Pirate Tic Tac Toe - Cheap Part Alert

[ghyde]

NOTE- Brick Beard's legs are not made of the same material of the rest of the figs, I believe he is a Brick Beard made of normal quality. Even his hand is darker and more opaque. Almost like the brick beards come from a different factory. I will pull his arms off and compare with Brick Beard from soldier fort and Bounty.

I just checked my 6241 set that I picked up in Target on a recent trip to Cairns. (I'm in Australia.) I pulled out the Imperial soldier minifig and I immediately noticed that his legs seemed to be mismatched! One leg was almost completely transparent if held up to a flashlight or light source, the other was not anywhere near as transparent!

I think my minifig had a leg transplant during the leg assembly process!! (the figs came packaged without heads or legs attached) Maybe I need to make a complaint to LEGO, or maybe I should start a webcomic about the soldier whose leg was see-through? I'll definitely have to see if I can get a pic of this!

Cheers ...

ghyde

[Apache]

Thanks Bonaparte. It's nice to know we fans have a voice and that the voice will be heard.

[WastedGrunt36]

I'm sorry if someone has mentioned this before, but one of my redcoats has a darker shade of red on it's torso, and like plenty of other people, one of my pirates has a lighter green shade. These I got from standard sets. I hope this is just a small fad.

[Bonaparte]

I've received following feedback from the LEGO Community team on the reported quality issues:

The LEGO quality department is aware of the quality issues and is working hard to fix them. The extended line (keychains, magnets, games (but not LGS), etc.) is in a different supply chain and therefore not our regular production facilities. The current state of these products are hopefully just an aberration that will be fixed soon.

[Rick]

Good that they acknowledge it at least and good that they are intending to take action towards the future. Any idea whether changes will be introduced to the current line of affected products (new batches that will have parts from other sources, I guess not)?

[Admiral M]

I found a similar problem with the torsos and arms of my castle figs in my crownie battlepack. The colors weren't wrong, though.

[WhiteFang]

I having alot of mixed feelings about this set right now... I just bought one of these, and the price is really very affordable to acquire them. Then again, I am feeling upset, as in whether should I integrate them into my current bins, mixing them all up for playing purposes. Is it really that bad to make you guys shun this away or even take careful measures not to mix them up? Please share your thoughts, so I can get some good insights.

Oh, I didn't notice any significant differences on the Castle battlepacks as well, but I noted of these new markings from the Dwarves and Orcs.

[jansued]

I having alot of mixed feelings about this set right now... I just bought one of these, and the price is really very affordable to acquire them. Then again, I am feeling upset, as in whether should I integrate them into my current bins, mixing them all up for playing purposes. Is it really that bad to make you guys shun this away or even take careful measures not to mix them up? Please share your thoughts, so I can get some good insights.

Oh, I didn't notice any significant differences on the Castle battlepacks as well, but I noted of these new markings from the Dwarves and Orcs.

I'll seperate them. Even in a Magnet Set they used the transparent red for the Emperors Guards (and Black Hands) ;-(

Best Regards,

JanSued

[mikey]

I personally will not spend my money on these products, and I am thankfull to this Forum for warning me of these problems. I understand that Lego are aware of the problem and intend to rectify it in the future. Maybe you could contact them and see if they would exchange for Real MiniFig's?

Then again, I am feeling upset, as in whether should I integrate them into my current bins, mixing them all up for playing purposes. Is it really that bad to make you guys shun this away or even take careful measures not to mix them up?

I would keep them segregated, in a box of their own. But I am very fussy over my Lego, so I probably take it all to seriously.

[ziljin]

The Troll and Dwarf battle packs also suffer from this. No neck printing, numbers, and the indent on the arm. I wonder why they did this.

Although truthfully, I will probably get a tic tac toe set or two. does anyone know if the pirates battle pack suffer from this as well?

Edited October 3, 2009 by lego40k

[JCC1004]

The Troll and Dwarf battle packs also suffer from this. No neck printing, numbers, and the indent on the arm. I wonder why they did this.

Although truthfully, I will probably get a tic tac toe set or two. does anyone know if the pirates battle pack suffer from this as well?

I haven't bought one but they they suffer as well. I saw one with terrible printing of Brickbeard. The magnet sets and Vintage MF collections also suffer. Pretty much any set with figures pre-assembled suffer. Ceremoy Luke doesn't thankfully.

Edited October 3, 2009 by JCC1004

[The Who]

Maybe I need to make a complaint to LEGO, or maybe I should start a webcomic about the soldier whose leg was see-through? I'll definitely have to see if I can get a pic of this!

:laugh: An invisible peg-leg, practically. Too bad it's not completely clear.

The current state of these products are hopefully just an aberration that will be fixed soon.

I sure hope so.

While not being a huge Pirate fan, I do enjoy Pirate MOCs and hoped to pick up one or two of these, to give them a chance. It might be a while, now...

[Blondie-Wan]

So here are the pics I took. Again, I'm not saying "Don't spend your money on Lego" and I'm not saying "Don't buy this set" All I'm saying is you might be dissapointed if you are expecting the same quality lego parts that are in other sets. I wish I would of bought just one set, as I don't like the look of the material or quality used in the torso, hands and legs. It looks and feels cheap to me. It doesn't feel and look like Lego to me, but again I'm 31 and have been looking at lego for a long time and maybe I'm just used to seeing that true lego yellow. Maybe this is the wave of the future. Zorro I'm sure you won't believe me, and maybe your right, maybe the TTT sets are the same quality, but here are some pics that I took of one of the soldiers from the TTT set and one from the Soldiers Arsenal Set.

The TTT' parts are on the left and the SA parts are on the right. You decide if there appears to be a difference.

The torso's are both facing the same way yet the LEGO logo is facing opposite ways

I hear you on your concerns over quality of the plastics used in LEGO, but to be honest this doesn't seem like an issue to me. All this is is the torso element being turned around the other way before the arms are put in and the print applied, right?

Notice the necks of the torsos, black print on the neck of the SA part, no print on the TTT part

That's very interesting, and may serve as a useful way of distinguishing the origin of a minifig "at a glance," but I don't know if I'd consider it a quality issue in and of itself, though I might if I understood what the purpose of the prints on the front of minifig neck stubs/pins was.

(Perhaps it's an optical guide to help the factory know which side of the figure is the front when putting the arms in and the torso printing on in order to have the logo "line up" the "right" way, and its absence is connected to the alternate orientation of the logo as seen in the first pic?)

Notice the lemon looking TTT hand on the left in contrast to the more regular looking yellow yand, also note the dark shadow area of the arm hole in the SA part which contrasts with the TTT part. It's like light shines right through the plastic of the TTT part. Also note the numbe stamped on the TTT arm.

Now, this is a more significant difference, to me (re: the plastic, not the number marked on the arm). I very much want LEGO to use plastic of a certain high standard; I want my bricks to endure for decades and fit well and all that.

I'd also prefer opaque pieces to actually be opaque, though I have to acknowledge I have noticed the slight opacity difference in the plastics in sets of recent years and it hasn't been a huge issue for me, but then it also hasn't been as prominent in my sets so far as in the examples here.

Again, I'm not saying don't buy these, I'm just saying that I have noticed a difference and if I had known there is a difference I would of not bought fou sets and would of bought more cannon battles and soldier arsenals because I was mainly buying these for more soldiers.

NOTE- Brick Beard's legs are not made of the same material of the rest of the figs, I believe he is a Brick Beard made of normal quality. Even his hand is darker and more opaque. Almost like the brick beards come from a different factory. I will pull his arms off and compare with Brick Beard from soldier fort and Bounty.

[BrickPerfection]

Strange. At the local Lego store (there's one here in Cologne), 3 Minifigs (there also is the governor torso) cost 5,49 €, while the battle pack containing 4 minifigs and a treasure chest costs 12,99 €.

So apparently the regular minifigs are in this case considerably cheaper.

Probably the differences come from another production line. I remember when I was in Legoland in 2002, the original manufacturing process for minifigs was shown. The arms are preassembled, the legs and heads not. Since the entire process is atomatised the only way to preassemble a complete minifig is to run a different production line using different machines (and moulds), hence resulting in qualitiy differences.

Im pretty sure though that this was'nt intended by TLG.

Perfectionist

[ziljin]

Strange. At the local Lego store (there's one here in Cologne), 3 Minifigs (there also is the governor torso) cost 5,49 €

What set is that?

[Lord Augusta]

Do all of you owing this Tic Tac Toe, or the Pirate Chess Set, all having this problem? Or some sets dont?

I am considering to buy the Chess Set for collection, as I already have many nice old pirate sets and the new 2009 sets do not attract me much. Buildings go too simple, but just the minifigs have improved.

If all of the Chess set or TTT sets minifigs are at that quality, I may not want to buy it.

Edited October 20, 2009 by Lord Augusta

[Inevitable]

Well, I just lucky to read this.

Almost bought TTT mate.

How about the pirates battle pack? There's no defect about that right?

[JCC1004]

How about the pirates battle pack? There's no defect about that right?

Any set with pre-assembled figures suffer from this problems. The keychains do aswell. The Luke Skywalker in theVisual Dictionary isn't though.

[Inevitable]

Any set with pre-assembled figures suffer from this problems. The keychains do aswell. The Luke Skywalker in theVisual Dictionary isn't though.

thanks mate, so it's better to buy the impulse sets though.

[Eskallon]

Hey, does anyone know if the pirate calender suffer's from these problems?

[Rick]

It doesn't. As JCC said, only the pre-assembled figs seem to be affected.

[Eskallon]

Ok thanks, I look forward to december 1st to get my first pirate piece of lego.

[Aquila D'oro]

damn i was so keen to buy a couple of pirate TTT sets, may have to go for the calender instead. Thanks to everyone for all the info!

interesting to note that the pirate TTT sets dropped to half price on the lego shop site over xmas (might be a result of the quality issue...) in any case TTT sets and are now flooding eBay (Beware!!) also note people are taking the sets apart and selling the minifigs out of set, maybe lego sellers/traders have realized the problem too and are trying to assimilate them as best they can.....

[Mörs]

Does this have anything to do with some LEGO pieces now being made in CHINA?

By the way, I bought a Creator (or whatever that line is called; it just says "LEGO" on the box...) set (a pseudo castle set, so to speak), and I immediately noticed the quality of the pieces is clearly worse than most of those from my old collection (note that I didn't buy any set for 5 years a little earlier than that, so I was comaring them with much older ones). The chain from that set especially caught my attention. It feels so... plastic... I'm not sure how to put it, but when you touch it, you can somehow feel the poor quality of those pieces.

Has anyone had the same experience as described above?

Edited January 1, 2010 by Mörs

[castlestrike666]

As some other people here, I'm glad you made this topic.. I was going to buy one of these, because indeed they're quite cheap for that amount of figs in it, but now that I've seen this, I think I'll let them where they are now: nice and dry on their storeshelf!