vexorian

Warming shelves around here. Most places still can't get rid of 2.0 Villains.It sells, but it is not exactly selling like bread. Ultrabuilds are really moving slowly which is very bad considering they are super hero licensed. Two Constraction themes without license to back them up at the same time? Sounds like losing money.

Because ultrabuilds were licensed and a sales flop.

They can hardly sell HF right now. Sure, the knights - But they were a system theme. Two themes using the build system just sounds very unlikely to me.The best indicator right now is that the new HF sets seem to be built upon Chima's visual guidelines. That explains the medieval heroes and organic villains. It has transitional written all over it.

The probability they will have two non-licensed constraction themes at the same time is very close to zero.Even if there is a second HF wave in 2013, it sounds like what they did with ninjago, letting them have a last wave while kids are supposed to transition to Chima.

Chima is looking to be the worse replacement of ninjago and the worse replacement of HF. Both sets start good with the heads and then go worse and worse the lower you look. This seems consistent with the design philosophy of the Chima system sets that seems to be even more superflous than exo force. The croc starts great with the crocodile head, but then the skinny arms and legs remind me to the wort of Bionicle. To think I complained that HF 2013 looked like Glatorians, didn't expect TLG to regress to the Hordika era. The lion is better with the hair shoulders and there is hope that the arms are not skeletal like the croc's. But the legs look so uninspired and inconsistent with the top...

Something that does not exist cannot decline. And would be called different instead of messing up with HF's name. That sort of transparent rubber looks ugly. I don't care about the color as much as I care about how awful that rubber looks in general. I knew they were going to be rubber, but I was thinking/hoping they would be Krata-style rubber (which is all right and looks organic in a good way). Instead they are Barraki squid-style rubber (which look like a Chinese toy that poisons children when broken).

Without the cgi, you get to see that the brains are ugly rubber. Now not even bruizer looks fine. To me the whole wave is a parts pack. But if I want parts, I might as well try to find discounts for 2.0 , 3.0 or break out parts. Hope this is the last HF year, as this looks like the beginning of a decline.

Most of the insectoids' new molds weren't that good anyway.

Fire minotaur is merely a good way for LEGO to make a devil set without having to call it a devil set. Still think the villains look like Bionicles. (And still think that's a bad thing).

I guess there won't be a 2013 wave.

Mech's color scheme is a turn down. Actually, if trooper is really white (not sure if it is just the bad picture filter or not), then I'll be relieved. Because series 9, like series 6 or 3 is probably not going to come town because of its release timing. Relieved because none of the pictures is really looking must-have.

I kind of wish they used minifig "cyborg" arms for the robots. Not sure how it would seem. But the normal arms look a bit too organic in comparison to the rest of the robot.

Leaks have an unpredictable random nature. I think the same happened before , we had photos of series 6 figs before even having an idea what series 5 was going to be like.

Many of the images from the parts thread should be in the first post. As by now most can be considered confirmed.

In related news, the prices of brasso are skyrocketing.

Wouldn't that be the brain from the series 8 Alien queen?

Ok, after finishing the reviews. The vaporizer has to be the coolest thing LEGO have released in years. The mech looks so solid. The minifigures... I don't know, there is something that just feels great when you watch the set finished. That clone tank is way bigger, yet when you see the sets together, the vaporizer completely steals the thunder of the clone tank, by looking so much cooler. The aliens are also looking very nice.

Must... buy...pierrots. Looking very good so far. Edit: So, I could not help myself:

More vaporizer: LEGO should just retire after making this set. They are not going to do any better than this. Specially with the license excess in the other themes. Everyone is entitled to a wrong opinion. There were exceptions, you know.And many cases were very fixable. Anyway, my robot fig army tells me that exo force theme was worth it.

New robot heads look nothing like Kra-Ops

Will definitely be getting the insect sets and the white/green tank+sweet mech combo.

That LEGO mascot is going to give me nightmares for the rest of my live. LEGO have a better mascot now, it is called the LEGO minifig, it is also awesome and iconical.

I've mind my mind after seeing the cgi pics of this. Text didn't change my mind. Besides of Ogrum, the whole wave is only a couple of parts pack after another and no set looks worth keeping built. Flip out visors are ok, I guess, does not make the sets look good though. I think the iron man heads were fine except for the weak connection which could have been fixed without doing anything else to the mold. All the heroes look like palette swaps of each other, except for Furno who has a cape in addition to the palette swap. The villains look like Glatorians and I hoped that visual style would rest in peace.

So, after meeting them in person. Robot and Alien queen are as awesome as I suspected. Except that the robot's helmet has to be removed to improve it (In fact, I think the same happens with the original robot). The rest of the figures I got so far are all meh. Old school scuba diver would have been amazing if not for the color and the lame smile. It looks odd. Gonna try to get only Alien queens and Robots from now on.

CM figures and many other things were leaked last year from one of the Chinese factories.The gray armor looks very real to me. But it could be a figure for a theme or special thing and not necessarily the CMs. It could also be that the gray armor will be used by a CM, but not with that minifigure head (Last year when things were leaked, some things were mixed up, like the CM6 alien's head appeared in the robot. However, I think it might make sense to have Alien troopers using the space marine's armor in gray. It was obvious to TLG that we needed enemy marines for the Galaxy Patrol. But the rule that the opposing side to the good guys must not be human still applies. So TLG would make them aliens that use the same armors. So that people who want to make their own gray marine army can just buy the troopers and replace the head...