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.

Another evolution of the platform bricklink which will generate a lot of ink (for not much): The marketplace specializing in LEGO products is opening its catalog to products of the BrickArms brand.

For those who don't know BrickArms, it is a manufacturer of LEGO compatible accessories that produces contemporary military weapons and equipment for minifigs, a niche left vacant by LEGO for philosophical and moral reasons.

BrickArms products are very popular. They meet growing demand and the manufacturing quality is at the rendezvous. These products are not counterfeits, nothing prohibits the manufacture of accessories compatible with LEGO products and the current market is flooded with various and varied accessories intended to extend the "LEGO experience".

In addition, the sale of custom products on Bricklink is not new, it has long been possible to sell unofficial products on the platform, including custom minifigs, as long as they remain in the ecosystem. LEGO.

Some are already crying scandal, pretending to pack their bags and invoke, as with each evolution of the platform, the betrayal of the memory of Daniel Jezek, the founder of Bricklink now deceased whose mother sold the concept to Nexon, a southern company - Korean specializing in online video games.

Over the years, many have "appropriated" the Bricklink platform, as if it belonged to them when it is neither more nor less than a market place, certainly specialized, as there are hundreds of. 'others on the internet.

To blame Bricklink for evolving in order to survive and develop is nonsense. Bricklink has never been a public service, sellers have always paid a commission on their sales to the owner, whether at the time of its founder or since the acquisition of the structure by Nexon ... nostalgic and followers of "It was better before"some of which are already" predicting "the arrival of LEPIN and other Playmobil to the platform's catalog.

The decision made by Bricklink is interesting, however, for both buyers and sellers. It expands the available offer with the arrival of new, very popular products and will ultimately increase the visibility of this space with the (a little less) austere interface and (still) obsolete ordering processes. If Bricklink is to become a hub for the wider (legal) brick market, in my opinion that's good news for everyone.

Those who saw Bricklink as a bastion reserved for official LEGO products will be able to continue to buy their bricks there, Nexon intends to maintain the BrickArms catalog as a separate and identifiable entity.

Fundamentalists who see the arrival of BrickArms as a betrayal of the platform's original spirit will be able to turn to other marketplaces that remain (for now) specializing in official LEGO products, but they will have to accept losing at increase in visibility and turnover to satisfy their convictions.

The market for LEGO and compatible products is changing and Bricklink, which only belongs to its owner, is adapting. Nothing more.

Another box that probably arrives too late but still deserves our attention on what it has to offer: The The LEGO Batman Movie set 70922 The Joker Manor with its 3444 pieces, its 10 minifigs and its public price set at 279.99 €. This box will be available from November 24 on the LEGO Shop and in the LEGO Stores.

The pitch of the set is as ambitious as its public price: it is about building the Jokerized mansion of the film, which includes "memorable details"and"super cool functions". Why not.

As usual, no guided tour here, just a personal opinion on this set.

Let's start by evacuating the usual remarks for this type of set. This Joker manor only remotely resembles the version seen in The LEGO Batman Movie. From far away.

This is a simplified version, or rather a reinterpretation, of the building revamped by the Joker and transformed in the film into a gigantic amusement park dressed in multicolored garlands. But since everyone has already forgotten the film ...

Those who hoped that this Joker manor could occasionally be reworked Wayne manor by removing the burlesque attributes set up by the Joker will be at their expense. This is not planned by LEGO, it would be necessary to redesign a large part of the center of the building which should not frighten some MOCeurs.

A two-in-one version could have been interesting. The playability would have been increased tenfold and everyone would have enjoyed it. It is now almost certain that the Wayne manor of the film will never be available in a LEGO set, even in a simplified version.

We can blame the set for the same flaws as all the LEGO "dollhouses" of the same barrel. Everything is crammed there and most of the spaces are difficult to access, but it is also this exaggeration of details that generally makes all the charm of this type of set.

I often regret the lack of depth of these half LEGO buildings. Here, the effect is blurred by the rollercoaster that encircles the mansion. The impression of a structure cut in two is less present and this is a good thing.

Finally, 25 stickers are needed, including the 4 mirrors in the "gallery", to dress up the different elements of the set. Some integrate rather well but those of the light panel on the front are catastrophic. The Joker's face is broken into three parts and it's ugly.

The LEGO logic that a sticker does not overlap two pieces applies here, but I think there should be some exceptions for aesthetic reasons ... Bonus: the word THE is also a sticker .

Exit the Ferris wheel from the film, the Luna Park spirit of the building is here mainly embodied by the few rails that go around the building with a very slight drop. The supports which hold each of the pieces of the circuit are also more or less well integrated. On one side two beams protrude nicely from the walls of the Wayne manor, on the other a large block of Technic parts that protrude does the job.

Visually, the superposition of the festive elements brought back by the Joker and the austerity of the original building works quite well. The contrast is successful, even if this set is sorely lacking a few light bricks judiciously hidden to recreate (at least partially) the psychedelic atmosphere of the film. I note the coin based HA HA is placed on the wrong side of the building, it is on the left in the movie.

A note concerning the assembly phase: This set is very quickly assembled, thanks in particular to the many pieces of different colors distributed in the bags. Sorting is done quickly and the instructions are even more readable.

Contrary to what one might suppose, this set is not very generous in functionality despite its opulent appearance. We will be satisfied with a hatch which opens onto a small slide and the mechanism which allows to remove the two fists dressed in boxing gloves present on the front.

The gallery of mirrors based on stickers located on the ground floor is of little interest, its access is in any case hampered by the rails of the rollercoaster. For the rest, your imagination will do the work.

Each interior space is a (compressed) homage to a scene from the movie, which fans will appreciate if they actually remember the movie ...

Special mention for the microwave oven and the piano, two very successful elements just waiting to be reused in another context.

No fun for hours: pretending to play the piano, watch a DVD, or play at the dinette in the kitchen has no interest, but this patchwork of furnished rooms nevertheless offers the possibility of recreating scenes from the movie if you want to expose the model on this side.

Obviously, all eyes are here on the assortment of purple tracks and the little green wagons provided to create the circuit around the mansion. As it is, the train cannot make a complete turn. We place the wagons on the highest part of the circuit, and the whole goes down once in three to the lowest point, if it does not stop at the first turn. That's all.

Since the announcement of this box, many fans are already imagining what could be the next LEGO Creator Expert set on the theme of the fairground: A rollercoaster, which would join the sets 10257 Carousel  (2017) 10247 Ferris Wheel  (2015) et 10244 Fairground Mixer (2014)

Why not, provided that LEGO invents us a way to make the wagons rise high enough to then take advantage of the inertia and make a complete turn of the merry-go-round. The friction between the rails and the wheels of the wagons is low, but the wagons are very light even when ballasted with a minifig.

A ramp with a motorized rack to take the train to the highest point of the circuit via the pines located under the wagons should do the trick.

This climax will have to be high enough so that the wagon train can then complete a complete circuit, if the latter has the true attributes of a rollercoaster (a looping!) And is not content to be in the style of the one supplied with the Joker Manor.

As for the minifigs, of the 10 characters provided, 4 are in the outfit seen in the end of the film clip (Friends are Family). Batman, the Joker, Robin and Batgirl will be joined in early 2018 by two other characters in the same very disco outfit via the second series of collectable minifigs based on the film: Harley Quinn and Alfred Pennyworth.

I will buy this set for these minifigs that I find particularly successful even if they are ultimately only versions from a clip itself from a movie ...

Nightwing is a bit loaded, but the minifigure is really original. Alfred is disguised as Adam West aka Batman in the 60s TV series. Nice wink. It also uses the legs of the minifigure seen in the set 76052 Classic TV Series Batcave (2016). The torso is minimalist but it is also the proof that a simple line is enough to give allure (and belly) to a minifigure.

For the rest, it's already seen in the range The LEGO Batman Movie, almost to the point of overdose.

Special mention all the same for the minifig of Nightwing, or rather Dick Grayson disguised as Nightwing in an outfit obviously a little too tight for him especially at the level of the crotch ...

In the tradition of the character attributes in this line, the glasses are molded onto the mask as they usually are with the hair. The armor of the minfig is unique, with two notches to insert the wings.

In conclusion, this Joker Manor is not a playset even if it incorporates an ersatz rollercoaster. The concept is certainly promising, but it needs to be developed. The other features of the set are really limited, and we will quickly tire of pushing the wagons harder and harder to derail them.

In the best case, this set offers a set to display with a nice rendering from a certain distance. Those who embarked on the diorama adventure The LEGO Batman Movie will find here the centerpiece of their creation. To be placed on a pretty rocky outcrop made from bricks for an optimal effect.

The assortment of minifigs will help some of us decide to spend 280 € in this box, with characters in new and exclusive outfits. I probably could have been a little more enthusiastic if this set had been marketed around the film's release. It's too late, the soufflé The LEGO Batman Movie has long since faded.

Note: The set provided by LEGO which was used for this test is put into play. A random draw among the comments posted on this article will determine the winner. You have until November 23, 2017 at 23:59 p.m. to manifest yourself.

Update : The winner was drawn and 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.