LEGO Hero Factory

Hero Factory is another closed chapter: the successor to Bionicle that filled LEGO's action figure shelves until the mid-2010s. Like Chima, it has no pending retirements — its whole lineup is in the past — and its interest today is purely for collecting and for spare parts.

What makes it peculiar on the secondary market is its building system (the CCBS joints and shells), which Bionicle fans and figure builders still use as a quarry of pieces. The big heroes and villains from the last waves are the most sought after; the small capsules are plentiful and go cheap. If you are looking for CCBS pieces for your own builds, used lots usually work out much better than chasing sealed boxes from a theme that now only lives in display cases.

And the mirror advice for the nostalgic buyer who is after memories, not pieces: identify your wave. Hero Factory changed its building system halfway through its life (from the Bionicle legacy to the current CCBS), and the heroes from the first period feel completely different from those of the last — anyone looking for the exact toy of their childhood needs to know which half it fell in. The mid-size boxes with a single hero are the efficient nostalgia buy: cheap, complete and easy to check. The big battle sets look better in photos, but they multiply the risk of missing pieces in the second-hand market where you will inevitably be buying. This page lists the full historical lineup with its piece data — the quick reference to check exactly what each box contains before bidding on it.