Today we are interested in a new publication from the publisher Qilinn (Huginn & Munnin): LEGO, Chain Reactions (24.95 €) which is none other than the French translation of the educational book offered since 2015 by the publisher Klutz (LEGO Chain Reactions).

This book is a very elaborate product, the development of which has obviously been carried out with care. The visuals are good, the illustrations are explicit, the text is didactic and the box itself is cleverly designed.

The product pitch is also promising:

It is confirmed, it will not be necessary to count on Toy Fairs from London (January 23 to 25, 2018), Nuremberg (January 31 to February 4, 2018) and New York (February 17 to 20, 2018) to discover LEGO novelties for the second half of 2018. The manufacturer has indeed indicated that he would not present any of the sets planned for the second half of the year during these events which are above all fairs intended for toy professionals.

LEGO will not be present in London, product photos will not be allowed in Nuremberg and written reports will be "framed".

I read here and there a bit of everything and anything about this decision by LEGO not to reveal many months in advance the products that will fill store shelves later in the year. Let's be serious, LEPIN does not wait for Toy Fairs at the beginning of the year to reproduce identically the sets to come ... It is obvious that the Chinese manufacturer specializing in the counterfeiting of existing products has much more elaborate resources than simple blurry photos taken on a stand. LEGO's surprising neglect does the rest with the massive leaks that take place outside factories or in the various "private" spaces that allow dealers to download visuals and official descriptions.

We can therefore assume that LEGO no longer wants to communicate on the sets to come so as not to cannibalize the attention around the boxes currently on the market. The novelties of the first semester have only been available for a few weeks and the manufacturer will have analyzed its own sales statistics to come to the conclusion that it is better not to communicate too early on the sets planned to be put on the shelves in several months. .

LEGO's decision can also be explained by a desire to keep control of its own marketing plan, largely imposed by the rights holders of the licenses concerned, which does not exactly correspond to the schedule of Toy Fairs beginning of the year.

If Disney or Warner set a timeline for the announcement of products derived from their respective licenses, LEGO must comply. As proof, I take the threatening emails sent by the manufacturer asking for the withdrawal of visuals or slightly too precise descriptions of derivative products: LEGO almost always claims to act under the constraint of the owner of the license in question.

The various leaks that take place only dampen these carefully prepared official announcements to make the buzz and in recent years LEGO has a little too often been the brand by which the first information (spoilers) on a film are disclosed, whether partial or even false.

It is therefore quite possible that Disney and Warner, among others, have finally asked LEGO to do their utmost to ensure that these leaks in the form of spoilers no longer reproduce. Exit therefore the presentation of sets based on Avengers: Infinity War or the second part of the saga Fantastic Beasts... No early reveal either for sets based on the animated film Incredibles 2 ou Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. It is the studios that decide when and where these derivative products are announced.

Obviously these are just guesses, it's hard to know what really motivates LEGO to change their strategy so significantly towards Toy Fairs.

The LEGO fan will have already seen these different sets anyway thanks to the many leaks that have flooded social networks in recent weeks, but the general public will have to wait until the studios decide to unveil these products.

In short, LEGO will be present in Nuremberg and New York, but not to distribute spoilers and blurry photos of upcoming news. It will be for the brand to meet its customers and promote its products currently marketed. The second half of the line will wait until the right time to be revealed.

The regulars will in any case have already recovered the retailer catalog available for download for a few days which reveals a large part of the sets planned ...

Here we are: goodbye 2017, hello 2018. Another year has passed, with its batch of LEGO news, sometimes heated discussions on many themes, various and varied competitions and tests.

In 2017, more and more of you came to the blog, for one reason or another, and stopped by to chat with other fans and share your experience, knowledge or good for this community. plans. Over 180.000 comments have been posted since the blog was created seven years ago. This constant increase in attendance has also imposed this year a major resizing of accommodation resources.

My mailbox is more than ever filled with various and varied messages, often benevolent. I try to respond on time to all requests. If yours has unfortunately gone by the wayside, don't be too angry with me. I'm lucky to be able to devote time to running this blog, but I also have a (real) job and I do my best to combine it all.

I repeat the same thing every year, but I would like to sincerely thank all those who bring this space to life through their interventions, whether regular or more punctual. Without you, Hoth Bricks would ultimately be of little interest and just one more blog in the already crowded little world of LEGO.

You know, I like to point out that before being fans of LEGO, we are above all consumers. As such, I will continue to allow all those who wish to express basely material considerations relating to the cost of our passion. This perspective is important to me and it therefore has its place here.

The usual advice: don't sacrifice anything for a LEGO box. Don't go into debt to buy LEGOs. Plastic cannot be eaten, and it does not sell for as expensive as some people would like to believe, especially when it is necessary to act in an emergency.

I hope that 2018 will be better than 2017 and a little worse than 2019 for all of you, with or without LEGO bricks, with a phase of Dark Age or personal constraints that force you to temporarily or permanently put this overwhelming passion aside.

I wish you all a Happy New Year 2018.

Note: Tradition obliges, I am bringing five copies of the "exclusive" Hoth Bricks minifigure into play. To participate, all you have to do is post a comment (you should find what to say without too much problem ...) and you have until January 4, 2018 at 23:59 p.m. to act.

Update : The winners have (finally) been drawn and have been notified by email, their nicknames are indicated below. Without a response from them to my request for contact details within 5 days, new winners will be drawn.

Like every year, let's take a look back for a quick assessment with a selection of sets that will not have left me indifferent in 2017.

And the two sets which in my opinion deserve to share the first place of my top 2017 are two LEGO Ideas boxes, a range that I rarely spare as it is capable of the best and the worst.

Sets 21310 Old Fishing Store et 21309 NASA Apollo Saturn V. have put back on track a range which in my opinion had until now too often sold its soul to the devil with sloppy boxes and without much interest.

However, I readily admit that the sets that are marketed under the LEGO Ideas banner are only a reflection of the popularity of the projects on which they are based and of the final selection made by LEGO among all the contenders.

Each of these two boxes allowed me to rediscover this feeling of assembling something consistent with a history, an atmosphere and a playful or educational interest and I ended up with two models that really reflect the know-how of the brand in terms of creativity.

When LEGO really puts itself at the service of a good idea, the pleasure is really there and I have in both cases had the satisfaction of living this "experience" that LEGO sometimes sells us a little too much.

As an unconditional fan of the LEGO Star Wars range, I also have to put the set at the top of my list 75192 Millennium Falcon (UCS).

This exceptional set, the popularity of which far exceeds the circle of LEGO fans, is a show of strength on the part of the manufacturer. It combines superlatives, not always to its advantage, and will remain for a few years the symbol of the brand's expertise in derivative products.

This Millennium Falcon is also (too) expensive, it's an imperfect mockup, but it's at the center of my collection, like the biggest toy I've ever had. There are few sets that have so far caused me this kid's feverishness in front of a big box and this box is one of them. It's refreshing to find this feeling ...

Another reference from the Star Wars range, more modest, which in my opinion deserves to be mentioned here: the set 75532 Scout Trooper & Speeder Bike. It will definitely have changed my relationship to these Buildable Figures sometimes very rough design thanks to the presence of the device which highlights the figurine and provides it with a context.

I have never been a big fan ofAction Figures LEGO style, but this set finally convinced me of the possibilities offered by this scale, provided you associate a vehicle with the character to make it something other than a simple articulated figurine that has a little trouble competing with the best designs from manufacturers like Hasbro.

In 2018, another reference that I look forward to will feature a character and his vehicle: the set 75539 501st Legion Clone Trooper & AT-RT Walker.

My 2017 flop: the set 76075 Wonder Woman Warrior Battle which is in fact the scapegoat of history and which is the perfect symbol of these sloppy derivative products that we regularly drink from LEGO.

The DC Comics range is not the only one affected, the Star Wars and Marvel ranges are full of similar products based on visuals that have never made it past concept arts or on scenes cut from films from which they are supposedly inspired.

People can tell me again and again that LEGO is working very early on on these derivative products, I will continue to consider that this is not a sufficient excuse to market products that no longer have much to do with the work on which they are in principle based.

I remain a collector of Star Wars, Marvel and DC Comics sets, but I have more and more trouble with all these boxes whose content is ultimately only a pretext to sell us some figurines, otherwise often very successful. .

This small non-exhaustive selection obviously reflects only a very personal opinion and I know that there will probably be as many opinions as boxes. I look forward to hearing which were your favorite 2017 sets and which ones you consider disappointing ...

It is the comeback of the end of the year, the big comeback of a set considered as "cult" by some fans which was negotiated so far at indecent prices on the secondary market and which emerges in a version identical to the original model of the set 10189 Taj Mahal marketed in 2008.

The new benchmark LEGO Creator Expert 10256 Taj Mahal will allow those who have long regretted not being able to add this box to their collection to eliminate the price excuse once and for all. This new set is sold € 329.99, i.e. an identical price (including inflation) to that of set 10189 sold at the time at the public price of € 299.99.

As of this writing, the set is out of stock on the LEGO Shop but LEGO promises shipping by December 21 to all those who place their order.

In the box, an additional brick separator and a few axes that change color. Everything else is identical to the 2008 model. However, LEGO claims to have it "brought up to date"in the official product description. It must be the box ...

It therefore remains to judge the interest of this Taj Mahal, both in terms of the pleasure of construction and that of the space needed to exhibit this bulky model. And don't count on me to go into ecstasies all the time on these two criteria.

I am not one of those who until now idealized this set which has become overpriced on the secondary market and its surprise reissue is therefore no relief to me. The Taj Mahal, even made from LEGO bricks, is not a monument for which I am willing to sacrifice a significant chunk of my living space (and my LEGO budget).

Let's be honest, and those who have been able to put this set together will have a hard time contradicting me, the feeling that dominates throughout the assembly phase is ... boredom. We stack, we do four, eight, sixteen or thirty two times the same thing, and we finally decide to put the set aside to space the repetitions.

We come back to it later and start over. At first, I sometimes felt like I was putting together a dummy wedding cake, but I also said to myself that this monument is above all a geometric structure and that LEGO should not be blamed for trying to reproduce it as best as possible.

This set is an identical reissue of a 2008 model, so we find the same parts, the same construction techniques and the same somewhat outdated look. Some will consider that this is what makes the charm of this reissue.

In the product description, LEGO refers to "the intricate tiling around the base". It is in fact to place more than 200 copies of the lower part of a Turn Plate 2x2 ...

However, from time to time we think that with the new parts produced by LEGO since then, the end result could probably be better. But we also understand why this box contains more than 5900 pieces. We stack hundreds of 1x1 pieces over and over again. Walls, windows, towers, etc ...

The domes with exposed studs have a vintage look and a rough finish. The nostalgic LEGO fan too happy to finally be able to afford this box will be satisfied. Those who expect a more complete finish from a model on this scale marketed in 2017 will no doubt be a little disappointed by the final rendering.

The real Taj Mahal is a monument covered with engravings, textures, decorations. On the LEGO version, the walls are hopelessly empty and smooth. The four minarets are a little too bare for my taste, in the end we can only see the joints and the notches of the parts that make up the walls. So much the better for the "immaculate" look of the thing, so much the worse for the architectural richness of this monument which is somewhat by the way here.

The LEGO Creator Expert version Taj Mahal is also modular. And that's good for transport and storage. It is in any case impossible to move it in a single block. The minarets sway dangerously, the base platform made up of six sections only holds in place via a few Technic pins and the central mausoleum is right in the heart of the construction.

This modularity is therefore welcome and LEGO has thought of everything. The assembly can be broken down without having to dismantle everything. the minarets are only fixed on a few studs, as are the five domes of the mausoleum.

Was it absolutely necessary to reissue this set identically? I am not sure. The 2008 (cardboard) box will remain the 2008 one for collectors. Those who had not bought this set a few years ago might have appreciated some improvements on this new version with for example parts in Pearl Gold instead of the garish yellow, smoother domes, a mosaic around the base, some pad printed elements, etc ... The impact on the price of the 2008 set on the aftermarket would have been the same: a more modern version of the Taj Mahal would have made the previous model obsolete anyway.

This set LEGO Creator Expert 10256 Taj Mahal will therefore have finally left me unmoved (!). I will long remember having worked on the line to simultaneously assemble the many sections to be reproduced in multiple copies, pushing aside repetitive assembly sessions every day, and I will wait patiently for LEGO to come up with a more compact version of this monument in the Architecture range. The latter will better suit my budget and the space I have to display a few sets.

Note: The set presented here, supplied by LEGO, is put into play. To participate in the raffle, all you need to do is post a (constructive) comment on this article before the December 22 at 23:59 p.m.. The "I participate", "For my little loulous", "For my grandson" and other things of the same style will be automatically disqualified.

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.