building elements.

Was it? That's a bit of a surprise to me. Interesting to learn, though. I've never heard of a non-licensed theme being planned for two non-consecutive waves from the get-go.

I definitely feel that some themes are planned for longer than others-- just look at Atlantis, Power Miners, and Ninjago, which were clearly planned for a full year of sets from the get-go, compared to Pharaoh's Quest, which was planned for half a year of sets. At the same time, I also feel that yes, TLG makes their decisions based on profits, and if a one-wave theme happens to be very successful they could very easily bring it back the next year (if not the next wave, since that would presumably be too soon to design and manufacture finished sets). From what we've seen, themes designed for a full year are far more likely to return the next year than sets designed for a single wave. But there are exceptions like Space Police III, which had a quite cohesive original summer wave and yet came back for a full year, or Agents, which had a cohesive first wave and came back for a second wave the next year.

The Kunai in that set are actually Titanium Metallic (Pearl Dark Gray/Gunmetal). They do look very shiny but that's probably just their surface finish. Anyway, I'm even more excited for the Epic Dragon Battle after seeing it in person. The Samurai Mech and Ultra Sonic Raider also look brilliant. Lasha's Bite Cycle is a bit underwhelming, though.

Personally, I think the Super Hero sets were posed very nicely, compared to the fairly bland poses of most of the Hero Factory sets. Iron Man has his "flying" pose (yes I know that's not how Iron Man tends to fly but it still looks cool), and on the DC side Batman and Joker were glaring at each other from two different shelves, with Joker's gun trained on Batman.

That style of launcher piece is a prototype version of the "new" Thornax launcher that never appeared in sets. It also appears on LDD, with the same Design ID as the actual new launcher piece that appeared in the 2012 sets. We can pretty much be assured the "prototype version" won't show up in any of these sets since at ToyFair this piece was present on all heroes, including those already released. In other news, just built Surge who I bought at the LEGO store. My oh my, he is a fine-looking set.

Toy Fair was amazing, and all the Hero Factory sets looked fantastic in the flesh. Err... plastic. Pics are forthcoming, but let me confirm one thing that the previous pics don't appear to have confirmed: XT4 does have a new, smaller torso beam.

Alright, one correction I can make. The parts you have colored 311 Transparent Bright Green should be colored 49 Transparent Fluorescent Green. Yes, I know it looks yellow on LDD. Can't watch the video on the internet connection I have right now, so I can't identify other errors.

I feel you. I also am a bit upset about the lack of consistency (although personally, I think Bulk's torso looks closer to the Silver Metallic of his helmet than the Titanium Metallic of his thigh armor-- I could be mistaken though). I kind of wish that at least some of the new Hero sets had the same style of shin armor as Breez, Furno, and Surge, since that lends itself to such a stylish appearance. I guess keeping Breez, Surge, and Furno similar in terms of color scheme organization and armor style maintains that unity they had in the 1.0 sets, but still it would have been nice to see that consistency extend further across the Breakout wave. I suppose Stormer's leg armor is similar in style (attached to the side with a wider section towards the foot), but it's kind of a disappointment not to see it with Bulk and Stringer in the very least. Another disappointment for me, consistency-wise, is that Stormer has a 2.0 hero torso rather than a Breakout torso. I think, if he had the jointed abdomen design of the Breakout heroes he'd look more consistent with his teammates, which I think is important when he's at such a vastly different scale. But admittedly I don't know how well that would work, since it might not work well aesthetically with the big chest piece. On another note related to Stormer XL, do his "wing" pieces seem more likely to be printed or stickered? I can't tell myself, although the norm in Hero Factory these days seems to be printed parts.

That picture of Furno giving a thumbs-up is fantastic! If I ever have any ideas for cool photos, now I'll have a place to put them. Great idea for a topic!

How can you be sure? Yoda has a custom one-piece head and a Clone Wars face. Personally, I prefer when they have a standard head piece with attachment in many cases, because regular minifig heads are fairly easy to customize compared to parts with more complex contours. Besides, all those figs are still prelim. Pre Viszla has Boba Fett's helmet, Even Piell just has Saesee Tiin's head, and the Sith Troopers have Darth Vader torsos, V-Wing pilot heads, and Knights' Kingdom helmets. I wouldn't put too much stock in their appearances, even though the odds are Even Piell's head will stay two pieces.

Thanks for the pics, Sir von LEGO! But you should really link those pictures instead of embedding them. They're larger than the size EB guidelines allow for embedded images, plus the staff get mad if you embed images with "preliminary" watermarks in your posts. I know very little about CW or EU so can't judge many of these sets on their accuracy (let's be honest, I'm not expert enough about the actual movies to nitpick those, either ). But the flick-fire function on the Malevolence is EPIC if it works as smoothly as it looks like it should. Even if it's not suited to that vessel, it'd still be cool to see used in more appropriate sets or themes if it functions smoothly. EDIT: The Malevolence's picture confirms that the top panels are supposed to be hinged down, so the copy of the set we've seen Toy Fair pictures of was indeed set up badly. Not sure whether this "redeems" the set at all since I don't know what the Malevolence is supposed to look like except from side view. It could still be vastly misshapen for all I know.

Keep in mind, though, that all parts have certain "tolerances" beyond which the part could become damaged. I don't know too much about that set, but maybe the difference in angle from the required 22.5 is within those slight "tolerances", or maybe because that set has so many Technic sections the parts that are causing the click hinges to collide have some "wiggle room" of their own.

The reason the shurikens are rubber rather than hard plastic is probably the same reason a lot of parts like Exo-Force hair, Kit Fisto's head, and the Collectible Minifigure spear tips are rubber-- ABS doesn't like forming into sharp tips, and is liable to break at the tip unless it's of a certain thickness all the way down.

I think they're Warm Gold (same color gold used in Ninjago, 2006 BIONICLE, and all versions of Rocka), but I could be wrong.

One of the sets I greatly enjoyed in childhood was the BIONICLE Master Builder Set, so I'm voting that. ...What? That's not an option? Well I also liked the Special Edition Naboo Starfighter. Cloud City was also pretty neat. And who can forget the brilliance that was the Sandcrawler? ...Oh, I see, none of those are listed either. AT-ST? Nope. Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon?. There's no way that could have been left off the list. Errr... or maybe not. Modular Buildings? Nope, none of those are on the list, despite them all being D2C sets. Overall, it would seem there have been more D2C sets than would probably fit in a poll. It would help if there were some rhyme or reason to which ones are included and which are not.