LEGO Collectable Minifigures Series 3 discussion

[The Soup Nazi]

Holy. Frickin. Crap. Hopefully these'll be around during Black Friday...

[Baylego]

Wow, I will have to start looking out for these! I want a couple of elves and samurai. The rest are ok, but those two are my favorites.

[AoNZ]

No way

This is great for some not so for others.

I wonder how unique these bumps are or if there are similar patterns in these bumps like similar barcodes.

It will be a little harder to bring a cheat sheet in rather you will have to know what your looking for.

[Siegfried]

Holy. Frickin. Crap. Hopefully these'll be around during Black Friday...

Is there really any need for swearing in this instance? Don't make me add every word to the swear filter...

[CorneliusMurdock]

Aw, man. Now those who can read Braille are gonna get all the good minifigs. Darn you blind people!

[David Thomsen]

I'll be using the bumps... but in a display of good will, I'll buy a random minifig for every one I 'choose'.

It would be nice if other people used a similar honesty method... well, semi-honesty anyway. But I'm quite sure I'll be alone in this.

[Oky]

Yes! This is excellent news to me as I'm only interested in about half the figs! This way I'll only have to buy 8-10 packs and the kiddies can have the rest; everybody wins.

[Legoist]

I'll be using the bumps... but in a display of good will, I'll buy a random minifig for every one I 'choose'.

It would be nice if other people used a similar honesty method... well, semi-honesty anyway. But I'm quite sure I'll be alone in this.

Why do you feel you should do charity to a company? In my case, they'll get definitely more money from me already if I can guess the minifigs.

My "good will display" for Series 3 will be the same I've done for the previous: I will buy only what I want to keep and NOT for reselling purposes, and I will buy max 1 minifig of a specific type at a time. Just so that I doesn't contribute to depleting boxes of "most wanted" figures.

[David Thomsen]

Why do you feel you should do charity to a company?

It's not really for the company itself. I don't like to hear about people who buy all of the zombies/spartans/elves in all the boxes in a store, leaving it impossible for people who aren't familiar with the 'tricks' to get one they want by chance.

I realise that taking one Hula Girl, one Tribal Leader and one Elf Dood isn't going to greatly influence the ratio of a box, but if everyone only takes the popular ones, the kids will only ever get mummies and race car drivers.

Besides which, it can be actually fun to buy a minifig and not know what you're getting... so I'm not being entirely altruistic. I'm just dressing it up that way.

[Darth Jar Jar]

I don't get why everybody is saying save some for the kiddies. That store alone had 11 boxes so Im pretty sure they have stepped up the number in production even in series two you could tell they had upped it they just said it was the same as series two so people would buy as many as they could while they had the chance like in america they had them at target, walmart...etc

Sorry for ranting but I just can't help myself. Good to see they are out now just when will they come to England

[Peppermint_M]

Ah well, I will pick up some figures I want, no box for me this time.

I know they will be in shops and also in the Lego Store that is coming soon. I really would like at least two of most of them. No need for the code, I have a 100% accuracy rate on parts id-ing inside the bag.

Now to sit it out and wait for the figures to be in shops!

[Legoist]

It's not really for the company itself. I don't like to hear about people who buy all of the zombies/spartans/elves in all the boxes in a store, leaving it impossible for people who aren't familiar with the 'tricks' to get one they want by chance.

I realise that taking one Hula Girl, one Tribal Leader and one Elf Dood isn't going to greatly influence the ratio of a box, but if everyone only takes the popular ones, the kids will only ever get mummies and race car drivers.

I think the same way.

However the matter with popularity is not so black-and-white. There are indeed some minifigs which have been heavily targetted for army building, but they are not many (the Spartan has been quite unique in this case, there are people who literally amassed hundreds of these). And for all other minifigs, just read the forums and see how different views people have about which should be "must have" in significant multiple copies.

For instance you mention the mummy and driver as possibly the least wanted. But the mummy is potentially a fairly better army-builder compared to most of the other figs in this series. A lot of forumites said they want a fisherman and a rapper, but how many copies?

What could really tilt the matter is just a few key minifigs that are both cool and unlimited in how many copies you may like having (everything that works as a "soldier-type" qualifies), especially if the minifig concept was unprecedented / previously unavilable in Lego form.

The Spartan definitely topped these 3 parameters big time.

The Elf probably gets close to the same this time, except that while there has never been something that could really pass for a Spartan/Greek/Roman before, to pass for an Elf is easier (e.g. old forestmen, or any castle figure with long hair).

But otherwise minifigs that are just "cool" but won't be needed in masses won't tilt availability significantly even if a lot of people use codes. Even if we all agreed which should be the most wanted (and we don't), most of the people will just buy these first but later end up buying at least some of the others too.

Take the Fisherman (apparently one of the most quoted here), and let's presume it's really one of the most wanted (to me this one is a bit like the female minifigs: could be most-wanted by AFOLs but probably KFOLs won't see much cool factor in it). Even if we all try to get some fishermen, how many really are we going to get? You can't build an army (i.e. you CAN build an "army" of civilians, but for it to be serious it needs variations) with them, so you're going to have to re-use the parts and mix them with other minifigs. But more than a small bunch, there's not much reason to really buy for any purpose.

[Aanchir]

Samarai warrior - 4

This one was a little tougher for me, but if you can find the sword its easy. The problem is there is a lot of pieces and it’s hard to isolate one inside the pack. One thing to note, the body armor is a cheap soft plastic and not the hard plastic of the similar castle ones.

The samurai armor has always been a softer plastic than the armor in Castle sets. Can anyone with the Series 3 figs who has owned samurai armor from the Ninja theme confirm whether or not it's a different material?

Anyway, really impressed with these figs so far, but I'm still waiting for a Eurobricks review where we get to see all the details-- for instance, a clear view of the Samurai's torso printing.

[Modulex Guy]

This series looks good so far to me, I cannot wait to get my hands on a few cases if possible and as many Samurai as I can.

From the 11 cases that the one store had, it seems that production has been upped greatly, if stores will be getting 10, 11, or more cases than the 1 or 2 from previous then it should make more people happy to find these.

[Davey]

So...has anyone seen a TRU Item Number or a Target DCPI number for the Series 3 figs yet?

-Davey

[Joebot]

I don't get why everybody is saying save some for the kiddies. That store alone had 11 boxes so Im pretty sure they have stepped up the number in production even in series two you could tell they had upped it they just said it was the same as series two so people would buy as many as they could while they had the chance like in america they had them at target, walmart...etc

Sorry for ranting but I just can't help myself. Good to see they are out now just when will they come to England

Agreed. I never understood all of the "Won't someone PLEEZE think of the children!" hand-wringing around here. This is capitalism, folks. Buy whatever you want in whatever quantity you can afford. It's not the consumer's responsibility to make sure that there are enough figs to go around. That's TLC's job, not ours.

The only way to defeat the hoarders and scalpers is to increase supply so that there's enough to go around. To TLC's credit, it sound like they've finally done that with this series.

[Darth Jar Jar]

Agreed. I never understood all of the "Won't someone PLEEZE think of the children!" hand-wringing around here. This is capitalism, folks. Buy whatever you want in whatever quantity you can afford. It's not the consumer's responsibility to make sure that there are enough figs to go around. That's TLC's job, not ours.

The only way to defeat the hoarders and scalpers is to increase supply so that there's enough to go around. To TLC's credit, it sound like they've finally done that with this series.

Too be honest I think TLG likes the hoarders and scalpers it encourages people to buy them as soon as possible scalpers/hoarders=people having to pay increased prices= people buy as soon as possible to not pay increased prices = TLG's sales hit high sky

Edited November 19, 2010 by Darth Jar Jar

[Big Cam]

I'm going to be checking out Walmart, target and toys r us today for series 3 in the USA. I doubt ill buy any unless I get them from Walmart since They don't price gouge.

[Ogre]

I'm going to be checking out Walmart, target and toys r us today for series 3 in the USA. I doubt ill buy any unless I get them from Walmart since They don't price gouge.

Yeah, Wal-Mart here in Canada had series two for $2.86 each (or something like that) vs the $2.99 price everywhere else. Only problem was, they got one wave of them, which sold out in days and never got any more...at least, none that I ever SAW, anyway.

The best source here in Toronto, IMO, was "Mastermind". Had a steady stock of them and didn't price gouge. Very friendly and knowledgeable staff, too.

[Drakon]

Just a bit of info.

The Fred Myer I got mine from had only a single box of series 1 (ever), and did not get series 2 at all. (I checked every day for many weeks.) They had at least 7-8 series 3 boxes on display in three different areas. They had a couple on a display rack in the middle of the main isle and a few different stacks in various places in the Lego isle itself. I don't think people need to worry about saving some for the kids. It still is kind of lame to buy all 11 boxes that a store has, but like someone said it's the price of capitalism.

I could take pics of the figs for people that wanted to see a specific part, but the only camera I have is the crappy one on my iPhone.

[Erdbeereis]

I was at Target yesterday, no sign of them yet.

Do any of you guys know if these will make it to mainstream stores? My Target had series 2, but not series 1. Series 2 was in the Halloween section, so I hope it wasn't just a special thing since they came out around that time.

[r4-g9]

I could take pics of the figs for people that wanted to see a specific part, but the only camera I have is the crappy one on my iPhone.

yes please take pics of the backs of the minifigures, and the elfs bow beside the forset mans bow, and if you could take a scan of both sides of the instrution booklet.

[escortmad79]

Series 3's Code has been cracked over at From Bricks To Bothans!

Source: fbtb.net

We have a winner Ladies & Gentlemen!!!

[Darth Jar Jar]

As good as the using the indents is I think it would just be easier too feel the bag.

Edited November 19, 2010 by Darth Jar Jar

[Drakon]

As good as the using the indents is I think it would just be easier too feel the bag.

In some cases yes, feeling the bag is probably going to be easier. There are a few tough ones to feel like the race car driver.

I will post some pics when I get back from the YMCA in about 1.5 hours.