brickbitz

As I buy quite a lot of second hand lots, any bricks not up to standard are thrown in a large scraps box. It comes in useful for keeping visiting kids quiet, who are overwhelmed by my collection and want to play with some LEGO. None of it ever gets used by me personally.

The LEGO customer service website has downloadable pdf building instructions for a large number of themes and sets now. It's much better than it used to be, you can either browse the theme lists or type the exact set number. I think the Star Wars section is complete with all officially released sets including the latest ones. Official LEGO building instructions

Argos are currently have a 7 day clearout. Three items of interest are: The City 4WD and Horse Box - £10 Indy Flying Wing - £29 Star Wars Republic Gunship is £68.29 There is also a bit of bionicle , duplo and a building tub. Nothing spectacular though.

You guessed correctly , in fact you pretty much summed up the game. If you roll a black tile you move the minotaur 8 spaces. I suspect there is some strategy to how you choose to move the minotaur towards the other players and not your own. If the minotaur and a microfig meet the microfig goes back to his start point. If you roll a grey tile you have to move a grey wall, again you would position it for your benefit and to the detriment of other players. There is also another version where you can add the green tile to the dice and take off the number three. This then allows some jiggery pokery with the hedges. The winner is the first person to get his men to the centre corner plate of his colour. It's certainly not the most strategic of games , but slightly better than just rolling and moving. Yes they do. You can add a minifig hat but it is a bit oversized. You could also use any other standard piece that will fit, so there are some possibilities

A few years ago I once found a large selection of the town electric sound buzzers in the PaB wall.

So after placing a S@H order on the day of release (1st July), lo and behold with speedy delivery my LEGO games have arrived. To be honest personally I haven't anticpated a set arriving as much since the Castle advent calendar. So without further ado here we have it. 3841 Minotaurus Pieces: 211 Micro Figures: 12 RRP: GBP £17.59 / USD n/a The box is just large enough to fit a 32x32 baseplate and comes shrink wrapped in the form of a standard lift off lid as found with most board games. Empty out the contents to discover there are a couple of bits hidden out of view. We have three bags of LEGO pieces, the die , a template , a game instruction book and a building instruction manual. The inventory page from the building instructions. A random page showing the use of the template. This is a great idea to speed up the build process. During the game certain wall pieces can be moved around so this enables a quick setup again ready for the next play. A shot of the instructions detailing how to play the game. The booklet is multi lingual, so there are also french , german , italian and spanish pages as well. A shot of the unmade dice and tiles, I can't help but feel LEGO have missed a small opportunity here. There is no tile for 1 or 2 , which I feel would be really useful to enable a standard dice to be made. If this were included as an extra in all the games I think it would open up the possibilities for everyone to create MOC's of their own favourite games and perhaps enhance the sales of the LEGO versions along the way. The black tile is used to indicate the Minotaur should move and the grey piece is used to indicate a wall piece may be moved. The numbers are for the player pieces to move. The rubber edge around the dice gives it an unpredictable bounce when rolled. Of course this is one of the games with a large number of micro figures, 3 of each colour to be exact. They are a single molded piece so there is no swapping parts around. Each has a slightly different expression and I've included a 1x1 cone for size purposes. Each figure occupies a single stud space. There is no print on the back and also you can see the slight arm bulge similar to the old school minifigs before they had proper arms. The completed game in starting positions except for the minotaur who starts in the middle. You'll see him in the next shot. The maze is designed to fit back into the box when built so it doesn't need to be disassembled. The brick built minotaur and the left over pieces. The white 1x1 plate does have a hole through the middle , I think this part also comes with the cheaper Robo Champ game. The minifig tools are actually included to assist in getting the tiles off the dice face to change them around. The screwdriver part acts as a lever and does make it much easier with the rubber edging in the way. The green tile can be used instead of a numbered piece to change the gameplay yet again. The manual includes some tips and hints to make your own modifications to the rules. All in all I give the whole concept a 9/10. It's a bit subjective as to whether you like the actual game or not. This one is a simple maze chase type game, avoiding the minotaur and being first to get you man to the middle. Having said that, the whole range has introduced some great concepts. The LEGO dice is a definite winner, although it would be better if the numbered tiles were easily available to make a standard die as well as the custom ones used in most games. The micro figures are cute and I'm sure will start appearing in mocs. The piece to price ratio is good , there's plenty of lime green in this set plus a baseplate. All in all you can have some fun playing the game and when you get fed up , either invent your own version or simply build something else with the pieces. I see a promising future for this idea , hopefully they will decide it's worth releasing to the US market, but then it's down to you guys to buy them.

I used to own this set, I agree the set pictures and box art don't do it justice. The reason it finally went was due to the fact that is a huge model when built, and took up a lot of room on my display shelves. The gull wing doors were indeed a smart feature and the 5 speed gearbox very well done. I seem to remember the suspension was very soft on this model. A light press down on the top would make it bounce. In the end I gave this one up rather than my 8880 simply because I love the old school technic more. Studless beams and panel fairings just don't quite do it for me in the same way as the original studded beams. Every Lego fan ought to own at least one of the super cars and for me personally the standard is set by 8880. In fact I don't even buy technic sets anymore, I have Control Centre II, the Space Shuttle and the 8880 Super car and these fufill my technic needs and lately I haven't seen anything that comes close. However for anyone who is seriously interested in this set, then go for it. It is a great example of technic construction and I'm sure you'll be suitably impressed.

Sadly I think that's true. There are no major stores where I live anymore. Woolies has gone , Toymaster ( which had great sales a few years ago ) has gone. Argos is probably the main high street retailer these days, I don't count TRU as my nearest is a 45 min drive and not worth the hassle unless I know they have offers. The best of the rest seem to be online but I forget to check regularly. I would expect some other sales besides Lego Stores and S@H over the summer months.

Just been browsing the UK Shop at Home site to see if the latest sets are available yet. ( Castle are but others aren't). Shockingly LEGO appear to have increased the set prices across the board. It ranges from a few pence to smaller sets , to somewhere between £2 to £4 on the larger sets, i.e. King's Castle Siege is now £73.39 instead of the previous £69.99, Trolls Mountain Fortress. is the same. I assume that LEGO have taken a similar stance across the world, it'd be interesting to know if other countries prices have increased in a similar fashion. Obviously this sort of thing happens from time to time, but seeing as LEGO reported profits in the difficult current climate it just seems a bit harsh to markup the prices now. For those still saving to collect existing sets they may need that bit more than they anticipated. The other thing to watch of course is whether retailers will follow suit and bump up existing stock???

Compared to the discount PAB currently at LLW which is £27 per kilo, it's a good deal money wise. However as you can't chose the parts that make up the bag, it's pot luck as to the usefulness of the contents. I guess it depends on what interesting models they've had on display recently. I remember picking a couple up at Bluewater a few years ago. I ended up, amongst other things, with about 250 Brick 2x3 with curved top in assorted colours.

This set was always on my to buy list , cheap entry point , lots of figs and parts, but I got to give you 10 out of 10 for the contents of your review , it makes me want to buy more. Please don't do any further excellant reviews for more sets this year.... I can't afford it

It's a nice collection. I hope you have it insured for a reasonable value. At the end of the day though it will only be worth what someone pays you on the day. With the right buyer it could be double what you expect, with the wrong buyer it could be half. There's still a lot of this stuff fairly readily available to those willing to look around for it. Star Wars is hugely popular but there's a lot of mechandise, LEGO themselves have reissued and updated quite a few of these sets and the older ones are not always as appealing as the newer ones. The sets with unique minifigures and no reissues are going to be the most valuable. Maybe this auction will help you, it is a similar type collection going in the UK currently. EBay UK LEGO Star Wars Collection Personally I think you are always better off selling the sets individually if you have the time and resources, this way you may have a better chance of each of them reaching their estimated value. Something to bear in mind is that it's the future collectors you are likely to target. Those over the next few years coming back to LEGO with hopefully a disposable income and the desire to pickup sets they missed out on. I think that trend is likely to continue. We are still really in the early years of the worldwide awakening to this hobby with the increase in adult LEGO fan clubs, websites and forums such as this one, public shows etc etc.

Another option would be to set the search drop down tab at the top to "Catalog Item" and enter the set number for the Carribean Clipper. It should then show the set in the search results, click the (INV) link after the set number, to see the parts inventory. Identify the mast pieces you're after and then click their part number link to go to the item page. There you can view the lots for sale. Bricklink can take a bit of getting used to , but once you know how to find things it's a great reference tool.

It's round the corner from the Big Shop , past the cafe down the slope a bit, in the round building. There's a little helicopter sitting on the roof. They have a impressive brick built mock up of an airline cockpit made mainly of pearlescent grey bricks inside the lobby by the shop. The shop itself is not that big so don't expect huge numbers of sets. Oh also it's the one place where you do not get any further discount if you have an annual pass....

I was at Windsor yesterday. As has been said they do not have any exclusive LEGO sets as the shops there are not part of the LEGO brand stores. That said they do have most of the current available LEGO range but not really any different from TRU or any major retailer. i.e. Farm , Construction, the smaller Power miners sets, SW Clone wars, Indiana Jones, Spongebob, Creator, some Castle The PAB wall is £4.5 per 100g which is quite steep at £45 per kilo, They do have a pretty good selection of standard bricks in most colours but nothing particularly special. There is a discount store "Rocket Racer" which has some discounted sets, not really much more than 10% or 20% off, Yesterday they had a couple of Speed Racer sets, Agents Gold Chase, Star Wars Sith Infiltrator and a couple of other bits. They also have discount PAB at £27 per kilo, but not much there. It's a couple of tubs to dig through and they only have a handful of different bricks. Hope this helps, let me know if you're after anything specific and I'll try and remember if I saw it.