Svelte

The instructions are now available at S@H, you should be able to get the inventory page from there.

Which I for one think is great - it shows how quickly it must have sold in the first weeks of release! Definitely a success then

It looks nice, very crisp and clean with the big blue ocean. I like the commercials. I always wonder with the 'fast-build photography' whether they actually use kids to assemble the sets or just actors with tiny, tiny hands

I got my Christmas order from S@H today. The postman arrived at 7:30am which is efficiency for you My order included all of the currently available City Construction & Star Wars sets, Power Miners Thunder Driller, 2 x Medieval Market and some sale sets. That should keep me busy for a while

I finally saw the DW Confidential episode and I'm still not convinced by the casting of Matt Smith. I don't care what people are saying about his young face/ old eyes, he still looks too fresh-faced to me! As long as Moffatt resists the urge to have everyone he meets fall in love with him (as per most other things he's written ) he may be all right. I do have faith in the production team.

I don't know if it is deliberate, but one Aus catalogue every year usually has one set that appears as new or where images haven't been previously released. This time we had Power Miners/ Dooku's Solar Sailer, previous years have seen the infamous ExoForce 'Bad Guy Vehicle' and the first small pic of Dwarves Mine was also in an Australian catalogue. However with catalogues I assume that all artwork is supplied by Lego to the local arm of the company here, who organise production of the Club mag and the catalogues. You can often tell in the pages where the local designers have photoshopped over old sets that aren't being released in Australia any more. Eg, in the Cargo spread of pages all the mail vans from 08 have been replaced with mail planes in 09! Bizarrely in the most recent catalogue in the Farm section, the graphic designer has photoshopped over the individual yellow antenna which Lego has used to represent crops in the new theme, and replaced them with generic blurry wheat field photos! I'll have to find a pic of that one as it's really odd

Let's be honest. Regardless of whether this kid is obnoxious or not, we are talking about *Battle Packs* here aren't we? You know, from that range of sets that were specifically developed and released by Lego to answer the call of all the fans who wanted army building sets? The same fans that even today complain when there's not enough troopers in the new Clone Wars sets and always want more? And, you know, these are Clones we're talking about - probably the one figure where it is legitimate to desire and possess hundreds of an exactly identical figure, which still wouldn't measure up to the vast armies shown on screen at the end of AOTC and during ROTS. Not to mention all the spin-offs! Frankly if the Lego designers weren't aiming for people to buy these up by the truckload, they wouldn't be doing their job

Looks like a European release too since there's no piece count on the box. It is a sweet little set and I like the stickers. The cheese grill detail is clever. Hopefully these Farm sets will be available soon! Thanks, metalandi.

Picture quality was excellent - really crisp with great colours. I am loving these reviews, Mr Mandalorian - I really like the 09 Bionicle lineup.

The thing about the Vestas windmill is 4999 is that it is very, very big - about a metre tall from the bottom of the shaft and including the wingspan - and since it is basically hollow when it is in action it is really anchored in place by the weight of the battery box and held in place by technic pins and stabilised by the BURP covering. Imagine this moving along on a truck : If the set is to be a transport I don't see how the windmill itself could possibly be the same size as the 4999 version. If the windmill is to be transported complete, even without the weight of a battery box holding it in place it would wobble whenever the transport moved. If it is transported in sections I don't see how it could then be assembled and be stable at the end point. And the transport itself would have to be massive! I suspect that the windmill itself will be a scaled down version with power functions, or maybe the full-size 4999 version without, but I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised! The power functions alone would add $$$ to the set but I agree it would lose a lot of its charm to miss out on the little house and hill.

Except for 7635 4WD with Horse Trailer - that's up http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildin...ons/4546683.pdf

It's interesting that on the usual Building Instructions page, the sets appear under 'Inner Earth' rather than 'Power Miners'. Obviously 'Inner Earth' was too close to 'Inner Child' or something when they were doing their market testing and they didn't go with the hippyish theme name I suspected those rock creatures were on something from their severe case of the munchies.

Thanks for clearing that up. I knew a few of the companies had changed but wasn't sure who owned what!

the 'last set' discount is erratic. i've only seen it at moore park, not at chatswood. it literally is just $10 or $20 off the RRP of the last set they have in stock of that item at that store. maybe with items already on sale they don't do it. $120 is still not a bad price for the Cruiser, it's an impressive set for an exclusive.

yes, as there were only two sets, the boxes were all smooshed, they were with the other clearance merchandise on the special trolley up the back near the layby section, and the stickers on them said 'CLEARANCE' to be honest the prices weren't that good though, $60 for the Shadow and $160 for the AT-AT (but the boxes were ruined). to be fair i haven't seenK-Mart do that very often. obviously a lot of what happens store to store is discretionary on whoever's managing that dept. i wouldn't expect all low-level retail minions to have detailed knowledge of the Lego Group's return policy I find TRU also marks down damaged stock. I picked up a Republic Cruiser for $100 last year because the box had a hole in the back. TRU also has a weird discount which i've never seen any other store do, which is a sale price for the last box of that item in stock. It's weird as obviously the line is selling well, so much so that they need to clearance the last one they have! i guess it does free up shelf space though.

If the wings of the Flying Wing were brick built and up to the level of detail of the Peru set, then it would be the clear winner. As it is Peril in Peru takes the prize. Yes, the figs are boring but really the only new part of the Flying Wing is the mechanic and even so people are getting heads printed with grey moustache rather than the advertised brown. Peril in Peru's little jeep and the loading stairs are also probably more interesting than the fuel truck. That said, there is something very appealing about the shape and design of the Flying Wing - it's just a little too simplistic as a build to win over the more complex Peril in Peru craft.

I didn't realise Big W was part of Coles Myer. however Myer do give discounts for damaged boxes - I got a King's Castle Siege for $95 (down from the then sale price of $120) just before Xmas last year because the box had a minor tear! Damaged stock is clearanced at K-Mart too - I saw a crushed Rogue Shadow and AT-AT in their clearance section a while back - the discounts weren't great though. Aah, so sad - no new sales and no 09 sets yet, so we're reduced to reminiscing about the sales that once were *sniff*

Another sweep of fantastic and well-deserved winners! Congrats everyone!

That was my other guess But it had a shelf sticker with the correct set number so someone may have realised the mistake.

Congrats to all the winners! So much inspiration! So many bricks! Good work, everyone

That was just a guess as it seems weird it suddenly appeared at about the time when stores were doing returns. Stores here will often take returns without a receipt but won't give you money back, only the exchange value to use in store. As with many things in life it depends on how much of a smooth talker you are I am amazed that Big W would even let you take back opened, used and built sets without checking the contents upon return! I did this a few times a few years ago when I was coming out of my dark ages. I don't know if they still do this though.

I love how you echo the box art in your first pic, right down to the gears, even if you're mirror reversed in the shot It's really interesting to see such an in-depth review of this kind of set, from the era before everything changed and Lego became the giant commercial beast that it did. The principles of 'play well' are alive here. It's so nice to see creativity and ingenuity at work. A lot of AFOLs are more interested in pure aesthetics (the model building aspect) rather than the activity or play angle of their creations and it's rare to see such a thorough explanation of set. It really reminds me that you don't need much Lego to get a lot of use out of it! Which is refreshing as well, since these days even Lego pushes the idea that more parts means necessarily better sets and it's very easy to get sucked into that mentality. Actually, that first occurred to me from your Transport Ferry review, because although that set has a huge piece count, I found the pieces themselves are kind of blah. I've recently been buying up a few older sets from the 2004 and 2005 Harry Potter line and the perceptible shift in terms of part selection and colour distribution (not to mention printing) is massive even in a few short years. Sure I know those lines didn't do well but I have come to appreciate how well put together the sets themselves were (whereas at the time I remember thinking they were overpriced and I wouldn't pay full-price for them!). Incidentally, I am doing a New Year purge and came across a small box of vintage Technic parts, I think dating back to the early 80s (not as early as this). It was from Vinnies and included a mix of stuff, some classic bricks and those shop dummy style pre-minifigs - I am keeping all the System stuff but you are welcome to the Technic parts if you want them, you may appreciate the bits and bobs more than I do! Actually looking at peeron some of it may even be older than the 80s as it includes a few of these parts in blue which peeron lists as only appearing up to 76 (they're older than me! NOOO!): They are 'new' Technic not 'old' Technic like the set reviewed here. If you are interested let me know and you can have them otherwise I would probably have tossed them anyway. It's not a huge selection and probably not that exciting but it's free Lego, right?

Not technically a sale, but I did notice Target at Bondi Junction had a restock of Indy sets today: 7621 - Lost Tomb 7622 - Race for the Stolen Teasure 7623 - Temple Escape 7625 - River Chase (which I haven't seen for months on a store shelf). If they're not being restocked, it may be one of the last changes to grab them. Also at the same Target, I was surprised to see a very battered but sealed 7237 Police Station (at full price): I last saw this at the same Target in July 2006 when they had it on sale for $70 so methinks someone took advantage of the post Christmas returns madness to palm it off

If any owners of the new sets would like to share the 7 digit numbers (starting with 4) on the back of their instruction booklets, it would be much appreciated

They have uploaded the PDF instructions to the cache, but not yet linked them to their set number database. That's why I was wondering if anyone had direct links - looks like legomilk did find the first one. For example, the Pirates and Indy instructions are also up via direct links but not via the instruction database itself, if that makes sense.