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Legos, anyone?


danth

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I was at ToyRus yesterday looking for Turtles Classic Collection for my nephews birthday, and sure enough, right there on the shelf staring in the face, the Lego Simpson's house. HOLY F$, I haven't built a Lego set in years, the last one was the old premium Lego Star Destroyer, so it kind of called to me, and I had to have it. I whipped out my shiny plastic nightmare card and it's mine, I opened it but haven't started, I forgot the giddiness that comes from opening up a big Lego set.

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I can relate, but for the Parisian Restaurant. Great set which I highly recommend, esp if you like building city stuff. They did a good job on the Simpsons' House, but I'm personally not interested in acquiring it. Too much other good stuff coming this summer, Bennie's Spaceship! topping the list, along with the Super Secret police Dropship, and a slew of the upcoming Ultra-Agents, with some Ninjago & Star Wars thrown in for good measure.

ErikElvis, I have that that set displayed in my LEGO room. I find a lot of these capital ships to be quite striking, esp with that dark red on light bley. They're terribly out of scale, though, and usually very limited internally. Anyway, hope you enjoy the set!

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That's another lovely set. I bought it for my wife, and we use it and Lord Vampyre's Castle (my favorite castle set) for a Halloween display.

Marcos Bessa is the designer for both the Monster's Haunted Mansion and the awesome Arkham Asylum Breakout set. He's fairly new on the LEGO Design Team, but these sets, as well as his own personal builds are testaments to the guy's talent.

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Darth Revan figure is real, and as hard to get as feared---you have to buy $75+ of SW sets from Lego.com, from May 3 to May 5.

I could swing 75 bucks of LEGO---but there's really not $75 of *SW* sets I want. (well, maybe a UCS B-Wing, but that's gone, as is the newer Y-wing). New ISD isn't out yet either.

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Darth Revan figure is real, and as hard to get as feared---you have to buy $75+ of SW sets from Lego.com, from May 3 to May 5.

I could swing 75 bucks of LEGO---but there's really not $75 of *SW* sets I want. (well, maybe a UCS B-Wing, but that's gone, as is the newer Y-wing). New ISD isn't out yet either.

basically, they want you to buy the Jawa sandcrawler that comes out May 3rd. Alternatively just buy the six pack of microfighters and one other thing. seriously, those Microfighters are the best thing ever.

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I've been buying a lot of MIB old space sets on eBay. It's becoming a sickness. An expensive sickness. I'm thinking I might have to let my YF-19 preorder lapse because I've spent so much money already this month.

I blame the internet.

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MIB? (really, more than any other toy---what's the point of buying boxed LEGO sets vs loose complete? Could you even prove it afterwards?) "Yeah, this is totally a 1988 blue 1x4, and not some 1992 substitute..." Plus, there's no need to "keep it in the box" for protection/storage/shipping----they're inherently "jostling around loose in the bags" to start with.

Now, that said---some parts are rare, and rarer still in good condition, and the only way to acquire the proper number needed in nice shape IS to buy a complete mint set that has been 'whole' since day 1. Some people will spend more "restoring" a poor-condition set by replacing worn-out rare parts with better ones, than if they'd just bought a whole new set in better condition.

(it is hard and expensive to "complete" a set you don't actually own---as in, you're checking peeron or rebrickable, and you see you've already got like 2/3 of the parts to build a set---don't try it! You're better off just buying the set. Unless you've got like NINETY+ percent of the parts, it's not a good idea to try to "just buy the last bits individually")

And even if you've got 90% of a monorail----you're probably missing some very rare/expensive parts. There's sets that I have 95% of, that I still feel aren't worth the money to complete. "10 bucks EACH for that part?!?!"

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(...) seriously, those Microfighters are the best thing ever.

Agreed. They got the '80's Super Deformed concept down just right, too.

Out of the four I got, the Millennium Falcon and Star Destroyer are the best - quite a range of pieces, and a lot of classic space grey. The X-wing and Droid Tank have a lot more playability (read = moving parts), but they're not quite as satisfying on a certain level.

Nevertheless, they all (except the X-wing) have some of the newer parts mentioned earlier in this thread (eg 90 degree switch pieces) and lots of angled plates (so we can start contemplating our dream of making our own variable fighter design!).

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That makes me think----how are valks going to look in the future, now that Kawamori will have all these new pieces to use?

Either a lot more small moving parts, or more compact?

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MIB? (really, more than any other toy---what's the point of buying boxed LEGO sets vs loose complete? Could you even prove it afterwards?)

Easy:

1) It's very hard to buy a loose set that is actually complete. We're talking about hundreds of pieces, many of which are easily confused for others. I bought a few loose sets, but after getting enough missing parts or with wrong parts I gave up. I see auctions for GI Joes all the time with the wrong accessories sold as "complete" and those have like 5 accessories average. With Lego sets it's almost impossible.

2) I really just enjoy the feeling of opening a new Lego set. It's like no other feeling. Beats the hell out of buying a set and having it come preassembled. What am I going to do, take it apart and then put it back together? Pointless.

More than any other toy, it's pointless to get Lego sets that aren't MIB, in my opinion.

Out of the four I got, the Millennium Falcon and Star Destroyer are the best - quite a range of pieces, and a lot of classic space grey.

Wait, whaaa? No way, they still make the classic space grey colors?

EDIT: According to Bricklink those pieces are actually light bluish gray, not light gray (classic space gray).

Edited by danth
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People ship ASSEMBLED Lego sets? That seems pointless---a waste of space, and much more likely to break. Loose LEGOs are basically invincible in the mail. But a long thin assembly of something--that could actually snap or bend if hit in the wrong spot.

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Light bluish grey is correct (medium stone grey, LEGO official name). Light grey, the original classic color, has been long retired.

Agree with opening a virgin set...great feeling. I'd also rather have an unassembled set shipped to me. Thus far, every used set I've ever bought came disassembled or mostly so.

As far as the next new valk, I hope Kawamori-san steps away from the traditional fighter look in favor of current 6th gen fighter concepts. There are some really pretty designs on the web, and the next manned American fighter is going to be a wholly different animal from its predecessors, along with its weapons systems. We're rapidly bridging the gap from sci-fi to sci-reality. Not sure if such a thing would work in Macross...50 missiles with their windy exhaust trails rocketing towards their target is a pretty cool visual, as opposed to an EMP emitter, sonic weapons, or non-lethal incapacitants. Same can be said for any projectile weapon...much more visual impact.

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before frontier aired, SK talked about how he wanted to get away from mimicking real world airframes entirely. I think whatever we see next is going to be an even more in the direction of very retro elements packaged in a more organic, alien looking form.

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I do miss opening the perforated bags. The new ones just aren't the same.

The monorail's worth $$? Huh. I've got it & the track extension in the attic, but it's probably distributed between 3 boxes. And some parts may be in Washington...

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Wait, whaaa? No way, they still make the classic space grey colors?

EDIT: According to Bricklink those pieces are actually light bluish gray, not light gray (classic space gray).

Apologies. I'm not a Lego enthusiast at the same level as some of you guys.

For me, if it's space and in grey (or blue) it feels like "real" Lego.

Like the set in the following link: http://www.toysperiod.com/lego-set-reference/space/classic-space/lego-891-two-man-scooter-non-us-version-of-442/

Despite the funkiness of the scooter/space shuttle itself, it was a great source of cool parts.

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I do miss opening the perforated bags. The new ones just aren't the same.

The monorail's worth $$? Huh. I've got it & the track extension in the attic, but it's probably distributed between 3 boxes. And some parts may be in Washington...

I wholeheartedly agree with the opening bags part. The perforated bags is pure nostalgia. Since I built three new Lego sets after a 15 year hiatus I also don't like the numbering of the begs and dividing them into sub assemblies. If there will be any new ToR sets this year (Ebon Hawk Ebon Hawk) I will probably just open all the bags and mix them together for more fun. ^_^

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I wholeheartedly agree with the opening bags part. The perforated bags is pure nostalgia. Since I built three new Lego sets after a 15 year hiatus I also don't like the numbering of the begs and dividing them into sub assemblies. If there will be any new ToR sets this year (Ebon Hawk Ebon Hawk) I will probably just open all the bags and mix them together for more fun. ^_^

I didn't even realize they did this, with our last set. We bought the Winter Cottage for our Xmas village, my daughter wanted to help put it together. So we opened everything up, and spent the first night sorting. It wasn't until finishing the first small item that I saw the picture showing the divisions. Considering it was my first 900+ set in a long time (and her second set ever) that would've made things easier...

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On smaller models, I don't mind picking through a pile. However, when you have a multi-thousand part model, I wouldn't mind subassemblies. The opposite is true, though. My wife got me the Tower Bridge set (4287 pcs), and nothing is numbered. There are multiple bags of the same parts, though, so I would exhaust one bag, and then open another, just to keep the clutter down. I remember the UCS Millennium Falcon taking me a week to build, as my space was severely limited, so I had to keep the parts bags in the box and sort through them for parts. I think that was the only time I didn't enjoy building a set, since it took so long to find the parts I needed for any given step. Sure looked fantastic when it was done though. Worth the frustration in the end.

I have a sizeable collection, the majority of which is not sorted, so I feel like an archaeologist everytime I need a particular part for a project.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A lot of AFOLs have really good jobs, lots of disposable income. As far as procurement of parts, I've noticed that European stores seem to have a greater abundance of hard to find parts, especially retired parts. But if you're willing to pay the shipping...

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For the first time since the movie premiered, I saw Cloud Cuckoo Palace on the shelf. And bought it of course. I think I counted 25 different colors used. (and that's not including the minifigs, which'd bring it up to like 30 colors)

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As much as I want a regular Uni-Kitty fig, the rest of the set just seemed like a mish-mash and didn't interest me. It is cool for the variety and colors used, but the overall set, compared to what they could have given us from Cloud Cuckoo Land, just seemed lackluster. I may bow to impulse for it, but I'm pretty much holding out for Space Kitty.

On the nostalgia front, I finally caved and ordered an M-Tron Mega Core Magnetizer set from Bricklink, complete, in good condition, w/ the original instructions,box and insert for $125. All in all, not a bad price for a vintage well-kept set of this size with the box. The box is torn, I guess, but that's why tape was invented. I've wanted this set ever since it came out in '90, and I recently made a friend who has 2 copies of it in his LEGO room. Seeing the awesomeness of the thing in person was the final nudge I needed to commit. Chomping at the bit for my invoice.

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I picked this up for the kid a while back, but she hasn't received it yet. She was desperate for Wyldstyle & Emmet. After looking at brick link & eBay prices, $19 seemed like a good deal for them, Unikitty & a bunch of bright, cool pieces. I honestly think she's forgotten about them at this point though.

I meant to give it to her last month, along with a tray to build in, but the tray's not done & she's been really bad lately...

But man, it's been 2 months since we saw the movie. Now I feel sad.

Edited by Kelsain
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