Fugazi

Is it just me, or the forum just underwent a minor brain wipe? I lost 2 posts and a PM, all sent during the last hour or so. Or is it just me?

Interesting, this is what prompted my question about who are the people you tell about your Lego interests. My wife is mildly interested in Lego, she had some when she was younger. She does seem to like the Star Wars minifigs, of which I have none. I wonder if I should buy her some... but maybe she's just showing polite interest, not that she really would like to save some of their own

A post in another thread just brought up this question in my mind... Do you share your passion with non-Lego fans? Do you tell your relatives, friends (only the closest ones, or everybody?), your work colleagues or classmates? Where do you draw the line, and what makes you hesitate about telling some on the people you know, if it is the case? Myself, I'm just back from my dark age, and so far haven't bragged about it to my friends yet. The closest of them will probably know in good time. I will probably never tell my work colleagues though, I work in a 'serious' scientific lab so I'm afraid I will look weird! My parents... well they live far from me, and would probably find it very amusing that I'm into Lego again, since it was such a passion for me when I was young! Hou about you? Is this a topic that has been raised before? If so, sorry for bringing it up again!

This is so interesting! I never knew about any of this of course. IMO the sea people black concepts are rather blah, and so is the human base but the monorail is quite impressive, very inspired sci-fi design. The colours of the yellow monorail and white/red base don't mix well but the final product could have been different. It's too bad that the Aquazone theme dropped the idea of a submarine monorail, though if would have been far-fetched. The preliminary design was very promising!

Nicely done! All of them look good to me, although the 6-wide is probably closest to the proportions of a real car. All 3 would fit the standard city road plates, but the 6-wide would probably look better next to a modular building rather than the pizzeria in City Corner!

I agree with you, if I were a collector and kept the minifigs in their box, I probably wouldn't even notice the difference with the originals. In that case, it would probably a good buy. But I'm not a collector, I like to use my figs in MOCs and such, so I feel the difference in plastic texture and weight and colour density when a minifig is low-quality and it bothers me. I think the message here is that given an objective review of the minifigs, everyone can make their own opinion and act accordingly. We don't all buy according to the same criteria, so as long as we're happy with what we get, I'm a conformist!! (as someone here would say! ) It's just too bad that TLC can't churn out products that are of such quality that everyone would be happy with them.

Thanks for the review, I am a bit disappointed and not sure yet if this set is worth it or not. But I suppose it could have been worse too. This is probably the quality level we should expect from the collectible minifigs due out in June.

Good point. Not to mention copyright issues: when Lego wants to copy a Ferrari, a Lamborghini or a Star Wars ship, they have to buy a license to do it. Copying exact locomotive prototypes would probably mean TLC getting in trouble with the manufacturers for unauthorized use of their designs. It's much safer to freelance a realistic looking model without coming too close to anything in particular.

Thanks, enjoy your new set! And by the way, is it still written Made in China on the box, or is it somewhere else? Sorry for all the questions!

Grogall and army23, if I may ask, how much did you pay for the set?

You have a valid point here. Although I feel that 4-wide is not a very realistic vehicle width, at least during the 80-90s the whole city system was internally consistent, with buildings that were pretty much in scale with the vehicles. Now we have strange settings like you just mentioned, where vehicles are taller than the buildings and wider than the streets. So while as a MOCer I enjoy the availability of parts allowing me to build in 6+wide, as a Lego City fan I'm not sure I like how going big is having an impact on the believability of the City line. It's starting to look just like another action theme (I have the Agents 2.0 uber-vehicles in mind)... But if this is what sells with the kids, I will swallow the pill and keep MOCing my own way -- which is pretty much 5 to 7-wide depending on vehicle type. PS: And by the way, I hate how they designed this mudguard: It's designed for 6+wide vehicles, but the way it's made you still wind up with only 2 studs in the cabin between the tires, with the minifig sitting in the center of the cabin. They should have designed it differently IMO.

Great review for a great set! I never owned this one, but got to play with my neighbour's when I was kid. It's a great design all over, although the move from grey to white for the Space theme is not one I am fully happy about. But back then I was thrilled with the new colours and the size of the ship. Thanks for the memories!

Ditto. Were all 4 previous minifig packs piss-poor, or there were better ones among the lot? I am highly tempted by Vol.5 but wouldn't want them to turn out to be clone brand quality.

Well since this topic was revived, I might as well join in! My first and only train set was 7715, and I rebuilt it in so many ways as a kid! During my dark age, I dabbled with HO scale model trains when I could make the time. Now that my dark age is over, I plan to start fresh with this year's cargo train. Well if my wife agrees that is!

Ahaha! Great stuff everybody! It's all so funny! I wish I would find a picture of the Christmas tree I made for a contest for the Canadian LEGO Club when I was 9 or so... It was blue (what did you expect?), since I had only Space parts to build from. Actually, the whole contest was a cheat now that I think of it, there really were no green parts to speak of back then! Keep the great pics coming!

The other day I stumbled upon some old photos of my last 'pre-dark age' creation, and I thought, hey, this could be something fun to share with fellow Eurobrickers! Do you still have pics of those old creations you were so proud of, many of them mixing all available colors (6 or 7 back then!) randomly and unashamedly, perhaps the photos you sent to the LEGO Club Magazine for a contest when you were 8, that kind of fun stuff! So I'm starting this off (if there's any interest) with one pic of that last KFOL creation of mine, a MOC which only goal was to use all of my parts back then! I failed to achieve that, but still the strange result remained on display as built at my parents for many years afterwards! I'm looking forward to see what you have, don't be afraid of displaying the emergence of your talents!

I'm a classic kind of guy, I just browse the topics one by one! Yeah, I realize this means that some sub-forums I almost never visit, shame on me!

While Castle is not my favourite theme, I found out to my surprise that during my childhood I ended up with about 7 small-to-medium castle sets. My first and oldest (1989) is this one, worth mentioning because it hasn't come up in this thread yet: It's Smuggler's Hayride, part of a Town/Space/Castle Value pack. Just a small hay cart, but with two great minifigs, and I remember it having lots of playability, as there was a secret compartment beneath the hay balls for the Forestman to hide! Loads of fun, really!

Nicely done! Do you have any pics of your interior layout?

Well at about 16 parts per Pound or £0.06/part it's not a bad deal, although there are few specialized parts included. The minifigs are good, and the part selection reminds me of the McDonalds kids meal toys back in the day before they went Bionicle and Racers. A fun spare parts pack, and I'm sure people can come up with some creative alternate builds! Thanks for the review!

The passenger train looks a bit kiddish with its short car and the absence of doors. Oh well, it's a City theme train, not an exclusive. The freight locomotive is lovely though, and I'm looking forward to buying the cargo set as a post-dark age train starter pack!

While I'm glad there is a new house in the City theme, I hope it's brick-built and not full of 1x?x5 panels like the pizzeria in City Corner. The color scheme is a throwback to the original Lego bricks of the 1950s, white and red... but otherwise I don't find it especially appealing. Almost every City building in the last 2 years has been either white or red... where are the other colours, guys?

Being able to buy from s@h in unbranded, plain cardboard boxes is a great idea! I don't save boxes anymore, so I would definitely support it, especially if TLC provide smaller boxes (to save on shipping) and/or they give a small money incentive to buy those 'eco-boxes'. Bio-degradable plastic bricks is a silly idea however, if it means that long-term stability of the bricks is compromised. But maybe it is not, perhaps it's only in the presence of water that the bricks will start degrading. Either way, LEGO bricks have always been among the more ecological toys ever, given that they can be played with and reused for years and decades, not something you see a lot of with other toys!

I'm sure they have studied the case extensively, but there are always unknowns. And obviously TLC will only derive profits from the fixed price of the retailer sales, not from Bricklink or eBay. So since this is a limited run, if they can't satisfy demand their profits will simply be lower than if they do. Of course the next waves will be as (or more) succesful, but it's still the same problem.

This is a beautiful temple, really impressive! I would love to see such a creation in a landscaped module. Now could you just rebuild it in tan?