Rufus

OOC: I've upgraded my weapon, and will use the WP10 one unless I state otherwise. Upgraded stats and inventory here (handily at the top of the page). Rufindel strides up to the party, polishing his upgraded weapon and stowing the more powerful but dodgy one in the recesses of Cronk's cloak for now. 'Cronk give Rufi cloak. Cloak have side effect. Rufi now talk like Cronk.' '<ahem>. Great to see you again, Atramor, Nyx, and Boomy! It's been a while. McCafferey,' he adds guardedly, keeping his distance from the feathery one. 'Ellaria, I don't believe we've met. And who else are we expecting? Some big Ogre I've no doubt.'

Rufindel runs breathlessly up to Anwyl. 'Right, my good sir, please would you upgrade my Fauxthril Staff to WP:8' Rufindel hands over 80 gold. 'Wonderful! Now please upgrade it to WP:9' Rufindel hands over 90 gold. 'Perfect! Now, please take this Blacksmith's Writ, and kindly work your magic to make it WP:10' Anwyl glares as Runfindel hands over the Writ. Rufindel then runs to Portia, and hurriedly hands over 10 gold for a Grand Potion.

Rufindel regrets ordering a long drink. He looks longingly at the quantity remaining, but decides to wave it farewell. 'Thank you Cronk, old friend! We'll call it a loan for now. Name your price when we meet again, if you wish to sell!'

This town has three lawmen. What's going on? Who's filing all the damn lawsuits? Not one baker; a schoolteacher with no-one to teach, and three lawmen. Oh well, at least there's a barkeep. Gibson, dear brother-in-law, make mine a double please! And make it snappy.

*snap!* Hey everyone! Cameron Cockodile here. Sadly it seems I'm no longer renowned for the size of my wiener, but being the village Carpenter means I'm handy with my tool. *gets the freak on with Gilda* There you go. It's good being a crocodile. I ain't afraid of no goats. Which is an advantage, since I married into a family of them. Sorry for all the ing. I can't help it. I'm a crocodile.

Rufindel tosses and turns in his slumber in one of the dim corners of the echoing hall. 'Keystone ... guards ... antiquary ... Strivian ... chicken ...' he mutters in his nightmares. Suddenly he is awake and bolt upright. 'Strivian!' he yells, then marches over to the board and signs his name next to the Strivian Job before it's too late.

Surely that would be Excalibur 0 ???

Well you say that but when 2.0 started we evaluated our options in the scumboard and noted with some terror that the town consisted of a large portion of extremely seasoned mafia players. However, you're right about games being impossible to predict; specifically, just how dumb you guys would be for most of the game! I wasn't referring to this game, just theorising in general. My point was about how the host might react to the draw. Anyway, you weren't all noobs: you had a seasoned scummo in Foog, and a relatively experienced and gutsy Scumba. And you guys played well. Plus putting several strong egos players on the town side doesn't necessarily make for a strong team.

I agree with this, but on the other hand it is impossible to predict what will happen. The host might feel the game concept is balanced, then randomly draw a scum team that is super-strong or full of noobs. The temptation then is to throw the players back into the pot and draw again, but then it isn't random. Alternatively, the host might be tempted to tweak the teams' powers to match the drawn players, but that has the drawback of upsetting the balance of the original concept, and people will then look at that tweaked concept and complain. Moreover, you cannot predict the players interactions in game. As I said after IMHOTEP, you could play this or any game again with the same players and the same roles and get a completely different outcome. Some games end up looking completely unbalanced in retrospect (both Bloodbricks towards scum; Werewolf and perhaps IMHOTEP towards towards town, as examples) but most likely its just a result of the way people played during the game. If Bob felt the need to tweak the balance in-game to keep a fair balance as it progressed, then that's his prerogative; if he had done nothing then I'm sure just as many (if not more) people would be screaming 'unfair' anyway, albeit for different reasons. I had fun in this game. Fun that came from playing, not winning; and I'd have had just as much fun if town had lost.

By the looks of it, you appear to be supporting it!

I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Being vanilla town is fun. I guess I didn't help town all that much, in the end, despite all the effort. Though I was killed by the scum, so I must have been doing something right! But then I was killed by town too, so I must also have been doing something wrong. That's the third time in as many games I've been killed twice at night!

It's a lovely set. I think it's worth the money, personally. And yes, the camper is delightful. And it's a superlative review, as always.

Movie-related MOCs belong in Special Themes, but I haven't found any The Godfather MOCs to date. You might be interested in this great Mafia MOC by SirNadroj, though. I'll move this thread into LEGO General Discussion and News, as I don't think it really belongs in Town.

Awww Rick! That's a gorgeous roadster, and perfect for Pandora Panda. Of course she won! I love how you've managed to pack so much humour into the scene. I particularly like Becka Bulldog bashing Marcus Monkey over the head!

Happy Birthday Pandora! A Kung-Fu Panda cake for you!! Don't mess with this cake!

Thanks. This was my first ever review. If you liked this one, you should really check out the later ones.

Thanks everyone for the lovely comments! Each tread was build separately and fed over the gears. Here are some WIP shots before the MOC made its journey across the Altantic: Static, and with one of the treads removed: And in motion, with the motor and gears revealed behind the rock door: Hope that helps!

I'll merge this into FABULAND Builders Guild General Discussion where the other tips are.

Merging with 2012 LEGO Racers News.... ... and first post updated.

You're welcome! ... and it's in the index. Beautiful work, Hinck. I think this may be your best yet.

Very nice! It has a lovely shanty-town look. Seeing as it's a town, I'll move it to the Town forum.

Far From Certaint - I was uncertaint about how scummy Dakar A was in Excalibur 2.0 Mafia, but it was certaintly Hinckley who tainted me with the title.

[pid][/pid]221A So you thought the world was round? Sorry to disappoint you, but it ain't. It's flat. Nearly perfectly flat, allowing for inconsistency in the heights of Westin tables; and surprisingly rectangular. At the Southwest corner, in a raging torrent, the sea cascades over the edge in a deafening tumult ... and here, weary travelers of the seas of Kingstud - pirates, soldiers and merchants alike - seek respite from their journeys and admire the stunning view from the Pub at the End of the World. The idea for this MOC sprang from the drunken imaginations of several of the Eurobricks Brickworld 2011 contingency when faced with the conundrum of combining Pirates with the BW theme 'the end of the world'. There's a lot to be said for literal thinking. Pandy and I originally intended to do a static waterfall overhanging the table edge, but the BW 2012 mantra 'Lights, Sounds, and Motion' inspired the craziest of crazy ideas: a moving waterfall. We (finally) present to you the end result. The Tudor building sits on a rocky outcrop which funnels the turbulent seas as they plummet into nothingness. An idyllic paradise island flanks the falls on the Northern side; three orca whales play in the current. All of these pictures were taken at the scene without the help of a tripod; the triangular piece of paper is the MOC card identifying the build and unfortunately incongruous when we're trying to showcase the model! The Pub Let's start with a look at the pub. The building has a small 'L'-shaped footprint; the ground floor is built from stone represented by Sand Blue 1x2 bricks with stone grey and tan highlights, with a large bay window looking out over the seas. The upper floors are wooden-framed, using Derfel Cadarn's technique for the corners, flanking the tall chimney which continues the Sand Blue theme to its summit. The roof invites special mention. We decided to try what is (we think) an innovative technique, using plates mounted via hinges onto a brick frame and covered with tan tiles, which are deliberately attached weakly to give a 'higgledy-piggledy' look. The gable gave us quite a headache: to achieve a neat angle between the gable and main roof, black tiles mounted using Pythagorus (3-4-5) triangles smooth the edge, and necessitate a slight oddity in the angle of the main roof: the rear is steeper than the front. This is more obvious from the left side: The rear of the building is vertically straight, compared to the front which overhangs in steps. It looks a little lopsided; we experimented with moving the side window positions but this seemed to produce the best result. Note the Redcoats marching up the winding path from the makeshift pier to a well-needed drink! This is a good angle to note IMHOTEP, making a cameo appearance as he glares over the bay. The little handle visible in the flat Southern wall allows access to a panel for changing batteries; this intrigued the kids at Brickworld so much that I wish we'd included a monster that popped out when the panel opened. Back around the right side, there's a little outhouse for the patrons to perform their ablutions: Someone's been caught in the act! You can also see here how the pub is mounted on the base, also using Pythagorean angles. The base itself has a large recess underneath for lighting cables. The rear of the pub is open to allow a good look at the interior: The ground floor features a tiled area between the front door and the stairs, replete with cooking spit; the main parlour has a wooden floor and the usual crowd of drunken revellers in front of a large fireplace. Behind them is a small band of musicians around the piano which unfortunately you can't see well in these pics. A decapitated deer guards the stairwell... ... but doesn't prevent interlopers from taking turns in the Hot Seat: Here a diminutive Eurobricks VIP takes a swivel in the chair. And drinks all the booze. *shakes fist* We soon got rid of him. Now we can have a closer look at the master bedroom: A washstand and writing desk flank the fireplace; a patterned rug decorates the wooden floor in front of the comfortable four-poster bed. You've already seen the Comfy Chair (not the Comfy Chair! ); behind it are a treasure chest and a hatstand; on the landing is a little bookcase which should have a hairbrush on top (but it's fallen on the floor). I don't know what the Great God IMHOTEP is doing here, but he looks angry (as usual). Perhaps it is the Islander sitting in his mouth. If you were stupid enough to walk into IMHOTEP's mouth, you'd discover a little secret: A treasure cave! We had to include FABULAND somewhere! The stalagmites help to prevent small thieving children from helping themselves to priceless FABULAND figures, but they have to be removeable as the switches for the Pub's lights are located in the cave ceiling. From left to right: Cameron Crocodile, Pandora Panda, Rufus Rabbit, Sheldon Sheepdog (hiding behind the stalagmite), and CopMike. Not pictured is Ricky Raccoon: he's too priceless to leave in reach of little thieving hands. And don't forget the FABULAND frog! The Waterfall Now let's have a look at the centerpiece of our little corner of the world. In this long view, we can see how the rocks overhang the edge of the table and flank the waterfall, an get a little glimpse of how it works. The large dark bley overhand contains a secret door, behind which is an XL motor. This connects via a slight down-gear to a number of long axles connected end-to-end. Large 40T gears support trains of about 100 Tecnhic treads; every other thread is clipped to a white 1x6 plate onto which trans-clear detail is attached. The plates don't clutch onto the Technic treads particularly well. A lot of thumb-pressure is needed, and even then they threatened to pop off occasionally. We even brought with us a tube of superglue, but fortunately it wasn't needed. Here's a full-frontal of the waterfall, caught here in motion: It's a simple mechanism, but surprisingly effective. Perhaps even more surprising is that the waterfall ran for over 12 hours a day for three days on a single set of six AA batteries. And, apart from an accident caused by someone pulling the entire display towards the table and making the tracks snag on the table edge, there were very few instances of plates falling off the tracks. We did have to strengthen the connecting axles during the show, as the weight of the tracks caused the longer axles to bow slightly: you can see the strengthened mechanism through the tracks in the picture below. Above the waterfall is a static construction of trans-clear slopes and plates to show turbulence in the water, and an unfortunate rower caught in the current. Atop the centre island, a brave fisherman attempts to turn desperately leaping fish into dinner: The island itself is a necessary support for the long axles turning the tracks; as are the two smaller static technic beams covered with trans plates between tracks 1 & 2 and 4 & 5. At the northern edge of the waterfall is a little paradise island... ... where scantily-clad ladies enjoy cool drinks in the beautiful lagoon, and three generations of primates keep them company. The Pub at Night It wouldn't be a Brickworld MOC without lights. At 10pm on the Saturday of Brickworld, the main lights in the ballroom are shut off, allowing the MOCs to light the room. Most of the Pub lighting is achieved using Lifelites. The ground floor is lit with white LEDs in the fireplace, at two tables, and via the big fire under the spit roast; in addition, there's a lamp by the front door. The bedroom has a 'chandelier' of white LEDs suspended from the ceiling. We originally tried using a Power Functions brick, but it wasn't powerful enough to light the room sufficiently (and the yellow light looked a little odd). A number of coloured LEDs add character to the cave: A single red LED at the rear lights the back of the cave and provides the glow through IMHOTEP's mouth. His eyes are white LEDs behind trans-red round plates. We cheated with the waterfall. It's backlit with a blacklight (which looked great in the flesh but doesn't photograph well) and two small LED spots hidden behind the overhanging rocks. Neither LEGO or its derivatives I'm afraid! And finally... We're British, which means we're modest. But not that modest! We hope you enjoyed our little tour of the Pub at the End of the World. We were rather proud of this MOC - the largest we've ever made, larger even than IMHOTEP's original habitat - and the efforts required to shift it from the UK to Chicago and back! The pub itself lives on, but sadly its rocky base and the waterfall are no more. Please let us know what you think! Pandora & Rufus More and larger pictures on flickr.

Moving to B/S/T/F....

Thanks to Eurobricks Root Admin Hinckley, FABULAND is still very much alive! Check out the wonderful architecture and delightful interior features of Firuz Fox's Apothecary in the Special Themes Forum!