AViewToALego

I "Bricklinked" the Skull's Eye Schooner during the Pandemic, then printed out paper sails and all. And I can honestly say this is my favorite Pirate Ship. It is now proudly sitting on top of my TV in the bedroom. I will agree that the highlights of this wave is the Schooner, the Trading Post, as well as the Imperial Flagship. All of these sets are truly great and epic. I started the project of bricklinking the Trading Post during the pandemic, but then lost interest (unfortunately). Will propably continue some day when I have more time at hand. Smuggler's Shanty and Cannon Cove are pretty cool as well. Overall a great wave that introduced the Redcoats! Pirate Plunder brings a lot of nostalgia for me.

Hmm... This one is always tricky! Due to Nostalgia I have a soft spot for the Imperial Flagship 6271. I own three of them, one inside its box with the plastic inlays and all. I also own three Caribbean Clipper, that's how much I love that ship. But I didn't had the same fondness for it from the start. As a child, I didn't even knew it existed in the first place. It was only years later as an adult, I finally got the chance to build it, and it was by then, I truly fell in love with herl. The Imperial Flagship has a sleek, beautiful and elegant design. Caribbean Clipper on the other hand is more rough and messy. Despite the rigging, the bulkiness and other "flaws" such as the cave-like cabin, it somehow comes together perfectly. It really feels like a more utilitarian sailing vessel, meant to be sturdy and to handle to lows and tides of a heavy storm. Both are fun to assemble and MOC. I always remove the steering mechanic from the Imperial Flagship, but you can barely fit a table there anyway. The only thing that kind of bothered me with the Imperial Flagship was the lack of Anchor, and the fact that due to her slim design, you cannot fit four cannons, only two. The deckspace also gets quite crammed, since you need cannonballs and crew there. Thus, Caribbean Clipper with its more spacious deck, holds the upper hand. You just flip the anchor in and let it rest on the deck. It works! I also prefer the color scheme of the Caribbean Clipper. Yellow, Brown, Blue... But... Holding 6271 in my hand... just makes me smile! She is quite the beauty! That said, both ships are cool in different ways. If I had to pick a ship to display for an extended period of time, I would pick the Imperial Flagship. But if I wanted to MOC and prepare a ship for a battle at sea (fitting it with Rum and extra cannons and crew), I would pick the Clipper. But both ships are fantastic and you can never own too many of them.

I thought of his blog as well! Definitely one of my favorite blogs. I even followed his principle of "skipping a lunch to buy an impulse set with the money". I miss the guy, he was funny! "There is a monkey with a gun!!" Steve! If you read this: Come back! We need you!

Funny how they took arguably the worst Pirates sets of all time and remade it with a more decent structure. But as we all know, you can only polish a turd to a certain extent. Still, you have to admire their fervent dedication, and as such, I will definitely get it to see if they suceeded in their task. Digital images rarely do the set any justice and I prefer to judge it only by merits of having it standing there on my kitchen table.

After several undecided considerations, I decided to skip the Lion Knights Castle set due to space issues. .....And then I found this thread. Just when I thought I was out....... It's OK, TLG. I still have space on my balcony! I do wonder how this set would look with the original baseplate, as well as curious about the amount of pieces being left over. The issue with the baseplate was always the ramp. In this set, they finally adressed it by putting studs at the slopes. Quite neat if you think about it. And the cobblestones looks nice as well! Niels made some clever use of the baseplate in his designs, most notably in 6086 which is a favorite of mine.

Whoa!! The guys back at Classic Castle must be really happy right now. And rightfully so - What a fantastic set!! We also got not only one, but TWO new Vking Ships! And the castle from last year wasn't too shabby either. Off course the price is... Hmppff! But whatever. If you didn't spend all your money on Ninjago and Nexo Knights, you should be able to get it. Just sell your left kidney or whatever. Looking good, looking good!

I gotta have to admit that I didn't even knew that set existed!

Excellent example! I feel this is one of the sets that made perfect use of the larger BURP pieces without violating the integrity of the set as a whole.

How about selling some (not all, remember the children!) and donate some of it to a Stroke / Heart / Lung foundation? It would be nice to have some sort of event to showcase his LEGO to his honor. Something like that. If you're gonna sell everything - Do not sell them in a lot. Sell them Train by train. You will earn more money that way. And be sure to dust off and take good photos if you sell it. Lego collectors are very itchy in regards to quality. I don't mind some bitemark and scratches, but some are very wary of that. Great collection!!

Isn't this part of the "charm" of being an Adult Fan Of LEGO? As a Castle-fan, you wait for years for a new Castle. You wait, and wait, and wait. And then you get... Nexo Knights. That could make anyone suicidal! In the early 2000's there were no Pirates. It was just gone. I learned to live with it and move on. I MOC'd the living daylights out of my Red Beard Runner and used spare pieces to build ships without prefable hulls. If anything, in times like these, you learn to be creative and resourceful with what you have. Mind you, this was before I encountered Bricklink and Ebay, so I couldn't really discover outside of that restricted horizon. The thing is, TLG has always been like this. They release some cool Western sets. Then they don't release anymore Western sets for another twenty years. You learn to live with it in one way or another. For me, it was my step into the Dark Ages where other hobbies dominated my interest in LEGO. When Pirates came back in 2009, it came as a complete surprise, almost shockingly so. It's like a dead relative suddenly standing in your kitchen. With that said; Let's get back to Trains in 2022. I'm actually pretty happy with the TLG Train sets in the last three years. We've got two full-sized train sets, a Commuter Train and a Freight Train, loaded with detail. We've got that Brown Train, and lately we've got the white Creator Train. I'm gonna be honest with you - I'm glad TLG still remember us Train-enthusiasts. They know that we like trains, so they release trains. And I can always go to bricklink, or even the TLG website and buy more train-releated stuff. I don't have to wait another twelve years for a Pirate Ship, darn it! I do would like another Train-crossing or a new Club Cart. It would be nice in many ways. But we can't have them all. Mostly, I would like to give the new generation of LEGO fans a shot at some of the sets we got when were younglings. What can Train Enthusiasts do? Well, we can MOC and make instructions and share them on Eurobricks for others to MOC. You can send more IDEA sets to TLG for review. Or you can, just like me, sit in front of a MISB train in awe. Two years ago I cleaned my 4558 Metroliner. I tested the old tracks and greatly enjoyed watchig it flawlessly travel along the the tracks. There's a lot of things you can do to keep yourself invested. But you gotta have this one: PPS - Patience, Persistence, Stoicism. Distract your abstinence! That's my 50 cents. Thank you for reading.

This ship has definitely grown on me, and it was very much a part of my childhood. But I can totally understand the disappointment, especially if you first got the 6271 (The masterpiece!) and then this one later on. But there's something about this ship, I don't know what it is, that just wins me over. Thinking about it, it must be the the front sail. It's just so versatile. You can use it for a pirate ship, an independent vessel or anything you like and it would still work very well. Just to get a little philosophical - I think this and Red Beard Runner, despite their flaws, have one thing working for them; Their uniqueness. Brickbeard's Bounty and The Brick Bounty are technically better ships than RBR for instance. But they play it safe - They are merely Black Seas Barracuda clones in a way, but not as good as the original. At least these two ships attempts to be unique. The Armada Flagship could easily be mistaken for a small trading vessel, which is why it only has a single rotating cannon. It's not gonna outgun anything, but it will make those kleptomanic pirates work hard for their loot! Btw, the mast is interesting when you think about it. On one end of the box, there is a small image of the ship where the mast is tilted. It looks a bit weird, but maybe it was intended as a way to twist the sail, not as it being broken. Be careful displaying it though. Since it's white, it gets yellowed very quickly during the summer (I'm talking from personal experience...). I had a lot of fun with this ship when I was a kid.

I always display my ships with the sails on. Every three months or so, I would remove the sails and put the ships in a bathtub and then spray the ships on full power. This works perfectly and removes all the dust. After leaving it to dry for a couple of days, the ships shines as if they were new. Before I started doing this, I would always dismantle every ship I owned and polish them piece by piece, but I decided this was a waste of time. Especially drying every piece by hand. Oh man. It was a tedious process. Regarding the sails: I have washed sails, I have ironed sails, I have repaired sails, I have sails with mold stains on them. I had epic wars in my childhood leaving the sails dirty and frayed. It's up to each and everyone how to treat their sails, but for me personally: I don't really mind. I even clone the sails and print it on paper/canvas and display it. My recent project was painting new sails with acrylic paint. Looks great! Actually if the sails looks really nice, almost pristine quality, this just means the sailors haven't experienced a real adventure yet. Just laying in port. Friggen cowards!

Hey, that's a great compliment! And I agree with you about the older branches of sets, It would be exciting to get a new branch of Western back for instance. But these "3-in-1" sets offers a great optimism for the future. If TLG sticks to the concept of releasing a "theme" every year, it would be really neat and something to look forward every summer. Last year we got a Castle set, this year a Viking set (allegedly), so what will be released next year? Really exciting!!! But, you know when I first discovered Bricklink it was like stepping inside a parallel universe. For a long time I didn't even know Caribbean Clipper EXISTED (Now I own 3, lol) and I completely missed out on the first waves of Pirates. My first Redcoat I got was from 6237. I always assumed the blue Imperial Torso (found at my friends home) was a misprint. Had no clue! That was untill I first encountered an image of the ship on Altavista. We had no internet in our home in the 90's. OK, be right back! I'm gonna stare at my MISB-sets for a while! (therapy!)

I'm positive! Even if TLG called it quits with Pirates for all eternity, I would still be happy and thankful. All these brilliant sets we were gifted with throughout the years. And what a way to finish it, with the Barracuda Bay set! One of the most massive and ambitious sets in the history of LEGO. If Pirates became something of the past, I would still collect MISB sets and enjoy the MOC aspect of designing and planting new projects to occupy myself. Lego will never die!

I love it! it's so brilliant in it's simplicity. One of the things I liked about the early Pirates were the consistency in the color schemes. You could buy a couple of Broadsides Brig's or Sabre Islands and combine them to create something that somewhat resembled Eldorado fortress. And, of course, they were more generous with minifigures back then. Imperial Soldiers rule!!