Runamuck

Ok, is this just the pirate bases, or do soldiers and islanders count too? Anyways, let’s see what I can say about the pirate coves I have. Loot Island (6240): A fine island, somewhat interesting raised plate, but not really a base. Volcano Island (6248): Another interesting island, but again not an actual base. One of my oldest pirate sets though. Shipwreck Hideout (6253): Brickbeard’s only real base, not bad actually, but lacks a good port unless you count the rope bridge, and the building is a bit small. Rocky Reef (6254): Just a sandy little island. Shipwreck Island (6260): A fine place for a couple of shipwrecked pirates, but not really a base. Skull Island (6279): The best pirate base I have, pretty nice in general. The skull gate is of cause something that can be a make or break thing depending on if you prefer your pirates jolly and a bit cartoony or grim and realistic. I like the cartoony route, so I don’t mind the skull. You sadly can’t fully hide the rowboat inside the building and the palm tree makes a bit awkward to have something like the Skulls Eye Schooner at the port. Most bases have this problem and this is not the worst one, but the building looks very tiny compare to the bigger ships. Shipwreck Island (6296): An actual shipwreck unlike the other set with the same name. I like the shipwreck, but it does not work very well as a main base. Waters are probably dangerous and there is no port. Another set I have had for a really long time. The Brickmaster Book: I like the idea, like one of the old idea books, but with bricks included. It has some neat ideas, and I actually like the simple but effective pirate base from page 16. I do not own all pirate bases, but most of the look rather interesting. But for the purpose of the all around best pirate cove I guess that I would pick the Rock Isle Refuge (6273). It is one of the biggest; it has a very accessible port and the raised base plate probably keeps it from looking too “wimpy” compared to the bigger ships. Floating bases would be a completely different matter though.

I think I might have seen these Super Blox in local book stores. They actually have dioramas with their military sets in the stores. They actually look a bit impressive in terms of set size for a clone brand. On the other hand I think that they have some really ugly figures like most clone brands actually. I can't take them seriously (even more than your average clone brand) after I saw a set that looked like a weaponized version of Donald Duck's car. Edit: Minor misunderstanding here, the clone bricks I'm talking about are made by a company called Cobi, my opinions about them are still the same though. They also have a website in Danish apparently http://www.cobi-klodser.dk/shop/frontpage.html

Personally I don't see how the plastic quality is all that worse. I mean, it is not like you can crush them with your bare hands, limbs fall off or won't move. I can see that the plastic is a bit different, the legs tend to be a bit more "transparent" than most, and the texture seems somewhat different, they appear a bit less shiny. There might be a notable difference in 20 years, but for the moment they seem fine to me.

I have finally gotten all 16 different figures. I succeeded in getting 14 different before I broke down and “cheated” with a dot identifier. I’m not all that fond of extras, I got enough tennis players for a double, but they are fine LEGO figures, and they will probably come in handy at some point. This new dot system, although it has fewer marks, is a lot harder for me to spot than the old barcodes. If series 4 is the same I’ll probably “cheat” earlier to avoid doubles. Kind of funny how this series doesn’t have any celebrity lookalikes like series 1’s Errol Flynn and series 2’s Pamela Anderson. It’s always nice to see new pieces though.

I do like the islanders, although I don’t use them a whole lot. They do ad a bit of diversity to the pirates theme, and islanders or “cannibals” are not exactly an uncommon thing in pirate fiction. The sets are a bit rickety, at least I think that is the term I am looking for, in terms of style, but that is to be expected from what they are trying to portray. One thing they really could need is a larger diversity among the figures; we only have 3 or 4 different figures if we don’t count the quivers as a distinguishing feature.

Old Binnacle, is the they guy with the missing leg and crutch that tells the story about the Blackheart/Blackdeed cousins? If the neutral fisherman has an eye-patch and a large grey moustache then I know who he is. I might have found another pirate if TV-Tropes.org is to be trusted. LEGO Rockband appears to have a pirate called Gingerbeard. Anyways, I know this is not the finest way, but this post is mostly for bumping and prevention of double posts.

So Brickbeard is also called Blackbead, that makes no sense since the figures beard is brown. So, what do we have so far? Original pirates: Figures: Captain Roger Red Beard (not that he needs an introduction, but 6251 among many others) First mate Rummy (6237 among many others) Flashfork (possibly one of the guys in 6257) Will (6255 and 6267) Bo´sun Will (6235 among others) Anne (6251 among others) Ironhook (6260 among others, many variants) Blackjack Hawkins (6289 Edit: Just found out that he has grey legs) No figure: Captain Foul Culverin Bessie The Blackdeed cousins, John and Brian Captain Johan Soldiers: Figures: Governor Broadside (6274 and 6276) Lt. De Martinet (6245) Spinoza (6235?) No figure: Aunti Guards: Admiral Woodhouse (6263 among others) Islanders: King Kahuka (6236 among others) Uhu (6246 among others) Armada: The Admiral 4+ pirates: Red: Jolly Jack Crow (7070, 7075) Harry Hardtack (7071, 7075, 7081) Captain Red Beard (7073, 7075) Cannonball Jimmy (7074, 7082) Blue: Drake Dagger (7071, 7073, 7074) Captain Kragg (7072, 7074) Scurvy Dog (7075, 7080, 7290) New pirates: Captain Brick beard/ Klodsskæg(Denmark, his name translated from English)/Czarnobrody(Poland, Blackbeard) (6243 among others) New guards: Admiral(?) Broadside (10210 among others) Possibly Camilla (6243) I hope that I haven’t forgotten anybody. Edit: A few more odds and ends I have found: Uhu is only called by name in the Danish version of LEGO Racers, in most other languages he is simply called Islander. Another funny thing from LEGO Racers is that the pirate captain is called Roger in the Danish version while he is called Red Beard, or local equivalent, in some of the other languages. Brickipedia: According to Brickipedia the parrot that Roger has is called Popsy. There is a character in LEGO Universe called Captain Jack Knife who resembles Ironhook.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping for. Thank you very much. This is very interesting. So all the soldier/guard commanders are called Broadside, that is a bit inconvenient. Although I like the idea of one Governor Broadside, one Admiral Woodhouse and a different Admiral Broadside (must be the guy from the flagship). Anyone else who thinks that De Martinet looks like Dick Dastardly in the comic? The Flashfork thing makes sense. Are there any pictures of the new Camilla? I think I have seen a picture of her head once where she had brown hair. Otherwise she has gone from a blonde kid to a black haired teen I guess. Admittedly a bit of a change but not an impossible one, my father has had his hair change like that too. So the old wench is named Anne, very interesting. I wonder if we could call the new wench Mary (like Anne Bonny and Mary Read). Bo´sun Will, seems like we have more than one pirate name Will. The Will in the comic looks like he is too young to grow any kind of fuzz on his face. Is The Admiral the green or the silver Spaniard? I’m very curious about the pirates from the Red Beard Runner, because I actually have that ship. Also while not all that important it would be nice to know the names of the pirate pets. I did actually know that the 4+ pirates had names, but I didn’t include them mostly because of lack of interest and because I only have one that I got by accident (7290). Brickset.com does appear to list their names, so maybe we could make a list later. I wonder if someone could be bothered to make customs or stickers of them in traditional minifigure size. I actually also knew that the LEGO Island games had at least a few pirates. The first one has one who is only heard and never seen and some undead Spaniards in the race. The second one has a few skeleton pirates in the castle level if I remember correctly. I know that the unseen pirate has some kind of name, but I can’t remember what it is. I wonder if anyone could be helpful and put some pictures to some of the names, personally I’m not good at that so I just used the set numbers as a sort of picture source.

Thanks for the replies so far. I have heard the idea about a renegade pirate faction before, and it makes sense with the set names, we also have the Renegades Raft. I knew that the Steve thing had to have some sort of origin, I mostly knew it from the "A Guide To The Pirates Minifigures". I was mostly wondering if some of the names came from sources that I know very little of, stories printed on the boxes, picture books, comics, old catalogs, official websites etc. For that matter I would also like to know if there are more named pirates than those I have mentioned.

One thing I have been wondering about for a while is how many named figures there are in the pirates theme, and where some of the names used on the forum come from. I do know where some figures are named though. The pirate comic 6255 is the most obvious source for names: Rummy and Will are obviously the two figure included with the comic, even though Rummy has white hair in the comic. Among other pirates in the comic are Roger (who has a figure, even if it has a much fuller beard than his comic counterpart), Flashfork (no direct figure), Foul (no figure), Culverin (no figure), Bessie (no direct figure), and the Blackdeed cousins (no figures). Some of these could be built, Flasfork is basically grey legs, red and black striped shirt (in the comic it’s red and blue) and maybe the head from the Adventures Gabarros figure with a blue bandana, Bessie could be the basic wench with the head from the queen in the 6098 castle. Among the soldiers we have Broadside (he has a figure), Camilla (no figure), Aunti (no figure) and De Martinet (no direct figure). De Martinet would be easy to build, take the figure from the 6245 Harbour Centry and give him a 90’s town fire chief head (like the one from 6407). There is also Spinoza the monkey, you average LEGO monkey would be a fine representation, maybe a rubber band for the collar. Some characters are mentioned in the set names: 6236 King Kahuka 6243 Brickbeard’s Bounty 6259 Broadside’s Brig (although he is not included in the set) 6262 King Kahuka’s Throne 6289/6290 Red Beard Runner There have also been some video games where pirates have been named: There are quite a few in LEGO Racers (I’m going with the Danish version here): Captain Roger King Kahuka (or Kanuka, his name changes if you create a figure with his name) Governor Broadside (the RED?! commander like the one in 6263) Uhu (islander like the one in 6246) Black Jack Hawkins (like the figure from 1802 or 6248, I can’t remember if he has a peg leg) There is also a Spaniard in Rocket Racers level simply called The Admiral (If I remember correctly he has the body of a normal Spaniard, but the head of the one with the silver armour). There are also a few other odds and ends. The red guard commander is often called Admiral Woodhouse or something like that on the board, but I do not know where the name comes from. Then there is Steve, the rare pirate with the brown west and white shirt, but I guess that is more of an in joke. There is also Iron Hook, again I don’t know where the name comes from and the figure is not all that consistent. I guess the original pirate captain must be named Roger Red Beard since they could never be consistent about the name. There are also several figures that look like they may be someone rather than another generic. There is the female islander (example 6256), the unique islander from 6264, the lady from 6243, the new blue coated commander (10210 and 6242), the lady from 10210 (is it supposed to be the captains daughter or wife? The hair suggests that she is relatively young, but she has wrinkles around her eyes like the recent castle queens), the green shirted and the silver armoured Spaniards (6280) and the old and new wenches (examples 6251 and 6253). I’m sorry if this has been done before or if the is some sort of very easy way to find a list, but I’m quite curious about this.

It's funny how my brother and I talked about this yesterday. It's a thing that is limited to English. In Danish you would almost never refer to LEGO in that fashion, mostly because it sounds really stupid. You always refer to it as LEGO bricks or LEGO blocks.

I have had cats and LEGO for almost all of my life. There have been both some funny and some less funny experiences when the two meet each other. I have seen cats attack random bricks scattered across the floor. I have seen how my cats try to crawl into a LEGO box. It has happened that my cat has taken a nap on a pile of LEGO I had gathered in a box. Unfortunately I have also experienced that my cat has chewed on some LEGO pieces, more specifically it chewed on some mast parts and string. Even worse, my cats have used a box full of LEGO pieces as a litter box .

I must say the some of my favorite commercials currently are the Viasat lawn gnomes. Basically two lawn gnomes complaining about their owners lack of TV-channels. They have gotten quite a cult following. Among the worst at the moment are probably TDC's awful nudist couple. I know it's just rubber suits that they are wearing, but they are still nauseating.

Ok, I know very well how troublesome it can be when you don't have the parts you need. Some black arms might have helped though. I even had my brother kill Schmutz yesterday to refresh the memories a bit.

My brother has played through all 4 Hitman games, so I'm familiar with the scenario. I must say that this is a very nice elevator setup. The lights in the elevator looks really good. How did you make the fiber-wire and is the figure just dangling from it? The figure doesn't look too much like Schmutz though and 47 is missing his gloves, but that is just nitpicking.

My LEGO collection started in a rather unusual way, so the is no direct first major building. My mother used to babysit some kids in her younger days an bought a whole bunch of LEGO sets on sale to keep the occupied, later my brother and I "inherited" these sets. There were in fact a few buildings among the sets, the biggest one being the Police Headquarters 588. Other buildings included the Snack Bar 675, Auto Repair Shop 6363, Town House 6372 and Shell Service Station 6371.

7848 and 8404. Now I'll just have to figure out a layout for the train thingy. Believe it or not I have never had a real train in my town setup before this one (OK, not quite true, I do have a space monorail thing that I used occasionally, but this is something different).

I'm not an expert on eastern culture, but wouldn't the samurai actually be the eastern knights? On the topic of the thread. The Time Cruisers are probably the weirder of the two, but only because of the aesthetics. The designs are a bit strange, especially the ship. From the concept though, there is nothing particularly weird about Time Cruisers.

This looks like another nice mobile police station. I must admit I'm not interested in buying one, since I already have an older model, but I can still admire the design. What is that Black part in front of the spoiler of the red car? It is not a piece that I'm familiar with. My brother commented on that the gold bar looks a bit like a frozen block of mustard, but it probably looks better in reality. The jail cell is an interesting idea even if it is a bit odd. The coffee machine is an interesting little detail. Looks like things went a little pear shaped for the fruit thief in the comic (Sorry about the bad pun, but it was hard to resist). In general this looks like a fine police truck.

There is one thing that confuses me: 27 Plasticine 26 Play-Doh Aren't those two things exactly the same except that Play-Doh is a brand name? Nice to see that Transformer beat action-man. One thing that I notice is that the timeline of this list is all over the place. Atari being one of the most obvious offenders.

I must say that the compatibility of LEGO is astounding. There are not many toys where 10,20,30,40 or maybe even 50 year old pieces are still compatible with what is being sold today.

I thank you all for the warm welcome. I'm though in no hurry to make some posts, I'll take my time and see you in the forums when I feel like I have something good to say.

Greetings, I'm Runamuck. I'm from Denmark, the homeland of LEGO. My favorite themes are Town, Pirates and Castle, but there are many other themes that interest me. I have been a lurker for some time and it seems like a nice forum, so here is hoping for some good times in the future among fellow LEGO fans.