Svelte

Yay! It's good to see your kids get to build some stuff too, Sinner . All through the review I was thinking 'This was a present - but who actually put it together?' so I'm glad the last pic cleared things up As for the set - it looks much bigger than I expected - I think it does make a good sized dollhouse. There are a stack of nice pieces in there - cupboards, oven, trans-blue 2x5 bricks, all the accessories, plants, flowers, food, the light-up brick, the pink roof slopes - but not enough to justify the $AUD129 retail price. Maybe on sale I'd pick it up and resell the Belville figs but David Jones hasn't even had a regular 20% off Lego sale for the whole of this year that I've seen. I think the Playful Puppy set is a horrendous ripoff for $AUD20 though. I agree with the baby catapult - the range is terrible. Lego just isn't trying any more, is it? At least they've moved on from throwing cats off three storey buildings. 2 questions though. 1) Was it a fun build? 2) Are those large figs anatomically correct under their frou-frou finery? If not, what the hell are they doing in the second pic whilst baby Sylvia explores the oven?

Nice! I like the dark and light bley rock texturing - the landscaping looks suitably volcanic. The minerals forming out of the river of lava look good too. Good to see that the evil wizard is obeying Geneva Convention principles and feeding his prisoner as well!

Not a sale as such, but some of you may be interested to know that 7666 Hoth Rebel Base has been restocked at TRU. Still at $AUD99.99 Interestingly, the boxes still say 'Limited Edition' - so maybe these are leftovers and not the re-release (which I didn't think had the LE badge).

Well, obviously I disagree So far in the Agents there are heaps of vehicles but little in the way of buildings apart from a gate, the swamp outpost and the volcano. Rather than have yet another massive vehicle, I'd prefer a proper building that could integrate into a town layout but act as a secret home for the Agents. Any theme kind of starts to look odd if it is just vehicles vs vehicles. If there are 5 sets next year, we'll probably get 4 vehicle based ones and maybe a base for the Agents themselves anyway. I do like Grevious' idea of an evil moonbase though - perfectly in keeping with the Bond feel to the line and an opportunity to do something really different.

Very nice, Klaus-Dieter, this design has a great classic town feel and is crammed with detail. I especially like how the floors of the middle building is staggered slightly against the other two, so that the staircase on the top floor runs to the roof balcony of the adjoining building. Lovely work!

Thanks for the review! The interior looks nice, better than I expected, Lots of great parts but, as you say, so many of them are stickered. After Rocket Ride, the stickers in the SB sets seem to have gone crazy - the early sets weren't slathered in them. 2 new figs though is most welcome.

Thanks for the review, SlyOwl, and tantalising glimpse inside. Despite the errors, it obviously will be useful as a reference for times when you're not online or you're just casually flicking for inspiration or whatever. If it sells well, I guess they might issue corrected versions in future.

I'd forgotten about Ogel's mutant vehicles I guess I meant a bigger cross between the 8636 sub and the big squid from 7775 Aquabase Invasion - that is such a great design. Sort of keep the retro feel but make it bigger. With the 8636 sub, there's really only room for one Agent to sit and despite its size, there's just a few (not amazingly great) functions such as the hidden chest and missiles.

I'd like to see some kind of Agents Academy - kind of like a base but more like a training camp for future Agents - with dummy traps and decoy villains, and terrain training (How To Cross A Firepit in Three Easy Steps etc). I think there would be lots of fun for the little kids and big kids alike! That way you could meet the Agents' 'boss', a mentor Agent from the first wave, and have some new novices as well. I don't know about Impulse sets though - it's not like Agents make good army builders since the individual figs are so specific. Unless it was an army of Slime Faces

It covers up to the mid 70s, sort of misses the 80s and goes straight through to promo for Universe. I found it really disappointing that they didn't have any catalogue reprints from the late 70s and 80s as. I mean, it was nice to have the earlier stuff which I hadn't seen, but surely the biggest development in the last 30 years - and a contributing factor to the reason why Lego has continued to be such a success - is the invention and huge popularity of the minifig. They missed a trick by not putting a reprint of an 80s (and maybe even 90s catalogue) in as it sort of feels as if this is 'The First 25 Years of the Lego Brick', not '50 Years of the Lego Brick' as it says on the spine That said, I did enjoy it and it's a nice coffee-table type skim read.

Great review, ReZourceman! Your pics really show off the sub well and it's good to see the build in progress. I also have this set but I didn't apply stickers to the sub as I was planning to reuse the nice dark blue pieces. However as shown in your review they do brighten it up a fair bit. I can't say this is my favourite Agents set; the boat is a little oddly proportioned and the sub, although retro looking, has practically no interior and would be difficult to customise to put more in (unlike, say, the clever job Batbrick did with the Penguin sub in his review). The sub kind of looks like some Jules Verneish sea creature - I would have liked it if they'd gone all the way and made it some kind of giant robot jellyfish or squid I do agree with you about Slime Face - he has a fantastic torso with all the slime dripping down which is a bit obscured by the air tank. It's really encouraging that in the last 2 Missions we've had great extra villains added in. The only thing I would add about the octopus is that the glow in the dark plastic is mixed in unevenly with the aqua blue, so it doesn't glow in the dark evenly - it's kind of like the Mars Mission jellies in that respect though much cooler! Thanks again for the great review!

Steve Witt posted in an fbtb thread that C3P0's hands had been corrected, so we can all breathe easy that we won't receive freakish fleshy human hands as seen in the S@H pic... that would just be disturbing

The brickshelf folder description from the person who posted that pic says 'just received on hand for preview' so quite possibly this has been released to a select few by TLC - that may explain the official bag. http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=329018

Thanks Oky Wan; as I posted in your entry thread, I really liked your MOC too, especially all the colours and the use of those cool baseplates . As for the last minute votes? It must have been that evening I spent staring at my minifig sized Crystal Skull, wearing my Irina Spalko wig and chanting 'Vote for the Silver Swan!' (I'm only kidding; I wouldn't wear an Irina wig - it was a Dovchenko toupee )

I agree with you actually on that point. Maybe they didn't want him too likeable in case he was too popular. After he killed the Daleks he was a bit sidelined, whereas to start with he had the funny vocal thing going on with Donna and was more energetic. On the other hand, as has been suggested elsewhere, on that beach he was thinking: "Okay, I am SO about to get laid. Play it cool, play it cool. Glee is in appropriate here. Serious face! Okay, I'm holding Rose's hand. Awesome. I wonder how soon we can ditch Jackie? PLAY IT COOL, DUDE."

That was *exactly* my initial thought as well when the price went up. You'll notice since the price increase it's dropped from No 1 seller on the Aus sales chart and is slowly descending... In non-licensed exclusive sets I think prices have been generally reasonable for Australians this year (10191, 10192, 10186) and even the retail prices seem down a bit (Volcano Base as a $AUD99.99 set; CG platform at $79.99). That's why I was surprised by the initial Death Star price but didn't think it was *obviously* wrong (unlike Green Grocer in March at $AUD149.99). People are reluctant to part with their hard-earned cash and can smell when something is too expensive (hello, 10179 at $AUD979.99!) but Lego rarely admits they've made a pricing mistake in the downward direction, so I doubt this price will change again unless it goes on sale. Ultimately, consumers lead the way - hence all those unsold 10178s at K-Mart for $AUD179 even at close to 30% off the (overpriced) original sale price. The same will be true of 10188 - it all comes down to what people will pay. It will be sad if this means less exclusives; on the other hand Lego might argue with Lucasfilm more strongly to stick to their intended pricepoint in future to keep customers happy. The longer term damage comes from goodwill - people don't generally praise good service, but they will mouth off about bad customer service til the cows come home, which is basically what's happened here.

Thanks for the news Sinner! I'm so pleased that members liked my MOC and I've just noticed the shiny new fedora hat below my avatar . Thanks to everyone who voted for me and to Sinner for running such an inspiring contest! I think the combined MOC/ story idea added an extra edge to the comp and made you think carefully about what you wanted to build and how you would structure a compelling story around it. Batbrick and Oky Wan deserve a special mention for their fantastic visions but all of the entries were great with something unique and different from all of them. As for SlyOwl... it is good to see the Blockblock universe continue, although you may want to wipe your shoes after viewing his entry Thanks again! Indy forever! EDIT: I hate to question your mathematic skills, O Shiny Booted One, but I am pretty sure 2x14+8=36... What are they teaching walruses in school these days?

Hahah, I've had so many of those free membership offers, I wish they'd come up with something new. I ended up subscribing a few people I know just in case they send a promo set this year like they did with the little fireboat last year. And I like to have multiple copies of the shiny catalogue. Anyone know what is exactly in the DJs sale? I'm kind of saled out, but I still want to know!

I hate having to wait for stuff I really like, and most things are released their way in advance of when they hit stores here (if they ever do), so I use S@H a lot more than I used to. I also love the exclusives (eg Green Grocer, Cafe Corner, Death Star etc) and we don't have Lego retail stores in Aus, so I'm forced to use S@H for sets like that anyway. I do still buy stuff from the sales we have here, so that subsidises (or excuses) the shipping costs. I'd say roughly: 60% - Shop at Home 30% - retail stores like Target, K-Mart, Myer etc 10% - Bricklink

Thanks for the extra info, CopMike. It is interesting to get a behind the scenes glimpse of how these sets come into production. It is nice to know that TLC tried to go for a more moderate pricepoint for this set, even if Lucasfilm intervened and the price spiralled - so they are probably aware of what AFOLs consider reasonable value and how much they're willing to fork out. As Steve says, it is also good to know Lucasfilm cares enough about the licence to maximise its coolness where possible. I do still find it odd that in the long development process (how long does a set like this take from initial idea to production? surely a year?) that noone got the memo in the pricing department about the price change, or that it took 9 or 10 days to fix on S@H. Surely somebody responsible for the set must have noticed it was there at a wrong price. They certainly noticed fast enough when the initial images went up here However, this is just speculation on my part and thanks again to our Ambassador for this info.

I tested the laser because I knew too were interested in how it folded away - sadly, as you say, it is subtle as a trainwreck There is probably room for modding though, all you'd have to do is stick another BURP on top of the two in the middle section to make the volcano a bit higher - I think that would make the set look more volcano-like anyway. The problem is that the laser is so bag that for it to rotate it needs a bit of leeway.

4210 Coast Guard Platform now available from S@H! $79.99AUD - nice price! Much better value than the rescue boat one.

4210 Coast Guard Platform now available from S@H! $79.99AUD 44.99 GBP 49.99 EUR

Thanks for these, metalandi, it looks better than expected. I do agree with whoever said earlier that it could be a modified exo-force model, though.

Maybe on the weekend unless someone wants to do one first. Somebody else out there must love Agents besides me! You can't all be saving for Clone Wars sets!