Alldarker

I was pretty excited to see the TMNT theme in Europe at last, and last Friday, I finally got around to getting all the sets (except for the smallest: the Kraang Lab!). I was sick all day Saturday, but built three of the sets yesterday, and I have to say: they do not disappoint at all. Shredder's Dragon Chopper was nowhere near as bad as I'd come to expect: it's a solid build, with a reasonably pleasing result. Yes it is oversized, but it looks suitably menacing. The Stealth Shell is pretty nice, as is Fishface's jetski. Best of the three I built was the Shellraiser, though: looks better than the Playmates toy version by far, and actually resembles a subway car much more than I'd given it credit for looking at the pictures. I did have to make some small tweaks, though: I positioned the axles on the large rear wheels to the upper holes instead of the lower ones to make the vehicle look straighter with the rubber wheels down, and I moved apart the train wheels to make those look more natural under the car. Looking forward to buidling the Lair and Baxter's Robot! Considering these TMNT sets seem to be less popular with the AFOL crowd, I actually wonder if these might eventually go the way of the original Batman I sets: unpopular at first, discounted after a while, then suddenly becoming highly sought after in the secondary market when the TMNT-license gets a new boost (perhaps the movie?).

Because I am extremely impatient, and I wanted to see Jabba's Palace on top of the Rancor Pit for myself! I realize there are many much more affordable options to buy Lego in the Netherlands these days (local internetstores, A-Tembo, Amazon), but they all don't have the new sets in stock yet! Considering the discounts I usually find on Lego, it's not so bad to pay full retail for a single set once in a while. I have to say, having just finished building it, it does complement Jabba's Palace better than I had expected. Having the gate at 45 degrees (supporting the tower) is the best way to go, in my opinion.

Yup... Bought myself the 75005 Racor Pit, and I've just finished building it! Bart Smit's prices are insanely high, but I just couldn't resist finally getting some new Lego Star Wars flavor: an OR set featuring something we've not had before! They had all the new 2013 SW sets (except the planets), but I couldn't bring myself to pay full price for another A-Wing...

Looks like all the 2013 SW sets have now also hit brick & mortar stores (Bart Smit) all across the Netherlands. Picked up my copy of the 75005 Rancor Pit this morning, and they had all the other sets as well (except of course the new planets). Mega expensive, though: Rancor Pit cost me € 74,99 , so I let the A-Wing (€31,99) and the non-OT sets, which do not interest me at all, lie there.

Cool, thanks! No, I'm not from Belgium, but I am from the Netherlands, so that's close enough to hope they will be here soon as well! Thanks also for the first pictures!

Cool!!! Hop you can share some pictures or reviews of the builds soon! Important question is, however: where is your local toy store?

No problems! Actually, as a proud owner of a complete set of 2012 SDCC Superheroes (+ Bilbo) myself, I'm actually working on a good quality photo series of them.

Have you got a link to that South African guy's items? Anyhow, this is an interesting topic right here on Eurobricks about printing machines, costs and the people who have access to such machines. EDIT: nevermind: I see you are refering to Christo, who's work is indeed pretty amazing.

OK... I actually sort of figured you were probably talking about the SDCC figures. I have indeed seen a couple of custom SDCC figures offered on eBay, which were also clearly marked as such. They also came with the card. I think they all were created by this guy. However, if you check out the pictures (clickable through his feedback) I'd say that his figures are NOT machine printed but made with slide decals (like Kaminoan also makes and sells), and then sealed (that's why they seem so glossy). I'd say that currently, machine printed replica's of the SDCC have not yet been made. I think that having a machine that could do this (print both torso, doublesided head AND pants in the case of Phoenix!) would be a significant investment, and it would mean that whoever was making these and passing them off as real, would have to sell loads of them in order to recoup his investment. So if you have figures that are obviously machine printed, my guess would be that they are indeed real!

You are being vague. All minifigs are 'machine printed'. Are you worried about having bought custom-made figures instead of the real Lego produced item? Pictures of what you've bought would most certainly help.

I guess the book IS out, even though Amazon.co.uk has its release date set as September 3rd. But it is pretty strange they still are using the previous DC logo, considering the new DC logo has been out since January 2012.

This. By the way, both Bart Smit and Intertoys are in actual fact owned by the same company: Blokker Luckily, we do have quite a large selection of internet stores which usually give up to 30% discount on recommended retail prices. Meaning I can't remember the last time I bought a full-price set in either Bart Smit or Intertoys!

It's most definitely not Lego. As many others have aready mentioned across the internet wherever this story was reposted, this looks more like the protective covering of an in-ear headphone bud. Looks like a combination of dumb people (doctors?) and non-critical, gullible media are giving Lego a bad name. I guess fact-checking isn't really necessary to be a journalist anymore.

I always liked this set, and I was lucky enough to be able to buy a second one of these when they were discounted at retail. A Dewback / Greedo armybuilder Simple ? I remember loving the huge improvement of this Landspeeder as compared to the 7110 Landspeeder: now that was a set which really was simple! And of course the Dewback and Greedo are still the main attractions in this set.

Looks good! Although I am still quite fond of the official Lego version of the Quinjet. So... That means you must have used (at least) 9999 dark grey cheese slopes, if your total collection counts (at least) 10000 dark grey cheese slopes (unless you were using parts of grey slopes).

I can't resist: I totally called that Rancor Pit!!! Also... I can't wait to see it!!!

Wow... That swap works out surprisingly well! I wouldn't have blinked an eye if both had come out of the box like that! I have both the Quinjet and Catwoman, going to have to check it out for myself to see how that works for me.

In the last week I already bought: 9469 Gandalf Arrives 9470 Shelob Attacks 9471 Uruk-Hai Army 9472 Attack on Weathertop 9473 The Mines of Moria 9476 The Orc Forge ... And I received a shipping notice for 9474 The Battle of Helm's Deep this morning The only ones I paid full European / Dutch (retail) prices on are the two smallest sets (because I just couldn't wait to get them). The rest I all bought at 12% tot 22% discount

I too can confirm that all the LOTR sets are already available in the Netherlands: at least in selected toy shops (but not the chain-stores). These are however toy shops that have their own suppliers, which I think are based in Germany. I already own all the sets except 9474 Helm's Deep (although I have seen it on the shelf): and bought them from a variety of shops / online, all based in the Netherlands.

I love ACPin's diorama's... Thanks for the interview! And it looks like he currently just needs ONE more country to get to the visitors from 100 countries!

Never mind... I hadn't yet read the earlier drama in this thread. My comments wouldn't have added anything useful.

Barriss Offee in her 8091 Republic Swamp Speeder version.

Well... I bought Jabba's Palace from Amazon.es which at least ensured I paid a somewhat reasonable price for this set, compard to the regular retail and S@H prices. But to be very honest, having built this set and having looked at it for a couple of days, this set disappoints me. Two things annoy me: it is small for the price asked and more importantly, it is boring. It really is lacking in play-features. For me, 6210 Jabba's Sailbarge is about the epitomy of Lego Star Wars sets: excellent figures, an incredibly interesting SNOT build, excellent styling with perfect likeness to the move version (apart from the scale) and a ton of play-features which was even able to include the very nice Desert Skiff and the Sarlacc Pit. Apart from the minifigs, which are indeed excellent, Jabba's Palace is lacking on all fronts. The build is just a straight forward stacking of bricks, the likeness to the RotJ movie scenes is iffy at best and the set is especially low on play-features (I don't like flickfire missiles much, but the flickfire missile in the roof takes the cake as for the most pathetic irrelevant usage of flickfire missiles that I have yet come across: try aiming that! ). The opening gate is very simple, the opening back wall serves no useful purpose at all and the trapdoor... doesn't do anything because figures can't drop down to anywhere. As a stand-alone set, this set just really is disappointing to me. As it is currently sold, it is nothing more than an overpriced soundstage-like set, adequate as a backdrop for the figures, but not as a playset. I look with envy to the excellent 9474 Battle of Helm's Deep set, which shows exactly how a (licensed) set can be done right, while having approximately the same retail-price. The only way this set can be redeemed is if the rumored Rancor Pit ever gets added, to give the trapdoor a proper drop-function and to add some real bulk to the whole Palace, and to the movie-scenes which take place in the Palace. Luckily, as I already noted in the rumours thread, there does seems to be evidence that this set was designed to be expanded upon... But until that rumor is proven to be correct, I am not at all impressed by this set...

Faefrost, if you check out the instructions for Jabba's Palace (part 1 / part 2), you'll see that a significant amount of extra pieces have been used to build the base of the Palace with those four holes / 'vestigial connection points' on the underneath. It would have been a lot more efficient NOT to use all those extra pieces, and to just double up on the large plates used on the top part of the floor. Nowadays, Lego is enormously conscious of design-efficiency, and if a set-design can be easily simplified without hurting the look, it will be. Examples of that are common: the replacement of many printed bricks by stickers; using weird colored bricks in interiors where they can't be seen; or for example using two 1x3 plates to avoid using a single 2x3 plate. It's highly unlikely they'd let superfluous parts slide in a set like Jabba's Palace, especially as Lego is already probably aware that this is a very expensive set, considering the price-to-parts ratio. In addition to that, Lego sets are designed to a price-point, and not the other way round. So the designer is allowed a certain budget to create a set, but a regular set is hardly ever priced after it has been designed (unless perhaps it's a UCS set). And there's little chance that a Rancor Pit would ever have fitted within the budgetary design-constraints for this set. You are right about the figures, though. On the one had, Jabba's Palace is missing a few figures like Luke and the droids, but they are all figures that are available in other current sets. I've been thinking about the figures a theoretical 'Rancor Pit / Droid torture chamber' would contain: I guess Luke is a no-brainer, as is a huge Rancor mold (expensive to create!) and the Rancor keeper (hopefully with double-sided crying face!). Also, a new EV-9D9 and a Gonk Droid might be likely, as is another Gammorean guard.

If Lego have already made a Wampa ice creature, a Hulk and a Cave Troll, I have no doubt at all that they can (and will) make a Rancor is the same style. All those are relatively the same sizes, so a Rancor would be very easy to make to the scale of a minifig. I'd say it's not going to be a brick build at all, just the usual torso with attachable hands (and perhaps an opening mouth).