Category Archives: News

Stay current on the latest news and information about LEGO, from sales & deals to new set announcements. We also cover LEGO events and conventions all over the world.

BrickCon 2009: Andrew’s wrap-up [News]

Like years past, BrickCon 2009 was both exhausting and exhilarating. Bear with us as we travel home, sort through photos, and put our thoughts in writing. I’ll update this post over the next couple of days, along with a full write-up of Zombie Apocafest 2009.

In the meantime, please enjoy the photos we’ve all been uploading. I dropped my camera on its lens first thing this morning (Khaaan!), so Thanel has kindly given me permission to upload a few of the photos we took together of the zombie layout.

Thanel acted as The Brothers Brick’s official photographer for the weekend, and has pictures of just about everything.

Day 1 (setup & socializing)
Day 2 (opening ceremonies)
Day 3 (most of the LEGO creation photos)
Day 4: Wacky Racers
Day 4: Dwarf Toss

The BrickCon pool on Flickr is the best way to find all our event pics in one place.

As much fun as running the zombie layout was, the highlight of the weekend for me was winning “Best of Microscale” for my micro Battlestar Galactica hangar. My look of surprise was both genuine and absolutely ridiculous.

Here’s a quick roundup of BrickCon follow-ups from around the Web:

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Announcing LEGO Pirates 10210 Imperial Flagship, available Jan 1, 2010 [News]

UPDATE: As of January 1, 2010, 10210 Imperial Flagship is now available from the LEGO Shop online.

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A new LEGO Shop exclusive set, LEGO Pirates 10210 Imperial Flagship, was announced at BrickCon 2009 earlier this evening.

Here’s the full announcement from LEGO:

10210 Imperial Flagship

Ages 14+. 1,664 pieces.
US $179.99 CA $229.99 UK £ 139.99 DE € 149.99

Build an incredible classic sailing ship!

All hands on deck! This amazingly detailed and realistic historical ship has three removable sections. The main hull contains 4 firing cannons, ammunition crates, muskets, torches, cannonballs, a prison with a rat, a fully-equipped ship’s kitchen, working anchor, moving rudder and a saw shark figurehead. The front deck has an opening door to the inside of the ship and sails with masts and rigging. The back house deck has opening doors to the captain’s chambers containing a map, poison bottle, organ and a treasure chest full of jewels and gold. The Imperial Flagship has 6 opening windows, a telescope and sextant and 3 deck lanterns. Includes 9 minifigures: the ship’s captain, his daughter, a pirate captain prisoner with shackles, the ship’s cook, a lieutenant, and 4 soldiers. Measures 29.5” (75 cm) long and 23.6” (60 cm) tall. Ages 14+. 1,664 pieces

Includes 9 minifigures: the ship’s captain, his daughter, a pirate captain prisoner with shackles, the ship’s cook, a lieutenant, and 4 soldiers!

Amazingly detailed and realistic ship features 3 removable sections!

Main hull contains 4 firing cannons, ammunition crates, muskets, torches, cannonballs, prison with a rat, saw shark figurehead, a moving rudder and a fully-equipped ship’s kitchen with fish, turkey legs and a carrot!

Raise and lower the working anchor!

Open the front deck’s working doors and play inside!

Imperial Flagship is equipped with masts and rigging!

Open the back house deck’s doors to reveal the captain’s chambers complete with a map, poison bottle, organ and even a treasure chest filled with jewels and gold!

Features 6 opening windows, a telescope and sextant as well as 3 deck lanterns!

Measures 29.5” (75 cm) long and 23.6” (60 cm) tall!

I’ve uploaded a full gallery of high-res photos to Flickr.

10199 Winter Toy Shop now available from the LEGO Shop [News]

With much relief, I’m pleased to announce that 10199 Winter Toy Shop is now available from the LEGO Shop online.

For $60, you get 7 minifigs and 815 pieces. The set also has some great microscale detailing inside the shop.

No luck yet on 6299 LEGO Pirates Advent Calendar, but rest assured we’ll be talking to the team from LEGO about this at BrickCon this weekend.

We are off to BrickCon!

Andrew, Thanel, Caylin, Dan, and myself are all heading to BrickCon. Therefore, you probably won’t hear us much over the next couple of days, other than brief updates.

Have fun and we will be thinking of you!

How to get from Sea-Tac Airport to BrickCon at Seattle Center for $4.50

Last year, we posted an offer to connect people coming in by air based on their arrival times, enabling people to share transportation. That was before Seattle built a light rail line that’ll get you from the airport to Seattle Center for less than five bucks. Oh, and you get to ride a monorail along the way.

Mark Sandlin‘s Infothingy has the details:

For the graphically challenged (and to help people find this from the interwebs):

Catch the Link Light Rail Connector Bus at Bus Bay 2, near Baggage Carousel 1. It will take you to Tukwila International Blvd. Station. This bus is free.
Take the Link Light Rail train into Seattle. ($2.50) Stay on the train until you reach Westlake Station, which is the last stop.
Go up the escalation and into the Westlake Center mall. Go to the top floor of the mall to the Seattle Monorail station.
Take the Seattle Monorail to Seattle Center. ($2.00)

Be sure to click through the graphic to a great discussion of other useful ways to get to BrickCon for cheap — more money for bricks!

Zombie Apocafest 2009 BrickArms Defense Pack debuts in 72 hours [News]

Why yes, that is a BrickArms Cricket Bat and M1 Carbine.

Thanks to the generous folks at BrickArms, we’ll be giving away a bunch of these to those of you who contribute to Zombie Apocafest 2009 at BrickCon 2009 later this week. Each Zombie Defense Pack will include a prototype cricket bat and M1 carbine, along with other great stuff that remains Top Secret.

The cricket bats in particular will be in short supply outside these packs, and there will be a limited number of packs, so be sure to build something awesome.

Weekly LEGO news roundup for September 26, 2009 [News]

It’s not so much that this was a slow news week, but that most of us have been too busy with last-minute preparations for a certain LEGO convention happening in just a few days to blog everything. Anyway, here we go.

BrickCon: If you’re coming to BrickCon, be sure to check out our post about last-minute logistics.
The house that May built: James May’s LEGO house has been destroyed. Worse, a LEGO version of May’s cat Fusker built by a LEGO fan was stolen from the house.
LEGO movie: It seems The Adventures of Clutch Powers is not the rumored LEGO movie. Phew!
BrickForge: We’ll be giving away a bunch of BrickForge’s new helmets at BrickCon.

BrickCon 2009: Last-minute logistics

Well, if we haven’t convinced you to attend BrickCon next week, you’re pretty much stuck following along at home, so we’re moving on without you. For those of you who’ll be joining us at Seattle Center a week from today, this post includes a bunch of important information — especially for first-time attendees.

Past attendees will also notice that this is largely an update of last year’s post. Please forgive the repetition.

Fill out your MOC cards by September 28

MOC cards identify your LEGO creations for fellow attendees and the general public. They also help theme organizers like Josh and me plan for how much space is needed.

Fill out your MOC cards on BrickCon.org by September 28 to ensure that they’re printed on the nice card stock that will help them stand up next to your amazing LEGO creations.

Remember, only “registered” LEGO creations (ones with MOC cards) will be eligible for the various awards given out by BrickCon.

By the way, unless you want to spend the public hours explaining what “SNOT” and “MOC” are to kids and their parents, avoid “AFOL-speak” in your descriptions. Seriously.

Bring stuff for the draft and Dirty Brickster

Drafting a LEGO set allows you to get parts in large quantities that you might otherwise have to buy individually (from, say, Bricklink). Read more about how the draft works on SEALUG.org. If you want to participate, the draft set for BrickCon 2009 is 5972 Space Truck Getaway.

Dirty Brickster is a LEGO “white elephant” gift exchange. Bring something that would be worth $10-20 to the recipient, wrapped.

Pack your LEGO creations for travel or shipping

Before you stuff your LEGO into your carry-on luggage, consider reading the LUGNET post by Duane Hess and the Classic-Castle.com article by Lenny Hoffman about packing and shipping LEGO.

Wouldn’t you rather spend your time socializing and integrating your pristine creations into the display instead of rebuilding them?

Unload your LEGO at the venue

You should soon be receiving a message from BrickCon organizers with details on when, where, and how to unload your LEGO creations at Seattle Center. Last year, the loading dock was only available during the following times (we’ll update this as the 2009 times are finalized):

Thursday 8am – noon
Thursday 5pm – 9pm
Friday 8am – noon
Sunday 5pm – midnight

Given the limited space (it’s a tunnel), please only use the loading dock if you have massive amounts to unload.

Give us a tour of your LEGO room

One of the most interesting things about LEGO User Group (LUG) meetings is getting to see another LEGO fan’s building space.

If you’d like to share what your LEGO room looks like with fellow BrickCon attendees, bring a few good photos on a thumb drive for projection during the con.

Build!

With a week left, you still have time to build something and bring it for one of the many collaborative displays. Here’s a list of the various themes planned for this year’s convention:

Battle Bugs
Capital Ship Modular Project
Castle
Great Ball Contraption
Mecha
MicroCity
Model Team Motors
Operation Bricklord
Space
Town/Train
Zombie Apocafest 2009

See you next week!

The Adventures of Clutch Powers [News]

Gerard Joosten just posted a picture of a flyer he found packaged with the latest Bionicle movie. The flyer claims that “The Adventures of Clutch Powers” is coming to DVD in the spring of 2010. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the movie with which Warner is involved. There are Universal and Tinseltown Toons logos on there. What are your thoughts and feelings about this?

(Edit: Its looks like this is the first of several straight-to-DVD releases.)

James May’s LEGO house destined for ruins

The life-sized LEGO house built by the British TV presenter James May faces imminent destruction after LEGOLAND Windsor withdrew their plans to purchase the massive structure due to expensive transportation costs. The house was built with about 3 million LEGO bricks supplied by the LEGO Group and took about 1000 volunteers who worked tirelessly for about a month to complete. It features a furnished bedroom, living room, kitchen, and a bathroom with a functional toilet – all made from LEGO bricks. Unfortunately, this architectual feat will not be enduring the times. According to the Daily Mail, “if no one collects it by 8am on Tuesday, it will be hacked to bits with chainsaws.”

Read more on BBC News or the Daily Mail.

UPDATE: There’s even a Save James May’s Lego House group on Facebook.

Pictures of 2010 LEGO sets – Atlantis, Toy Story, & more – at Festival RFFL [News]

UPDATE: High-res photos of LEGO Atlantis sets are now out.

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Alexander (Shurik) posted pictures of some of the 2010 sets that LEGO has displayed at a sponsored event in Russia called Festival Rossiyskogo Fan Forum Lego. The featured sets include samples from the following themes: Atlantis, Toy Story, Prince of Persia, Star Wars, Power Miners, City, Bionicle and more.

EDIT (TG): These pictures were uploaded due to a miscommunication and have been removed from Flickr at the request of TLG. The local Ambassador, Igor Makarov, asked me to remove the deeplink which I have done.

UPDATE: Target.com also has box art for one of the 2010 LEGO Power Miners sets, 8188 Fire Blaster:

BrickForge releases “UN” helmets, mushrooms, lots of new colors [News]

One of the themes we’ll be incorporating into the final Zombie Apocafest is “Victory!” If last year’s display represented the outbreak and chaos that would follow a zombie pandemic, we’ll arrange this year’s display to include the human counterattack, victory, and even reconstruction.

To that end, we’ve worked with BrickForge on a way to unify the organized human resistance. And what’s more iconic of multi-national military forces than the blue headgear of the United Nations?

BrickForge’s Military Helmet and Beret are now available in Medium Blue. The Brothers Brick will be handing out a bunch to those of you who bring military minifigs, but you can of course order more from BrickForge.com.

Through Tuesday, September 22 at 11 PM Eastern, if your order includes any medium blue headgear, BrickForge will automatically upgrade your shipping to USPS Priority (applies to domestic US orders only). This ensures that you get your helmets and berets in time for BrickCon 2009.

While you’re at it, you might want to include some of the great new colors and items BrickForge has just released. I’m particularly pleased to see that the mushrooms BrickForge teased us with at BrickFair are now available.

Shrooms are available in six colors, and don’t miss all the other items BrickForge has released in new colors.