Svelte

Tricky topic! I think you can draw a distinction between standalone models and modular buildings with stacked middle floors, as this makes a significant difference. For standalone models I'd rank them. 1. Green Grocer - still the best for useful parts, overall design, and details. A true classic. 2. Grand Emporium - great parts and design, I just like the detailing on Green Grocer a little more 3. Cafe Corner - still a favourite, but it does suffer in comparison with its newer siblings. The ground floor interior looks especially dark. However this is a revolutionary model, so even if I have to rank it below the others it will always be Number 1 in my heart 4. Fire Brigade - the giant lower floor and medium size upper floor feel too large. The facade looks bigger overall than the other more moderately sized ground floors too. And way too much bley! Easily me least favourite of the bigger buildings. Still, overall in the streetscape it does look better than number 5... 5. Market Street - not bad at all, but the blue is kind of odd looking and the short market section (a) looks out of place (b) is very delicate compared to the other solid buildings. Amazing for parts, however. In terms of stacked models with multiple floors: 1. Grand Emporium. This just looks better the more you add to it! I've built 3 now. Probably 2 ground floors with 4 upper floors is optimum. The tan and dark green mean it doesn't look too dark and intimidating. 2. Fire Brigade - actually looks a lot better with 1 ground floor and 2 upper floors, it seems to lessen the proportions problem and the extra red gives it a bit more kick. 3. Green Grocer - I've only added 2 middle floors to two ground floors but there's a lot going on with the facade, maybe too much when you have too many upper floors. 4. Cafe Corner - really does look different these days to the original 'wow' factor it had on release when there was nothing else like it on the market. The lack of window pieces at the time means that the white 1x2x3 panels used look a bit funny. The red-brown also gets kind of dark if you have too much of it. Probably 2 side by side with 2 middle floors is just right. 5. Market Street. This is really the only true modular building in that the floors are stackable in any configuration. Lose the side market and put two of the taller buildings side by side with staggered height for better effect. Much better!

Nice review and an interesting mix of pieces. It is reminiscent of all those drawbridge/ tower sets LEGO releases and it is quite bricky. I quite like the raggedy flag piece and even the more detailed palm leaves. It doesn't sell me on the idea of clone brands as a viable alternative to LEGO, however. Does Quarryman do life modellling classes too?

Vladek's Dark Fortress was a definite step in the right direction, and a break from the 'castle on raised baseplate with mini sub-models' that had made the big Castle sets suck so much in previous years It had a plethora of great parts - dark red, dark tan (when that was fairly uncommon) and lots of useful black Castle pieces. I think it is the only set where those extra-wide castle wall pieces which were only used in KK2 looked good and not out of proportion. It was massive and intimidating, and the overall design was very strong and imposing, although not strictly modular in the most popular sense. The play features were OK and the giant Vladek mask had a design purpose as that would be exactly the kind of thing an evil egomaniac dark lord would stick on their castle facade. Even the alternate models on the box art were pretty cool from what I remember. Where it really fell down was the stupid Knights components - the horse with side cannon always fell over because it was weighted on one side, and the catapult on wheels was an ungodly mess of Bionicle, brown and violet blue. It could have used more interior, but that's hardly changed even with today's sets Definitely an underrated set.

Bobskink brings us news of a Toy Story promo set appearing in French stores; Click on the pic to join the discussion in our LEGO Licensed forum! whung brings us pics of some new Toy Story sets, including the Duplo range: Click here for more upcoming set pics and to join the discussion.

What's the point of this post? If you are saying the figs are badly designed or unappealing, nobody is stopping you. If you are saying the figs look of bad quality, then you're speculating about things that can't even be seen from this early pic.

Thanks for taking the time to scan these properly and post them for us, def! The models do look impressive. I'm not a fan of non-fig scale generally, but the radar dishes look amazing. That money shot is indeed incredible. Are they prototype 10188s in the background?

Yes, last years Battlepacks were crap but until one of us has these new ones in our hot little hands, let's keep the discussion focussed on what we can see Thanks!

Thanks for the pics, whung! I advise you all to save them since it seems likely Disney will have these taken down at some point.

The sharp-eyed Hun brings us pics of what appear to be 2 Kingdoms Battlepacks! Click here to join the discussion in our LEGO Castle forum!

Woo! Go Cracker!

Not a bad idea, but Shadows will complain I'm burning his eyes out with a white MOC again

Jeey! I have no idea what that means but it's my new favourite word! Jeeeey! I tend not to like it when people do the squat midsections a la the Cafe Corner buildings we've seen in the past. Svelte all the way, baby! I am a little surprised that so many people dislike the set-up as is. I don't remember this level of criticism when Cafe Corner came out, and it suffers from the same issue with the double columns. Maybe we're all just getting fussier as the more of these are released 32x64 and 32x96 plates are great ideas, but I am unlikely to do these myself. Firstly, messing with the structure is generally more complex than just moving everything a stud back, etc, and requires different bricks to adjust for all the tan walls. Not to mention the positioning of things different inside often can throw out unexpected surprises. As it is, the chandelier sits under the void of the skylight, and you can't put a middle section just under the skylight as the escalator hits it. So if you move the skylight then you have to move either the chandelier or escalator too and it quickly becomes complex! Secondly, having a whole lot of stackable 32x32 sections is much more easy for me to display and shift around from place to place than having larger baseplates Plus, the whole point of modular is to easily move all the different bits around. You're so cute I do think the dark green windows would look nice on this building just up the road from me, although I'm not sure whether the complementary colour should be white or tan:

Check out Commander Tac's awesome da Twilight Sun Strike Force! Click on the pic to see more and discuss this great work in our LEGO Sci-Fi Forum!

I agree, but when I do the multiples, I like to show off the official models first Customisation comes later. I am leaning to two side by side with 3 upper floors, myself. The 'join' doesn't really bother me. I forgot to mention I was shocked and horrified when the second set I opened yielded a substitution for the dark tan hair we're supposed to get - I got ordinary tan instead! Remain alert *and* alarmed and contact customer service if this happens to you Very true - to make them symmetrical, you also need to switch the chandelier to the other wall as it needs the 'bump' of the skylight space to fit. This actually reminds me more of Broadway or the QVB even (with less detail) than either the Woolies or Myer buildings - they don't seem to stick in my mind so much. This could pass for Victorian sandstone with a bit of tweaking.

OMG! Now you've made me think about Yoda's penis. THANKS FOR THE NIGHTMARES, ISC. Hahaahaha!

Views of the superb-looking combinations possible with 2x 10211 Grand Emporiums. The upper floors are so light and welcoming that they don't look too intimidating (too many Cafe Corner floors do look a little dark). The fact that the 2 upper floors are almost identical certainly makes it easier to expand your retail empire! All pics link to higher-res flickr versions. Firstly, we have three upper floors: And then four: A close-up of all that tan and dark green goodness: Positioned adjacently: Side-by-side: The asymmetrical roof sections do look slightly Escher-esque: Mmm, luxe. At ground level there's a Parisian feel to the streetscape: If you had four, then the rear exits would all lead to a terrifying little catacomb : Rear view:

Yes, I noticed that too. Sometimes they try and cover that up with photoshop, but it's like they didn't even care that much for a small release. I think you are reading things into this review that aren't there. You always say that! But I think in this case you wouldn't have any problems Maybe... but won't somebody please think of the Belville figs? The eyes do tend to follow you around the room Luckily they don't spin too or I'd probably have nightmares. The overbite is less than terrifying but I guess I could use those Atlantis shark blade pieces to add to the terror level. Somebody has to guard the stash of Easter eggs against incursions before the big day.

Woo, name-check! Actually, I love the modulars too much to really break them down to create other buildings - though I have been guilty of stealing dark bley pavement tiles off them, tan tiles off Market Street, or dark red tiles from the Fire Brigade... But I tend to lose track of what I've stolen from where which makes later reassembly a problem, so I try not to do it too much. I don't have a huge amount of display space, but it seems like I've always had the Cafe Corner built in some form since it came out, and a multi-storey Green Grocer complex sits in pride of place in my bedroom (although it will probably be bumped soon for a Grand Emporium display). When I do disassemble the modulars, I carefully sort and bag the pieces and store in plastic storage boxes. I tend to sort by colour and part delicacy, so that light colours go together and scratchable pieces like windows or tiles are stored separately from standard bricks. I've recently been getting rid of a lot of MISB stuff just to make some room, but I do intend to have 1 copy of each of the Modular Series MISB since I've basically surrendered to my natural instinct and emphasise Town as the basis of my collection and MOCin'

Set Name: Easter Bunny Set Number: 40005 Theme: Seasonal Pieces: 81 Price: $US9.99, $AUD10.99, GBP4.99 Links: Shop @ Home, Brickset I was surprised this set came in a box - I expected a polybag. A soothing, generic looking background with random sparkly balls! Where are the fertility rites? The pagan orgies? This is Easter you know! The rear of the box shows the one play feature - a Linda Blair in 'The Exorcist'-type spinning bunny head! Excite and then terrify your children! Instructions and sticker sheet! You can apply the eyes in any direction you want. My bunny's mood: quizzical A solid mix of brown and tan parts. Two bags of parts. Price-wise, it's just OK in AUD at $10.99 but $USD9.99 seems very pricey for this set. UK customers can rejoice at the 4.99 price and buy lots of these to compensate for their 40% hike on Exclusives The only really interesting pieces are the two black brackets which used to come a lot in Space sets: The base of the bunny. The legs attach via the space brackets - clever. Notice the many subtle and varied shades of brown. It's been 3 years since red-browwn went to hell and we are *still* getting basic parts in shockingly bad colours? LEGO's quality control sucks these days. Look at the horrendous difference between the slopes where the eye stickers are attached and the 2x2 bricks below. This bunny looks like it's been punched in the face - black eyes! I do like the wabbity overbite. The finished model! It's very cute, if a little oddly designed - what's going on with the paw on the right side of the pic? Stumpy much? I like that the foot-paws are showing the underside of the plates However the quirky design is really let down by the appalling parts quality. There are at least 3 shades of red-brown in this model - unacceptable for such a small set with brown as its main colour. It's been 3 years since LEGO moved to in-house colour mixing and it's still a big fat failure. Very disappointing. The Linda Blair 'The Exorcist' spinning head play feature. I'm sure someone will post a video on YouTube. Or master Photoshopper and Academy Teacher def can add a spinning head effect to this pic The flopsy white tail also spins on a Technic pin connection, but this is not mentioned as a play feature. LEGO obviously doesn't want to encourage kids to play with the behinds of their real pet bunnies - only their fluffy little necks. Extra parts: Bonus shots! A special promotion running at the Grand Emporium during the Easter season! (Actually it looks a bit unstable; I hope it doesn't fall and kill that Johnson Willoughby 'window-washer' fig ) All kneel before the great bunny! The pagan idol of fertility finally gets his due from the citizens of LEGO City. (If Sieggy had done this review that pic would be 200% more explicit ) Overall Rating: Design - 7/10 - quirky and different - I like it better than the malformed Xmas Santas, which have never appealed to me. Parts and Price - 5/10 - not that great a deal for what you get, but OK Quality - 3/10 - Shockingly bad problems with red-brown persist and really shake my faith that LEGO will ever do anything to fix them Overall Rating - 5/10 - Fun but hardly essential. Thanks for reading! Have a great Easter!

Yes, that picture is old. Isn't it from the Hamleys site? You can tell it's wrong since Dastan is supposed to be *in* the race, not in the commentary box! Nothing to panic about here.

I think those expecting a monorail system with elevated track are caught in the speculative frenzy and probably need to take a calming breath. I'm not sure why you'd want a flagship set like that to be released as some mid-point TRU exclusive anyway. I'm sure LEGO is aware of AFOLs hunger for a flagship City set with elevated track and so on - just like they wanted a huge Imperial ship or civilian-based Castle set - so if we ever see it, I would prefer it was a S@H Exclusive where they could really go to town (so to speak) on it design-wise. TheBrickster's recent Spiderman review reminded me of what an elevated train in a regular release could be - one compartment and 2 bits of track!

Is it just me or is the most obvious thing missing from this review? A picture of the assembled minifig.

Wise Rick is wise... and hopefully no longer confused I got my advent calendar prize today! Yay!

It was mirrored and replicated to no effect, although admittedly that was before we fiddled with all the statues and suchlikes. Maybe we should try again now that the grinding of gears and the girding of garters suggested something happened off-screen.

How many tiles of each colour do we have? Can we have a tally? Also can we repost the relevant pics at the top of this page so we don't have to continually refer back to the earlier pages? Yes, I'm lazy. But I'm beautiful with it, so it's worth it