G.I. Kre-O, Kre-O, MegaBloks CoD and LEGO discussions

K-Tiger

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They might surprise us on the price. The Fishing Store coming out this years is pretty good for the price.

It'll really come down to how the production set turns out. The Adventure Time one suuuucked.
 

K-Tiger

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Next month, my fine fellows.
 

K-Tiger

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Just the two. This series looks to drop a couple of figures from a bunch of different licenses. I could see MoTU or Aliens becoming a real line.
 

nacho

"Big Guns"
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I assume MOTU is going to be a real thing. They already "own" the license from parent-company-mattel, so it's not like they need to pony up like with Aliens or Trek. MOTU is a no-brainer. There are tons of characters, vehicles, playsets that have a built-in audience who have shown a willingness to shell out.

The only vexing thing is why it took this long, and why didn't they just go all-in to begin with. Are two tiny figures really going to be much of a market test? It's an odd marketing decision IMO.
 

K-Tiger

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Mattel fucked the brand so badly at retail with the 2002 line that there is legit reason for trepidity.
 

pcsguy88

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But Joe and Transformers building blocks did not carry the built in base over, so I'm sure they are cautious. They should have put out a single $20 vehicle to test the water.
 

K-Tiger

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The classics line proved that demand is still there...

A limited production DTC line is not the same as a mass-market toy line and you know it. There may well be enough demand to carry a MotU building block line, I'm just saying it's better to take it slow.
 

nacho

"Big Guns"
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I understand DTC isn't the same. But this isn't Sectaurs or Dinoriders either. It's goddamn He-Man. ;)

I'm not saying that they should have done twenty SKUs this year, but they put those retarded-looking MOTU kubros figures out at retail. One or two actual vehicle sets seems like far less of a risk than that.
 

K-Tiger

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Someone SHOULD resurrect DinoRiders.

I'm not sure of Mega's various price points, but I'd think $10 He-Man/Battle Cat and Skeletor/Panthor sets would work. Do a Slime Pit, Evil-Lyn and Hordak while your at it. The property definitely has possibilities.
 

nacho

"Big Guns"
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I would assume that the barrier to entry in this kind of market would be much lower than other types of toys. It's not like they have to do a bunch of new tooling for bricks. Maybe the little weapons or something, but generally the pieces are there. Pick out the color, have an intern make some directions... hell, box-art would be the most challenging part of the design. This isn't tooling up new Marvel Legends. It's existing bricks, no factory assembly required!

Good lord, the margins on that shit must be ridiculous.
 

pcsguy88

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Original parts are what make Mega so much better than Lego. The fact they invest the money to make an Apache canopy that'll never fit another set is why I consider them the adult blocks.
 

K-Tiger

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Found 'em! Grabbed Xeno and Skeletor. If i like them I'll grab He-Man.
 

K-Tiger

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I want to horde those as well, but I've managed to fight the urge.
 

pcsguy88

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Thankfully I never go to Walmart, so I'm good until Target decides to carry them. I didn't know they came with the facehugger in mid hug. Goes around the neck even.
 

nacho

"Big Guns"
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Yeah, 10-cents per part as a typical pricing structure is just too damn much, especially since the "parts" are increasingly tiny. Little hands, pins, and clips are not the same as big ol bricks and shouldn't count the same when it comes to pricing sets. Each figure alone counts as a dozen parts or more. These things have practically zero marginal cost, zero individual tooling from one set to another, just some summer intern to draw up the instructions.

I'm just happy we have Lepin to somewhat expose them as gougers and glad we have MB for more interesting set choices and cheaper US retail. Lego has made money hand over fist with a level of corporate arrogance that irks me, and I look forward to them getting taken down a peg.
 

pcsguy88

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The problem is they jacked prices up starting with Force Awakens sets. Ever since then 600+ piece tie fighters are $80. Eighty dollars! Most kids can now never have an X-wing and a tie to fight because those are $90. I'm sorry, but in what universe is $170 for 2 handheld ships acceptable?

The $.10 price was high, but somewhat accepted since I jumped in 3yrs ago, but going even higher is obsurd. Even Apple knows better than to raise their prices when so much competition abounds. Sadly we are seeing Mega sprint towards that $.10 price point which makes them less desirable, but at least they make one off parts for sets, have complex molds for unique figures and have not used a sticker in close to 2yrs now.

Kiss it Lego. Though I do have to thank you for the $100 1100pc BB8 set. Must have been a momentary hiccup of compassion towards fans.
 

nacho

"Big Guns"
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Mega creeps up to the 10-cent price for MSRP, but on amazon they're always cheaper, and they also tend to go on clearance for 4-6 cents after six months, whereas legos rarely go on sale, and when they do, they're snatched up by hoarders when they're marked down 15%. I rarely ever pay retail for Mega stuff, as a little patience goes a long way.

I have so many lepin sets to build. I bought a bunch of the creator buildings so that my CoD figures could have a springfield-esque town to invade. But those things are all 2-4k pieces, and there aren't enough hours in the day. I still haven't built the Apache, the hovercraft, or a bunch of other CoD and Halo sets too. All told, I'll bet I have well over 30,000 pieces in unopened/unbuilt sets. #firstworldproblems

The only major drawback to lepin is the fact that they don't do the step-1, step-2 bags... and you just have to dump out every friggin piece to assemble a set, which takes up a ton of room on a set with 4k pieces. I need a dedicated lego workspace! :)
 
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pcsguy88

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Yeah, Lego has the number thing patented which really makes things like Mega's LCAC a real challenge. The Enterprise took me 2hrs of sorting parts into 40 zip locks before building.

Have you built a Lepin set yet? Quality? I keep seeing the huge SW sets on Facebook and have been curious. Where do you order your's from?
 

nacho

"Big Guns"
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I have a hard time imagining that lepin gives two fucks about lego's bag patent, considering they're completely ripping off all their designs. I think it's just too much work for them.

My wife and kids have built the lepin versions of the Creator Chinese Theater, the simpson's Kwik-E-Mart, two big Harry Potter sets, several Lego Batman movie sets, the Ewok Village, and my son built the Death Star in a couple of weeks over the summer. And I have at least 6 more large creator buildings left to go.

Quality-wise... the plastic, fit, and finish are all basically identical to lego. Unless you were looking for the little lego stamp on the bricks, you'd never know the difference. I think out of all the ones we've done so far, we've only had one missing piece. I've had lots of claims from the kids that piece x-y-z is missing, but it never is. It's just that you have to sort through a shit-ton of parts to find the right ones, and it's easy to miss something in the sea of open bags.

The only other issue I've encountered is that on a rare occasion, a few parts aren't the right color. I know on the death star, my son thought there were some missing parts, and he was getting spares from my bins. As it turned out, when he was finished, all the parts were there, but they were light gray instead of the dark grey called out in the instructions. So we didn't know that those were the ones he should have been using, thinking the light grey were used later. The lepin instructions which are basically identical to lego, don't include the parts list like lego. I should have looked at the lego instructions online to see if the light grey were actually used later, but I wasn't thinking that hard about it. A few Kwik-E-Mart grocery bits ended up being random colors different from the instructions, but it made zero difference.

Overall, a few little niggles, but completely worth it to pay 50-75% less, and the final product looks as good as the real deal.

I buy all of mine from Aliexpress, much cheaper than ebay. I've had good luck with both of these stores:
https://lepin02.aliexpress.com/store/2798035?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.TfBYWp
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/2341261?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.TfBYWp

Shipping is free and surprisingly fast (7-10 days). No retail boxes included. It's not an impressive presentation when you open the shipping box (just cardboard or plastic bags full of smaller bags and instructions), but it's all there, and it's dirt cheap.

Now when I go into a store and see retail legos, I just scoff and chuckle. I've ordered lepin sets while standing in a TRU.

EDIT: Looking at the listings, they don't show any of the figures. That's totally weird, as I know the pics and sets had people when I bought mine. So I don't know if they aren't included or if they just can't show them for some lame trademark reason. Very strange.
 
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pcsguy88

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Well, you certainly do not order Lepin sets for the figures as all the sets I've seen fail to come anywhere near correct on those. Thanks for the insight, think I'll be ordering some soon. I gave up once they cancelled the Deathstar II.
 

nacho

"Big Guns"
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Well, you certainly do not order Lepin sets for the figures as all the sets I've seen fail to come anywhere near correct on those. Thanks for the insight, think I'll be ordering some soon. I gave up once they cancelled the Deathstar II.

Most of the people have been fine. We got a few odd figure parts on the Kwik-E-Mart set, but the Harry Potter, Batman, Star Wars sets all seemed to be correct figure-wise. I can't vouch for the Creator sets, as I don't know what all those people should look like anyway, but they *seemed* correct.

Looking at the links I posted, I see all sorts of new sets that have been added since my last order a few months ago. Must. Resist. Ordering. More. Lepin.
 

nacho

"Big Guns"
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Yeah, I figured as much. Looks unbelievable.

My son built the classic 1254pc version, and just looking at it made half the parts fall off, so the playability was severely limited. Unless he's just looking for a challenge, I suspect we'll skip this massive beast. The price definitely beats $800 though. That's how we ended up with the death star for $120.
 

K-Tiger

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Mega really needs to go to a universal articulation scheme.
 

Dropshipbob

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I wonder why they did add-ons for He-Man and Star Trek, but not ALIENS? Was this a decision based on which ones sold the most?