Western is just too good! I really love the style of all these sets and the aesthetic is wonderful! I want more :(

Guess it’s not a secret now?

People will probably complain about the BURPs, and I haven't checked the instructions yet to see all it has to offer, but this set looks like a lot of fun.

EDIT: Alright, so it's still tons of fun, but visually there are a couple things that could be improved, primarily just making some better transitions between the BURPS with each other and the ground, but other than that, solid set. Is it 1996s $40 fun? Maybe as a kid, as a consumer, maybe not, and I'm no parent, but I also can't see a parent not finding the joy their kid would have with this set to not be worth the price.

The baseplate must be a well-sought for part by now.

@MCLegoboy said:
"People will probably complain about the BURPs, and I haven't checked the instructions yet to see all it has to offer, but this set looks like a lot of fun."

Why do most LEGO acronyms relate to "disgusting" bodily functions/outputs? Also, what is "BURP"?

@R1_Drift said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"People will probably complain about the BURPs, and I haven't checked the instructions yet to see all it has to offer, but this set looks like a lot of fun."

Why do most LEGO acronyms relate to "disgusting" bodily functions/outputs? Also, what is "BURP"?"

I don't know about the origins, but a BURP is a "Big Ugly Rock Piece", which are the two parts stacked to make the right side of the hideout.

Unrelated, but is anyone else think the empty white-rimmed eye on the black horse looks a little creepy? I know it's a classic and I probably have a few of them myself, but I just noticed how off-putting that looks for the first time in this image.

Western was awesome!

before the dark times…before the Empire took over Lego…Western was a great line

@R1_Drift said:
"Why do most LEGO acronyms relate to "disgusting" bodily functions/outputs?"
It's just happenstance I think. But also, there's a lot of guys in the LEGO community, and there's a lot of immaturity in the online activity I've seen, too, let alone what happens at conventions. It's a stereotype, but it's also accurate, so what can I say? BURPs and SNOT and POOP, it's just the way of things.

This is such a fun set! Lovely baseplate and Western in general had some really interesting and quite detailed (especially for the time) characters!

There's so much going on in this set, and a lot of action, especially on the box art. Sadly we don't get sets like this anymore. It's usually just some police truck or giant mech dumped on the box. Here kids, play! These were fun and if I'm not mistaken had little comic strips to go with them as well.

I wish we still had that bugle piece. I'm surprised Lego hasn't made an official minifig trumpet piece yet. We need more musical instruments in general.

Even though it will probably never happen, I still wish Western would return. Personally I don't see as to why we can't have sets like this anymore (cowboys vs crooks or Union soldiers vs crooks), seeing as the whole Indian thing can't be done. (If I had my way I'd still make 'cowboys and Indians' sets, but instead provide a realistic (as much as possible) portrayal of Native Americans and educate kids about their culture.).

I remember someone arguing that you can't have Lego Western (even just cowboys vs crooks) at all because it is all intertwined with Native American dispossession etc. etc. which I think is a silly idea given that everything American is on land that was stolen from the First Nations peoples and yet I don't see anyone calling for the Lego Empire State, White House, Statue of Liberty, let alone all the very American police stations, to be cancelled.

Love the Western theme, some fun sets. The chrome gold bugle is a cool piece.

To the lore of this set:

Situated in the Lost Valley, somewhere in Arizona, the Old Gold Mine was the favored hiding spot of Samuel Ethelbert Harvey AKA 'Pokerface Sam' (Dewey Cheatum in the US version, sometimes also called Joe 'Five Aces' Williams, the green bandit) and his gang consisting of him, Archibald Doyle AKA 'Revolver Archie' (Flatfoot Thompson in the US, the red bandit) and Black Jack (Black Bart in the US, the black bandit).

The gang installed a dangerous gun contraption on their upper lookout to defend their hideout from both Sheriff Silver (Sheriff Duke in the UK, Sheriff Wild Wyatt West in the US, not included in this set) and General Armstrong (Colonel Jefferson in the US, also not included) and his men.
The mine was also 'haunted' by a mischievous gray parrot, that used to scare away intruders like Sheriff Silver's deputy Danny (also not included, the cowboy with the white hat and Ice Planet face).

Colonel Nicholson and his fellow soldier probably need that big barrel to trick the bandits into surrender!

(Sources: 'Der Falsche General' (The False General, LEGO/Karussel 1996), 'Steckbrief für den Kopfgeldjäger' (The Bounty Hunter's Wanted Poster, LEGO/Karussel 1996), LEGO Mania Magazine from 1996, Time Cruisers Board Game from LEGO World Club (not the Rose Art Brand one!) and the UK catalogue from 1996-1997.)

Wow: I took from my backlog to check my copy of this set for accuracy just last week before adding it to my collection, and here it is! Four rectangular rocks and one triangular, but also two old gtey rails the same as the ol’ HP Bank set.

What gets me are all the accessories: besides the figs and horses you get 8 rifles, 4 pistols, 2 cutlasses, a huge barrel, bugle, printed dynamite and card hand, a pick, cannon, extra hat for the skeleton head, plus a set of coins!

@Brickchap said:
"Even though it will probably never happen, I still wish Western would return."

Probably best chance would be a Creator 3-in-1 set flagship set which lately have been referencing old classic themes - Pirates, Castle and the upcoming Vikings ship.

@Spidermanager:
Probably not. Two members of the US Army seem to have found it, so unless they’re the entire scouting mission, and they get wiped out or captured, chances are this is going to be added to a lot of maps pretty soon. And while the bandits do have them outnumbered, one of them just ran in front of the cannon, and they store their rifles up on the roof.

@MCLegoboy:
BURPs and LURPs are the sort of thing that really doesn’t blend in well in official sets (which don’t always fill in the notches at the bottom), but when they’re used in a good MOC, you’d hardly know they’re there. Yes, they can help build up terrain really quick, but you still need to blend them in with a host of small parts if you don’t want it to look like a tessellated mountain.

@R1_Drift:
Really, BURP, POOP, and SNOT are the only ones I can recall. KABOB is just a meat skewer. LURP, AFOL, FFOL, TFOL, NLSO, and GWP don’t mean anything besides as an acronym.

@blueshift:
Have you ever seen a horse’s eye up close? At first glance, it’s just a solid black orb, like a shark. If you pay attention, though, it’s just that the iris fills the entire opening. They do have whites on their eyes, but they have to basically give some serious side-eye to get the white portion to peek out even a tiny bit. This looks like a horse that’s absolutely terrified (maybe it was in the next stall over when The Godfather was prepping his famous offer).

@MCLegoboy:
To be fair, a lot of AFOL conventions involve late nights and prodigious amounts of alcohol, so anyone expecting every conversation to involve profoundly deep philosophical discourse won’t need more than two minutes to be disabused of that notion. Cards Against Humanity is a common pastime, and the last one I went to they’d started playing Joking Hazard.

This is another one of those classic 90s sets that I wished I'd bought, at the time, but I never did.

An old abandoned gold mine as a secret base for the Western robbers? Just gorgeous.

For only 250 pieces and forty dollars, you were getting a lot of set!

This set seriously was a blast to play with. The traps/falling barrels, the mine elements, and yes, the baseplate is sweet and I wish there had been more tan dusty roads to go with it. My favorite parts were the signs and the giant barrel, since it was big enough to put a minifig into.

Back then I thought these were nice, entertaining sets. When I look at them now they are definetly a "must have". The figures, the setting, it's just perfect. I don't mind burps, or lurps, or poops, or whatever...

OMG OMG I remember how excited I was to walk into a Toys R Us one day and see this sitting on the shelf. This was my first western set, though I eventually had the entire first wave. It’s an absolute beauty of a set.

I checked with my kids, and they only care about ninja's. *sigh*

So to all parents: make your kids interested in WESTERN (and PIRATES) and we'll get more of these.

@chrisaw said:
" @Brickchap said:
"Even though it will probably never happen, I still wish Western would return."

Probably best chance would be a Creator 3-in-1 set flagship set which lately have been referencing old classic themes - Pirates, Castle and the upcoming Vikings ship."

For the record, I don't think LEGO themselves consider Western a "classic" theme, otherwise why was it completely absent from the LEGO Ideas 90th fan vote? My guess is that this line was probably not very financially successful at the time, thus why LEGO has not flirted with the Western concept at all since (except for Lone Ranger, but that was licensed).
Again, this just goes to show how LEGO have never done more than just follow the current trends, despite the fact that they have all the power and resources to be the trend setters, which is a big shame for a company their size IMO.

What it is is beautiful

@icey I always argue that (to use your example) the only reason kids are only interested in Ninjas is because that's all they've ever known. Many kids now weren't old enough to recall the last castle and pirate themes and so naturally they aren't asking for them if they don't know they exist.

When I was young I would have loved the Lego Adventurers theme because I love old cars, aircraft, adventure novels etc. etc. But I didn't buy any Adventurers sets, nor ask for them to be created, because there were none to buy! And I didn't find out about the old theme until I was older.

Think about it, there would be kids in the world who have never heard of Star Wars and would have no interest in Star Wars sets. That doesn't mean Star Wars is no longer popular or should no longer exist, simply that those kids haven't been exposed to it. We need to encourage a love and interest in history for kids. Besides, historical themes can be really fun, like this set, or naturally a big pirate ship or castle.

I've said it many times before and I will keep saying it, the problem was not the subject matter but the execution. With the complete lack of effort Lego put into the 2015 Pirate line for example, no wonder kids lost interest and moved to themes like Ninjago which had TV shows, developed characters and new play features.

It has taken me years and an awful lot of money to finally have a pirate display where a big naval ship (previously the Black Seas Barracuda, now the Princess Rahel of the Austrian Navy), battles a pirate ship (captained by Redbeard).

Kids don't want some tiny Skull island for the hundreth time, they want to be able to sail two ships up to one another and shoot cannons at each other. The same as kids want to be able to besiege a large castle, not just pull around some random prison carriage. Lego's execution of historical themes was always the same. A handful of small to medium sized sets using the same subjects over and over (outpost tower, prison carriage, small ambush for castle, pirate raft, small naval outpost, small pirate island for pirates) then one big (and largely unaffordable) pirate ship or castle set. This left the opposing team with a tiny or no base at all, and neither side ever had anything of substance to attack the other with. In an entire castle wave for example, you'd only ever get one medium sized catapult and a little one in a starter set. Where's the battering rams, siege towers, siege ladders, tunnellers, hot oil etc.?

To return to this set, why is this a great set? Because there's lots going on (instead of just here's a bad guy mine, play with it), a clear collection of stories as well as possibilities for further play, interesting, named characters (rather than just a bunch of generic knights/imperial soldiers using the same torso prints over and over) and the set is a fun playset on its own, or in conjunction with the other sets. (as opposed a pirate ship for example which never had anyone to fight save a couple of rowboats and even the 'big' imperial fort was never much of an adversary, so what are you supposed to do with it?)

@icey said:
"I checked with my kids, and they only care about ninja's. *sigh*

So to all parents: make your kids interested in WESTERN (and PIRATES) and we'll get more of these. "

Well, it depends. My 9yrs old son love lego western sets (has all except for the one with the bank and store) and he consider Ninjago as boring.

I feel bad for the...Captain(?), as he literally brought a sword to a gunfight...:)

Serious though, while yes; I know certain aspects of 'the theme' wouldn't 'play well' (or would that be 'play good'...:)) 'Western' is another one of those themes that have an appeal. I mean: a good chunk of "The Lego Movie" is set in a western-themed area. Several CMF have been western, Cowboys and...well, you know. Relatively, there's a reason that 'Woody's' in "Toy Story": He reps a genre that many toys came out of (plus the style-clash w/'Buzz')...I'm not saying TLG should do an entire series, but maybe test some water: a Creator 3-1 set w/western-folk maybe...

Those who complain about BURPs, you seem to forget that Lego used to make PLAY sets, not DISPLAY sets.

Worth checking out the 3D view at 6761 to see more clearly that the cannon could slide down the rails to surprise the cavalry, and that there is a barrel behind the gold mine sign waiting to roll down the roof. I like the hat for the skeleton's head to protect it from heat stroke. I don't mind the large rock pieces, just wish they could have included more plates inside to create a floor with a table for the bandits to play cards.

This theme (and the return of the Forestmen) helped bring me out of my dark ages. It also was when I had my own income and the realization that “hey there’s no rule I can’t have more than one copy of a particular set.” An expensive epiphany

One day I will get this set. It's such a fun model with so many features. The stairs can be kicked away, a barrel can drop from behind the sign, the road is rigged with a tripwire to make a cannon roll out o the mine, the large barrel can be tipped over, and there's many small features too. You have a gun emplacement on the roof, there's a deck of cards behind the BURP, the horse carries a gun box and there's even a suggestion of a mine behind the facade.
I just love sets like these. They feel so complete and full of life. It helps that I encountered this set when I was young and noticed the baseplate in someone else's collection.

@Jelonek76 said:
" @icey said:
"I checked with my kids, and they only care about ninja's. *sigh*

So to all parents: make your kids interested in WESTERN (and PIRATES) and we'll get more of these. "

Well, it depends. My 9yrs old son love lego western sets (has all except for the one with the bank and store) and he consider Ninjago as boring. "

Also @Brickchap; I have one child who is Castle crazy, one who screams each time I show her another Classic Space set, and one who grins when a Pirate ship appears. We do have a Clone army and snake warriors too, but these classical lines are alive and well here (the other kids are either too young to enjoy anything beyond Primo yet, or prefer the newer offerings like HP).

Wild West was not only the last great play theme prior to Lego's identity crisis, it was the best theme of the several years preceding it. The aesthetic was so well-executed and the play features lots of fun. And there was soooooo much more waiting to be done that never happened: saloons, cattle ranches, pioneer wagon trains, buffalo, campfires, trains, livery stables, prospectors, the pretty girl the sheriff always falls for…this theme deserved a long a fruitful run. I still wish it had gotten it.

The only missed note is the noses. Minifigures don't have noses!