Rick

I guess terminating the line mid-2010 actually means stopping production by now. When the news was first announced, I assumed this to be the most likely course of action. You should probably see more sets disappearing from stores in the coming half year.

I guess it's just a matter of personal preference. It certainly is an amazingly innovative technique you tried there.

I'm sure once all is known, CopMike will first post it here... Patience, young Padawan.

I believe they're for release somewhere in between, i.e., Spring. Shows again that it's nice to have an international AFOL forum, so that all the native speakers can bring news to EB immediately and properly translated and interpreted!

Exactly! Lego needs (basic) colors... and too many cars for the streets

Really nice modular building. As others have said, the windows and all the decorations on the front are really innovative. The arch, while certainly being original looks a little over-detailed to me. Also, you can look up the undersides of the bricks ( ) on the side, which I don't really like. The shop could do with an (strawberry) ice cream sign though. But very good job overall!

Soaking the box in water for prolonged periods of time also helps. It doesn't open the plastic bags inside though.

Besides brick separators, this is indeed the way to go. Tiles on the middle of a base plate are the real PITA though.

No disagreement here... Soldier's Arsenal tends to be overpriced relative to Cannon Battle (the soldier's backpack is really the only thing that sets it apart from Cannon Battle, and all the other pirate sets for that matter). Obviously, Brickbeard's Bounty has good ship-building parts and Soldier's Fort has nice parts for building various structures, but the ultimate ship-building set seems to be Imperial Flag Ship though.

Cannon Battle

Well, many LEGO themes have their 'home' here on Eurobricks. Some of the most successful/active themes have their own blogs that are closely linked the respective EB fora, like http://www.classic-pirates.com for Pirates and http://www.classic-town.net for Town and Train Tech. The Technic community could make EB their home as well if that isn't already so. It probably just requires some coordination of the mods of the leading Technic websites, fora, and blogs.

That's Peppermint M in disguise

When it was first released it also had this limit (at least in The Netherlands).

To be honest: I haven't got a clue what you're talking about when you talk about 'hate'. And I'd guess that does for many members. I don't collect Technic, but that doesn't mean I hate it. It has its target group and fans and the occasional Technic pin in my town or pirates models doesn't bother me at all when it's well-integrated in the model, especially if it makes a model much more playable. Technic isn't my favorite theme because it's about the mechanisms and less about the 'look' of the finished model.

The indices on EB are all really useful, but the Pirates ones especially, because virtually everything is indexed here... good job guys. The times I've needed them I've always been able to really quickly find what I needed, whether it's a review, an overview of sails designs, how to make your own sails, or a particular ship MOC that I remembered seeing on EB.

Looking forward! What you have there so far in terms of buildings looks very promising.

Really nice set. I was lucky enough to get the Legend version for €39 some years back.

They aren't in any Town sets as far as I know. I think they were in some of the Racers sets, but I don't own any of those, so I'm not sure about that. I would agree with the suggestions of raising the 4WD vehicle a bit and lowering the trailer. However, the winch on the front looks really good.

Really nice MOC. Fits in well with TLG's current town line in terms of size. It looks much better than the truck TLG included in the City Construction Site set. I like the way you implemented the supports. The 'cabin' for the crane operator looks a little high above the ground though.

AFOLs are probably the only people that are happy when a product turns out more expensive than initially thought

Either side indeed seems plausible, but the fact that the packaging tray (that we've seen in the German catalog) shows complete minifigs and not mixing-and-matching suggestion at all, for me also is the most important clue that TLG will be selling complete figs in opaque bags, which are also clearly depicted. Now lets hope for a good price I hope they're trying to compete with all the collectibles in terms of price

Yeah, those are really nice. So simple, but the color scheme is perfect.

Nice entertaining review. The 'tractor upgrade' looks really fancy and you even managed to make alternate models from it.

Options C, D, and E are generally not appreciated - for different reasons though - when you're high in the sky on a plane.

'They' didn't smurf up your name (yet) though...