wxdude

Spotted this in the “wild” at a Walmart today!

Are there a couple different variations of the Nebulon floating around? Noticed the box art on Disney’s site lacks any mention of Comic-Con

My Colosseum from the Lego SaH arrived today. Without the chariot and other Christmas promotion. Those are arriving separately apparently. But wow, this box is huge and heavy! I was at the Lego store yesterday and saw it displayed, and it’s a work of art. I love it. It was planned to be a Christmas gift... but with prices floating ~$200 more than MSRP on eBay, there is some temptation to sell. Must resist... For those that plan to resell these, be aware the black box makes every little scuff, mark, or scratch tend to stand out more vs other colored boxes.

Good review! I've used the iPad occasionally with these sets while playing with my son, but after reading what you've been able to do, I may try to engage with it a little bit more. While there are time blocks that can add to the total game duration, I believe (from my experience) they can only be used once per gameplay. And I think they add about 15-30 seconds overall. I suppose you could get extra time from a "?" block, but even so, it becomes difficult to finish more than a few sets if you engage with every built in interaction or character. I own several of the sets, and I find it difficult to finish everything in time if you play from beginning to end without diverting off course! The Bowser set alone takes a bit of time to pull off with all of the things you have to do to knock him down. I can't imagine what it would be like if you tried to combine all of the expansion sets together.

It’s a kids toy, what’d you expect? 😉 In all seriousness, I think we tend to forget LEGOs are largely geared toward kids, and what we may view as silly or pointless, kids can have an entirely different perspective.

Not that I’m aware of, though I honestly haven’t explored the app in great detail. The gathering of coins and high scores are mainly for “bragging rights” from what I can tell. I personally find more interest in displaying the sets (some of which look pretty good!) or playing with the kiddo with them then using the App for anything.

I think the LEGO Mario sets will do better than the Hidden Side sets, mainly because Mario/Nintendo has such a large following and is easily recognizable and liked from a variety of age groups. I could definitely see more collectors trying to get all of their favorite characters and purchasing sets for display vs LEGO collectors buying a bunch of Hidden Side sets. There may be some sets in particular that could be sought out by collectors if certain characters aren't produced again in newer waves. And while both lines use Apps to interact or do things with particular sets, the LEGO Mario sets can be played w/out the App and still get a lot out of it. That's not to say that the Mario sets are without flaws. I hate that there are no instructions in the box with the sets and that you have to use the App to build things. And the rules of the Mario gameplay (through the courses you build) aren't very well defined. For example, there are some items that cannot be used multiple times in a short timeframe. And some items can only be used once per course run-through (time block comes to mind). If you try to build a really big course but can't add time to your gameplay more than once, it really limits what you can do. It would be nice to know what you can or can't do when you're trying to build a bigger course. In any case, my son and I have purchased several of the expansion sets and have really enjoyed them with the main starter course. I've found it fun to build a variety of courses to play through and try. My kid (5 years old) still enjoys playing with the characters more and making them interact vs running Mario through a timed course. Perhaps that's how most younger kids are with this particular line, while the older kids would rather compete and collect coins. While it's still early in the grand scheme of things, I did find it impressive that all of the expansion sets were on backorder on the LEGO site. Just checking now, even the starter kit is now on backorder too. How many other lines with +10 sets do you see that happen to with their initial release? Perhaps LEGO under-estimated the demand initially and will have everything back in surplus stock by the end of the month or early next month. But can they keep up with the demand into the holiday season? Time will tell...

My 5 year old son absolutely loves Mario related things and has played a lot of the newer Mario content that is out on the Nintendo Switch (Mario Kart, Super Mario Bro’s Deluxe). We saw the $60 Mario Starter Course set at Walmart the other day and I bought it along with some of the $5 character packs. We put it together today and he absolutely loves it! He seems more interested in making Mario interact with the other characters vs setting up a course for Mario to run through in a certain amount of time. Perhaps older kids would want to set up courses and try to collect as many coins as they can in the timeframe they have to finish the course... but I’ll admit, I even had fun using the Mario character to interact with all of the various enemies and landscapes. I foresee myself purchasing additional Mario courses and expansion sets. My son is more interested in playing with these vs watching TV (we’ll see how long that lasts, lol), so I’m all for him getting into this stuff. I think there’s great potential for this particular line too. I could totally see them making a future Luigi character that is similar to Mario. Perhaps even have the ability to compete against one another with Mario and Luigi to see who can get the most coins, or knock out the most enemies within a specific time. Future sets could include a Mario castle or other landmarks from the older games. The prices for the sets can be on the expensive side, but when you look at other themes aimed toward kids (Minecraft), it’s not that much out of line. I think there’ll be demand for these come Christmas, and it will be interesting to see if LEGO can keep up with it.

Old Fishing Store back in stock on Amazon (18 left as of typing this, with more on the way, supposedly...)

Check your local Walmarts for First Order Star Destroyers... mine had them marked down 75% off to $40!!

Brick Bank in stock on Amazon at RRP

Ok, that makes me feel a lot better about this then... thanks for the quick response!

Has Lego ever been known to "switch" up the number of bags a sealed set may come with? I recently received an open box Robie House (21010) that has 14 brand new, sealed bags. A couple other people I've emailed who have open box (sealed bag) sets say they came with 18. The weight of everything I have (box, instructions, legos) comes out to around 5 pounds... which is what others are reporting as well with a full, complete set. I would think if I were missing 4 bags, the weight would be less... Appreciate any insight anyone can offer!

Hindsight is always 20/20 in the Lego investing world

I know Lego has re-released several sets in the past, including some in the architecture line... but would it not seem odd to re-release something that is specifically titled "Limited Edition"?

Thanks Ed for the reply, I certainly do believe they are rare and limited in number. Just curious where the "10,000" came from. Was wondering if it was actually much less.

Can anyone confirm that Lego made only 10,000 of these sets via some sort of press release or webpage that explicitly states that? Everything I've tried to search online in regards to the number of available copies of this set come from various blogs or fan pages, and I haven't been able to find anything "official" from Lego's own website about this set. Given the prices they are going for today, and the limited number of sellers on eBay/Bricklink, I kinda wonder if even 10,000 of these were made... or maybe collectors are hoarding them in their basements ?