So, there were plenty of other themes on display … Legends Of Chima, Galaxy Squad, Friends, Technic, Mindstorms (which was amazing!), Creator, Castle, TMNT and City. Everything looked pretty great to me, although I don’t have any massive interest in these themes.
What was interesting was the Collectable Minifigures bit … whilst no new figures were on display, they did confirm that Series 10 would be out around May and Series 11 would be seen in November (although the catalogue says September).
Series 10 appears to have a “Find Mr Gold” promotion, and although the details were pretty limited, it seems that there might be a single gold figure in the box somewhere. The guy we were with didn’t know if it was in place of one of the 16, or in addition or whether it would be a unique gold figure or a gold version of one of the 16. Still, one to look out for … it’s ok if you buy a whole box and sell the spares, but it’ll be a pain for those that buy figures as and when they can!
Series 10 will be in gold packaging (maybe that’s why there’s the chase figure promotion?) and Series 11 will be in green.
In other news, I found the “tat” stall and it seemed to have new torches coming and a new light featuring Boba Fett. They also the same in the style of old school spacemen.
There were 4 new Lord Of The Rings sets on display … now, I confessed last year that I’d neither read any of the books nor had I lasted more than 45 minutes into any of the films and I’m afraid that is still true, so, I’m gonna be properly rusty on the details here! Sorry folks …
The sets are due out in August and are as follows …
79005 The Wizard Battle … a small set featuring Gandalf The Grey, Saruman and Eye of Sauron (which appeared to be a special minifig head, although no idea on details as it wasn’t actually there … just an artists impression!). Price point £11.99.
79006 The Council of Elrond … there’s a sort of building and a table, around which I assume the council can gather. Features 4 minifigures, Elrond, Arwen, Frodo and Gimli. Price point £29.99.
79007 Battle At The Black Gate … an impressive looking black castle type thing, featuring 5 minifigures, Aragorn, Gandalf The White, Mouth Of Sauron and 2 Mordor Orcs. Price point £59.99.
79008 Pirate Ship Ambush … a rather large pirate ship, although the deck is quite sparse. PLENTY of minifigures though … Aragorn, Legolas Greenleaf, Gimli, King Of The Dead, 2 Soldier’s Of The Dead, Pirate of Umbar (which I believe was played by Peter Jackson himself in the film) and 2 Mordor Orcs. Price point £89.99.
All of the Lone Ranger sets were on display, although the minifigures for 4 of the sets were not present at the Toy Fair … they were all replaced with standard yellow figures. The release date were were given was 19th July, although the dealer catalogue I have suggests May. The sets overall looked really good and may we drive a resurgence is interest in cowboy themes. The guy who was showing us these sets said that the Lone Ranger figure is different in each set, although I can’t vouch for that as we didn’t see all the variants.
79106 Cavalry Builder Set … a nice little “battle pack” set, with 3 cavalry figure and the Lone Ranger. Comes with a horse (the one that can rear up, that first came in the LOTR sets) and a small fort & cannon. Price point £11.99.
79107 Comanche Camp … a set consisting of a wigwam, canoe and a scorpion pit. Comes with 3 figures, Lone Ranger, Tonto and Chief Redmeat (if I heard my audio recording correctly). Price point £19.99.
79108 Stagecoach Escape … a pretty nice looking stagecoach (with proper suspension), featuring 5 minifigures … Tonto, Lone Ranger, 2 bad guys and Red Harrington, plus 3 horses. Apparently, the safe that’s on top of the Stagecoach was a Lego invention and they liked it so much, they put it in the film! Price point £29.99.
79109 Colby City Showdown … a bank and a jail, both of which have plenty of play features where parts of the sets will blow up … a safe, the front of the bank and the jail cell. Figures include 2 bad guys, Dan Reid, Tonto and the Lone Ranger. Price point £39.99.
79110 Silver Mine Shootout … a pretty nice playset, again featuring parts of the set that will blow up. Set features Tonto, the Lone Ranger, 2 baddies and another Indian. There seemed to be some nice chrome silver parts too (Coins, bullion bars etc), which is the treasure the baddie is trying to steal, I assume. Price point £69.99.
79111 Constitution Train Chase … a great looking train, including a complete circle of track and seven minifigures – Rebecca Reid, Tonto, Lone Ranger, Rebecca Reid’s son, cavalry officer (that had a rather nice cavalry hat and hair mold) and another bad guy who also has a working gattling gun, which was a good play feature indeed. Price point £79.99.
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.
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??!!
*edit*
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.
So, I’ve just got home from a great day at the UK Toy Fair 2013 at Olympia, in London. It was a great day and I got to see all of the summer wave of sets, although not all the figures (more of that later). Once again, no pictures, as they are not allowed. They’d even covered all of the stands so you couldn’t see if from the upper gallery either! There were also no free hints on the new minifigures from the outside of the stand, there was more of a focus on building, as you can see from the photo above. Along with Huw from Brickset and Gary Davis (one of the UK Lego Ambassadors), we were treated to around an hour being shown around all of the stand and most of the themes (we passed on Hero Factory and Duplo ). I tried to voice record what we were told, so I didn’t have to take so many badly hand written notes that I couldn’t read later.
Anyway, enough with the pre-amble … on to the NEWS! I’ll start with Star Wars, since it’s the bed-rock of this site (at least for me). The summer wave seems to mainly focus on Episodes II and III (to coincide with the cinema 3D releases) and there are quite a few re-boots of sets we’ve already seen. Here’s the run down of sets …
75015 Corporate Alliance Tank Droid … this is rather similar to the 7748 set from 2009, in terms of the build, but the figure selection this time is different, as we get 3 figures with a Clone Trooper and Battle Droid and a whole new Jango Fett figure. This was on display and it looked brilliant. Price point £19.99.
75016 Homing Spider Droid … again, similar to 7681 from 2008, although it’s somewhat bigger all round and comes with a smaller spider droid. The figures supplied are a Clone Trooper, 2 Super Battle Droids and a new figure, called “Adi Galia” in the dealer catalogue I have, although my voice recording seems to mention a “Stass Allie”. Price point £29.99.
750017 Duel On Geonosis (or the prelim title Yoda vs Dooku) … this is a playset to recreate the fight between Dooku and Yoda from Episode II … you’ve got various bits of scenery, including all the stuff that Dooku used to try and squash the Jedi. The Dooku and Yoda figures are both new, with the former being film style (looking like Christopher Lee) and the latter featuring a new sculpt and painting for the head. You also get a new Pilot Droid and a new figure for Poggle The Lesser. This looked like a good little playset. Price point £39.99.
75018 Jeks-14 Stealth Starfighter … a set which appears to be from the Yoda Chronicles, I believe … and whilst the ship was on display, none of the minifigures were present. The ship itself is a black & red starfighter, looking a little like a beefy version of the Z95 Headhunter (at least to me). The figures are listed as Jek-14, Separatist Bounty Hunter, Special Forces Clone Trooper and a droid called R4-G0. Price point £59.99.
75019 AT-TE … this set was right in the corner, so I couldn’t get a good look at it, but it looked pretty much the same as 7675 from 2008. The rep we spoke to said that all the re-booted sets have had tweaks and updates, so you never know. It does come with a raft of new figures though, including new versions of Mace Windu, a new minifig entirely called for Coleman Trebor (who is on screen in Ep II for about 30 seconds before dying!), a new Clone Trooper Gunner figure and a couple of standard Battle Droids. Price point £79.99.
75020 Jabba’s Sailbarge … this set was present and quite near the front, so I could have a good look, although some parts looked a little preliminary (the sails, for example). The sailbarge itself is smaller than 6210 from 2006, which is a shame, but the figures are a step up. Jabba is the same as the Jabba’s Palace set from last year, but we also get a Max Rebo figure (although this wasn’t at the Toy Fair), a new Weequay figure, a new Ree-Yees figure and a new print for Princess Leia in the gold bikini. You’ll also get R2 in his drinks server guise. Like the last model, the sides of the Sailbarge open up and in the rear of the ship is the section where you’ll find Max Rebo’s “piano”. Price point £99.99.
75021 Republic Gunship … looked quite similar to 7676 from 2008, with a few tweaks, most obvious being the pilot canopies being different. Figure-wise, you’re getting a new Obi-Wan, a new Anakin, a new Clone Pilot, a new Padme Amidala (complete with battle torn white outfit across the midriff), a new Clone Trooper Officer and 2 Super Battle Droids. Price point £109.99.
75022 Mandalorian Speeder … a fairly forgettable speeder, if you ask me … I was too busy looking at the picture of the Darth Maul figure that will come with the set (the figure itself wasn’t at the Toy Fair) as it’s Darth Maul in his resurrected guise with robotic legs. It looked a bit weird, but time will tell I guess, when pictures come from the other Toy Fairs later. You also get 2 new Mandalorian Super Commandos. Price point £24.99.
75023 Star Wars Advent Calendar … Another good set of minis and various minifigures, but the stand outs were a Santa Jango Fett. You also get a Young Boba Fett, which hasn’t been seen since 7153 in 2002!! Looked good … I didn’t note down the price point of this one, but assume it’s the same as 2012, at £24.99.
So there ya go … the range looked pretty good, especially the figures, as is the way with Lego these days it seems. If you do have any questions, please ask and I will try to answer as best I can, although do remember that I have no pictures to refer to.
More posts will come with news on the Super Heroes, Lord Of The Rings and Lone Ranger themes too. Oh and a round up of other stuff.
