Svelte

I agree, after a disappointing 2008 lineup (for me), Lego City enters the Golden Age in 2009! The Camper looks good, almost like a supersized Joker's Ice Cream truck with that lime/white colour scheme. The City Corner set is obviously not in the same league as the large S@H exclusive sets, but any set with such large scale civilian buildings and vehicles gets a definite thumbs-up, and it has a modern feel to it while retaining the shape, proportions and style of Classic Town. I hope it is not an exclusive though - if there is anything that the S@H Jan sale shows, it is that retail exclusives don't seem to sell that well, no matter how nice the design (I'm lookin' at you, Volcano Base). I even like the garage - I think it is superior to both 2007's small one and the 2008 Town Plan one. Nice mix of good looking vehicles and I like the size of it. I can see why some people don't think it's that great but for play value it looks great. 2009 - Year of the Civilian!

I love the colours of this set and the return of the Buzz droids It's very modern looking and colourful and on that basis alone a vast improvement on the Anakin starfighter released last year. Are the two dark red long slope pieces that form the nose printed, and the rest of the pieces stickered?

Too late - I ordered yesterday when the new stuff came. But I've contacted them and I'll PM you if they allow combined orders (as above).

How do you do that? I've never seen the option. Or do you have to contact Customer Service and ask?

Well, Lego's Shop at Home sales have started for non US countries, now with 30-50% off a lot of sets. They are clearing Mars Mission, the Factory sets, 2007 Spongebob and even recent stuff like the Droid Gunship, Agents Volcano Base and Spongebob Emergency Room.

Well, Lego's Shop at Home sales have started now with 30-50% off a lot of sets. They are clearing a lot of stuff out. It's annoying that they update these sales AFTER people have ordered since the new sets have become available - lucky us, paying shipping twice. Whee!

True - I was looking forward to Farm, but there's enough else around to distract me!

' You were right about the Solar Sailer exclusive being USD 49.99

Lots of new sets now available at S@H, including SW, City Construction, Power Miners, Indy and Medieval Market Village! Best Xmas Day ever! 10193 Medieval Market Village - AUD 149.99 7630 - Front End Loader - AUD 19.99 7631 - Dump Truck - AUD29.99 7632 - Crawler Crane - AUD 99.99 7633 - Construction Site - AUD 149.99 7685 - Bulldozer - AUD 59.99 8398 - BBQ Stand - AUD 4.99 6239 Cannon Battle AUD 9.99 6240 Kraken Attackin AUD 14.99 6241 Loot Island AUD 29.99 6243 Brickbeard's Bounty - AUD 139.99 8396 Soldier's Arsenal AUD 4.99 8397 Pirate Survival AUD 4.99 7682 IJ Shanghai Chase - AUD 49.99 7683 IJ Flying Wing - AUD 79.99 8018 - AAT - AUD 79.99 8014 - Clone Battle Pack - AUD 19.99 8015 - Assassin Droid Battle Pack -AUD 19.99 8016 - Hyena Droid - AUD 39.99 8017 - Darth Vader's Starfighter - AUD 49.99 7751 - Ahsoka's Starfighter - AUD 79.99 7752 - Count Dooku's Solar Sailer - AUD 99.99 (oddly this is backordered 14 days) And presumably many others... still checking

It seems to be the 'scan it and see' sale season!

Well, the Boxing Day catalogues are out according to lasso and the only possible item of interest is that K-Mart has hundreds of toys reduced to clear, but no idea what Interestingly, some stores are still restocking as I was back at K-Mart today and since yesterday a flood of Gunships ($135), General Grievous' ($115) and discounted Mars Mission sets had arrived.

That was certainly the story in Sydney last year - there were no discounts anywhere apart from a few Exo-Force sets at Big W and the rest of the stores were pretty bare. I had a look around today and K-Mart and Target were pretty much empty. K-Mart had the 7644 MX81 Hypersonic whatsit down to $85 - an unadvertised sale? - and a few other large Technic sets at the same price point but there wasn't much else left. DJs and Myer were OK, but Myer's inconsistent signage probably means a lot of people don't realise sales are still ongoing! DJs had heaps of VWs and Cafe Corners but I don't really expect increased discounts after Xmas - they didn't do it last year. And the new stuff usually arrives at the end of the first week of Jan so it's just a waiting game till then anyway!

Seems like some of the alt-builds are better than the original sets. Can't wait for people to start doing reviews of those too once the instructions are up and people have enough sets

Well Sandy, there is a *large* pink bucket planned for later in the year if that's any consolation. Seriously, the set list that was leaked a while ago (and quickly removed) had a few mysterious things like a set called 'City Life' which people are speculating are more civilian in nature. The Jan City minifig collection is possibly a precursor of this type of set. I agree though, in two years we have come leaps and bounds in terms of having female fig representation. Lego is listening. Belville has great parts you can't really find in the usual sets, so it would be a shame to see it go. Maybe it's just resting a year?

Orange Exo-Force sets... orange Mars Mission... orange Coast Guard.. orange Agents... orange Power Miners... somebody at TLC is on commission from whoever produces the orange colourant I'm a bit sick of it too. This set was originally mentioned in legomilk's leaked list. Looks OK, but I'm well stocked in helicopters and trucks so probably not for me. Unless it was say actually a helicopter recycling truck, and it was carting all the excess Police helis produced over the years to the tip

How did you guess ? Actually, living in Sydney I'm more likely to build a house out of Lego than afford to buy at the moment. I live in a 2 bedroom apartment so space is at a premium too - one day I'll have to move way out just to store all the Lego I have probably spent more in the last year on Lego than in any of the previous years combined since I came out of my dark ages. Seriously, we are in the middle of a golden age and I'm stocking up while I can! When I first started getting back into Lego in 03 & 04 there was barely anything that interested me. I was never a huge Star Wars head, the only way you could get Castle stuff was via Harry Potter sets, and City was still Jack Stone type sets. I was always more interested in buildings and houses, but you were hard pressed to even get a few door and window parts in anything on store shelves. It was only the Azkaban range of HP that started building up my collection and the launch of the first new red/ white Creator house at the end of 04 really marked the start of the revolution in terms of Lego's new approach to set size and parts. In 2006 City started improving and in 2007 with Cafe Corner and the launch of new S@H exclusives really targeted to AFOLs that Lego has soared. Really, if you need proof, check out the Lego Collector's Guide if you haven't already got a copy. It's interesting to see just how bad things did get and how lucky we now are natelite, I agree about DJs and Myer but the Target and K-Mart are always really well stocked compared to any other one I've seen in Sydney - lots of Targets around here just seem to have a shelf or two of stuff and it's never the good oil (or plastic as the case may be).

According to CopMike, no new Belville in 2009. See here.

Actually, it was Big W at Pagewood that I saw the MTT at. It was only yesterday! My minds a blur with all these sales but i made the trek yesterday to finalise a layby from the July sales and saw it when I checked the Lego aisle then no discount on it though. there was only a couple though. I Scream Clone, I live in the East so I mainly know that area and the City. However I've learned over the years to triangulate my Lego hunting between 3 zones Bondi Junction - has DJs, Myer, K-Mart and Target, but they don't usually have the full range of the bigger stores The City is good if there's a sale as it has the flagship DJs and Myer, and there's also Hobbyco in the QVB which sometimes has clearanced stuff cheapity cheap Chatswood is very good too as it has TRU, DJs, Myer, and a well-stocked K-Mart and Target - in fact it is probably the best place to start. If you're driving Westfield Eastgardens has a Big W as well as the other chains and there is another TRU at Moore Park - they're kind of a pain to get to via public transport though.

I saw one this week in Bondi Junction so they are still around. I will keep an eye out for Good Wizards. I know ye need to trade 'em for Pirate impulse sets

Mr Freeze is gone, probably forever Krika is cool though. I rarely buy Bionicle but the bloody bone parts are too good to pass up.

I agree with Algernon. This is a really bizarre little set, worse even than the most ill-conceived Exo-Force sets. A lurid and stumpy abomination! The only good thing about it is the fig, and even that is so-so. The review is very good though

Indiana Jones for best new theme and best theme overall. We got all-new figs from movies new and old and well-designed sets reminiscent of the heyday of the Adventurers line, but improving upon it in terms of highly detailed vehicles (7622 Race for the Stolen Treasure and the plane in Peril in Peru 7628). The sets were also playable rather than just designed to look good, such as the clever succession of traps in 7623 Temple Escape - probably one of the most successful licensed sets ever produced in terms of matching up the movie experience with the real-world play one. Sure, the line wasn't perfect, but even the sets I didn't think were A grade still had lots to offer in terms of parts - for example 7627 Temple of the Crystal Skull, with its hoard of dark tan bricks, slopes and tiles. Other notable parts were the prevalence of dark green, especially plant parts, the new container box, the ants, the metallic gold chest, and the crystal skulls. Not to mention the trademark fedora and whip! All in all, definitely the most satisfying and MOC-able of this year's lines. That said... The Clone Wars sets were uniformly excellent, with even the Twilight being well-designed if unfortunately way, way oversized compared to the rest of the line. The new Clones are good but I never really liked the 'toon style of the new faces for animated series characters. The Death Star was also an incredible experience and worth every expensive penny, but as a downside didn't really offer anything new in terms of figs. Overall I think Star Wars was good but let down by a lack-lustre January launch, with the crappy Dropship, the 'why do we have a set for a videogame that won't be released for 9 months?' Rogue Shadow and the similarly unmoving AT-AP. Agents was good too, but in the end it was largely another vehicle vs vehicle theme and the colour scheme did wear thin in the end. The figs were excellent though - indeed, I think 08 in general was probably one of the best years ever for minifigs - it was hard to keep track of all the new hairpieces, heads, torsos, and accessories. If I had the option I would probably have picked 'Shop at Home Exclusives' though as that gave us the best of everything - the incredible Green Grocer, the Taj, the Death Star, Castle Advent Calendar - really all my favourite sets this year were ones squarely aimed at AFOLs, ie me, which is as it should be!

The launch of Pirates could be *exactly* why they're holding back on Castle a little. TLC may not wish to oversaturate the 'historical' market, especially with a theme that hasn't been seen for a long time and bombed spectacularly when it was last introduced in 2004 (regardless of the merits of the sets).

Wow, they really went back to the 1999 Star Wars feel for that AAT speeder! The rest of the set looks really sleek and well-designed though. I think the Solar Sailer is bigger than people probably suspect. The box art for the (also) limited edition Twilight was kind of odd and a bit empty too so this is probably right.

My sincere apologies. Alert the authorities! I will call off the witch-hunt To quickly change the subject and distract from my error, we are all waiting for your review of 7075 in the Captain Redbeard's poll thread. Also, I'm surprised you're not in seclusion and mourning for Belville 09....