4641 Speed Boat

Not a long post today, but one for the sake of completism. At the same time that I bought Uruk-hai Army, I picked up 4641 Speed Boat. Picking up the set felt a lot like buying LEGO did as a kid: I had extra money in my budget, there were sets at the store that I could buy for that price, so I did. In actual fact, I was willing to spend a bit more money than I did... but LEGO is expensive these days and none of the sets that I was actually interested in fell below the budget thresh-hold--at least not without making it impossible to pick up the Uruk-hai Army. Nonetheless, I picked up Speed Boat. Why?

Well, as you can see, Speed Boat is not a particularly large set. One of my brothers got it for Christmas, so I've seen it before, and I knew it was "swooshable" (or whatever the maritime equivalent is... swoopable?) but ultimately forgettable. Even the fig is a relatively generic Octan fig. So why buy it? The answer is that for the price of less than three dollars, it was one sale and I didn't own it. LEGO is producing awesome enough sets these days that picking up sets on sale is less frequent than it once was--thankfully those "halcyon days" of 2003 or so are long gone--and LEGO is also more expensive than it once was. You can't even pick up a Collectible Minifig for less than three dollars most places. And with my own budget tightening, it was not only an opportunity but one I could afford. There was also a certain amount of "collector's instinct" involved. I've never been a LEGO fan who limited himself to primarily one theme: Castle, Pirates, Town, Space, etc. I've always aimed to have at least a little of everything--and more of some--and the fact of the matter is that City is at the back of the line these days. Part of this is because, although City has some new and awesome sets, it's just going over ground that they've covered for years and years: police and firemen and planes and race cars; at the same time, LEGO is putting out some new and wonderful stuff: Lord of the Rings and Monster Hunters and Collectible Minifigs, etc.

New Acquisitions: May, 2012

It's been a long time since I posted about getting any new LEGO, and although my posting frequency has slipped the sad fact is that I haven't acquired much in the past few months. This is due more to financial reasons than anything else, as the simultaneous jobs of "grad student" and "groom to be" are equally wage-deficient. Nonetheless, the two of them in tandem did not fail me completely, for upon the completion of my Master's Degree a couple weeks ago, some of my hippest in-laws-to-be sprung a surprise trip to the LEGO Store on me last weekend and gifted me with 9472 Attack on Weathertop, my first Lord of the Rings LEGO set, and one that I might otherwise have had to wait quite a long time before acquiring, my status as a LEGO and Lord of the Rings fan notwithstanding. However, I will not talk about that amazing set today. It merits its own post, and I shall give it one (hopefully in the next week or so). Meanwhile, let me talk about the other LEGO I acquired this weekend.

The five Collectible Minifigs in the picture all belong to the currently-reigning Series 7, and are the first Collectible Minifigs I've added to my collection since November, when I picked up the last Series 5 minifigs I wanted. Now, I consider it a good thing that I have not been bitten by the collector's bug, with the need to acquire EVERY Collectifig out there, but it is something of a shock to realise that Series 6 has been passed over completely--and there were a few desirable minifigs in there, most notably the Roman Legionnaire and the Scottish Highlander. Even more than monetary stingyness, however, the lack of Series 6 minifigs in my collection no doubt reflects the difficulties of reaching a store where they are sold in my local territory. Even the LEGO Store in Braintree, which reflects an hour and a half, one-way, commute on public transit, didn't have any in stock the two times I visited in January and February. With that in mind, I'm glad to note that I was able to pick out the five Series 7 collectifigs that I most wanted to add to my collection. Not that there is a lot of chance involved, since I am pretty much all/all for correctly identifying the minifigs in the bag by touch (to the amazement of my uncle-in-law-to-be), but it was luck that there was still one of each of them in the box, as that is not always the case. Indeed, I went over every bag, and only found the one bagpiper, and I wouldn't have minded more of him. Of the five minifigs here, my chief disappointment is that LEGO did not give the Viking lady's shield any detailing. After having done it for the male viking in Series 4, and with a decalled shield on two of the other figs I picked up in the same batch, it feels a little plain. That said, I'm not going to protest too much, since I will admit that an unadorned dark brown shield has its uses. On the same day, I also acquired a "collectible minifig" of another sort:

The regular minifigure-sized Hulk has been a promotion of LEGO's the past few weeks at LEGO Stores and online for orders (in the United States) of $50 or more. By happy chance, this meant that my Attack on Weathertop came with a freebie Hulk. I have to admit that, by myself, I would have been unlikely to ever acquire him, since I am not much a comic books person and consequently have not felt the need to expand into LEGO's new offerings in that field--and I'm not knocking comic books or LEGO's new DC and Marvel themes. On the contrary, there are some excellent sets there; I'm just glad that, with all the OTHER awesome LEGO coming out these days (Kingdoms Joust, Lord of the Rings, Monster Hunters, etc, etc) it hasn't become yet another theme I want while having to guard my wallet. That said, The Hulk is a rather attractive collection of minifig parts, not least because he is a little-used colour. Like many "non-regular set" minifigs, he's not the highest quality plastic, but I feel that the difference in my Hulk is less egregious than in some past instances. And, for a freebie, I'm not really entitled to complain.

Two Atlantis Sets: A Comparison

A few months ago, I had two Atlantis sets in my collection: 8057 Wreck Raider and 8073 Manta Warrior, for an aggregate total of three figs. When I had Lance Spears appear on Aquazone Breakfast News, I borrowed him from my brother. The situation has changed in the last couple months, however, and the two sets present a somewhat interesting contrast.

On the one hand, I got 8058 Guardian of the Deep for Christmas. This is a smaller-medium sized set, with one minifig ("Bobby Buoy") and an outrageously large shark that is apparently intended to be bionic (this might have been slightly more apparent in the following picture if I had applied the stickers).



Shortly before Christmas, however, I picked up 30042 "Mini Sub". Like "Guardian of the Deep," this set comes with one explorer minifig (in this case, I now have my very own Lance Spears), but where "Guardian of the Deep" has an enormous bionic shark, "Mini Sub" is a polybag with a... mini-sub.



What's interesting about comparing these two sets is what a different number of minifigs can make in evaluating sets. For a set the size of "Guardian of the Deep," one minifig seems a little sparse, while this is solidly expected of a polybag. The contrast between these two sets also emphasizes the importance of set-design. While "Mini Sub" isn't the most innovative design in LEGO's vault, it is a cute little set. Speaking as someone whose entire Aquazone collection is composed of "Mini Subs," this Atlantis set holds up with the best of them, and even uses a bit of snot in effecting its design. The giant shark, on the other hand... fills like filler.

So does a polybag trump a small-medium set worth 4-5 times as much? In this case, yes.

5766 Log Cabin

Celebrating Thanksgiving--well, digesting it anyway--I'm going to take a look at one of the sets I picked up at the LEGO Store last weekend. This is the second year in a row that I've visited the LEGO Store in mid-November, and it seems like it's a good time to go there. They already had some of the 2012 sets out, including the new Dino sets and some of the new city sets. The main set that I was after, however, was a 2011 set, 5766 Log Cabin.



Like the other Creator sets, Log Cabin's appeal is a combination of a robust design (in one or more models) and a phenomenal quantity of basic pieces.



The minifig is a bit plain--though the green backpack is a *bit* rare, though not super-useful. His kayak is a rather attractive design from the top--less so when you hold it up, because of the "boat round" pieces underneath.

Two New Kingdoms Sets

First off, my apologies for continuing to fall off the face of the Earth, even though it's no longer summer. School has been great, but it's also been busy, but that's not the real reason I've been tardy in the posting. The real reason is that I'm really not proud of the pictures I've been taking of my new acquisitions, so I've been putting off having anything to do with them. However, I have now bitten the bullet and will round out the sets acquired--rather a long time ago, now.

Both the sets I'm looking at today are from the current line of "Castle" LEGO, the Kingdoms theme, which is in its second year. The sets of this second wave were released over the summer, and I picked up two of them. The first is 6918 Blacksmith Attack, the smallest in the wave.



There have been many Castle blacksmiths over the years, from the original 6040 Blacksmith Shop in 1984, to the fan-designed set by Dan Siskind, 3739 Blacksmith Shop, the recent Medieval Market Village, and a couple others. As sets go, Blacksmith Attack isn't the stand-out best that has ever featured a blacksmith, but it has its perks.

In terms of design, Blacksmith Attack most strongly resembles the smithy portion of Medieval Market Village, and it is naturally going to lose out to that masterful set in most categories, except for affordable size. The blacksmith himself, however, is new, with a new torso and a black cowl not seen since the 1996 Dark Forest sets. The other fig is a more-or-less standard Dragon Knight, who I note with approval has a shield (unlike his predecessor in 2010's 7950 Knights' Showdown.

The real departure for Blacksmith Attack (other than simply being a cheap blacksmith set--most of the other examples are in rather pricey sets) is the inclusion of the Heroica weapons. Designed for one of LEGO's boardgames, this set of six-weapons-on-a-sprue are slightly smaller than most minifigure scale weapons, and I don't personally like any of them as much as I like the equivalent "classic" minifigure weapon. Nonetheless, they provide some variety, and I definitely think they have a place. Speaking for myself, I can see them being quite helpful for distinguishing Hobbit-scale weapons from Man-scaled.



The second Kingdoms set that I bought, which also came out this summer, is 7187 Escape from Dragon's Prison. Much like Blacksmith Attack, Escape from Dragon's Prison belongs to a pedigreed "type" of Castle set, namely the "mid-range size, Castle wall" type of set, which goes back to
1984's 6061 Siege Tower, and has had a number of reinterpretations over the years. As such sets go, Escape from Dragon's Prison is not a terrible wall, but it is a little weak on the ground floor, where one can shoot an arrow or toss a spear right through the bars of the prison--admittedly, this would probably kill one's captured vassals or allies.

The real reason to buy Escape from Dragon's Prison is the parts and the figs. It is a respectable army-builder, with four figs, none of whom are individualized hero, king, or wizard figs. I was a bit disappointed that LEGO included two Lion Knights and only two Dragon Knights. I would have preferred a single captured Lion and three Dragons, but that's because I have other sets. I suppose that from LEGO's perspective, one has to assume that the kidlings getting this set don't have any other minifigs they can draft, so if they only get one little Lion and he's captured, it's game over--hence the need for a second Lion fig to rescue him.

This minor disappointment is made up for by the impressiveness of the lead Dragon Knight, who I feel I can rightly say is *the* Dragon Knight:



The dark pearl euro visor, new-designed printing on the dark pearl euro armour, new Dragon Knight barding, and new Dragon Knight kite shield (and, I believe, new head--though I'm not sure about that one) make the Dragon Knight here *the* Castle fig of the year to beat.

30002 "Police Boat"

Continuing my protracted review of newly acquired LEGO sets, and continuing my protracted series of poor pictures, today I present the freebie set that came along with my purchase--I believe because we spent over $50 at the LEGO Store.

This set, which I am calling "Police Boat," does not currently exist in the Lugnet database.



In terms of parts, Police Boat is not an exceptional set, and as far as the design goes it's nothing special--indeed, I would say that the console section below the windshield is a particularly weak design. Nor is the fig particularly new or wonderful.

That being said, Police Boat was a free set, and I was quite excited to get it. Even if my Police force does not need new recruits, I was still glad to get the little fellow.

7049 Alien Striker

Continuing yesterday's discussion of the sets I purchased on my weekend trip to the LEGO Store, today brings us a look at 7049 Alien Striker, the smallest regular Alien Conquest set, and my first in that theme.

Once again, I apologise for the rather appalling photo...

EDIT: 28/Dec/2011: The photo has since been replaced, and while it is not stellar, it is still immensely better...



Alien Conquest is a wonderful new theme, and was only my desire to avoid hauling several overweight pounds of LEGO back from Canada that had me put off acquiring any sets until now. Due to the financial cringing involved with starting a new school year, I didn't go overboard at the LEGO Store last weekend, but I did make sure that my loot included an Alien Conquest set. As the smallest, Alien Striker was a good bet, but not a sure bet. Looking at them side by side, however, I decided that not only was Alien Striker cheaper than 7050 Alien Defender, but it was also a nicer set.

Part of this preference probably has to do with the fact that Alien Striker is chiefly an alien craft, with a human, while Alien Defender is a human vehicle with a smaller attacking alien. Although the human elements of Alien Conquest include some wonderful pieces--the new gun is particularly well-done--and some nice-looking sets, my overall preference is for the aliens. Perhaps it boils down to simple swooshability: the alien craft flies, which the human vehicles generally don't. It might also just be colours: both factions feature new coloured elements, but on whole I prefer the magenta colour that the alien sports on his sleeves to the "dark azure" (so Bricklink calls it) of the ADU (human) fig.

In any case, Alien Striker was well worth it for the price. The little craft, especially given its size, is well-done, and is almost completely composed of "useful" pieces. The purple 1x1 round plates are also nice--the first in my collection.

30080 "Flying Ninja"

Well, it was pretty much inevitable that after getting back to Boston it would only be a matter of time before I went to the LEGO Store, and this weekend was that weekend. Instead of putting it all together in one mass "New Acquisitions" post, I'm going to break it down by set. This is partly so that I can deal with each new piece at greater length, but also because I can use the material. The LEGO I brought back from Canada is with me, but the overwhelming balance of my collection is still at my future father-in-law's place in the country, and will be there until we can find an excuse to start driving "all my stuff" back in.

Anyway, the first set that I picked up yesterday was not actually at the LEGO Store, but at the Target in the same mall. My fiancée and I were putting together part of our wedding registry there (I was not allowed to scan LEGO sets, alas), and the reward for me was that we got to go to the LEGO Store. However, as we were exiting Target, I caught sight of a polybag on the rack.

A polybag! From a look at the contents, there is no difference between a "polybag" and an "impulse set," but nostalgia speaks somewhat differently for me. While polybags, or "bag sets," as we called them, were hardly the pinnacle of LEGO sets growing up, but they were an integral part of that period--not least because, as a kid, they were often all that could be afforded at a given moment. Indeed, there were a couple themes that owed their entire collection in my possession to a polybag. So, after a several year drought, whenever I see a polybag now, I tend to snap it up for the nostalgia.

Hence how 30080 ended up in my collection. Lugnet calls it "Flying Ninja," which is accurate enough, but the bag itself has no name that I could find.



Anyway, I must apologise for the terrible photo. The apartment is a basement and has NO natural lighting and my improvised light box was... not as light as it could have been.

"Flying Ninja" is not a remarkable set, though I think it's one of the cuter ninja polybags out there. It's certainly more aesthetically pleasing to my mind than 3019 "Grey Ninja", which is the other "single ninja-glider polybag" in my possession. Since my purchase of NinjaGo has thus far been limited to a couple of the smaller boxes, and since I've never managed to get one of the legendary "ninja princesses," it was nice to be able to get my hands on a white ninja.

And, of course, the golden "troll swords" are nice--I didn't have any of them in gold (or any of the ExoForce "robot arms" in gold), and this set comes with a nice complement. Perhaps the nicest thing about them, though, is how surprisingly effective they are--and somewhat poseable too.

All things considered, I was pleasantly surprised to find a NinjaGo polybag, and feel like LEGO did a marvellous job with this one.

Collecting Figs: Collectible Figs

Although my limited LEGO fund has been chiefly occupied of late with the Bricklink quest to restore my stolen figs, I have taken the opportunity to acquire a few more collectible minifigs.



All three of these historically-minded figs are from the most recent series, the fourth. I was initially looking for a Musketeer (my personal favourite from the fourth wave), and I felt my way through almost every bag in the store (Chapters, in Red Deer) before I found one. In the process, however, I recognised both the Viking and the Geisha, and decided that I ought to have one of each.

The Viking is little more than a rehash of the minifigs that came with the 2006-7 theme, but his prints are new, his pearl-gold horns are new, and his exquisite shield is completely new. I doubt he'll retain his three-studs long shaft to his axe for very long, but it will be nice to have all the same.

The Geisha is also very well done--indeed, of the Series 4 figs, she is the one I am most impressed with in terms of detailing.

Which leaves the Musketeer, who is actually the most under-whelming of the three, for all that he is the one that I was looking for. It's not that there's anything BAD about him; he is, in fact, a rather excellent fig, but he's not extra-special. It's just the simple fact that he's a musketeer that makes him awesome.

Also, I'm not a fan of the ball-point rapier. Part of me suspects that they're planning on coming up with a fencer in a later series, hence the reusable mold, but in the meantime it takes the edge off the Musketeer's coolitude--though I have to admit that it's growing on me. The more I play with it, the more adorable it appears.

Rebuilding

As I mentioned in this post, my van got broken into in Boston, and the handful of figs that I was planning to take back to Canada were stolen (together with a bunch of other non-crucial, but annoying-to-lose items). So far, I've made 7 Bricklink orders, which seems like a lot, and certainly I'm spending a lot more money rebuilding than the thieves are likely to get for them--assuming they didn't just dump their takings somewhere. However, it's not that my Bricklink orders have been terribly expensive so much as I'm having to order from a plethora of sellers, in order to reconstruct the unique constituency of figs that I lost.

The picture below shows the completed minifigs that have arrived thus far. One will note that my Brickster no longer has Elf hair (at least until I get back to Boston):



It's also worth noting that when I start scripting and photographing new Aquazone Breakfast News (this week completes the backlog I had going), these figs are on a shorter-than-usual list of figs likely to be featured.

LEGO Store Acquistions, April 2011

As mentioned before, yesterday was the second 2011 trip to the LEGO Store in Braintree (of all the LEGO Stores, it is the only one remotely accessible to Boston's public transportation system). Naturally, this meant I acquired more LEGO. However, since the whole point of the LEGO Store (in my humble opinion) is to get things you can't get anywhere else, only one item was an actual set...



2258 Ninja Ambush is my second Ninjago set, after the one I acquired at the LEGO Store in January. I continue to avoid the rather expensive spinner sets in favour of traditional boxed sets, and Ninja Ambush is great little addition to my LEGO collection--at least in terms of raw parts. The red ninja minifig is a nice addition to my LEGO ninja army, though red is sadly among the more common colours of ninja. The skeleton is more original, since he's my first Ninjago skeleton, but I don't think I really like him. The new arms are dreadfully non-poseable and their static position is worse than earlier skeleton incarnations. The face is also one of the worse skeleton prints, but I can forgive that since it's a new print. I'm also really not sold on the square-block legs.

Also rather conventionally, I picked up a small Pick-a-Brick cup.



Which looks like this, spilled out:



The main selling point for the Pick-a-Brick were the horses. For some reason, I still don't have enough of them, and while white horses without saddles are low of the totem pole of horse-needs, it was impossible to pass them up. The other most notable addition were the 2x2 dark tan tiles. The rest was fairly conventional, I thought (on the basis of 4 LEGO Store visits in my lifetime).

I also picked up a couple of keychains because they were on sale. Like most keychains I've acquired before, these will probably be de-chained and used as regular figs. The rockmonster wasn't something I would normally have bought, but he was 98 cents. The Classic Space fig is one I ogled before, and at $1.98, I was almost tempted to get two.



The LEGO Store already had Series 4 Collectible minifigs, but I'm less interested generally in the fourth series than the third, and previously I only had the one Elf that I managed to get back in January. Now I have a second Elf, a fisherman, and an alien. I selected them by touch, but I was only certain about the Elf (his shield and bow are a dead giveaway).



It seems that I cannot go to the LEGO Store without using their build-a-minifig section. This time, the lure had to do with the Series 1 Collectible Minifig parts there. I only IDed the Forestman and the Magician parts, but I think there were more. In hindsight, I'm mildy surprised I didn't just make myself three Forestmen...



Finally, there were several bags of assorted bricks... I'm not sure what to call them exactly, so here's a picture:



Opened and sorted through, I discovered a *lot* of 2x1x2 yellow bricks and trans-neon green 1x1 cones. There was also a complete minifig... with several extra heads.



To recap the whole episode, here's a picture of all the minifigs [EDIT: Except for the three build-a-figs]. They're quite the bizarre looking crowd, but after some reorganisation in the collection, they will be fully respectable members, I can assure you. Indeed, I might well do a post on in the near future.



All told, I feel like it was an excellent trip, and I even spent less money than I ever have at the LEGO Store. It helps that my girlfriend got Diagon Alley, so the Pick-a-Brick cup ended up being free (purchases of over $75 let you get a free small PaB cup), and that the keychains were on sale.

10193 Medieval Market Village

As mentioned before, I had a birthday about a week ago, and for the first time in the last few years, I got LEGO as a gift. In fact, I got more LEGO than I've ever received at my birthday.

Thanks to one very awesome girlfriend, I now own 10193 Medieval Market Village.



Although I actually own the set now, I would classify it as One That Got Away otherwise, because this was THE set of the last decade for Castle fans to own, hands down, and until about a week ago, I did not really think I was ever going to quite get around to it. Though it feels substantially cheaper here in the States than it used to in Canada (though I'm told the price came down there recently), somehow it's hard to justify buying such a large set, even though I know I'll end up spending that much in two or three smaller purchases.

In any case, I'm very happy. It's mildly unfortunate that the MMV has such an amazing parts selection, because the design is so stellar that I'm unlikely to part it out any time soon. Even the two soldier figs, which are hardly rare, are unlikely to be sent away to join the rest of my Fantasy Era (Castle 2007) army anytime soon.

Empire State Building

Saturday afternoon, I got the very last of my Christmas LEGO--a gift from a friend in California that (I presume) didn't quite make it out as early as some people's Christmas presents. As a result, set 21002 Empire State Building is my newest LEGO set. It's also my first Architecture set, and I have to say that I was impressed.

First of all, it's pretty much all basic bricks, plates, and tiles. There is a criticism of the LEGO Group's decisions over the past couple decades that makes this a great thing. Basically, the criticism is that sets contain too many specialised and/or juniorised pieces. In other words, even with a fairly large set collection, a builder is always running short on the most basic LEGO elements, unless he augments his collection with things like Pick-a-Brick, BulkLUG, or Bricklink. To an extent, this can be mitigated by sets like Creator/Basic/Freestyle, or the large Sculpture sets, but there are limits to this. What's more, as a fig-favourer, this is not something that's often been available to me.

In consequence, I'm quite happy to have this attractive little collection of tan bricks--tan being a colour that is widely usable in bulk and somewhat rarer than the primary colours.

I was also pleasantly pleased with the amount of "advanced techniques" used in constructing what appears, at face value, to be be a straightforward stack of bricks. Mostly, the "advanced techniques" are used to stagger the bricks, so that half-stud differences can be used to approximate the original skyscraper. All in all, I was quite pleased.



I apologise about the picture, as it's not the best. Possibly because of the white background, I had difficulty making the colours more vivid while still allowing the tan to appear tan. Also, I've only been using GIMP (and have never used Photoshop) for a few weeks, so you get to see me on the learning curve, I'm afraid.

Purchases, Jan.15

As noted in my introductory post, one of the best things about LEGO blogging is the opportunity to show off the new toys in your collection. Growing up with several younger siblings, I am perhaps even more delighted in this opportunity than most, because my formative LEGO experiences were shaped by an atmosphere of "look at the cool LEGO so-so-sibling got!" In addition to the shiny-newness of new LEGO, there was also the spotlight addiction of "...and it's MY shiny, new Lego."

In that spirit, here are the fruits of my second expedition to the Braintree LEGO Store, way down the Red Line on the T from Boston, and then out a bus ride to the South Shore Plaza mall. That's quite a hike, but as I said to my girlfriend yesterday, "it's kind of a good thing it's so far away, since it means I can only realistically visit every few months."

Turns out, we picked a good time to visit. The store was clearing out last year's stock, so a number of things were 50% off, including the Prince of Persia sets, a few Star Wars sets, and a lot of keychains. In addition to these deals, I also had a pick-a-brick box (as opposed to a normal cup), to fill for free--the result of having spent too much money at the Store in the pre-Christmas season.

Besides the under-Recommended Retail Price stuff, I also ponied up for a blue 32x32 baseplate, which I should mention I am quite grateful to LEGO for re-releasing--as well as a couple token NinjaGo and Pharaoh's Quest sets, to start my collection of both.

Most importantly, however, I managed to pick up an Elf!



The elf, we should mention, is one of the coolest collectible figs to have come out this year, since LEGO started the line. I say this, of course, heavily biased by my status as a Tolkien fan--but seriously, take a look at that lovingly crafted little minifig, and tell me he's not cool. The only thing, as a Tolkien fan, is that I'm not really keen on him being blond (blond Elves are not normative, whatever Orlando Bloom may have taught you) and having pointy ears (I fall distinctly on the non-pointy ear side of the debate). However... one quick removal of the headgear, and that problem is swiftly solved. I'm thinking of replacing his hairpiece with a dragon-helm, since that's always been my "Tolkien-esque" LEGO-helm of choice, but I could also settle happily with a Qui-gon wig.

It's funny that this guy is the collectifig I've wanted most, because he's also the first one I've ever purchased... and this was the first time I've ever seen them for sale--even when I was at the same LEGO Store in November, they had none out. It also wasn't hard to pick him out. For all the talk about cheat-sheets, barcodes, and dot-codes that have proliferated in the discussion of these guys, all I had to do was feel around until I found an oval shield and a bow--only one fig in the series had those... and this was the second bag I tried.

The only thing apart from the hairpiece and my Tolkien-related peccadillos that I would change about this set would be to give him a quiver. I remember, back in "the old days," that you never saw a LEGO bow without a quiver (Note: this did not include crossbows, which were in a different colour until 2000 from quivers anyway). All the same, it's not a problem peculiar to the Elf (whom I want to name Gonderin, as an homage to the long-defunct Classic-Castle Roleplay), but is actually the case for another archer I acquired.



Well, okay, maybe the little guy has bowstring envy (oh... there is dirty pun potential there) next to the elf... but he's a Ninja! That's why I got his set, apart from being both small (and under budget), and a nice parts pack: there's little about this set that says "-Go" and a lot that says "Ninja-". Other than the target--which would actually work for a Robin Hood-esque archery tournament I think--the whole thing would fit in nicely with my little Ninja collection, ca. 1999. Cool as the NinjaGo thing has potential to be, I'm more interested in the Ninja-half of things.

A similar division of interest is operative in Pharaoh's Quest. Like NinjaGo, it can kind of be considered a redux version of a theme that originally premiered in 1998--in this case, the Adventurers. However, in the case of Pharaoh's Quest, the part that particularly interests me is the Egyptian end of things, and the high MOC-able potential (thanks to Stargate, Egyptian-themed bad guys have found themselves a place in the sci-fi end of my Lego universe). The Adventurer end of the theme... well... I don't feel a need to expand on Johnny Thunder and the gang, and I don't feel the new guys are any better. So the bare-armed hunk on the motorcycle is, I fear, merely parts-fodder (but don't tell him!).



Also parts fodder, and also desert-based, is the Prince of Persia set I picked up for half-price. Unlike the Egyptians, however, the flesh-toned figs will join the OTHER sci-fi baddie force, which is picking up a lot of support these days: the Evil Peachy Empire (all the flesh-toned figs with a visual aesthetic reminiscent of steampunk/Star Wars).

Looks like little Bare-Arms-Parted-Out-Dude here is a bit outnumbered by evil... perhaps those nasty Peachy figs will dismember him for me.