2019 Modular Rumours

Pmh

DO is still the best modular imo though it is difficult to compare them.

DO and BB where both very good and I wish they had continued with that design.

The new DD I don't like much and it was first model I skipped,they will probably continue with similar design.

For new modular a hotel would be nice. It could be a big and stately building with some grandeur like the townhall. On the other hand there already is 2 diners,a coffee bar,a cinema. A 1950,s style garage that someone else had mentioned would be awesome I think,and something different from the rest.

Anything but a hospital,i cant see a hospital look good in any way.

SumoLego

GG and PR are my favorites.

DadsAFOL

DO is definitely top 10 all time.  

SumoLego

DadsAFOL said:

DO is definitely top 10 all time.  

I would hope so!  There are only 13, and one of them is Market Street.

Onebricktoomany

I'm partial to number 12 of the 13.  Actually, in fact, I think it's the best...  but still number 12.

Legoteen19

Pmh said:

DO is still the best modular imo though it is difficult to compare them.

DO and BB where both very good and I wish they had continued with that design.

The new DD I don't like much and it was first model I skipped,they will probably continue with similar design.

For new modular a hotel would be nice. It could be a big and stately building with some grandeur like the townhall. On the other hand there already is 2 diners,a coffee bar,a cinema. A 1950,s style garage that someone else had mentioned would be awesome I think,and something different from the rest.

Anything but a hospital,i cant see a hospital look good in any way.

I really hope for a police station, post office, or apartment building.. unlikely though I’m sure it will be cool but outlandish

Astrobricks

pharmjod said:

I think they probably realized they had too many big sets out at the same time and it was cannibalizing sales. But who knows.

I think this is the most likely reason. They’ve had so many huge sets recently. 

Briking

Considering that the top 2 floors of CC was a hotel, I’m not sure we’ll get another hotel.  Too many other things that the town needs.

wardm

^though not that many people got the chance to get the CC and in AS they’ve remade a cafe, so it seems likely to me they’ll make one with a detailed interior, since CC didn’t have neither a cafe nor a hotel as interior...

Beav

pharmjod said:

Beav said:

I know its a bit of an impossible question, but when you say "dont wait", would you think they'd be completely out of stock before the end of the year? 

If you have the funds, I would buy them ASAP. I think there is a high probability they are both gone before the year is over.  Especially in the UK since they added the retiring soon tags. But even in the USA. DO for sure is a risk to wait on since it is part of the upcoming sale.

Thanks, I will probably snap one up next week then. 

Legoteen19

Briking said:

Considering that the top 2 floors of CC was a hotel, I’m not sure we’ll get another hotel.  Too many other things that the town needs.

The new designer said we needed a hotel in last years DD designer video.

madforLEGO

The city still need a hardware store, and with all of the different tools LEGO makes they could stock one now, at least a half building with the other being some sort of townhouse

Lyichir

madforLEGO said:

The city still need a hardware store, and with all of the different tools LEGO makes they could stock one now, at least a half building with the other being some sort of townhouse

I've always thought that a hardware store and an under-construction building would complement each other nicely.

andywilson

DO is the first (and so far only) modular I've bought - mainly because it looked like the most interesting modular build with the interior detail and the secret tunnel - so it certainly  didn't put this aging "AFOL" off....

The only other "big building" I've bought is the Ideas Fishing Hut - again 'cos it looks like an interesting build.

Guess I got lucky buying them both shortly before they retired.

Legoteen19

Lyichir said:

madforLEGO said:

The city still need a hardware store, and with all of the different tools LEGO makes they could stock one now, at least a half building with the other being some sort of townhouse

I've always thought that a hardware store and an under-construction building would complement each other nicely.

I love both those ideas.. however if the trend for a corner building is correct, this year is the year. That could be a definite possibly in the future building in 2020

Baby_Yoda

I'd disregard patterns if I were you. After Market Street and Assembly Square, I think Lego are hell-bent on making it impossible to have a consistent Modular Street...

Astrobricks

Baby_Yoda said:

I'd disregard patterns if I were you. After Market Street and Assembly Square, I think Lego are hell-bent on making it impossible to have a consistent Modular Street...

Almost like it was a real town :)

sihylands

I am GUTTED!  I bought Parisian Restaurant thinking it would retire first, and then went for Assembly Square because of all of them I didn't want to miss it.  I also managed to get Palace Cinema with box for £100 post-retirement.  So while I have 3 amazing sets, I'd have held off on Assembly Square and Parisian Restaurant if I'd known DO and BB were going to be retired.  Will have to find funds for both.

Do stores usually put these sets on sale when retirement is announced?  My local toy store sells them and I was going to treat myself to something this Black Friday in the hope they'd be on offer...

pharmjod

They usually don't have to put them on sale when they are a modular and they announce retirement.

madforLEGO

sihylands said:

I am GUTTED!  I bought Parisian Restaurant thinking it would retire first, and then went for Assembly Square because of all of them I didn't want to miss it.  I also managed to get Palace Cinema with box for £100 post-retirement.  So while I have 3 amazing sets, I'd have held off on Assembly Square and Parisian Restaurant if I'd known DO and BB were going to be retired.  Will have to find funds for both.

Do stores usually put these sets on sale when retirement is announced?  My local toy store sells them and I was going to treat myself to something this Black Friday in the hope they'd be on offer...

It depends, it seems like last two years once a set is announced as being discontinued stores start dropping their prices to move them out of their stocks, but that is the US only, I cannot speak for other countries.

josekalel

madforLEGO said:

sihylands said:

I am GUTTED!  I bought Parisian Restaurant thinking it would retire first, and then went for Assembly Square because of all of them I didn't want to miss it.  I also managed to get Palace Cinema with box for £100 post-retirement.  So while I have 3 amazing sets, I'd have held off on Assembly Square and Parisian Restaurant if I'd known DO and BB were going to be retired.  Will have to find funds for both.

Do stores usually put these sets on sale when retirement is announced?  My local toy store sells them and I was going to treat myself to something this Black Friday in the hope they'd be on offer...

It depends, it seems like last two years once a set is announced as being discontinued stores start dropping their prices to move them out of their stocks, but that is the US only, I cannot speak for other countries.

Ugh, I feel the same way about getting these...I guess I'll try to get DO and see if they still have Brick Bank available at the LEGO store near me (I doubt it). 

brianoblivion

It's not the end of the world if you can't get either DO or BB before they retire. There will be plenty on the secondary market and i would think their prices would not be much higher than retail for their first few months off the shelves. I was in the same boat last (?) year with the PC but i managed to find one on eBay well after it had been discontinued for only $20-25 above retail.

Legoteen19

Baby_Yoda said:

I'd disregard patterns if I were you. After Market Street and Assembly Square, I think Lego are hell-bent on making it impossible to have a consistent Modular Street...

The corner buildings are the 1 trend in the LEGO modulars that have held up as truth. I’m gonna bank on it being a corner 

Aanchir

Legoteen19 said:

Baby_Yoda said:

I'd disregard patterns if I were you. After Market Street and Assembly Square, I think Lego are hell-bent on making it impossible to have a consistent Modular Street...

The corner buildings are the 1 trend in the LEGO modulars that have held up as truth. I’m gonna bank on it being a corner 

Perhaps more importantly even than the usual pattern, Brick Bank is retiring soon — if a new corner building is not released, that would not leave ANY corner buildings still available.

Legoteen19

Aanchir said:

Legoteen19 said:

Baby_Yoda said:

I'd disregard patterns if I were you. After Market Street and Assembly Square, I think Lego are hell-bent on making it impossible to have a consistent Modular Street...

The corner buildings are the 1 trend in the LEGO modulars that have held up as truth. I’m gonna bank on it being a corner 

Perhaps more importantly even than the usual pattern, Brick Bank is retiring soon — if a new corner building is not released, that would not leave ANY corner buildings still available.

Good thinking. That almost confirms that it will be a corner building

SumoLego

Not necessarily.  The PR and Diner both could be used as a 'corner'.

leetshoe

l haven't built the diner yet but l thought it was a corner from the pictures. l don't want another corner tbh.

Brickchap

No, PR and DD can not be used as corners. Well, they can for a street but we need need 'proper' corners to carry around the sidewalk and allow one's street to 'change direction'. It will definitely be a corner.

sihylands

I convinced my better half to buy me the Brick Bank today for Christmas.  One down, one to go lol.

SumoLego

Brickchap said:

No, PR and DD can not be used as corners. Well, they can for a street but we need need 'proper' corners to carry around the sidewalk and allow one's street to 'change direction'. It will definitely be a corner.

I extend all of my sidewalks (as they are all too narrow), but I suppose that all depends on whether you limit yourself to the provided baseplates.

HugeYellowBrick

We've never had a Modular 'Inside Corner'. Time for that?

Astrobricks

Or how or how about an “extreme” corner such as where the Flatiron building sits?

Legoteen19

Astrobricks said:

Or how or how about an “extreme” corner such as where the Flatiron building sits?

Like an inverted corner building?

Astrobricks

Legoteen19 said:

Astrobricks said:

Or how or how about an “extreme” corner such as where the Flatiron building sits?

Like an inverted corner building?

I think that’s what @HugeYellowBrick was suggesting.

I was thinking this:

Boardshorts85

Brickchap said:

No, PR and DD can not be used as corners. Well, they can for a street but we need need 'proper' corners to carry around the sidewalk and allow one's street to 'change direction'. It will definitely be a corner.

Sure they can...

Brickchap

@Boardshorts85 You have modded your DD to include a sidewalk. That doesn't count. You've just further proved my point.

DB361

Brickchap said:

@Boardshorts85 You have modded your DD to include a sidewalk. That doesn't count. You've just further proved my point.

Er, no he hasn’t? He’s just added a 16x32 baseplate in between that and the PC and now it is a perfectly good corner building.

LegoTT

Well, I’ll echo the unpopular opinion of my desire to have an inside-corner building! It would be a great way to begin adding some diversity to our LEGO streets. 

Paperballpark

But it would look completely and utterly rubbish on its own.

Bumblepants

The inside-corner seems to be unlikely as a commercial product as the front facing side of the product is minimal. Given the spacing of the modular system a large chunk of ugly side wall would be featured on the box art and in any publicity photos. Only way  I can see it working if they make a corner that has a back that looks as good as the front. Sorta like Ninjago City Docks. So you could flip it and have it function as an inverted corner with full sidewalk entrance etc. That could drive up the cost though as the backs of modulars aren't given that much detailing.

Patrik78

Cannot imagine that :) Basically we are talking about 8x8 square of visible street and facade :)

BiggiSnibbiBigg

Lego catalogue for 2019 leaked on instagram. A page for an unnamed creator expert set can be seen, but there is no image of the set. Unfortunately. 

Boardshorts85

DB361 said:

Brickchap said:

@Boardshorts85 You have modded your DD to include a sidewalk. That doesn't count. You've just further proved my point.

Er, no he hasn’t? He’s just added a 16x32 baseplate in between that and the PC and now it is a perfectly good corner building.

Substitute that 16x32 plate with a road plate and viola, you can turn the corner just fine.  The steps up to the back of the building are an encroachment on part of the sidewalk, which is hardly unprecedented in the real world.

Aanchir

Regardless, I REALLY doubt LEGO would treat the possibility of fan-created pavement extensions as justification for not introducing another corner building. In fact, I doubt they would even be retiring Brick Bank ahead of two of its antecedents if not in anticipation of a new corner building to replace it.

On a related note, while obviously builders are free to customize their modular streets however they choose, I feel like the clearly defined curbs and storm drains on the modular buildings' pavement/sidewalk suggests that their use with road plates (which require either extending the pavement or offsetting the entire building and pavement from their original baseplates to the edge of the curb) is not something the designers account for in the set designs themselves.

That's also part of why I would really love for LEGO to introduce a newer and more customizable road system that isn't so contingent on each road section having a studded margin of a fixed size. Traditional road baseplates are certainly fine for play or free building, but their compatibility with other sets has been kind of iffy for a long time now.

Bumblepants said:

The inside-corner seems to be unlikely as a commercial product as the front facing side of the product is minimal. Given the spacing of the modular system a large chunk of ugly side wall would be featured on the box art and in any publicity photos. Only way  I can see it working if they make a corner that has a back that looks as good as the front. Sorta like Ninjago City Docks. So you could flip it and have it function as an inverted corner with full sidewalk entrance etc. That could drive up the cost though as the backs of modulars aren't given that much detailing.

Another disadvantage of an inside corner modular is that so far, the modular buildings have been pretty much equally suited to display in a row layout on shelves or in a grid layout on a table. But unless it were designed with a side staircase like Parisian Restaurant or Downtown Diner, an inside corner building would not be well suited to a linear shelf display, because one of the sides facing out from the wall would be the flat, relatively low-detail side that would ordinarily abut with an adjacent building.

mroper295

A few years ago I MOC'ed together this building from Disney/Pixar Cars. As you can see, it is an inside corner with detail on as many sides as a normal corner would have. I don't think it would be unreasonable for LEGO to create a modular with a similar layout - especially if they included a fountain in place of a stack of tires and added two more floors on top.

eMJeeNL

Real nice, but thing is that the intersecting sidewalks of the two adjecent modulars would only show a very small piece of the inside corner. In effect, only the tan/orange bit of the forecourt would be visible, thus limiting the appeal.

but ey, TLG might just surprise us, no?

Astrobricks

mroper295 said:

A few years ago I MOC'ed together this building from Disney/Pixar Cars. As you can see, it is an inside corner with detail on as many sides as a normal corner would have. I don't think it would be unreasonable for LEGO to create a modular with a similar layout - especially if they included a fountain in place of a stack of tires and added two more floors on top.

Not to get too pedantic, but despite that building's shape, it is really an outside corner as one would expect it to be at the intersection of two streets. It just has a setback at the corner. Despite where you placed the connector pin holes on the base, would you really put a building up against either of the sides visible?

Briking

^ The orange tile is the first stud of the pavement?  So once the building behind has been brought forward, not a great deal of space.

The only way I see this working is on a 48x48 baseplate.  48 stud width would of course match AS

Legoteen19

BiggiSnibbiBigg said:

Lego catalogue for 2019 leaked on instagram. A page for an unnamed creator expert set can be seen, but there is no image of the set. Unfortunately. 

How did we get unlucky enough to miss the name and the picture both 😭

Aanchir

Legoteen19 said:

BiggiSnibbiBigg said:

Lego catalogue for 2019 leaked on instagram. A page for an unnamed creator expert set can be seen, but there is no image of the set. Unfortunately. 

How did we get unlucky enough to miss the name and the picture both 😭

For things like Creator Expert sets and minifigures series I believe the retailer catalogs usually only include a generic placeholder name and generic placeholder box art anyhow. If they have anything about what the set is, it'd probably be a blurb at the bottom talking about how popular the theme/subtheme (in this case, modular buildings) has been in the past, what categories of buyers those sets tend to appeal to, and the general characteristics of the theme/subtheme that tends to entice new or repeat buyers.

Same typically can be said for the catalog listings for a lot of licensed sets like Speed Champions, new Marvel and DC movies, etc. So in this case we don't really miss out on much because of the poor image quality.