jamtf

The scythe/sword that you are talking about is actually a "kopesh", a typically Egyptian sickle-sword that did not make push cuts but slashes. Lego obviously made a new mold for this item as it was previously only available through BrickForge. The older Egypt sets from the Adventurers line (for instance 5978 Sphinx Secret Surprice and 5988 Pharaoh's Forbidden Ruins/The Temple of Anubis) did not have Egyptian warriors carrying this weapon since the only figs of Egyptian origin included were pharaoh Hotep and the (dead) skeletons with pharaoh headdresses.

I managed to get hold of a German Lego dealer catalogue from the Vedes toy stores chain. It contains pictures of all the new sets (with the confidential stamp) and it says that Pharaoh's Quest will be released in April 2011 ("Lancierung im April") which is confidential information according to the catalogue (it has a small banner with the word "Vertraulich"). I guess that April 2011 is the German release date. It also reveals that the new Pharaoh's Quest theme will get commercial back-up on TV ("TV-Unterstützung"). The newest Star Wars line will be released in February 2011 and the Ninjago sets will be released in March 2011. The newest City and Atlantis releases are both due January 2011. Fact is however that Pharaoh's Quest already is part of the featured range of products on Lego.com and that the December 2010 date is clearly mentioned in the diary of Prof. Archibald Hale. Perhaps they managed to speed things up (production, etc.) which enables TLG to release the theme earlier than first planned.

The color for the 4th range will indeed be orange. The Spartan helmet (with the feather in gold metallic = same color as the helmet itself) will be part of the biggest 2011 Atlantis set that looks like an underwater (Greek) temple.

How curious. I drove to Germany last Thursday (August 12) as I expected these series 2 figs to be released in Germany earlier than here (like series 1 was released a couple weeks earlier as well). I did not have any luck since all I found were those typical leftovers from series 1. Only one day later, I located a box of series 2 figs in my hometown by surprise. Could have saved on the fuel, oh well...

If you buy sets second hand, anything could have happened. You might be lucky and buy a 100% original set with all the correct pieces that originally came with that set. Some people have been really careful with their Lego and stored all the pieces back in the original boxes after building. On the other hand you might run the risk of getting a complete set that has been picked together from a huge Lego tub. Many people throw their Lego bricks in a tub that is being used as brick fodder for creative building. As soon as these people want to sell their collection, they simply take out the instruction leaflets and start picking bricks randomly that seem to match the set. In other words, you will most likely receive a complete set but it might consist of a mixture of 1980s, 1990s and bricks from different era's. More than once I received very old pat.pend. bricks (from the 1960s if I am correct) in more recently released sets. That is usually an indication that bricks that belonged to the kids were mixed together with much older Lego bricks from their parents.

Found some series 2 figs in my hometown this morning. They had been delivered to the store yesterday and already, some people had picked the box in order to get the best (most desirable) ones out first. Fortunately, I still managed to get a complete set of all 16 figs including the ones I like best.

Hmm, nice move I suppose. Let's hope it is for real and that this is not a fake try-out minifig that gets us excited for no reason. I would like to see more of it before I can say whether I like it or not. Furthermore, wasn't Pirates of the Caribbean previously linked up with Megablocks sets??? I always thought they had the exclusive license.

Basically, you expect it to be something like the werewolf that was part of the Lego Studios series (see link below). Werewolf

I was in Germany yesterday. The stores were still flooded with the first wave minifigs. To my surprise, they are actually quite easy to find over there and you can find each one that you still need. Some stores have been visited by scalpers of course but most stores still have their share of collectible minifigs. The hardest one to get clearly was the cheerleader since that character is usually hoarded in multiples. No trace of series 2 figs though, although I have been told by a store employee that these are expected to arrive somewhere in August, most likely around mid-August. They were quite confident that they would have a shipment in some time next month. If the availability of series 2 is comparable to that of series 1, it will most likely not be too hard to get a complete range and some extra's of the ones that appeal the most or are suitable for army building such as the classic ancient warrior / soldier (I do not like to call him Roman, Greek, Trojan or Spartan, etc. since I simply do not know and consider myself too lazy right now to investigate this and I would like to avoid pointless and righteous discussions such as the one started by the now banned Asterios).

Either that or some people paid a visit to Legoland.

The first batch of Series 2 minifigs is already hitting the online auctions, see this example for a pantomime minifigure: Collectible minifigures Series 2 Pantomime minifigure on German eBay And someone on Brickshelf seems to own them all already: Collectible Minifigs Series 2 Brickshelf folder Edited. Links should work now.

The barcode sheet for series 2 is available through brickset. The person who made it must already have had access to these figs. There is no information on how these barcode ID's got accumulated so soon other than the fact that Legoland Billund supposedly has the figs for sale. Perhaps Legoland Günzburg (Germany) has them for sale by now too.

I was in Eindhoven last weekend and the Intertoys store over there had about 12 - 15 boxes up for grabs, some unopened and some opened. They were stacked on top of each other next to the counter. Some boxes were ripped open by customers, most likely to get an extra portion of the minifigs they liked best.

Great review. I am happy to own this set also MISB and MIB (used with original green storage bin and everything present + in excellent condition).

Don't forget that all these were made in China and suffer from the "cheap plastic parts syndrom" (see banner below ). TLG decided to outsource production of this series (and perhaps the upcoming series as well) to their Chinese plant. That being said, it is obvious that the part colour differs from "normal" figs that were manufactured in European countries such as Denmark, Czech Republic or Hungary.

No, I have not done such thing at home but I noticed that in the stores I found similar combinations when I worked my way front to back i.e. finding cheerleader after cheerleader while I was expecting something else for a change. That is of course only the case when the box ain't picked by other barcode users or refilled by staff with leftovers (divers, demolition dummies, etc.) from an almost empty second box.

Maybe I am but if father and kids and their friends share their money, the say "5 per customer limit" does not work, does it? Plus you can walk by the counter time after time imposing you are a "new" client and do the trick over and over again. Eventually and in essence, the customer limit is quite easy to pass. Regarding toys, I have never seen limits per customer here in Europe and I regularly visit toy stores in Holland and Germany. I have only seen discounts at TRU like "buy 3 get 1 for free" so you have to make "triplets" of your purchases. Fact is that collectable cards (I think you are referring to something like world of warcraft and similar card games in which you can purchase extra power, energy and capacities for your character) ain't such a big hit here but we have the Panini football (or soccer) stickers which can be compared to US baseball cards and such. If I would want them all, I will get them without a problem (if I pay of course) no questions asked.

You could be right there. Do not expect retailers to limit the number you can buy. America has a liberty-based trading policy and limiting numbers i.e. a refusal to sell things to a customer will not be accepted (imagine children and parents getting quite angry) and these people will most likely never return to the store ever again. Furthermore, it will be hard to pull off to begin with and the staff at the store can not execute such a measure as it will result in a lot of bad things happening on the spot and other customers being affected by people starting arguments about $2 a piece merchandise.

No idea when series 3 can be expected. Fact is that - at this time - there are no pictures around and no rumours about the type of figs that are part of that series. Production of series 1 was completed at the end of March while series 2 was done at the end of May. Based on that schedule, series 3 should be in preparation right now but I have not seen nor heard any news about that. It was only mentioned that there will be a series 3. Maybe we can expect a third series at the end of this year. Just keep on checking the news on eurobricks and brickset and go from there. I think it is quite weird that the Americans are complaining about the lack of figs while the Europeans still have no problems acquiring them. They are admittedly quite easy to find while I thought that The Netherlands would not even get them (they were not announced in the January catalogue while they actually were advertised in the German catalogue). I found a bunch of them in my home town yesterday when I was cycling around to do some shopping. They were available at 2 toy stores (Intertoys and Bart Smit) and the Blokker store has them too.

It appears that The Netherlands got their share too since I found these minifigs in 2 Intertoys stores yesterday so my guess is that all of their stores got supplied to some extend. Could not prevent hoarding a few more of series 1.

These figs were never available in The Netherlands, as they were not advertised in the catalogue. They were not meant to land here although they were available through Shop@Home. Germany was flooded though, I went to 4 villages/cities and found these figs in every toy store I visited except in the Lego Store that sold out their supply in a couple days time. Basically, I got there too late but I can't complain about their availability around mid June when I went there by car. They were even marketed by perfume stores such as Mueller and drug stores like Schlecker. As I said, no problem there at all.

If I know I can't get there in time and if I know the manager and other staff personally, I should have given them a call to reserve a good number of bags on my behalf with a promise to come over to check them out within say a day or 2 max. TLG has certainly underestimated things but I also think that the retailers should probably have done more efforts to acquire at least 1 or 2 boxes. I happen to know a store owner who manages to get hold of things that are usually not available in Dutch stores. Basically, it is all a matter of having some good connections and getting to know Lego representatives and salesmen who are capable of arranging special things on request. If the store manager does not know about these figs, something went wrong in the marketing department as well. Get to know your customer and get to know your product.

If you did not find things yourself, you might have wanted to ask people who are working there where they are located and if they actually did get them in. That is what I always do, get to know the shop owner or others that are responsible for the toys department just to find out about things I am looking for and Lego in general. Sometimes you even get extra "news" for free and they might tell you all they know about new things that are coming in, things ordered, things on back-order, etc. People simply know me in most of the places where I tend to buy my Lego and sometimes they have even kept things away from the store shelves if they think I have an interest in it. I must admit that I spend a lot of money on this stuff so most store owners are usually glad to see me walking around in their store dragging all those sets to the counter.

Production run of series 1 lasted until March and series 2 was done at the end of May. Basically, this means that the quality will most likely be the same and that TLG does not have time left to correct or change things based on AFOLs perception. The places where I found my figs had not been picked by other AFOLs although I noticed that I did not find a single cheerleader amongst my purchases in one particular store i.e. someone before me went through the figs the exact same way I did (using a barcode list) and managed to hoard all the cheerleaders .

I remember visiting a Lego Store in Germany in 2008... the Batman sets were all on clearance. They had plenty of Tumbler / Joker's Ice Cream Surprise sets, Robin's Scuba Jet sets, Harley Quinn's Hammer Trucks and the small Batman Buggy and Mr. Freeze sets, all marked 50% off. I ended up buying just 1 Hammer Truck and 1 Batman Buggy and Mr. Freeze set and thought about buying some of the other sets a couple weeks later. Of course, they were all gone (after all, it was a clearance sale) the next time I went there and I still regret that I did not buy more of them when they were still there. I think designwise the Batman sets are way better than Spider-man sets, however the Spider-man sets such as 4856 Doc Ock's Hideout make great parts packs with useful elements. As for sets, I happen to like 4850 Spider-man's First Chase, 4852 The Final Showdown and 4855 Spider-man's Train Rescue a lot too.