TeufelHund

That was my thinking - I'm going to have to seriously reorganise my mancave as I have both Barad Dur and Rivendell to squeeze in after I finish building them!

I've got nothing against the occasional "Anne Bonny" pirate, but historically the vast majority of pirates (and seafarers in general) were male. Saying that, there's plenty of scope for "pirate adjacent" female figures and I thought the "Governor's daughter" figure in 70412 was a fun Elizabeth Swan style addition. Of course it's Lego so kids can do whatever they want but I like a semblance of historical realism when arranging my Lego Pirates (and Castle) set ups personally.

That's what I did - found one called ScanFig that seems to work fine.

Wasn't the last CMF pirate we got also female? Hopefully when the next one happens in a few years we get a male pirate again as the one standard CMF male pirate we got is absolutely fantastic (with unique "bald bandana" and printed map pieces plus cool arm tattoo print).

I'd love them to do the landing platform and/or shield dish rather than the bunker or village as I have the old versions, but that would be pretty massive! Looking at the rumoured releases for the beginning of next year it's looking like I might save some money next year at this stage,

I couldn't remember seeing him but just checked and you can indeed see his back and headtails in some shots. No logical explanation as to how he escaped the explosion though.

Not really interested in the barge - it takes up a massive footprint and at the end of the day it's just a long, brown boat. Also it's missing some important minifigs while including someone like Bib Fortuna who wasn't even on the sail barge and that possessed Salacious Crumb looks like nightmare fuel. I also have the last playset iteration which was a really good build with great minifigs so not much incentive to splash out hundreds on a giant version.

It's because Disney isn't creating any compelling new content anymore. If every Disney+ show was like seasons 1&2 of the Mandalorian kids would be screaming for new sets. Cool characters, spaceships and classic good vs evil action will suck kids in. Instead we get the Acolyte which has almost no compelling characters, iconic locations or interesting spaceships, plus a storyline which is too grey for kids to follow and too cringey for adults. I suspect Lego took one look at the concept drawings and wisely decided there was no money to be made there.

What set could they do though? The show featured almost no memorable locations, spaceships or characters. Maybe a few people might be interested in Smilo Ren's helmet but other than that you're just left with a bunch of Jedi in the same outfit, a bunch of witches in the same outfit and the twins. Hasbro are doing the bare minimum with its action figure range for the Acolyte and those will likely be lining bargain bins for years. Lego would be wise to stay well away.

Might get 73385. New Thrawn looks good even though I already have 75170 (might sell it now though with this coming out) and while I'm disappointed they didn't add Enoch the Stormtrooper with gold highlights is pretty cool. 75396 doesn't add anything new really if you have any of the previous versions apart from a lot more bricks around the Sarlacc pit which doesn't do anything for me although the Han squinting minfig face is kind of fun.

I think I'll stick with my 2014 version of the ISD - the only things I like about the new one is the Anniversary figure and the Star Destroyer hologram. The 2014 had a similar nice hologram, an Emperor hologram figure and superior figures like the best Stormtroopers Lego has ever made and an officer with magnificent 70s mutton chops.

I recently had my 6 & 7 year old niece and nephew over and they wanted to play with my castle (my kids are pretty much in their dark ages now). Let's just say it took me a fair while afterwards to find all the bits on the floor, fix the drawbridge mechanism and swap back all the minifig components that got swapped around.

Yeah - looks more like a wait for sale set than a Day 1 buy to me. Given the D&D set is out a month later I might get that instead in the first instance.

Have to say on first glance I prefer the original (Medieval Market Place) – this looks a bit barren with only a goat and chook compared to the original which had a feasting table and stools, two cows and some brick-built animals and a bigger tree. The tower looks like a tribute to the old guarded inn perhaps which would be a fun call back. Will wait for better pics/reviews before passing final judgement.

Got and built the Tie Interceptor set for Father's Day. The Interceptor looks great but is absolutely massive compared to the Tie Bomber released earlier this year. I don't have the most recent Tie Fighter but it looks like a similar scale to older Tie Fighters than the newest one. Surprisingly for what I initially thought of us a forced extra expense to get the Interceptor, the included Mandalorian Fang Fighter is actually a nice build and the Mandalorian Fleet Commander fig is the MVP figure in the set.