Minifig Lute Player

[Frank_Lloyd_Knight]

I was able to get this guy yesterday, and I’m really excited to have him. When I saw they had a lute player in the latest minifig set, I felt like it was one of those rare “must-haves.” Maybe now I’ll try to find some instruments for my jesters to play and have a little court ensemble. I wonder what instrument Harley Quinn should play.

[img]https://www.bricklink.com/SL/col22-3.jpg[/img]

[AK_Brickster]

This fellow is definitely one of the best CMFs to be released in a long time. The magenta color highlights are really fun and unique.

[Kurojaki]

Just looked through all of the CMF series released so far and also the upcoming one. Past years when not doing much of anything Lego related, sometimes spotting these bags at shops I considered buying some. But for some reason didn't. Big shame! Seems the series have gone quite a downfall in my opinion, with the one that will be released later this year being rather "big" disappointment.

Anyway - the lute player is really cool, and like AK_Brickster said, one of the best in a long time. I'll be ordering a few bags when getting something else from one online shop... I see they still have plenty of these in stock.

I've understood that at least in some series, some minifigs are seemingly more common? Does anybody know how it is with the lute player (or these series in general)?

[DerBum]

I don't know... looking through the history of them, I found around 25 that I would consider to be solidly related to Castle and/or fantasy Castle. The CMF knight figures have been pretty great and I'll probably hunt around for an example of the female crown knight once they show up in stores.

As to relative rarity, I thought that each box of polybags came with an equal number of each figure, at least that is what it seemed like when I was inspecting them for the figures I wanted.

[Formendacil]

The distribution of the different figs in each series has varied by series. The entire box of Collectibles seems to have generally been the same (i.e. it's not randomised within boxes) but that doesn't mean that it's always been the same number of each fig in each box: for example, there might be three of Fig A per box and four of Fig B--and that ratio would hold over all boxes. Just going by reviews on TBB or Brickset, I think this has become LESS the case since the number of figs dropped to twelve.

A related problem--one that will go away once the collectibles move to boxes--is that the selection of figs by buyers isn't always random: if you get an AFOL who knows how to feel for Chicken Knights going through the available figs in your store, you're going to end up relative scarcity for Chicken Knights and relative availability for everything else.

[Kurojaki]

Interesting, and yeah noticed that the amount of different minifigs for each series dropped. Also I barely care/barely would have cared about lisenced ones, apart from several accessories I don't really care. Well, Harry Potter might have been worth for me.

A related problem--one that will go away once the collectibles move to boxes--is that the selection of figs by buyers isn't always random: if you get an AFOL who knows how to feel for Chicken Knights going through the available figs in your store, you're going to end up relative scarcity for Chicken Knights and relative availability for everything else.

I saw it on some video recently that the packaking is indeed changing. Came to think that things like the centaur from some series must have been so easy to find, if any of the bags happened to have it. Now... Will we spot people pulling out gram scales while lego shopping?

[DerBum]

I saw it on some video recently that the packaking is indeed changing. Came to think that things like the centaur from some series must have been so easy to find, if any of the bags happened to have it. Now... Will we spot people pulling out gram scales while lego shopping?

I'll admit to being guilty of all of this. During the time that TLG made it clear that Castle wasn't a priority I was still poking around the CMF for the Castle-esque figures. Boxes will likely reduce my interest in buying any of them as I like many of the individual figures, but not enough to get stuck with multiples of the silly ones. My kids have all moved past Lego at this point, so I can't just hand the ones I don't want off to them and the CMF are expensive enough to make me not want to buy multiples just to get the one figure that I wanted.

Honestly, it would be nice if they would shift the product a bit to make mini-figure packs based on what sort of figures are in them. The figures inside each category box could still be randomized, but if you boxed historical, fantasy, whimsical, city, costume, etc, together from each CMF collection it could satisfy the people who collect the entirety of each series and the people looking for just certain types of figures. I know it's a stretch, but at the CMF price point it's just annoying to end up with a handful of unwanted figures if you aren't trying to collect them all. Maybe a gram scale isn't such a bad idea.

[Kurojaki]

Although I can see there's a problem, I do totally understand people having that kind of closer look to have better chances not to waste their money. Especially understand castle fans since as you mentioned, TLG didn't give the theme too much love. Would be interesting to know if certain minifigs in certain series have been more popular than other minifigs among KFOL. And which those more popular ones have been.

And yeah some series with more specific themes would be so nice... The upcoming one looks like some costume party actually, but it doesn't help haha

Anyways think I'm going to order a few with the chance of lute player later this week. Since I give some value to the actual excitement of opening those and the series have a few OK enough minifigs, I guess it's worthy enough. With the upcoming series wouldn't be so sure, though!


Late edit/update: Ordered 10 packages online, got: 3 Night Protectors, 2 Snow Guardians, 2 Wheelchair Racers, 1 Troubadour (came from first one I opened :D), 1 Figure Skater, 1 Birdwatcher

I'm quite happy

[Frank_Lloyd_Knight]

Interesting, and yeah noticed that the amount of different minifigs for each series dropped. Also I barely care/barely would have cared about lisenced ones, apart from several accessories I don't really care. Well, Harry Potter might have been worth for me.

A related problem--one that will go away once the collectibles move to boxes--is that the selection of figs by buyers isn't always random: if you get an AFOL who knows how to feel for Chicken Knights going through the available figs in your store, you're going to end up relative scarcity for Chicken Knights and relative availability for everything else.

I saw it on some video recently that the packaking is indeed changing. Came to think that things like the centaur from some series must have been so easy to find, if any of the bags happened to have it. Now... Will we spot people pulling out gram scales while lego shopping?

That is an excellent idea, using a scale.

[Ye Olde Republic]

I’m always happy to add new characters to my castle villages. It’s too bad we saw what is basically the same figures appear in the lion knights castle.