I had gone out shopping with the plans of picking up Barakki (which spelling is it?). But when I was unable to find either Carapar or Mantax I "settled" for the next best thing and picked up Nocturn. I have to say that as an introduction to the new baddies, Nocturn is pretty impressive. Their design is fairly original, including some nice use of spikes and color. He definately looks like an aquatic fiend, and with his quadruple armaments he's pretty fierce. Haven't had a chance to make it glow in the dark yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

Looking back on the years and all different villian sets, it's easy to say that the Barraki are the best canister villians LEGO has ever come up with. When I get to a point where I can barely decide who I want because each one offers something different, that's a good problem. Villians up until this point have always been clone sets...the Barrakki set a nice precedent.

One downside of Nocturn would be the reuse of some peices (I think they're mostly Inika stuff). The new pieces (armor, head, spines) look really cool, and from what I've seen of the Barrakki makes me think that this is a problem exclusive to him. The overall set is quite poseable, and does really fit the theme of "Warlord" that LEGO was going for.

I had been in a few Wal-Mart stores over the last few weeks and hadn't seen any on shelves before today. But today there was a whole mess of them. I've seen prices for Nocturn climb as high as $30. He's not worth that. Give it time and they'll be more readily available. I don't know the whole story with this set, but I still see a few store exclusives floating around at various other stores from time to time.