Battle Packs

[Jeff of Clubs]

I myself don't keep my kits in one piece after I build them and tend to buy TLG products mostly for MOC parts in the first place. The botanical series has been fantastic for jungly bits, btw;

(fig.a)Poisonous Frogs! Scores of them from the Bonzai kit!

As I'm of this mindset, it seems to me that the biggest defining aspect to new MOC builders in any genre are appropriate minifigs and that the biggest obstacle to Pirates and Castle fans is affordable access to said minifigs.

Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the 3in1 Pirate Ship immensely and am hungrily eyeing the new Eldorado Fortress but as these are the only Pirate themed kits available of late, access to Pirate minifigs is a bit sparse outside of 3rd party dealers and expensive as a consequence.

As I think this is a bit of a bottleneck for new pirates MOCs, I was thinking on curating some 'Battle Packs' of new or lightly used pirate figs in the SW style(4 figs and a doodad ×2+ Factions) but the only way I know how to sell such things would be ebay which isn't always ideal for everywhere.

(fig.b) A SW Battle Pack for formatting purposes.

I do feel this is something that TLG could do for some of their classic themes relatively easily but rather than pull that thread, I am asking for your input.

What would you like to see for a small series of Lego Pirates Battlepacks? Islanders could be tough to procure, 2016 and 2023 Bluecoats, and just pirates in general would be fairly easy. What others? A mob of malicious monkies? Merchants? Armada? 

(fig.c)Maybe something more exotic?

I'll have some demo packs to post here in a week or so but in the meantime, if you'd like to make your own spin on such an idea, please post it here! Kinda a little figbarf with a cannon or the like.

Thanks, ♧

[Mister Phes]

55 minutes ago, Jeff of Clubs said:

What would you like to see for a small series of Lego Pirates Battlepacks? Islanders could be tough to procure, 2016 and 2023 Bluecoats, and just pirates in general would be fairly easy. What others? A mob of malicious monkies? Merchants? Armada? 

Aye!

55 minutes ago, Jeff of Clubs said:

(fig.c)Maybe something more exotic?

Nay

[Yperio_Bricks]

2 hours ago, Jeff of Clubs said:

(fig.a)Poisonous Frogs! Scores of them from the Bonzai kit!

I bought the bonsai set to part it out because it comes with many useful parts. The frogs though....are still in their bag. Don't know if i will ever use them

2 hours ago, Jeff of Clubs said:

What would you like to see for a small series of Lego Pirates Battlepacks? Islanders could be tough to procure, 2016 and 2023 Bluecoats, and just pirates in general would be fairly easy. What others? A mob of malicious monkies? Merchants? Armada?

(fig.c)Maybe something more exotic?

Yes, yes and yes and yes to all of that

[CloneCommando99]

Imperial Navy battlepack: 2 navy seamen (in style of 18th century British Royal Navy crewmen) and 2 redcoats (Tri-corn hat) Build is a Dinghy and a small parapet with canon.

We seriously need an imperial flagship remake. As a Brit I would be overjoyed if Lego made a HMS victory set.

[eldiano]

Some of my first pirate sets ever were the 4.99 packs with pirates like island, the natives, etc basically the equivalent of our current polybags. It would be nice if they released another pirate and castle bags 

[Jack Sassy]

Due to the new colours available for epaulettes, I would like to see Imperial factions in different colours (orange, green (not Armada), white, purple and so on). Though it would be lovely to receive different types of pirate factions (think the Brethren Court from POTC 3), not to mention all the types of civilians we could receive. 

[evancelt]

27 minutes ago, Jack Sassy said:

Due to the new colours available for epaulettes, I would like to see Imperial factions in different colours (orange, green (not Armada), white, purple and so on).

https://www.rockymountainminifigs.com/product/full-color-classic-pirates-imperial-guard-soldier-torso/

[Jack Sassy]

38 minutes ago, evancelt said:

https://www.rockymountainminifigs.com/product/full-color-classic-pirates-imperial-guard-soldier-torso/

Aye, yer example first came to mind.  Strangely enough, i have never before considered buying custom prints. 

[Mithril2098]

if using the Star Wars sets as guides, it's worth mentioning the new "ambush on mandalore" set, which is basically two half battlepacks in one box. with two imperial commandos, two mandalorians, and a small terrain build with minor play features.

https://brickset.com/article/109680/review-75373-ambush-on-mandalore-battle-pack

 

i feel like this would be a popular sort of set for Pirates, perhaps with  with two Imperial Guard troopers, and two pirates, with say a stand of palm trees on a sand dune and a small guard post. maybe a rowboat.

you could then build off this with a larger set with some more terrain and more elaborate minifigs on both sides (analogous to the "paz visla and moff gideon battle" set which the smaller set can link to directly to to create a larger scene/play scenario) say, a small brick built boat (bigger than a rowboat, but still limited parts count) with two pirates of a somewhat fancier style, vs an imperial guard cannon crew.

 

then you could do stuff like an imperial guard troop pack and a pirate pack, each adding both more basic minifigs and accessories, and brick built terrain bits for play use. which would suppliment whatever ships and islands form the bigger sets in the line.

[MAB]

For me, some of the best battle packs Pirates and Castle had were the chess sets. I've never really had a problem getting enough generic minifigures after those were released and went to clearance. But I guess that it helps to be collecting the right stuff at the right time.

Rather than battle packs, I think I'd prefer to see a few polybags or small boxed sets with one minifigure, some building stuff (a boat, shark, or bit of island, cannon, etc). In the past, I always found those to be more flexible than battle packs, especially if the battle packs contained a named (for SW, LOTR, etc) or senior type minifigure that you do not want to army build. Plus the builds tend not to be great in battle packs, so go in the parts bins anyway.

[Yperio_Bricks]

On 5/15/2024 at 11:35 AM, MAB said:

especially if the battle packs contained a named (for SW, LOTR, etc) or senior type minifigure that you do not want to army build.

I read this argument so often but i do not understand it. The parts from named characters can be used to build other generic minifigs and create new characters. Especially in themes like castle or pirates, LOTR or POTC, where you want knights, soldiers, pirates, orcs, etc. to look slightly different.

 

EDIT: Is this appealing to anyone? (Oh damn, now i accidentally uploaded the picture as attachment and can't delete it.)

 

[Jack Sassy]

On 5/15/2024 at 12:35 PM, MAB said:

For me, some of the best battle packs Pirates and Castle had were the chess sets.

A good idea, but from what I heard, those chess sets were produced in a different factory using cheaper plastic, but I be not fully sure if that is true.

On 5/15/2024 at 12:50 PM, Yperio_Bricks said:

Is this appealing to anyone?

Looks impressive! I do believe that for pirates it would be too much. I have heard of the lengths some people are ready to go to for such armies. 

[thewatchman]

18 hours ago, Jack Sassy said:

A good idea, but from what I heard, those chess sets were produced in a different factory using cheaper plastic, but I be not fully sure if that is true.

This I didn’t know!

 Thank you for sharing. I had actually considered buying a few of those and the tic-tac-toe set to space out my range of figs. 

 

[Jack Sassy]

On 5/17/2024 at 12:58 PM, thewatchman said:

Thank you for sharing. I had actually considered buying a few of those and the tic-tac-toe set to space out my range of figs. 

Well, take it with grain of salt, as I heard such a fact quite a few years ago, would have to investigate this matter further. 

[MightyThorngren]

Man I'd love battle packs. As a kid, I filled out my collection a lot by getting one or two character packs and it was the best. I miss buying a small island and getting a boat and two figures or 6 figures from different factions

[SpacePolice89]

I miss the minifig packs they used to make. When I was a kid they added so much play value to my sets when I had more minifigs. If such minifig packs were available today I'd by several and use the minifigs in my displays. Minifigs from pick a brick is kinda a replacement for those but they are not really easy to acquire. I buy a lot of random minifigs at yard sales and then try to piece together some minifigs from those and parts from Bricklink. I temporarily placed the minifigs from 6251 that I had assembled on a bookshelf (after my cat stole captain Redbeard) but they looked so good there so I left them there.

 

[MAB]

On 5/16/2024 at 4:15 PM, Jack Sassy said:

A good idea, but from what I heard, those chess sets were produced in a different factory using cheaper plastic, but I be not fully sure if that is true.

I no longer have the original boxes for the pirates one, but the parts seem fine to me after all this time. I know some of the early CMFs and some other parts were made in Chinese factories, and if you put them up to a very bright light they appear very slightly translucent. Whether that means that they are lower quality is another matter. I don't even think it was down to cost-cutting, but more because they had to use Chinese locally sourced raw ABS rather than importing it into China.

On 5/15/2024 at 10:50 AM, Yperio_Bricks said:

I read this argument so often but i do not understand it. The parts from named characters can be used to build other generic minifigs and create new characters. Especially in themes like castle or pirates, LOTR or POTC, where you want knights, soldiers, pirates, orcs, etc. to look slightly different.

 

Back in the day, I remember buying this battle pack. You get one generic pirate and a pirate captain. If you buy a lot of battle packs, you end up with a lot of pirates that wear clothes that make them look like captains. The same thing with the Imperials. And even though you can swap the legs around, they all end up losing their right leg unless you start pulling legs off other hip joints.

If they did two generic pirates, it might be better for army builders but less good for kids that don't have a pirate captain.

 

For licensed ones, it depends if they wear an outfit that is so famous it cannot be used elsewhere. For example, for the Uruk vs Rohan "battle pack", I bought quite a few. But I also purchased I think a further 10 Eomer figures as they were so cheap (about $3). Once people had one Eomer they clearly did not want more, making him very cheap on bricklink. This torso is so characteristic of Eomer, it cannot really be used for other Rohan soldiers. However, the helmet, head, cape and legs are fine for reuse with another torso. And the torso, I still use it for a castle faction, not connected to LOTR.

 

[Jack Sassy]

3 hours ago, MAB said:

I know some of the early CMFs and some other parts were made in Chinese factories

I had not heard about CMFs, thank ye for the infomation! 

 

[Black Falcon]

I thought they are still produced in china and only packaged in Mexico and Czech Republik for their markets. Whether that is true, no idea. 

[iragm]

Am I the only person who thinks PAB is pretty much perfect?  Any non-licensed figure you want, as many as you want, for $2-3 each?  And no need to purchase stuff that you already have, like heads or weapons?  For the cost of a couple big sets I have all the castle figures I'll ever need.

[Yperio_Bricks]

41 minutes ago, iragm said:

Am I the only person who thinks PAB is pretty much perfect?  Any non-licensed figure you want, as many as you want, for $2-3 each?  And no need to purchase stuff that you already have, like heads or weapons?  For the cost of a couple big sets I have all the castle figures I'll ever need.

For me its about the design and aesthetics of the minifigures and in my opinion licensed themes are way ahead of unlicensed themes.

 

vs

 

And licensed pieces rarely show up at PAB. Every now and then, with a little bit of luck we get pieces like Pippin's torso:

 

[The Reader]

20 minutes ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

And licensed pieces rarely show up at PAB. Every now and then, with a little bit of luck we get pieces like Pippin's torso:



 

If I see it correctly Pippin‘s torso also appears in the new HP set 76439.

Edited May 20, 2024 by The Reader

[Yperio_Bricks]

3 minutes ago, The Reader said:

If I see it correctly Pippin‘s torso also appears in the new HP set 76439.

So this very torso somehow does not have the restrictions of other LOTR torsos. It's at PAB and in the Harry Potter set. I really would like to know how this is possible?!?

[The Reader]

34 minutes ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

So this very torso somehow does not have the restrictions of other LOTR torsos. It's at PAB and in the Harry Potter set. I really would like to know how this is possible?!?

Yes, weird rules on that specific torso. Who knows what they are?

[Lion King]

Ahh battle packs! I miss the good ol’ times… When I was a kid, I bought some Castle minifigure packs but not Pirates. 

I would love to see TLG to produce battle packs and polybag, not GWPs. And more minifigures from CMFs!

And i got a City Space hover bike polybag - it has me wondered if they would produce some polybags for Pirates and Castle. I really enjoy the Space polybag. Come on, Lego…