LEGO Collectable Minifgures Series 8 Rumours & Discussion

[Blondie-Wan]

OK no more games here the list!

Thanks to Ojik via Brickset!

Ancient Thespis

Pirate Captain

Conquistador

Enemy Robot

Evil Female Alien

Diver

Vampire

Fairy

Football Player

Trader

Skier

Red Cheerleader

Santa Claus

Boy in Bavarian costume

DJ

Cowgirl

enjoy! :classic:

Ok, my take on the whole list (with the assumption of legitimacy, given GRogall's excellent record for accuracy):

Perhaps I'm just a more embracing / forgiving fan than most others here, but there's not one figure on this list that I don't like, going from just these names. Some of them are too vague to really know what they're about, though, of course - "trader"? Would that be a merchant from the age of sail? A contemporary stock trader? A baseball card collector? It could be all sorts of things.

The skier and diver seem to be drawing a lot of negativity here, for being repeats of rather ordinary roles, but the first iterations of both of those were at least nicely done figures, and for all the roles that have been repeated so far (skateboarder, surfer, snowboarder, cowboy, etc.), the later takes have matched or even surpassed the earlier ones, while also being different enough to warrant having both. The skier especially is one that many people had liked the first time around, but whose apparent uniqueness (having a number, etc.) made it less than ideal for army building, while at the same time obviously being part of some larger group of skiers (a group of competitors in some sporting event), and thus an obvious candidate for revisiting. I very much would like not just one but multiple additional skiers in future waves, each one different.

Though I'm American myself, I hope the football player is a player of the more international variety of football (i.e., soccer). Since we've already gotten a player from one team in Series 4, I'd love to be able to put together another team for them to play against (similarly, I'm hoping for more hockey and baseball players in the future). Another cheerleader is also great for this reason, even if so far we don't have many actual players of sports that usually have cheerleaders (from what I understand, anyway).

I also don't mind getting another vampire at all, so long as it's sufficiently different from the previous (and current) ones. More's always the merrier, and if this one really is a female vampire, excellent. I got multiples of the Series 2 vampires with the idea of using the heads and capes along with other hair, torsos, etc. to create a variety of vampires, including both male and female. I'm already pleased that there's currently a theme that includes both, and if we get one more vampire in this line, I won't mind at all.

The ones that really excite me, though, are the Bavarian boy, cowgirl, Thespis, robot, alien, fairy, conquistador and Santa Claus. I'd be very happy to get all those.

[ACWWgal2011]

That doesn't make the remotest bit of sense. First of all, how are they lying? Secondly, why would they try to get the series shut down?

The way people are hearing, lego is introducing it as another "great" series when it's 50% rerun figures and some of the other figures depending on how the name is translated could mean anything such as the trader and female alien.

And isn't lego famous for getting rid of famous series? Cafe Corner, Market street, cloud city(super popular in the bidding wars), older CMF's that barely lasted any time at all, many sets that ended b4 their time that are in high demand such as IJ and old SW sets, and old space sets.

[Peanuts]

The way people are hearing, lego is introducing it as another "great" series when it's 50% rerun figures and some of the other figures depending on how the name is translated could mean anything such as the trader and female alien.

And isn't lego famous for getting rid of famous series? Cafe Corner, Market street, cloud city(super popular in the bidding wars), older CMF's that barely lasted any time at all, many sets that ended b4 their time that are in high demand such as IJ and old SW sets, and old space sets.

"Great" or "cool" are completely subjective terms. Everyone can decide for themselves if they like the figures, and I myself will withhold my judgement until I've seen any pictures. And of course there calling it great, it's marketing! Everyone who sells a product will tell you it's great or at least good, because, well, they want to sell it. And I'm convinced that LEGO aren't lying, because if they didn't like their own series, they'd take other figures. It's not like they're limited or bound to something. And I entirely fail to comprehend how ambiguous translations tell us anything about the quality of the figures/series as a whole?

And about lego getting rid of these things you mentioned, that's wrong. Cloud City for example was sold out, so there was no getting rid. They kept the successful SW license, though. And the builidings, too, have gone far more expensive now that they don't produce them anymore, sure, but they didn't get rid of it. First you complain about repetitions, and then you blame them for not producing sets anymore which sold well? That doesn't make any sense. They also remade Batman, for example. And why would any company on the whole world want to get rid of something that sells good, just to annoy their customers?

[Greedo24]

I personally don"t mind,and a another robot sounds promissing!

[Combee]

I think we need to see pictures before passing judgement on the series. With ambiguities in translations it's hard to assume too much about the new minifigs. Nevertheless, I am excited by the possibilities that this list brings and can't wait to see them!

[Graysmith]

What's the matter with the classic beard? Sure, there are plenty of other good ones now (and I do agree the one introduced in Minifigures for the Fisherman and reused for the Lawn Gnome is the best, most suitable beard TLG's ever made for a classic, archetypal Santa Claus), but that's not a bad beard at all.

It's not like it's the worst minifigure accessory ever, but the newer, shorter beard is much, much nicer in every way.

If they don't use the short one for the Santa Claus CMF, I hope they'll at least use the new Gandalf one.

[Graysmith]

Wow... the mood has really deteriorated over the last couple of pages.

Maybe we should all just sit and wait for actual pictures. I think that's definitely what I'm going to do before making any more comments. Remember that these are childrens' toys that are never going to match our personal wish-lists or expectations.

Agreed 100%.

Gonna to steer clear of this "discussion" (whining) until we get some actual photos of some actual minifigures. This thread is worse than overhearing nagging kids at the toy store.

[Ardelon]

At first, I was a bit disappointed, since there were no figs (apart from the Conquistador) that stood out for me. But after some thought, I think this will be a decent series. A lot more seems to hinge on the pics than usual.

It seems to confirm several rumors: a match for series 6 (plenty), a (dark?) elf/fairy fig, I also remember talk of a female vampire.

My opinions:

- Ancient Thespis - hopefully a source for antiquity civilian clothing. contrary to someone above, I hope the clothing will be as plain as possible - Im still pissed over the green sombrero on the Mexican - I couldnt make a village of them, as they would look like a green-sombrero cult.

- Pirate Captain - as I said before, great torso; meh gold stuff.

- Conquistador -

- Enemy Robot - I wonder what this one will be.

- Evil Female Alien - depending on the pic.

- Diver - I really hope for an old-fashioned one!

- Vampire - hopefully a female with red eyes. (or male with black eyes. Just so the males and females would have matching eyes.)

- Fairy - maybe one of Toths portfolio elves?

- Football Player - an American one would be nice for sports variety, an "International" one (= soccer) would be nice for team variety.

- Trader - the Czech would is the most general word possible: could mean historical merchant, businessman, even a shopkeeper or salesperson.

- Skier - hopefully a female.

- Red Cheerleader - why not?

- Santa Claus - About time we got a proper Santa. To all you naysayers, the previous ones werent Santa, that was a well-dress old pirate!

- Boy in Bavarian costume - why not?

- DJ - depends on the accessories.

- Cowgirl - not too authentic, but still useful for western scenes, or as a country musician (one we get a LEGO guitar or banjo or fiddle).

And now for some Czech:

I guess it all depends on the kind of translator you use... Translating the full description from the Czech site via Google translator, they just speak about an evil alien.. no female..

The Czech version clearly says female. (The plural forms you mentioned were the result of some Czech inflection suffixes being the same as plural suffixes, and the poor translator didnt know which to choose!)

I don't speak Czech and will gladly defer to anyone who does, but in most Slavic languages ending a noun in 'a' (or 'ka') feminises it. So it looks like we're talking about a bride for the vampire in Series 2. I'm guessing she will be fairly similar to the Monster Hunters vampiress, but that is pure conjecture.

While you are generally correct, in this case the -a is an inflection suffix. The Czech version is masculine, but Im still hoping for a female (hopefully the Czech version mistakenly translated the neutral "vampire" (which could mean a female) into the masculine form).

Edited June 18, 2012 by Ardelon

[UsernameMDM]

Liking the list! Really hope the Conquistador comes with some sort of updated firearm.

FINALLY ANOTHER CHEERLEADER!!!

[muscleman]

uhmmmm....that's will be the final series?

Ancient Thespis ( no bad, i liek the idea...)

Pirate Captain ( yes, please)

Conquistador (????)

Enemy Robot ( again? we just have 2 robot...)

Evil Female Alien (like the idea...if its' diferent from AC theme and aliens from prev. series)

Diver ( no more!!!)

Vampire ( again?!!? No more!!!)

Fairy ( i like the idea!)

Football Player ( hope will be a american football player)

Trader (nice one if will be a city theme minifig)

Skier (uhmm...female this time?)

Red Cheerleader ( not bad...but hope cma ewith different hair and cloths)

Santa Claus ( cap from gnome, bear form fisherman and cloths from advant calendar?)

Boy in Bavarian costume ( -.-")

DJ ( hope come with LP :D )

Cowgirl( not bad but i prefer maybe more different female from citis)

[JackJonespaw]

Hm...thanks for the list, GRogall. It seems all right, and I'm sure I'll like it more when I see some pictures, but many of them are doubles of past minifigs. I just hope the Vampire looks good. And that it's not a female vampire. Maybe a younger vampire, like with the boy caveman? What is an enemy robot? Maybe it'll come with some futuristic gun or something! The diver (female?) gives me hope, I didn't really like the S1 version. What is a trader? The rest looks nice, though.

[gedren_y]

Ok, my take on the whole list (with the assumption of legitimacy, given GRogall's excellent record for accuracy):

Perhaps I'm just a more embracing / forgiving fan than most others here, but there's not one figure on this list that I don't like, going from just these names. Some of them are too vague to really know what they're about, though, of course - "trader"? Would that be a merchant from the age of sail? A contemporary stock trader? A baseball card collector? It could be all sorts of things.

The skier and diver seem to be drawing a lot of negativity here, for being repeats of rather ordinary roles, but the first iterations of both of those were at least nicely done figures, and for all the roles that have been repeated so far (skateboarder, surfer, snowboarder, cowboy, etc.), the later takes have matched or even surpassed the earlier ones, while also being different enough to warrant having both. The skier especially is one that many people had liked the first time around, but whose apparent uniqueness (having a number, etc.) made it less than ideal for army building, while at the same time obviously being part of some larger group of skiers (a group of competitors in some sporting event), and thus an obvious candidate for revisiting. I very much would like not just one but multiple additional skiers in future waves, each one different.

Though I'm American myself, I hope the football player is a player of the more international variety of football (i.e., soccer). Since we've already gotten a player from one team in Series 4, I'd love to be able to put together another team for them to play against (similarly, I'm hoping for more hockey and baseball players in the future). Another cheerleader is also great for this reason, even if so far we don't have many actual players of sports that usually have cheerleaders (from what I understand, anyway).

I also don't mind getting another vampire at all, so long as it's sufficiently different from the previous (and current) ones. More's always the merrier, and if this one really is a female vampire, excellent. I got multiples of the Series 2 vampires with the idea of using the heads and capes along with other hair, torsos, etc. to create a variety of vampires, including both male and female. I'm already pleased that there's currently a theme that includes both, and if we get one more vampire in this line, I won't mind at all.

The ones that really excite me, though, are the Bavarian boy, cowgirl, Thespis, robot, alien, fairy, conquistador and Santa Claus. I'd be very happy to get all those.

I agree with everything here except for one thing: cheerleading is a sport on its own. There was even a series of movies about it. Granted only the first movie acutally had a decent plot, but it's true.

I have given some thought to the 'diver' minifig, and an old-style, bubble-helmeted diver could be achieved with a trans-black crystal ball painted copper or sand green (for tarnished copper) for a great effect.

[Faefrost]

And isn't lego famous for getting rid of famous series? Cafe Corner, Market street, cloud city(super popular in the bidding wars), older CMF's that barely lasted any time at all, many sets that ended b4 their time that are in high demand such as IJ and old SW sets, and old space sets.

It's not a matter of "getting rid of". It is a matter of retail shelf space and making new stuff. Every product they make has a definite life span. It will eventually have to go away to make room for something new on the store shelves. It's just how the toy market works. Most Lego sets have a substantially longer shelf life than other childrens toys. And Lego these days typically has almost 4x the average retail shelf space of most other toy lines outside of Barbie dolls. We want Lego to stay around and to keep making new sets. In order to do both they need to retire the older sets on a certain cycle. They discovered what happens years ago when you have too many products on the shelf at once. You end up competing with yourself and cannibalizing your own sales. It costs more to keep the broad inventory stocked on store shelves than they are getting back in sales. This is a large part of what nearly drove them to bankruptcy awhile back.

As far as the new series from that list. Overall I am happy with it. I don't understand all of the grumbling? Of course we will see re[eats of themes. Lego has certain basic themes in their core product lines. Things like Pirates, Medieval, Divers, Sports, etc. We will be seeing multiple yet varied figs in these sorts of themes. Here's my take on these offerings;

Ancient Thespis - We have been begging for these sorts of historic figures for ages. Romans, Greeks, etc. It's a toga party! bring it on!

Pirate Captain - A good all around useful fig. Works in all sorts of Pirate, Fantasy, Faerietale stuff. Not my absolute favorite, but looks cool from the one pic we have. A winner.

Conquistador - Another one we have been literally begging for. Go back through the wish lists here. This one comes up a lot. Major win for us.

Enemy Robot - The previous robots have been fantastic. A darkly twisted evil robot would be great. I like more robots.

Evil Female Alien - My favorite figs in all the CMS packs have been the space figs. I am hopeful that this one will play nicely with the others.

Diver - As I said above. Divers are a regular recurring theme. There could be a lot to love here. A classic style hard hat helmeted diver maybe, or a female scube diver for once? Should go nicely with the existing Divers, the Aquanauts or Atlants stuff or even Agents or Coast Guard or similar. I know it sounds like a retread, but it has a lot of potential.

Vampire - As long as it isn't simply a recolor of those we have been getting lately this could be cool. Although this is probably the one I am least hopeful for. The perfect synergy with the Monster Fighters line would be to give us a small boy Vampire (ala Eddy Munster, and yeah I know he was a wolfboy, but you know what I mean)

Fairy - another one of our most begged for minifigs. No way this one could be bad.

Football Player - can go many diferent ways. Another European style "soccer" type football player would be kinda meh. We have tons of those. An American style Football player would have some neat army building potential.

Trader - no idea what this is. I keep thinking an Arabic Market Trader like in PoP, which would go well for Castle/Medeival themes. But it could be anything. I don't think it will be another business suit dude.

Skier - Another one that doesn't particularly excite me, but the original was popular and they like to team things up a bit.

Red Cheerleader - Yeah I know it is a recolor/redo. But it is such an awesome fig that a color/hair variantion would be great. Lots of cool old school horror potential too.

Santa Claus - I'll have to wait to see it. we have however been asking for a real Santa. I just wasn't expecting it in these sets. With this can we officially call the Bunny Suit Guy the Easter Bunny?

Boy in Bavarian costume - No way this will be anything but good. Such a great basic idea. Bring on der Lederhosen, Ya?

DJ - Follows along with the assorted music/dance/disco theme they have had going on. Disco Guy, Rapper guy, Trashy pop star singer girl, etc

Cowgirl - Yet another much asked for figure. No way this one will be anything but fantastic. And lots of uses in MOC's etc.

So looking at the list we have been given, I actually see a much better ratio of what look to be great figs over clunkers than we have seen in previous sets. Nothing like the overwelming hordes of female swimmers or aerobic instructors that seemed to overly populate recent releases. I think I like this list.

[Scubacarrot]

But nobody has answered my question: Why are people disappointed if this list turns out to be true? I may be missing something, but I think this lists brings a variety of figures for all kinds of themes.

I don't think Lego will do exact repeats, so I think the vampire will be a female vampire (as we have seen the concept art for), and the diver will either be a with a big brass helmet, or a female scuba diver/ male competitive diver, I'm hoping for the first option .

The football player is probably going to be the american style, which would really make it not very popular outside of the US (it's just not very popular sport in the rest of the world), but I think it's going to do well in the US. The skier is going to be a partner for the other one we have seen, probably. The only one I don't have any idea how they are going to go for it: is the trader. I am thinking maybe like a grocery store employee in the same style as the butcher?

Please, there's no need to be an internet tough guy, and while were an AFOL site pointless swearing is... pointless.

It was certainly not intended that way, and the word I used was not intended as "swearing", I'm sorry .

[Artanis I]

What if "trader" means "tradesman" ie builder etc? Just an idea. The list we have is translated to English from Czech, but probably originally from Danish so it could be anything?

[Lordofdragonss]

Trader is clearly a bussinesman.

I really hope for new Cellphone mold!

Edited June 18, 2012 by Lordofdragonss

[streifen]

When I saw the "Bavarian Boy" in the list, I knew what I have to aim for!

[Matn]

Looks like nice list of new figures, thanks for sharing. It looks like we'll see a couple of concepts already seen in previous series, less interesting concepts, but I'm sure they will still be good and detailed like usual. I sure hope they aren't running out of ideas, the last couple of series were fantastic. I'm also wondering when all of this will end. I mean, it's still fun to collect them, but not as fun as it was with the first couple of series. Now I just buy a complete series instead of buying random packages by feeling and looking up the bar code, that was so much fun.

[Blondie-Wan]

The way people are hearing, lego is introducing it as another "great" series when it's 50% rerun figures and some of the other figures depending on how the name is translated could mean anything such as the trader and female alien.

"50% rerun" figures is entirely subjective, and even if a figure is a so-called "rerun" that doesn't automatically mean it can't be great, too. They're not lying unless they say things that are objectively not true - saying the figures are made of wood, for example, or that they're mechanized and move on their own, or that they each have over five hundred pieces - those would be flat-out lies. Saying they're cool and desirable? Not so much.

And isn't lego famous for getting rid of famous series? Cafe Corner, Market street, cloud city(super popular in the bidding wars), older CMF's that barely lasted any time at all, many sets that ended b4 their time that are in high demand such as IJ and old SW sets, and old space sets.

There's a difference between the level of demand required to escalate the prices a set can command on the secondary market, and the level of demand required to make a product sell well enough to keep it viable for TLG to continue mass-producing. It so happens TLG does tend to favor erring on the side of underproducing rather than overproducing, ensuring nearly everything they make these days will sell reasonably quickly, but most manufacturers of all sorts of things tend to recycle their product lines to keep things fresh. Unfortunately that does include discontinuing older products. I honestly wish it were otherwise, myself - I'd dearly love to have enough time to be able to get all the sets they make before they're gone - but I do understand why they discontinue things.

Anyway, discontinuing older products is totally different from deliberately launching new ones that they genuinely expect to fail, or even wish to fail. Why would they do such a thing? It just doesn't make any sense.

The very reason they had the "older CMF's that barely lasted any time at all" is because they were being cautious; they didn't really know until after they launched the Minifigures line just how well it was going to do. When they sold out in a flash, they knew they had a hit and that's why they ramped up production from Series 3 onward. It was wiser for them to do that than to massively produce Series 1 and 2 before they saw how they were going to do, and risk being stuck with huge inventories of unpopular product.

________________________

Back to the main discussion (i.e., what the series will have): Heh - I don't think this is the case, but wouldn't it be amusing if the "trader" were a LEGO Minifigures collector? It could come with 1x1 tiles printed to represent Minifigures packaging. I've previously expressed a desire for a LEGO Store employee, who might come with such tiles, but an official minifigure representation of an actual FOL would be fun, too. Again, not that I think that's what it actually is (I don't), but still...

Edited June 18, 2012 by Blondie-Wan

[Itaria No Shintaku]

Agreed 100%.

Gonna to steer clear of this "discussion" (whining) until we get some actual photos of some actual minifigures. This thread is worse than overhearing nagging kids at the toy store.

I politely do not agree.

I'm 32 and if it was for me, I wouldn't have released a city minifigure. But, since it MUST meet the interest of everyone, I accept that. In this list I find 8 characters for city (TRADER - DIVER - CHEERLEADER - FOOTBALL PLAYER - SANTA CLAUS - SKIER - DJ - BAVARIAN) which are 50%! Further more, Only 3 out of 8 of these ones look really new. I mean, we all were disappointed by seeing 4 skaters in the first 6 waves. I respect other opinions but frankly to me it's really really difficult to understand why one would want a red cheerleader, or a DJ (which is really nothing special, you could already do that, they don't wear uniforms, they don't have particular accessories, if he has no headphones it would really be so lame). Reading here, I found out most of you want, so good job TLC I would never ever have released another cheerleader. But, at the same time, I would have released a good knight to pair the evil knight (which I got 30)... so I understand. But nothing can keep me from being disappointed now.

Further more, we are dealing with the SUBJECTS not the final pictures. So I assume everyone who's disappointed here is disappointed with the SUBJECTS (in other words: why did TLC choose THIS minifig over THIS one?). I do not assume that there are all idiots who are already sure which one will and won't buy.

So please respect other people's opinions, because it seems to me like most ones are disappointed, so if you like this 16 subjects perhaps you're the different. No offence meant.

[stayunspoiled]

Vampire could be a vampire slayer with a wooden stake and garlic?

[natelite]

well said, Itaria No Shintaku. being (or acting) mature doesn't mean having to agree or like everything that tlc dishes out. that's called fanboi

you can add me to the list of disappointed afols. in fact, my kids were equally disappointed. the only thing they are looking forward to is the enemy robot...whatever that is.

[HawkLord]

Ancient Thespis - with the Roman and Spartan, I can see this being a useful "advisor" style figure

Pirate Captain - the pic is very likeable, not I need it yet

Conquistador - a foil to the Pirate to some degree

Enemy Robot - this one I'll be actively looking for - it may even prompt me to buy more of the Series 6 robot since it was so good

Evil Female Alien - can I hope for a female Grey Alien to help the gender balance of all my Series 6 Greys?

Diver - I have no use for one, but I'm sure City/Sports fans can appreciate this figure

Vampire - a Vampire Bride would be great, another regular Vampire would just be bought to complete the set with little interest

Fairy - I can find a use for this in LOTR...

Football Player - see Diver

Trader - see Diver

Skier - see Diver

Red Cheerleader - works because there are so many Sports figures out, kind of a no-brainer

Santa Claus - yes, definitely a good idea with the City Holiday sets

Boy in Bavarian costume - not the worst idea, though I don't really have a need for one; might be a big hit like the Bagpiper

DJ - did not care for the Rapper figure, so I may pass on this completely (or just get one to complete the set)

Cowgirl - this one really depends on the look

[ACWWgal2011]

uhmmmm....that's will be the final series?

Depends on who you ask. The posts on EB about the subject talk about the series lasting anywhere from at least 1 more series to upwards of 16 more series coming out.

Edited June 18, 2012 by ACWWgal2011

[Angeli]

...so, it would seem my info was false... no dark elf (Drow)type of creature, no wings, male vampire, not female, no fantasy creature, hmpf... exspt if faerie is with wings, tiara and dark skin :) and a lighting sword with bad attitude :)