Gumalca

Since the Technic magazine with the fire truck is available in stores now, there are photos from the last page showing the upcoming issue on the web. The extra will be a combine harvester.

In case you wonder why we get this set, it was me who wished for an "Exploration Submarine, 50€" in the 2021 survey from the Technic Team: Link

42208 Aston Martin Valkyrie $60 42209 Volvo L120 Electric Loader $110 42210 2 Fast 2 Furious Nissan Skyline GT-R $140

It definitely makes sense to only have spur gears hear for the model, but it will seriously limit alternate building. Not even a single bevel gear? Damn! How are we supposed to build a helicopter from that?

Yes, this set looks like it could have been released 15 years ago. And in this regard it is ok for what it is. Some good old open frame Technic build. Maybe some 10€ sets from recent years have raised expectations beyond what was possible to continue to advance.

My hope was for something more along the shape of 8250, but that shape is probably to similar to military submarines for Lego nowadays. It's great that it has a lot of gears and functions, quite an outlier in todays Technic sets. Therefore I will surely get this, even though I'm still getting used to the look. It does not seem to have a lot of simple beams and is quite colorful, which will make alternate building hard I guess.

This is clearly my favorite of the upcoming wave. It has only one real function, but we don't get such a push beam rotator function everyday, so it's interesting. Also the size of the model meets the expectation for a 333 parts set, thanks to some good old long beams. I would have been fine with another color scheme as I think I have enough white already. But it fits the topic so it's alright.

Can someone figure out how the tipping function works? How is it connected to the gear? Nevermind, someone just posted a good suggestion.

The rear mudguards have to be printed, right? That makes them less useful for alternate MOCing. But having the engine in the front is nice, because it requires a bit more gears. Since most other cars at this scale have been sport cars and have their engine at the back, they were often technically simplistic beyond means.

Both the harvester and the garbage truck had a lot of system parts. And small parts. They are smaller even though they use more parts.

I think their point was that without knowing where a part goes they can't look for a solution to replace it.

Thanks for giving such a honest insight. This just shows how tough competition is. Look at those 42114 alternates. M_longer's moc on first place has fan photos from 28 different buyers if I counted that right. Your Moc on 9th place has one. Now if we put these numbers into relation, then we can estimate that M_longer has probably 28 times your sales too. And yet he's complaining, lol. My personal advice to you would be to look more into medium sized sets. Considering big sets like 42114 it's not just about best price. People who decide to buy and build an alternate are also investing a lot of time. So many will only ever build one and choose from the top ones. For medium sized sets people are much more likely to buy multiple alternates in a row, which increases your chance of a sale if you're not one of the top Mocs. 42109 is probably an outlier here, because it never attracted much attention from the alternate community.

I guess that's true. Many designers will only make one alternate for a big set. And then the outcome depends very much on whether people like the type of vehicle. I've also bought multiple of your Mocs, but for example I'm not sure I'm going to buy your 42175 camper. The subject just doesn't interest me that much.

This is not a fair evaluation. The set is only out for a few months, most people didn't have a chance to buy it. I only got my copy a week ago. I'm sure most of your sales for this moc are still coming. And all it will take you from now on is waiting, your work is done. Let's talk about this moc in 2 years again. I might even buy this moc myself, I've already bought multiple from you in the past. And do you think these models are selling? They sell a few, then negative customer feedback comes in, and that's it. Just look at the experience from kostq above. A lot of his Mocs are what you would call "money grabs". He doesn't care about quality. Multiple of his Premium MOCs even have "illegal" in the name, because of illegal building techniques that stress parts. What's Premium about that? But customers know how to treat those designers. I wouldn't buy from him.

I've already bought 8 Technic sets this year and I might buy two more from the upcoming sets. This is more than any other year before for me. So it might as well be the best year for Technic. I think the smaller sets are better than previous years. For example I never bought one of the Monster Jam pull backs. Because I don't watch the show and without this background a car with a dog face for example is nothing that I need. But this year I've bought both of the smaller pull backs.

The additional images show that the rotors of the Jungle Explorer Helicopter can be operated from the back and rotate ... in the same direction. They should rotate in opposite directions! Anyway it's still an improvement compared to 4439, 60093, 60125 or 60173 and I hope it won't be hard to change if it is really wrong.

Looking at the new sets, I think it is safe to say that Lego has abandoned the road plates that were introduced in 2021. That's bad news for everybody who started to outfit their city with them. But I'm glad they are discontinued. I never liked them and refused to buy any set that contained them. Because they always increased the price of a set so much. I'm especially glad that the new jungle sets don't come with those stupid river road plates like 60302 and 60307 did.

I've seen an image of the T-Rex on Instagram. It looks like an upscaled 31058. Mostly dark green I guess. Side build is a small nest with eggs. The alternate builds are a pterosaur and a ceratopsia.

31130 was exclusive to the lego stores for a good amount of time too. I know because I bought my copy there, before it became widely available at other retailers. So there's hope 31154 will get more distribution too.

Maybe the transmission would work better with the new 20 tooth gear? Would it be possible to use it in this gear box, instead of the double beveled ones? I always blamed the clicking gear box of the Defender on the redesigned double bevel gears which appeared at the same time. The model was probably only tested with the old gear. The redesigned 20 tooth double beveled gear is just not running smoothly together with the 12 tooth double beveled gear in a straight configuration.

31158 Sea Creatures has been revealed! I was hoping for a set with a large main animal (like the tiger, giraffe and fox sets), but instead we get 6 small ones. Similar to the fish tank set 31122. Or similar to how I expected a 500 piece submarine in 31130, but instead we got a small submarine and a small octopus. Back to the set, at least the turtle seems nice here. Not sure we ever got a better turtle in the past. But on the other hand it is far behind those bigger turtle designs that appeared in the ideas submissions. However the variety in species is great, only two fishes, and then turtle, crab, seahorse and jellyfish. First B-model looks likes two squids? That would be cool!

Despite those leaks another set just surfaced: 31154 Forest Animals: Red Fox

I think if we get another 1/8 car then second biggest model will not be a car as well. At least this wasn't the case in previous years.

Oh right, I hadn't noticed that, but now I can't unsee it. That ruins the set for me. Otherwise the inclusion of a London bus and camper van actually seemed nice. The 11035 Creative Houses just seems boring. Minimalistic house facades have been in many of the large boxes, and most have even done it better, like 10704, 11717 or 11005. 10703 was also more varied in styles. And then we had 11004 and 11008 that brought some really interesting variation into the housing market. None of this is found in the new set. 11034 Creative Pets is very odd too. The printed bow bricks with eyes limit reusability a lot. And seriously which animal has its eyes on the forehead, come on! Not really a great year for Classic. Only the Creative Space Planets I might be getting. And previously I thought the Classic line is really improving, with 11027, 11028 and 11033 from last year that reduced the color palette in each set, so that you finally would get a substantial amount of bricks in one colour to actually build something that doesn't look like patchwork and is bigger than the included mini builds.

Leaked prices and piece counts: 31158 Sea Creatures 421pcs $29.99 31151 Terrifying T-Rex 626pcs $59.99 31153 Modern Beach House 939 pcs $109.99 So these are definitely larger than 31088 and 31058 that we previously had. More like 4506 and 4507. Which is a good thing, because that should be enough for realistic looking models. The small Creator creatures have become too cute lately with all the big eyes for my liking. Just compare 31145 to 31102 or 31073. So I'm looking forward to those medium sets coming. Especially the T-Rex could be great, because the Jurassic World theme mostly has those molded dinosaurs that I find boring, and bigger brick build dinosaurs otherwise only appear in the large 18+ sets. For the sea creatures I'm wondering which species might be contained. A rerun of the always popular shark (31088), dolphin (31128) or octopus (31130 and 31088)? Or maybe some of the previous B-models or side builds get a better treatment like sea horse (31128 and 31140), whale (31088), manta ray (31130), lobster (31130), seal (31133), crab (31088) or turtle (31128)? They would all deserve a proper A-model treatment. I guess I'm hoping for a proper manta ray the most!