Man, I don't know what you guys are talking about. The Chima sets totally appeal to the 10 year old in me that wants anthropomorphized animal vehicles to do battle.
Well you're in luck squire because those 2 are super easy to feel for. Go for the bulkiest packets and feel around to rule out the 2 female characters dress pieces, and the mermaid's tail. The remaining bulky packets should be the Battle Mech and Space Avenger. My current dot code advice is to feel out the one you're looking for then making a note of it's code, as it's turned out in the past that folk in different regions get wildly different codes and thus the online guides ain't much of a help.
Thanks! I just gotta take my time I guess and really look hard.
With my hands.
For the space ork, you can feel for the pistol too. It's small but distinct.
I found that feeling for the armor's back part with two pegs sticking down and one stub pointing out was the easiest way to find space orks.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
edited January 2013
The Battle Mech's armor is pretty much the same as the Space Avenger's though, very hard to distinguish the 2 without either having a dot code to go off, or some serious squeezing
Ed; sorry, @Jam Warrior - forgot to reply! Shami is the ork's name. His enemy the Galaxy Patrol trooper had a nametag too; Luis.
Also think I'm decided - my RCPD is gonna be Light Bluish Grey + Dark Green.
Ed2; HEY LOOK Mermaid Variety!
Had a spare Ocean King from back in the day, and a spare Forest Maiden, and a spare Mermaid, so BOOM I gotta Ariel to go with. Uh. Other Mermaid.
I mistook the starfish for the armor on the Alien Avenger.
Thank you to everyone for your help.
I did the same thing with series 8 and wound up with one marine and king triton instead of two marines. . .
Most toy stores in Australia still only have series 7 figures, I'm trying to find the Rock Girl but keep getting Evil Knights instead because I've mistaken the shield for a guitar every time :oops:
I randomly grabbed four series 7 packs without vetting them. Pulled the computer guy, the viking lady, the black knight and the rock star girl. I'm pleased.
What is this I don't even.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Shouldn't someone tell him that Hagia Sophia was built by Christians?
Assuming this allegedly offended Muslim actually exists of course; I wouldn't put it past the Daily Fail to run an Onion article as news these days, plus their attitude to anything involving Islam is disappointingly cavalier.
Shouldn't someone tell him that Hagia Sophia was built by Christians?
Assuming this allegedly offended Muslim actually exists of course; I wouldn't put it past the Daily Fail to run an Onion article as news these days, plus their attitude to anything involving Islam is disappointingly cavalier.
Well yeah I agree that it could be a lie. At most its a couple of crazy people and the Daily Mail took the story and ran with it as some sort of "look Muslims Hate Lego what monsters/crazy people!" angle. People get offended by practically anything these days
It kinda reminds me of something you'd see in a Power Rangers show-- like it's supposed to combine with other stuff to make a super mech. The Dancouga Eagle was like that too, but a different design. But yeah, aside from the two above, the rest of the Chima stuff is kinda lame... Or they could be something with a ton of modification-- the lion head on Laval's Royal Fighter would be awesome as a Voltron-type thing. But unfortunately, it's just tacked on a body with tracks. lol
Somebody get that head on a four-legged mech body STAT!
See I bought this set. When I looked at it on the box I didn't really see the tank thing, whatever it is. I saw a neat gun, a cool head that I could mount on something else. Some tank tracks and 3 sweet looking minifigs. I assembled it according to instructions like I do with all my sets. But I'm going to disassemble it pretty soon and make something else out of it with the cool bits it comes with.
What I really want next are some buildings. Castles, or town type apartment buildings, etc.
Tony Huw Millington (Brickset.com) hit the London Toy Fair. Gentlemen, prepare your wallets... Here's what he saw (spoilered because he saw a lot!):
EDIT: I've now linked some of the pics...
Creator
There are three sets being released in August:
31012, Family House, £60 I believe, modern design two-storey house, white with tan window frames. Dark red and brown 33 degree roof, 2 minifigs, small car. Alternate models are a villa and a small factory
31011, Aviation Adventures, price t.b.a., yellow, white and blue single prop plane, alternate models are a helicopter and a speedboat. The lady showing them to us was stating how a minifig can be put in each model, but the set doesn't actually come with one.
31010, Treehouse, price t.b.a., a very nice looking set: a 16 x 32 baseplate, tree, white treehouse, 1 minifig.
Technic
Four sets are to be released, again in August:
42001, Mini Off-Roader, a very small model but with full suspension, orange body.
42005, Monster Truck, large wheels, hefty tyres, red body, full suspension. Not to my taste but it looked quite cool.
42008, Service Truck, £100, absolutely fantastic rescue vehicle, the sort you might see rescuing a lorry from the motorway. Green body, red highlights. Power functions, with motorised lift and outriggers.
42009, Mobile Crane Mk II, £150. A ten wheeled monster of a mobile crane which looks superb. Said to be the largest Technic model ever in terms of number of pieces. It's equipped with Power Functions, including one of the new style motors, which look as if they operate all aspects of the crane's movement. I've gone off large Technic models a bit lately, but this is one I will definitely be getting. I will certainly be getting this-- maybe two
Mindstorms
Mindstorms EV3 was being demonstrated, and very good it looked too. I won't write anything about it here, I'm not an expert and all that's known about it can be read elsewhere.
Minifigures
Series 11 is out in September. They, and series 10, were not on display. I don't know the full details but it seems there is going to be one 'golden figure' in each box and kids are encouraged to 'hunt the gold figure'. This is obviously very bad news for everyone except LEGO's marketing department. I think this will start in series 11. I suspect Gary or Pete can recall more about this and if so I'll update this article.
Legends of Chima
As you know, there's a large number of Legends of Chima sets in the shops already, and there's loads more to come. The second wave of Speedorz (70104-70106) will be launched in March, so if you do plan on buying them all, don't hang about buying the current ones as they'll disappear from the shelves fairly soon.
Then in June, the next wave will be launched. Another three Speedorz and another starter set. This is when they become interesting because new characters are introduced.
70107, Skunk Attack, features Skinnet the skunk, as seen in episode 1 of the TV series.
70108, Royal Roost, contains Laval.
70109, Whirling Vines, contains Gorzan, from the gorilla tribe.
70114, another starter set contains Eris and Rawsom, who might be a new character, or might have just been Rawzom spelled incorrectly.
The six 'buildable figures' looked absolutely terrible, IMO. A cross between the Ben 10 and the Super Heroes ones. They are out in August. I'll say no more about them...
There are four more Chima sets out in August, which look a whole lot better:
70009, Worriz' Combat Lair, £60, is a 8-wheeled contraption that breaks into five sections. It comes with 6 figures: Eris, Grizzam, Windra, Wakz, Wilhurt and Worriz.
70007, Eglor’s Twin Bike, £20, is a neat looking 2-wheeled vehicle being chased by Razcal in a small helicopter.
70008, Gorzan's Jungle Striker, £50, is a gorilla-like mecha which looks pretty cool. It comes with 4 minifigs: Rizzo, Gorzan, Gardo, G'Loona, who's a female.
Finally, 70010, the Lion Chi Temple, £100 is an impressive looking structure which won a best toy award today. You can see pictures of it here.
It comes with7 figures: Lagravis, Laval, Longtooth, Eris (she seems to crop up everywhere, doesn't she!), Cragger, Crawley and Razar.
Then in September, there are three more Speedorz:
70110, Tower Target, containing Grizzam.
70111, Swamp Jump, containing Furty, who appears to be a fox.
70112, Croc Jump, containing Crug.
I hope you have deep pockets if you intend getting them all!
If I'm not mistaken, the new minifigs in the June onwards sets are:
The new City sub-themes for later in the year are coast guard and cargo airport. The coast guard sets are, apparently, slightly juniorised and aimed at a younger audience. They do appear to comprise mostly large single-use pieces (boat hulls, aircraft cockpits, etc.). The coast guard vehicles in the sets are white and orange with blue accents. The five sets are:
60011, Surfer Rescue, jet ski, 2 figures, shark.
60012, 4 x 4 and diving boat, 2 figures.
60013, Coast Guard Helicopter. This looked like the the most interesting of the five, the helicopter uses a new cockpit piece that, while juniorised, looks pretty good. The helicopter is rescuing a wind surfer. 2 figures.
60015, Coast Guard Plane, seaplane rescuing fishing boat, 3 figures.
60014, Coast Guard Patrol, the largest set, quite a lot in this one: large floating boat, RIB, rock and lighthouse, small helicopter, sharks.
The cargo airport sets were far more interesting. They are green and white:
60019, Stunt Plane, is actually a bit out of place because it doesn't really go with the rest of the sets in terms of theme or colour. It'll be £10 and features a black/red/white single-prop plane and a small ground support vehicle.
60020, Cargo Truck, £25, is a 'great vehicle': a 6-wheeled truck, an excellent orange fork-lift truck and a couple of pallets. A superb set by the looks of it.
60021, Cargo Heliplane, £25, features the new cockpit piece also used in the coast guard helicopter and has end-of-wing mounted rotors. It looks to be supporting forest logging operations as the set comes with logs and a guy with a chainsaw.
60022, Cargo Terminal, £70, contains an absolutely huge cargo plane, the largest LEGO has made by the looks of things, at least 40-studs long I would estimate. It also contains various ground support vehicles, including a conveyer truck for loading the pallets, and also a control tower.
Finally for City, 60023 is an interesting 'City Starter Set' which contains an ambulance, fire engine, a police motorbike and 5 minifigs, all for just £20. I think this is the first time we've seen all three emergency services in one set, isn't it? Shame it didn't also have a coast guard vehicle and an AA van in it, too :-)
Advent calendars
Three Advent calendars again. The City one seems to be more varied than the last two we've had. The Star Wars one features a Santa Jango Fett. The Friends one, probably more of the same...
Ninjago
There are NO more new Ninjago sets this year.
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger sets were on display but not all of the minifigs. All except the smallest contain the Lone Ranger and Tonto, and apparently they are different in each set, although they said that about Jack Sparrow in the POTC sets and that turned out not to be the case. We have good pictures of them so I won't describe them.
Castle(!)
Yes, Castle is back, and it's called Castle, not Kingdoms. There will be five sets which, just like the reversion to the name 'Castle', are a true return to the theme's roots. They feature two warring factions. The lady telling us about them didn't know if they had names, but I can tell you they are blue and grey knights, with lions on their shields -- the King's forces -- and black with red dragons on their shields -- the baddies. It doesn't look as if there is any new armour, helmets or weapons, they all looked familiar to me.
The five sets are
70400 Forest ambush, £8, two knights pulling a cart loaded with gold being ambushed by two baddies from behind a tree.
70401 Horse carriage getaway, £18, red/black carriage being pulled by a single black horse, a small chunk of castle, two knights and a crossbow cart.
70402 Gatehouse raid, £25, a section of castle wall with a gate in it, two knights guarding it, a black/red catapult and two baddies, one on horseback.
70403 Dragon peak, £35, damsel imprisoned in a small prison, which is raised up and reached by a spiral staircase. Two knights with a large catapault, a red/black wizard (I presume) and a red dragon, not unlike those in the fantasy-era castle sets.
70404 King's castle, £80, excellent looking 4-sided castle with drawbridge, three turrets, 3 or 4 knights plus the King, three baddies and a siege machine of some sort.
I am sure Castle fans will appreciate these very much! They are all out in August.
Galaxy Squad
The shock news about these sets is that they are not out in Europe until August, when the entire range will be launched at once. The four sets that haven't been released in the USA yet are:
70706, Crater Creeper, £18, large 6-legged bug, with beetle like pincers, small craft with green spaceman.
70707, CLS-89 Eradicator Mech, £35, two legged mecha, orange and white, two different four-legged bugs.
70708, Hive Crawler, £50, even larger 6-legged bug whose legs move as it's rolled across the floor. Features an egg-flinging mechanism at the back that contains small Alien-like face-huggers. It looked fantastic, and is very clever. Also comes with dark red spaceman in small white/dark red craft. The best of the bunch.
70709, Galactic Titan, £80, blue/white large tracked vehicle with detachable spaceship, long-thin millipede-like bug with a 'bug-fig' on its back.
Lord of the Rings
Four new sets for August, all of which were fantastic.
79005, The Wizard Battle, £12, small set featuring Saruman and Gandalf the Grey.
79006, The Council of Elrond, £30, looks pretty much like I remember it from the film, and features Elrond, Arwen, Frodo and Gimli.
79007, Battle at the Black Gate, £60, which we've all seen and which contains Aragorn, Gandalf the White, Mouth of Sauron and two Mordor Orcs.
79008, Pirate Ship Ambush, £90, quite a reasonable ship using the usual parts. I think it has three mid-sections. Brown sails, nine minifigs: Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, King of the dead, two soldiers of the dead, Pirate of Umbar, which the guy on the stand reckons is supposed to be the one played by Peter Jackson, and two Mordor Orcs.
Very few of the finished minifigs were actually on display so I can't tell you whether the orcs were different to last years.
Star Wars
The Star Wars sets were the usual mix of the fantastic and the mediocre and ranged from must-have OT sets to obscure vehicles that nobody will recognise. However, again as usual, the minifigs in them all are stunning. Not many of them were on display, probably because they were not manufactured yet, instead all we had were pictures of them.
There will be nine sets released, not including 'power' items offered to specific retailers, which are not shown at the show.
75015, Corporate Alliance Tank Droid, £20, featuring a new Jango Fett (at last!) a clone trooper and a battle droid.
75016, Homing Spider Droid, £30, Adi Galia, Clone Trooper, Super Battle Droid.
75017, Yoda vs Dooku playset, £40, quite an interesting set that's hard to describe. Basically it's a battleground with various obstacles and traps and a small speeder. It features a brand new Yoda with a olive green head, a new Dooku, Dooku's pilot droid and Poggle the Lesser, whoever he is!
75018, Jek 14’s Stealth Starfighter, £60, this is apparently from the Yoda Chronicles. It's a fairly large craft, black with red accents which looks a bit like an X-Wing without the top wings. Minifigs are Jek-14, Separatist bounty hunter, Special Forces Clone Trooper and R4-G0.
75019, AT-TE, £80, Mace Windu, Coleman Trebor, Clone Trooper Gunner and two battle droids.
75020, Jabba’s Sail Barge, £100, this looks excellent. I can't say whether it's larger or smaller than the last one because mine is still MISB. It certainly looked big enough. Minifigs are Jabba, Leia, R2-D2, Ree-Yees, Weequay and Max Rebo.
75021, Republic Gunship, £110, although the guy on the stand said it was much improved on the last version, superficially, it looks pretty much identical and seems to employ many of the same building techniques to form the shape of the ship. Contains Obi-Wan, Anakin, Padme, Clone Pilot, Clone Trooper Officer and two Super Battle Droids.
75022, Mandalorian Speeder, £25, two Mandalorian super commandos and a new Darth Maul.
75023, Advent Calendar, £25. No minifigs for this were on display but as I said earlier, it contains Santa Jango Fett.
Games
Three new games to be released in August:
Chima. This looked attractive and involves collecting CHI.
Batman. Chase baddies across Gotham City, looked to be just 'more of the same' and similar to other games.
Story Mixer. The most interesting of the three. I wasn't quite sure how it was supposed to work, but it seems to involve collecting small vignettes, on 4 x 4 plates which represent trees, cakes, houses, trains, planes, animals and all sorts of other things, which you have to use to make up a coherent story. It was said to be equally appealing to adults and kids, and as it didn't involve any actual building (unlike Creationary) it will be easier to play with non-building grannies and the like.
Friends
Discounting the collectable bags for a moment, there will be six new sets in August:
41009, Andrea’s Bedroom, £10, dressing table, sofa (might be a sofa bed) small table with laptop.
41010, Olivia’s Beach Buggy, £10, beach buggy, ice cream stand, palm tree.
41013, Emma’s Sports Car, £13, light and dark pink sports cabriolet, picnic table, signpost.
41006, Downtown Bakery, £25, two minifigs, similar in size and design to the cafe, but different colours: tan, dark pink, orange.
41005, Heartlake High, £50, very attractive looking school building, probably 48-odd studs wide, but only eight deep. Made mostly from light yellow bricks with a dark blue roof. Three figures including an African-American boy.
41015, Dolphin Cruiser, £60, large pleasure boat which, like many Friends sets, is a bit of a mish-mash of colours making it look a bit messy. It''s primarily white, with turquoise and pink. The top half is removable to access the bedroom and galley below deck. Three minifigs including a Caucasian boy.
The three series 3 collectable bags were on display, which feature a puppy and kennel, a fawn and a tree, and a green parrot in a open cage.
Super Heroes
I know a lot of you want more information about these but to be honest, they were very underwhelming. There were no minifigs on display, as I said, and the Marvel sets in particular were very un-memorable, I can't even tell you what they were. Pete has recalled some of the minifigs over at FBTB:
"Whilst the Super Heroes section this year was not in it’s own little section, cordoned off from everything else, it was still somewhat shrouded in mystery as the set names were not listed and none of the minifigures were actually present at the fair. We did get pictures of what they’ll look like, but that was it. The sets were there, but I don’t recall many details … here’s what I can remember and what I can glean from my audio recording …
Released in April … for the Iron Man 3 film … each set recreates a major scene from the movies …
76006 as yet unamed … includes figures Iron Man, War Machine (yes, the picture looked like the leaked picture we’ve seen on this forum!) and Aldrich Killian. Price Point is £19.99.
War Machine 1
76007 as yet unamed … includes figures Tony Stark, Pepper Potts (exclusive to that set), Mk42 Iron Man, The Mandarin and another, as yet unamed, figure! Price Point is £34.99
76998 as yet unamed … includes an exclusive Iron Man and The Mandarin. That’s all I noted down. Price point is £11.99.
Released in May … for the Superman Man of Steel film … again, each set recreated major scenes from the movies …
76002 as yet unamed … includes Superman and General Zod minifigures. Price point £11.99.
76003 as yet unamed … includes Superman, Colonel Hardy, General Zod, Faora and another figure perhaps, but I can’t read my own handwriting … maybe Lorvan?! Price Point £39.99
76009 as yet unamed … includes an exclusive Lois Lane, Superman and General Zod. Price point £19.99.
Quite why I can’t remember any details about the actual sets, other than the figures, I really don’t know??!!
Oh and I just remembered this … coming in August, we’ll get 50003 Batman game, which will feature several microfigures of both heroes and baddies. They were not on display at the fair, just standard blank microfigs, but the game looked pretty good fun."
HERO Factory
There will be seven new HF sets in August. All continue the 'Brain Attack' theme. There appears to be three pairs of colour-coordinated good guys and bad guys, which are in pouches: Surge and Dargon Bolt are blue/yellow, Stormer and Frost Beast are white and turquoise, Evo and Aquagon are a different shade of blue, black and yellow. I suspect they have new heads and weapons, but I'm not an expert.
The seventh, boxed, set, Jet Rocka is either half-man, half-aircraft, or a normal HF figure in a strap-on jet-pack/wing contraption.
Chima buildable figures
There will be six of them, launched in August, one for each tribe. They are also packed in pouches and are very similar to last year's Super Heroes buildable figures in terms of size and components. They appear to use existing parts from the waist down and I suspect their skeleton is identical to the SH figs. Their torso plates are similar to that on the Iron Man one I have in front of me (the only one I have), I can't recall if they were all different in shape, or just different prints.
They all have new heads and some, the lion, gorilla and wolf, have large hands fitted with robot arms for fingers and, in the case of the lion, claws fitted to them. They each have a weapon which might be new or might be recycled HF. The eagle and raven have wings made from the wing parts used in the minifig sets.
It appears that there will be instructions to combine models to make larger ones.
Duplo
Apologies, we didn't look too closely at the Duplo, but the main news is that there will be three 'Jake and the Never Land Pirates' sets in August. 10514 Jake's Pirate Ship Bucky, the largest, features a pirate ship and a small island and two figures. 10512 Jake's Treasure Hunt contains a rowing boat, a smaller island and 1 figure, Jake I presume. 10513 Never Land Hideout contains a island playground with a slide, and two figures, one of which has short legs.
Black Gate and Pirate ship from the LOTR range for me along with a couple of Super Hero sets (can't miss General Zod and Warmachine!). Still gotta buy the rest of the Hobbit range as well.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Galaxy Squad ain't coming here til August what the actual fuck?
So, I was thinking it might be fun to try and render some 8 and 16 bit sprites in lego. The largest hurdle appears to be figuring out what pieces to buy in order to build the picture in question.
Before I sit down and write a bit of code that does it, has anyone already done this for me? Something that takes a jpeg (or similar) and says buy <#> of <color> in size <NxM>?
It wouldn't be hard to write, I just imagine such a tool must already exist.
Not done the coding thing, but done the rendering a sprite.
Or rather @ArcSyn did for an awesome Secret Santa for me last year. He sent me no instructions and I just had to guess what was going on from the pile of bricks he sent.
Not done the coding thing, but done the rendering a sprite.
Or rather @ArcSyn did for an awesome Secret Santa for me last year. He sent me no instructions and I just had to guess what was going on from the pile of bricks he sent.
He should have picked a game series you actually like.
Posts
For the space ork, you can feel for the pistol too. It's small but distinct.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Ed; sorry, @Jam Warrior - forgot to reply! Shami is the ork's name. His enemy the Galaxy Patrol trooper had a nametag too; Luis.
Also think I'm decided - my RCPD is gonna be Light Bluish Grey + Dark Green.
Ed2; HEY LOOK Mermaid Variety!
Had a spare Ocean King from back in the day, and a spare Forest Maiden, and a spare Mermaid, so BOOM I gotta Ariel to go with. Uh. Other Mermaid.
At this point I realize I'm using the same tactics to get me to clean my room as my mother did 20 years ago.
I'm not sure if that's a sign of maturity or a sign of the lack thereof.
Album: http://imgur.com/a/VRyZ4. The worst part, though, is having a lot of less-than-great "unique" helmets and armor:
Do you have a castle set up at the moment ? Or is it all packed away ?
Got the Battle Mech and.. the Mermaid.
I mistook the starfish for the armor on the Alien Avenger.
Thank you to everyone for your help.
3DS FC: 5343-7720-0490
I did the same thing with series 8 and wound up with one marine and king triton instead of two marines. . .
It's kinda packed away. I don't have much room at the moment to build anything.
Most toy stores in Australia still only have series 7 figures, I'm trying to find the Rock Girl but keep getting Evil Knights instead because I've mistaken the shield for a guitar every time :oops:
I don't like this program. It's so sloooow
That satisfaction of actually having it in your hands.
It's great for blue prints though.
3DS FC: 5343-7720-0490
Shouldn't someone tell him that Hagia Sophia was built by Christians?
Assuming this allegedly offended Muslim actually exists of course; I wouldn't put it past the Daily Fail to run an Onion article as news these days, plus their attitude to anything involving Islam is disappointingly cavalier.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
Well yeah I agree that it could be a lie. At most its a couple of crazy people and the Daily Mail took the story and ran with it as some sort of "look Muslims Hate Lego what monsters/crazy people!" angle. People get offended by practically anything these days
See I bought this set. When I looked at it on the box I didn't really see the tank thing, whatever it is. I saw a neat gun, a cool head that I could mount on something else. Some tank tracks and 3 sweet looking minifigs. I assembled it according to instructions like I do with all my sets. But I'm going to disassemble it pretty soon and make something else out of it with the cool bits it comes with.
What I really want next are some buildings. Castles, or town type apartment buildings, etc.
I'm surprised Lego hasn't released any UCS Castle or LotR stuff yet, like a massive Helm's Deep or real castle that happens to accommodate minifigs.
I have they do a updated UCS Millennium Falcon. That's my holy grail right now.
Though I would totally take a UCS Helicarrier.
I think 10xxx are just certain kinds of large, hard to find sets.
EDIT: I've now linked some of the pics...
There are three sets being released in August:
31012, Family House, £60 I believe, modern design two-storey house, white with tan window frames. Dark red and brown 33 degree roof, 2 minifigs, small car. Alternate models are a villa and a small factory
31011, Aviation Adventures, price t.b.a., yellow, white and blue single prop plane, alternate models are a helicopter and a speedboat. The lady showing them to us was stating how a minifig can be put in each model, but the set doesn't actually come with one.
31010, Treehouse, price t.b.a., a very nice looking set: a 16 x 32 baseplate, tree, white treehouse, 1 minifig.
Technic
Four sets are to be released, again in August:
42001, Mini Off-Roader, a very small model but with full suspension, orange body.
42005, Monster Truck, large wheels, hefty tyres, red body, full suspension. Not to my taste but it looked quite cool.
42008, Service Truck, £100, absolutely fantastic rescue vehicle, the sort you might see rescuing a lorry from the motorway. Green body, red highlights. Power functions, with motorised lift and outriggers.
42009, Mobile Crane Mk II, £150. A ten wheeled monster of a mobile crane which looks superb. Said to be the largest Technic model ever in terms of number of pieces. It's equipped with Power Functions, including one of the new style motors, which look as if they operate all aspects of the crane's movement. I've gone off large Technic models a bit lately, but this is one I will definitely be getting. I will certainly be getting this-- maybe two
Mindstorms
Mindstorms EV3 was being demonstrated, and very good it looked too. I won't write anything about it here, I'm not an expert and all that's known about it can be read elsewhere.
Minifigures
Series 11 is out in September. They, and series 10, were not on display. I don't know the full details but it seems there is going to be one 'golden figure' in each box and kids are encouraged to 'hunt the gold figure'. This is obviously very bad news for everyone except LEGO's marketing department. I think this will start in series 11. I suspect Gary or Pete can recall more about this and if so I'll update this article.
Legends of Chima
As you know, there's a large number of Legends of Chima sets in the shops already, and there's loads more to come. The second wave of Speedorz (70104-70106) will be launched in March, so if you do plan on buying them all, don't hang about buying the current ones as they'll disappear from the shelves fairly soon.
Then in June, the next wave will be launched. Another three Speedorz and another starter set. This is when they become interesting because new characters are introduced.
70107, Skunk Attack, features Skinnet the skunk, as seen in episode 1 of the TV series.
70108, Royal Roost, contains Laval.
70109, Whirling Vines, contains Gorzan, from the gorilla tribe.
70114, another starter set contains Eris and Rawsom, who might be a new character, or might have just been Rawzom spelled incorrectly.
The six 'buildable figures' looked absolutely terrible, IMO. A cross between the Ben 10 and the Super Heroes ones. They are out in August. I'll say no more about them...
There are four more Chima sets out in August, which look a whole lot better:
70009, Worriz' Combat Lair, £60, is a 8-wheeled contraption that breaks into five sections. It comes with 6 figures: Eris, Grizzam, Windra, Wakz, Wilhurt and Worriz.
70007, Eglor’s Twin Bike, £20, is a neat looking 2-wheeled vehicle being chased by Razcal in a small helicopter.
70008, Gorzan's Jungle Striker, £50, is a gorilla-like mecha which looks pretty cool. It comes with 4 minifigs: Rizzo, Gorzan, Gardo, G'Loona, who's a female.
Finally, 70010, the Lion Chi Temple, £100 is an impressive looking structure which won a best toy award today. You can see pictures of it here.
It comes with7 figures: Lagravis, Laval, Longtooth, Eris (she seems to crop up everywhere, doesn't she!), Cragger, Crawley and Razar.
Then in September, there are three more Speedorz:
70110, Tower Target, containing Grizzam.
70111, Swamp Jump, containing Furty, who appears to be a fox.
70112, Croc Jump, containing Crug.
I hope you have deep pockets if you intend getting them all!
If I'm not mistaken, the new minifigs in the June onwards sets are:
Skinnet, Furty
Lagravis
Windra
Gorzan, Gardo, G'Loona, Grizzam
City
The new City sub-themes for later in the year are coast guard and cargo airport. The coast guard sets are, apparently, slightly juniorised and aimed at a younger audience. They do appear to comprise mostly large single-use pieces (boat hulls, aircraft cockpits, etc.). The coast guard vehicles in the sets are white and orange with blue accents. The five sets are:
60011, Surfer Rescue, jet ski, 2 figures, shark.
60012, 4 x 4 and diving boat, 2 figures.
60013, Coast Guard Helicopter. This looked like the the most interesting of the five, the helicopter uses a new cockpit piece that, while juniorised, looks pretty good. The helicopter is rescuing a wind surfer. 2 figures.
60015, Coast Guard Plane, seaplane rescuing fishing boat, 3 figures.
60014, Coast Guard Patrol, the largest set, quite a lot in this one: large floating boat, RIB, rock and lighthouse, small helicopter, sharks.
The cargo airport sets were far more interesting. They are green and white:
60019, Stunt Plane, is actually a bit out of place because it doesn't really go with the rest of the sets in terms of theme or colour. It'll be £10 and features a black/red/white single-prop plane and a small ground support vehicle.
60020, Cargo Truck, £25, is a 'great vehicle': a 6-wheeled truck, an excellent orange fork-lift truck and a couple of pallets. A superb set by the looks of it.
60021, Cargo Heliplane, £25, features the new cockpit piece also used in the coast guard helicopter and has end-of-wing mounted rotors. It looks to be supporting forest logging operations as the set comes with logs and a guy with a chainsaw.
60022, Cargo Terminal, £70, contains an absolutely huge cargo plane, the largest LEGO has made by the looks of things, at least 40-studs long I would estimate. It also contains various ground support vehicles, including a conveyer truck for loading the pallets, and also a control tower.
Finally for City, 60023 is an interesting 'City Starter Set' which contains an ambulance, fire engine, a police motorbike and 5 minifigs, all for just £20. I think this is the first time we've seen all three emergency services in one set, isn't it? Shame it didn't also have a coast guard vehicle and an AA van in it, too :-)
Advent calendars
Three Advent calendars again. The City one seems to be more varied than the last two we've had. The Star Wars one features a Santa Jango Fett. The Friends one, probably more of the same...
Ninjago
There are NO more new Ninjago sets this year.
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger sets were on display but not all of the minifigs. All except the smallest contain the Lone Ranger and Tonto, and apparently they are different in each set, although they said that about Jack Sparrow in the POTC sets and that turned out not to be the case. We have good pictures of them so I won't describe them.
Castle(!)
Yes, Castle is back, and it's called Castle, not Kingdoms. There will be five sets which, just like the reversion to the name 'Castle', are a true return to the theme's roots. They feature two warring factions. The lady telling us about them didn't know if they had names, but I can tell you they are blue and grey knights, with lions on their shields -- the King's forces -- and black with red dragons on their shields -- the baddies. It doesn't look as if there is any new armour, helmets or weapons, they all looked familiar to me.
The five sets are
70400 Forest ambush, £8, two knights pulling a cart loaded with gold being ambushed by two baddies from behind a tree.
70401 Horse carriage getaway, £18, red/black carriage being pulled by a single black horse, a small chunk of castle, two knights and a crossbow cart.
70402 Gatehouse raid, £25, a section of castle wall with a gate in it, two knights guarding it, a black/red catapult and two baddies, one on horseback.
70403 Dragon peak, £35, damsel imprisoned in a small prison, which is raised up and reached by a spiral staircase. Two knights with a large catapault, a red/black wizard (I presume) and a red dragon, not unlike those in the fantasy-era castle sets.
70404 King's castle, £80, excellent looking 4-sided castle with drawbridge, three turrets, 3 or 4 knights plus the King, three baddies and a siege machine of some sort.
I am sure Castle fans will appreciate these very much! They are all out in August.
Galaxy Squad
The shock news about these sets is that they are not out in Europe until August, when the entire range will be launched at once. The four sets that haven't been released in the USA yet are:
70706, Crater Creeper, £18, large 6-legged bug, with beetle like pincers, small craft with green spaceman.
70707, CLS-89 Eradicator Mech, £35, two legged mecha, orange and white, two different four-legged bugs.
70708, Hive Crawler, £50, even larger 6-legged bug whose legs move as it's rolled across the floor. Features an egg-flinging mechanism at the back that contains small Alien-like face-huggers. It looked fantastic, and is very clever. Also comes with dark red spaceman in small white/dark red craft. The best of the bunch.
70709, Galactic Titan, £80, blue/white large tracked vehicle with detachable spaceship, long-thin millipede-like bug with a 'bug-fig' on its back.
Lord of the Rings
Four new sets for August, all of which were fantastic.
79005, The Wizard Battle, £12, small set featuring Saruman and Gandalf the Grey.
79006, The Council of Elrond, £30, looks pretty much like I remember it from the film, and features Elrond, Arwen, Frodo and Gimli.
79007, Battle at the Black Gate, £60, which we've all seen and which contains Aragorn, Gandalf the White, Mouth of Sauron and two Mordor Orcs.
79008, Pirate Ship Ambush, £90, quite a reasonable ship using the usual parts. I think it has three mid-sections. Brown sails, nine minifigs: Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, King of the dead, two soldiers of the dead, Pirate of Umbar, which the guy on the stand reckons is supposed to be the one played by Peter Jackson, and two Mordor Orcs.
Very few of the finished minifigs were actually on display so I can't tell you whether the orcs were different to last years.
Star Wars
The Star Wars sets were the usual mix of the fantastic and the mediocre and ranged from must-have OT sets to obscure vehicles that nobody will recognise. However, again as usual, the minifigs in them all are stunning. Not many of them were on display, probably because they were not manufactured yet, instead all we had were pictures of them.
There will be nine sets released, not including 'power' items offered to specific retailers, which are not shown at the show.
75015, Corporate Alliance Tank Droid, £20, featuring a new Jango Fett (at last!) a clone trooper and a battle droid.
75016, Homing Spider Droid, £30, Adi Galia, Clone Trooper, Super Battle Droid.
75017, Yoda vs Dooku playset, £40, quite an interesting set that's hard to describe. Basically it's a battleground with various obstacles and traps and a small speeder. It features a brand new Yoda with a olive green head, a new Dooku, Dooku's pilot droid and Poggle the Lesser, whoever he is!
75018, Jek 14’s Stealth Starfighter, £60, this is apparently from the Yoda Chronicles. It's a fairly large craft, black with red accents which looks a bit like an X-Wing without the top wings. Minifigs are Jek-14, Separatist bounty hunter, Special Forces Clone Trooper and R4-G0.
75019, AT-TE, £80, Mace Windu, Coleman Trebor, Clone Trooper Gunner and two battle droids.
75020, Jabba’s Sail Barge, £100, this looks excellent. I can't say whether it's larger or smaller than the last one because mine is still MISB. It certainly looked big enough. Minifigs are Jabba, Leia, R2-D2, Ree-Yees, Weequay and Max Rebo.
75021, Republic Gunship, £110, although the guy on the stand said it was much improved on the last version, superficially, it looks pretty much identical and seems to employ many of the same building techniques to form the shape of the ship. Contains Obi-Wan, Anakin, Padme, Clone Pilot, Clone Trooper Officer and two Super Battle Droids.
75022, Mandalorian Speeder, £25, two Mandalorian super commandos and a new Darth Maul.
75023, Advent Calendar, £25. No minifigs for this were on display but as I said earlier, it contains Santa Jango Fett.
Games
Three new games to be released in August:
Chima. This looked attractive and involves collecting CHI.
Batman. Chase baddies across Gotham City, looked to be just 'more of the same' and similar to other games.
Story Mixer. The most interesting of the three. I wasn't quite sure how it was supposed to work, but it seems to involve collecting small vignettes, on 4 x 4 plates which represent trees, cakes, houses, trains, planes, animals and all sorts of other things, which you have to use to make up a coherent story. It was said to be equally appealing to adults and kids, and as it didn't involve any actual building (unlike Creationary) it will be easier to play with non-building grannies and the like.
Friends
Discounting the collectable bags for a moment, there will be six new sets in August:
41009, Andrea’s Bedroom, £10, dressing table, sofa (might be a sofa bed) small table with laptop.
41010, Olivia’s Beach Buggy, £10, beach buggy, ice cream stand, palm tree.
41013, Emma’s Sports Car, £13, light and dark pink sports cabriolet, picnic table, signpost.
41006, Downtown Bakery, £25, two minifigs, similar in size and design to the cafe, but different colours: tan, dark pink, orange.
41005, Heartlake High, £50, very attractive looking school building, probably 48-odd studs wide, but only eight deep. Made mostly from light yellow bricks with a dark blue roof. Three figures including an African-American boy.
41015, Dolphin Cruiser, £60, large pleasure boat which, like many Friends sets, is a bit of a mish-mash of colours making it look a bit messy. It''s primarily white, with turquoise and pink. The top half is removable to access the bedroom and galley below deck. Three minifigs including a Caucasian boy.
The three series 3 collectable bags were on display, which feature a puppy and kennel, a fawn and a tree, and a green parrot in a open cage.
Super Heroes
I know a lot of you want more information about these but to be honest, they were very underwhelming. There were no minifigs on display, as I said, and the Marvel sets in particular were very un-memorable, I can't even tell you what they were. Pete has recalled some of the minifigs over at FBTB:
"Whilst the Super Heroes section this year was not in it’s own little section, cordoned off from everything else, it was still somewhat shrouded in mystery as the set names were not listed and none of the minifigures were actually present at the fair. We did get pictures of what they’ll look like, but that was it. The sets were there, but I don’t recall many details … here’s what I can remember and what I can glean from my audio recording …
Released in April … for the Iron Man 3 film … each set recreates a major scene from the movies …
76006 as yet unamed … includes figures Iron Man, War Machine (yes, the picture looked like the leaked picture we’ve seen on this forum!) and Aldrich Killian. Price Point is £19.99.
War Machine 1
76007 as yet unamed … includes figures Tony Stark, Pepper Potts (exclusive to that set), Mk42 Iron Man, The Mandarin and another, as yet unamed, figure! Price Point is £34.99
76998 as yet unamed … includes an exclusive Iron Man and The Mandarin. That’s all I noted down. Price point is £11.99.
Released in May … for the Superman Man of Steel film … again, each set recreated major scenes from the movies …
76002 as yet unamed … includes Superman and General Zod minifigures. Price point £11.99.
76003 as yet unamed … includes Superman, Colonel Hardy, General Zod, Faora and another figure perhaps, but I can’t read my own handwriting … maybe Lorvan?! Price Point £39.99
76009 as yet unamed … includes an exclusive Lois Lane, Superman and General Zod. Price point £19.99.
Quite why I can’t remember any details about the actual sets, other than the figures, I really don’t know??!!
Oh and I just remembered this … coming in August, we’ll get 50003 Batman game, which will feature several microfigures of both heroes and baddies. They were not on display at the fair, just standard blank microfigs, but the game looked pretty good fun."
HERO Factory
There will be seven new HF sets in August. All continue the 'Brain Attack' theme. There appears to be three pairs of colour-coordinated good guys and bad guys, which are in pouches: Surge and Dargon Bolt are blue/yellow, Stormer and Frost Beast are white and turquoise, Evo and Aquagon are a different shade of blue, black and yellow. I suspect they have new heads and weapons, but I'm not an expert.
The seventh, boxed, set, Jet Rocka is either half-man, half-aircraft, or a normal HF figure in a strap-on jet-pack/wing contraption.
Chima buildable figures
There will be six of them, launched in August, one for each tribe. They are also packed in pouches and are very similar to last year's Super Heroes buildable figures in terms of size and components. They appear to use existing parts from the waist down and I suspect their skeleton is identical to the SH figs. Their torso plates are similar to that on the Iron Man one I have in front of me (the only one I have), I can't recall if they were all different in shape, or just different prints.
They all have new heads and some, the lion, gorilla and wolf, have large hands fitted with robot arms for fingers and, in the case of the lion, claws fitted to them. They each have a weapon which might be new or might be recycled HF. The eagle and raven have wings made from the wing parts used in the minifig sets.
It appears that there will be instructions to combine models to make larger ones.
Duplo
Apologies, we didn't look too closely at the Duplo, but the main news is that there will be three 'Jake and the Never Land Pirates' sets in August. 10514 Jake's Pirate Ship Bucky, the largest, features a pirate ship and a small island and two figures. 10512 Jake's Treasure Hunt contains a rowing boat, a smaller island and 1 figure, Jake I presume. 10513 Never Land Hideout contains a island playground with a slide, and two figures, one of which has short legs.
{Twitter, Everybody's doing it. }{Writing and Story Blog}
That's lame.
Well.
War Machine looks cool at least.
Nice! Orthanc was on my list of short list of LotR sets that LEGO absolutely must do to not disappoint me.
Minas Tirith
Eowyn vs Witch King
Before I sit down and write a bit of code that does it, has anyone already done this for me? Something that takes a jpeg (or similar) and says buy <#> of <color> in size <NxM>?
It wouldn't be hard to write, I just imagine such a tool must already exist.
Or rather @ArcSyn did for an awesome Secret Santa for me last year. He sent me no instructions and I just had to guess what was going on from the pile of bricks he sent.
3DS FC: 5343-7720-0490
He should have picked a game series you actually like.
I guessed from the bunch of bricks and a back plate that it was a sprite pixel picture,
Knowing it was for me it was quite likely to be Zelda,
Too many colours for NES,
Google up sprite sheet for SNES Link,
Use small set of single colour bricks to test a few hairlines:
Confirm theory by managing full black outline:
Victory!