Official 2012 Set Discussion

[Lyichir]

Just realized something else- Speeda Demon's weapons are gold! And they're Gorast's wings! MUST HAVE GOLD WING-WEAPONS THAT LOOKS LIKE KATANAS!

Nope. They're the blades from this, but in gold.

Which, FYI, already appear in said color in this. They are still very cool pieces.

[Gatanui]

Stringer: This is the best set ever made. Okay, at least in this wave. Stringer, with an electric guitar gun (awesome), some cool new shoulder piece, and, best of all, some phenomenal transparent blue. Really fantastic. There are two things that bother me slightly, though. First off, the white Hero Core really clashes with the rest of the set. They should have made it black or purple or something. Come to think of it, purple highlights on the pieces, like in the show, would be nice, too... Still a great set. The other thing is the trans blue. It's cool, it's stylish, it's sexy, it would be great on Recon Team, but the layout confuses me. From what I can tell, the chest plate is transparent, and... the right arm is, but the left arm isn't? I couldn't tell about the legs. Seems kind of odd. You'd think they'd either do all-trans or no-trans, preferably all-trans. I have to see more pictures to know for sure... But still. Must pick this one up.Speeda Demon: Now here's a set with a weird color scheme. It's like Hunter S. Thompson designed it or something. As I didn't get the Furno Bike, this new motorcycle is pretty cool. Purple looks nice. The electric stuff coming from it is also cool. The character himself is okay. The problem with him is that he's really asymmetrical. Really ruins the whole flow of the set, especially with the silver piece on the right arm. I also don't like the reuse (again!) of the Black Phantom head. It's getting really, really old. As for the extra arms... they're a little too short and wimpy for my tastes (Black Phantom had the same problem). Maybe he uses the blades to slash the tires on vehicles as he passes by? I actually think, despite its flaws, that I'll actually give this set a go.

Stringer: I expect both arms to be trans-blue (or solid blue, but I would obviously prefer the former) in the final set. After all, these are still prototypes and it´s not the first time a set has had a piece in a wrong colour. I hope the NY Toy Fair will provide us some clarification on this.Speeda Demon: Actually, I can´t see the least bit on asymmetry on the rider. I can see a silver piece on each arm and both his sides are entirely identical to me. Or have I missed something? ~Gata.

[Daiker]

How does Stringer manage to be the best set of the wave every time he appears? ~Gata.

Stringer is best hero.Even in the case of a color change he manages to look sexy!

[Gatanui]

How does Stringer manage to be the best set of the wave every time he appears? ~Gata.

Stringer is best hero.Even in the case of a color change he manages to look sexy!

Inorite? That´s the amazing part about him. He is awesome both in orange and its complementary colour blue. ~Gata.

[Dorek]

Stringer: This is the best set ever made. Okay, at least in this wave. Stringer, with an electric guitar gun (awesome), some cool new shoulder piece, and, best of all, some phenomenal transparent blue. Really fantastic. There are two things that bother me slightly, though. First off, the white Hero Core really clashes with the rest of the set. They should have made it black or purple or something. Come to think of it, purple highlights on the pieces, like in the show, would be nice, too... Still a great set. The other thing is the trans blue. It's cool, it's stylish, it's sexy, it would be great on Recon Team, but the layout confuses me. From what I can tell, the chest plate is transparent, and... the right arm is, but the left arm isn't? I couldn't tell about the legs. Seems kind of odd. You'd think they'd either do all-trans or no-trans, preferably all-trans. I have to see more pictures to know for sure... But still. Must pick this one up.Speeda Demon: Now here's a set with a weird color scheme. It's like Hunter S. Thompson designed it or something. As I didn't get the Furno Bike, this new motorcycle is pretty cool. Purple looks nice. The electric stuff coming from it is also cool. The character himself is okay. The problem with him is that he's really asymmetrical. Really ruins the whole flow of the set, especially with the silver piece on the right arm. I also don't like the reuse (again!) of the Black Phantom head. It's getting really, really old. As for the extra arms... they're a little too short and wimpy for my tastes (Black Phantom had the same problem). Maybe he uses the blades to slash the tires on vehicles as he passes by? I actually think, despite its flaws, that I'll actually give this set a go.

Stringer: I expect both arms to be trans-blue (or solid blue, but I would obviously prefer the former) in the final set. After all, these are still prototypes and it´s not the first time a set has had a piece in a wrong colour. I hope the NY Toy Fair will provide us some clarification on this.Speeda Demon: Actually, I can´t see the least bit on asymmetry on the rider. I can see a silver piece on each arm and both his sides are entirely identical to me. Or have I missed something? ~Gata.

In some initial pics (which we shouldn't be allowed to talk about, but that's shot) Speeda was missing the shoulder pad on his right arm.I hope they actually address how he comes by his bike, but that's irrelevant XP.Anyhow, still looking forward to all of these sets, especially the big ones; if that combiner had storyline relevance, I'd actually try and build it too =P

[Smitty]

Where did y'all see any of the summer combiners?

[Nuvaguy]

Where did y'all see any of the summer combiners?

The Speeda Demon/Stormer XL one was revealed in a video showing all of this year's sets that can be found on a 'video website'.Also, does anyone know when the Breakout TV episode will be shown?

[Mesonak]

Where did y'all see any of the summer combiners?

The Speeda Demon/Stormer XL one was revealed in a video showing all of this year's sets that can be found on a 'video website'.Also, does anyone know when the Breakout TV episode will be shown?

I wish I knew. When it airs, the guys from The Three Virtues will be recording it and uploading it to our channel (which I'm sure you all know) like always- there's just been no indication of when it will air.If you want my theory, due to it looking like the summer wave will continue the Breakout story, there will only be one TV special, and it will air much later in the year around August, September, October, etc. Edited February 12, 2012 by Mesonak

[Voltex]

Is that Hero Factory book really by GregF? If so, then I have high hopes for the future of Hero Factory's story. And from the sounds of it since Thornraxx is with summer villains, I'm guessing that Breez and Thornraxx were originally scheduled to be released in the summer anyway.-ibrow

[Element Lord of Milk]

Is that Hero Factory book really by GregF? If so, then I have high hopes for the future of Hero Factory's story. And from the sounds of it since Thornraxx is with summer villains, I'm guessing that Breez and Thornraxx were originally scheduled to be released in the summer anyway.-ibrow

No, I think Breez and Thornraxx were originally winter sets(So many similarities, and they're already out in Europe)but were pushed back to bolster the Summer wave(Which would've only been 8 sets otherwise). And that sucks since IMO they're some of the best winter sets.And my general thoughts on the new sets:The heroes are really weak this time, which is a shame after the winter heroes were so good, Stringer looks cool, and Stormer looks pretty good too(Although I have a feeling his torso will be really, really hollow)but Nex is just. . . . . . . . .Bland, and Bulk has one of the worst color schemes i've seen, he has, what? 4 silver pieces?(Hand, shoulders, and Helmet)The villians on the other hand look pretty good. i saw an LDD mockup of the yellow villian on another forum, and he looks amazing(If the mockup is accurate, which it looks to be, mostly). Purple guy looks interesting. the Black and red guy looks pretty cool, although because of his colors it's hard to make much out. Speeder demon look awesome, and the bike looks like a pretty solid improvement of the Furno bike.Also: DAT COMBINER.~ELM~ Edited February 12, 2012 by Element lord Of Milk.

[dotcom]

I think that at the beginning, Breez and Thornraxx were summer sets, and Stringer/Core Hunter & Stormer/Speeda Demon winter sets, maybe? It would definitely explain the characters in what little we've seen of the TV episode. And then I guess they were switched, and later pushed Breez and Thornraxx back to summer in the US, like ELoM said. It's odd.Anyway, am I alone in thinking that the fact that the two sets with purple are also the ones reusing the Black Phantom helmet is no coincidence? Between the Joker being the worst out of all the Ultrabuild sets and Voltix/Demon reusing a helmet, it's like LEGO saying: "We herd u like purple, so wut will u put up wit to get itt??"Not that I'm complaining. Voltix and Speeda Demon are pretty awesome.

[unknown_user2596]

Clear NY Toy Fair pics can be found here.Prices are nasty for the two biggest sets however.6230 Stormer XL 124 pieces/$24.99 <_<6231 Speeda Demon 124 pieces $34.99 http://www.bzpower.com/board/public/style_emoticons/default/mad.gifCore Hunter is amazing!

[Squishyfrog]

6230 Stormer XL 124 pieces/$24.99 <_<6231 Speeda Demon 124 pieces $34.99 http://www.bzpower.com/board/public/style_emoticons/default/mad.gif

Lego, why do you not make sense? Witch Doctor had 300+ pieces, and he was cheaper than SD.

[Voltex]

The problem is, Speeder Demon looks like the one summer set (besides Stringer) that I want. Argh.I need more purple.-ibrow

[Mesonak]

I don't know about you, but I would rather by multiple purple armor pieces *cough* online *cough* for around $10 than spend $35 for this guy, no matter how cool he looks. Tis' a shame, but at least I know which titans will not be getting my money come this summer. May as well buy a duplicate Witch Doctor.All of the other sets look excellent, however, bar lackluster photography.-Mesonak

Edited February 12, 2012 by Mesonak

[FrozenFlash]

That's new. It looks like there's a translucent torso piece on Stringer and it's a purple one. It's pretty cool actually.

[Dorek]

Well, in some places WD was actually 35 (and in TRU, even moreso); the LEGO store was actually the only place WD was 30. Speeda might be the same, who knows? Regardless, even with the same piece count, its still a fair price. Gotta make money somehow, neh?

[Mesonak]

That's new. It looks like there's a translucent torso piece on Stringer and it's a purple one. It's pretty cool actually.

It's transparent dark-blue. Still very cool. Voltix has a purple torso too, however, so all's good. -Mesonak

[Smitty]

I need better pictures of some every thing I think I want...

[Element Lord of Milk]

I'm liking the New pics.Stormer looks amazing(Hyper posable legs!)though his arms look a bit short. Loving that printing.XT4 looks great(Goat legs FTW, I love Goat legs). Very ccurious to see how his torso is built.Stringer looks pretty good, fairly average build-wise, but his gun looks cool.Nex is pretty plain, I'm fairly neutral on him(Although he has no hands. . . . . . . .)Bulk is alright, I'm still a little annoyed at the lack of Silver, but he seems to make it work(Mostly).Voltix looks sweet, a little all over the place with the color scheme, but not bad.Core Hunter. . . . . . . . .I still can't make out much of him(Curse you dark color schemes!)Speeda Demon. I didn't really notice anything new, my opinions remain the same.I'll be getting them all regardless though, because I vowed early on to be a completionist when it comes to HF.And I guess Breez and Thornraxx are confirmed to be Summer sets in North America.Darn :/ .~ELM~EDIT: Also, did anyone else notice that Surge's sword is Black?

Edited February 12, 2012 by Element lord Of Milk.

[Daiker]

Just going to review everything that stands out to me.6229(yellow villain): Very short body :| Head looks decent.Stringer: Oh my goodness. TRANSPARENT TORSO. I think his weapon is supposed to represent a guitar. Lookin' good.Nex: Not sure how I feel about the white. I'm not sure if it should've been incorporated as much as it is, seeing as he didn't even HAVE white last wave he was in. Either way, nice design (btw white core on white hero torso?). The head is okay. The weapon ruins him ;__; What's up with the gun on his shoulder?Bulk: Torso is great! The shoulder armor I think is restricting, and isn't needed seeing as he has a shoulder mounted weapon. Also orange a main color?Core Hunter: Can't see much, but from what I can tell he's looking good. He has that rambo-style chain link. Head is great. (And why did they put the extra core on his leg? )Speeda Demon: Woah, purple and gold. Fire Lord helm? :­( Nice Furno bike ripoff Voltixx: Uh.. color consistency anyone?Stormer XL: The one thing that strikes me are the legs. I really don't like them. The sideways cup thing is not working for me and the lower legs don't look good. The feet are nice though. The chest is a bit overdone, but still looks good. What up with the random piece in-between his shoulder and hip...? Sword is nice. Until we get more pics, don't see much else wrong.So yeah, this wave is doing okay at best. Not really matching up to the previous. Some are good and other bad. Bring purple back club success?

Edited February 12, 2012 by Daiker

[Dralcax]

6230 Stormer XL 124 pieces/$24.99 <_<6231 Speeda Demon 124 pieces $34.99 http://www.bzpower.com/board/public/style_emoticons/default/mad.gif

Lego, why do you not make sense? Witch Doctor had 300+ pieces, and he was cheaper than SD.

Rubber tires and the purple coloring?

[Voltex]

Why would purple make it cost more though? It doesn't make sense, especially since other sets use purple and aren't mysteriously more expensive.They might have the piece counts mixed up however; one of the two sets could be smaller or larger than they say.-ibrow

[Smitty]

I just love how much is going on with Voltix.I'm not too sure about Preston XL I have not really liked any of the bigger sets that I'v gotten. I'm thinking I'll get him and see if I can't make him in to just a Preston L...I love what I see with XT4 he looks like a killing machine...I'm try8ing to think of how I cam make Nex look better and the normal give him two hands and find a better way to lay out the colors is not working out in my head. I may have to go to ldd for this.Stringer is win even with the odd trans-blue torso.You just can't go wrong with black and red together, and with what the name Core Hunter suggests this guy is going to be the most bad ###### villein Her Factory has ever seen.Bulk may have to part with his orange shin guards for Nex, other wise I'm mostly fin with him.Speeda Demon is a green and gold biker with spikes, whats not to love there. I hope they do more big set like this. Normal sized figure with a thing for him to kill/ defend with.

Why would purple make it cost more though? It doesn't make sense, especially since other sets use purple and aren't mysteriously more expensive.They might have the piece counts mixed up however; one of the two sets could be smaller or larger than they say.-ibrow

Yeah one of the tags could be a miss print with the price of part count wrong.

[Squishyfrog]

Hey, I'm I the only one who noticed that the BP helmet has a slight "bump" on the upper mouthguard thing? It's easier to see here and here. It's the part just below the eyes, and it's only on one side. At first, I thought it was just my Black Phantom helmet, but after seeing pictures from the Toy Fair it looks like all of these helmets have a little ridge thing.

[~Xemnas~]

@Squishypony: Oh, hey, it does! Even I didn't notice that!

[Nuvaguy]

Yeah, I just noticed that yesterday. At first I thought it was a screwed up mold, but then I realized all of them had that bump. I wonder what the reason for that is.

[kalhiki]

My BP Helm has the bump. Mold error? Definitely not QC, and I doubt it was intentional just due to its pointlessness.Kalhiki

[Dorek]

Just saw prelim pics of the summer sets from a toyfair catalogue.Dang these things are ugly; the final results are way better =P.

[unknown_user2596]

Just found this on a certain video sharing website. What's with the summer sets getting all the love recently?

[Dorek]

Presumably because Stringer and Breez were apparently switched somewhere along the line.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Dorek

[Smitty]

Just found this on a certain video sharing website. What's with the summer sets getting all the love recently?

A clue at to want to look for would be nice...

[~Xemnas~]

It appears that this may be the new, true, packaging of Stringer... with... possibly Voltix in the background.

[Aanchir]

It appears that this may be the new, true, packaging of Stringer... with... possibly Voltix in the background.

Stringer is indeed paired with Voltix, so that would be who's in the background. Anyway, that packaging looks gorgeous, especially since I know to expect it in a chrome silver or possibly chrome gold color like the sets for the first half of the year.

[dotcom]

Hmmm..I wonder. If the summer bags have a gold top border instead of the winter's silver, will they change Breez/Thornraxx's packaging to match, or keep them with the old style?

[Dorek]

Since they've already released it, presumably keep it the same silver.

[Aanchir]

Since they've already released it, presumably keep it the same silver.

Not necessarily. The American packaging differs from the European packaging to begin with since American packaging has piece counts in the front and of course the warnings on the back are in different languages. I don't believe we've seen Breez yet in the American packaging, so it could still be gold.

[Dorek]

Yeah, but that's standard practice anyway; I don't think we've seen a particularly drastic change like that at all (unless you count Fero/Skirmix) for a while.Then again, they did do prelim lids on initial Vahki orders one time, so who knows? Could become a pseudo-collectors item, if it happens.

[Lyichir]

Since they've already released it, presumably keep it the same silver.

Not necessarily. The American packaging differs from the European packaging to begin with since American packaging has piece counts in the front and of course the warnings on the back are in different languages. I don't believe we've seen Breez yet in the American packaging, so it could still be gold.

We also don't know exactly how much the new packaging costs to produce. Changes could very well be easier with the "bags" than with the old plastic canisters.

[Kojol]

Well. This seems to be a bit of a step down from Breakout 1.First off, the color schemes are terrible. Every set has multiple frame colors. I have nothing against having lots of colors of frames, but when the torsos are always black and the arms are half-black, half-grey, it's annoying. Make some sets all grey, some all black. Seriously. Then, you've got sets like Voltix, Nex, and Bulk, and arguably Stringer, who have too many different colors besides their frames. Additionally, the color layering is terrible. Specific reviews:Nex: The helmet is thoroughly disappointing. Why couldn't we have something like Evo's, which kept the old look but gave it its own feel, or Rocka's? Between him and half of the villains having Black Phantom's hat, it seems like they fired the helmet designer! Furthermore, there's too much white armor. Perhaps he should have had the frame pieces be white, and have orange and gunmetal armor and tools.He also should have had a green core, I think, but that's obviously not going to happen.Finally, his weapons are kind of disappointing, he's got a laser thing, which looks far less useful and well-designed than his old claw/saw/shield gadget.Stringer: I'm going to be contrarian and dislike him. He should have had only one shade of blue (ideally, the trans-blue), and either silver or gunmetal, not both. Furthermore, I don't care how cool the sound waves look, I object to printing on principle, except in the case of minifigures. Furthermore, his weapon is clunky and inelegant.Also, since he's got gray thighs but not gray upper arms, I'm calling LEGO out on being inconsistent about the bad frame colors thing.Bulk: WHY. He's got gunmetal and orange now. If you're going to give him orange, give Evo purple. Furthermore, he has all three major metallic colors, the same issue as Rocka. The red also isn't doing him any favors, but the shoulder-mounted rocket launcher thing looks cool, so he's my favorite Hero of the wave.Stormer: I actually preferred the Fire Lord build. He's got weird, spindly, overly-flexible legs, silver feet, and the most inelegant torso I've seen in ages. Also, the sword is lame. He might turn out good, I don't like him now, though.XT4: Oh, look, a mini-torso piece. My biggest complaint is the black, if he were all yellow and light grey, he'd be better, I think. His weapons are also ugh. Overall decent.Core Hunter: He's decent. We don't really need more black and red sets, though.Voltix: The way I see this set happening was something like "So, BZPower wants purple sets, but we think purple won't sell. Let's take one of our spare gunmetal-and-red villains and give him a few purple armor bits". Also, why does he have blue and yellow lightning stuff up the wazoo?Speeda Demon: A decent set. The four arms deal is sketchy, but there's not much wrong with it otherwise.Also: Villain sets using an orange or red and black/silver/gunmetal as their color scheme:1.0 - X-Plode, Rotor (1/3)2.0 - Fire Lord, Jetbug, Drilldozer, Nitroblast (1)3.0 - Raw-Jaw, Fangz (2/5)Breakout 1 - Splitface, Jawblade, Black Phantom (3/5)Breakout 2 - Core Hunter, Voltix (1/2)Total: 12 (out of 24)This is getting ridiculous.