LotR Scenery and Army Building Sets

[Elander]

Hi,

Why do you like LEGO? Why do I like LEGO?

->I like LEGO, because that toy give me always the possibility to build whatever I want.

Imagine you are a LEGO designer and all bricks are prepared..

And you get now the order to build army building sets for LotR! What would you do? How would you work?

...

If you're trying to make a set like Lego would do, then you have to start thinking and building like their design office rather than a MOC'r on the forums. For a set that is targetted at parents buying for their kids (which the LOTR sets are unlike say Modular Buildings and UCS Star Wars which is aimed at adult collectors for display) then you have to think about playability, buildability and price.

Playability: In general sets need something of a storyline. In the case of licensed set this usually means an interesting or pivotal scene in the licensed film that can be acted out.

Buildability: It's got to be buildable by a child of 10 years old. Lego's building style has definitely changed over the thirty years that I've been playing with it, contrast the 80's panel castles with something like the latest Kingdoms releases, but even Medieval Market Village with all it's detail isn't anywhere near as detailed as the creations of the MOCer's here on the forums. With no disrespect intended to Derfel, but Lego could never release one of his creations because the instructions for the walls of 1x1 studs would send even the most dedicated AFOL insane.

Cost: Lego aim for a set of price points and that dictates how many pieces and minifigs are in a set. Use Brickset or Peeron to go over the last few waves of Castle sets and you'll be able to see piece counts and prices. Try to aim for a selection of price points and their associated piece counts, Lego never releases a theme with everything at the same price, there's "the big thing" for $70 (Mill Village Raid), a couple of mid-range items either side of $40 (Escape From Dragon's Prison), impulse sets at $15-$20 (Blacksmith Attack) and some minifig and prop sets at $5 (Jester).

...

...playability, buildability, cost?

Oh-ha! Now don't standing any more all bricks at your disposal. Now are all things limited because otherwise the costs go up...

Middle-earth is a landscape/building theme. And unfortunately are these landscapes too huge for LEGO sets. Scenery or Army Building sets were additional sets for bigger landscapes. You would (if you want) buy these scenery sets multiple times. Therefore were these sets to create alike CREATOR sets.

The Important Rule: Scenery sets were without main characters available.

And that shall be my first contribution: A "Moria Goblin Army Building Set".

->If you have also scenery or army building set ideas. -Then I would be happy to see your ideas here.

With that single set it shall be possible to build the Great Hall of Moria.

A huge room (like an space) with giant columns where the Goblins comes out from the ceiling and climbing along these columns because they want to catch Frodo and the Fellowship.

Well, I think the Moria Battle Pack could look like a column where 4x Moria Goblins climbing along this column.

This column included a little CREATOR option. The end at this colums can get two different connections.

And if you do buy this column twice -then you can with these two columns build a bigger column. A column in real size.

And it is stable.

I hope you like this idea. I think the column could cost between $30-40 or 35-45E. The column would include important bricks for other buildings and we would get 4x Moria Goblins extra.

Greetings

Elander

Arrg: I do know, my English is terrible. But now I've got an error at my topic title. How I can to correct senery to scenery?

EDIT: Thanks!

Edited January 28, 2012 by Elander

[AndyC]

If you were a parent, looking for a set for a kid's birthday, what set would look more appealling: A fire engine, a helicopter or a big stone pillar? That's the problem with an idea like this, bits of scenery just don't have mass appeal.

[Peppermint_M]

Arrg: I do know, my English is terrible. But now I've got an error at my topic title. How I can to correct senery to scenery?

Ask a friendly moderator

[TheLegoDr]

The pillars look nice for the source material, but I agree with AndyC. Most people buying the sets aren't going to buy a column. They will buy something with play value. Thus, the reason flick-fire missiles were invented. AFOLs are completely different than the target audience. Sure, some of the AFOLs will be buying these sets for their children, but overall the target audience isn't AFOLs. Therefore, a lot of cool structures or open fields are not the type of sets that will fly off the shelves.

[CMP]

I agree. There needs to be more to it. Look at Uruk-hai army - it has both army building value, but what kid doesn't want to shoot horses with a giant crossbow on wheels? Sets like the UHA are about as close as we'll get to your idea.

[Captain Blackbeard]

That set would work if it had more figs to it, like their whole little posse. And although it wouldn't be realistic, the column would need to have more color.

[Eskallon]

Despite people saying it wouldn't do well with kids, and while I agree with them, this is still an awesome MOC and idea. The way it connects to make 1 big pillar is a great idea.

[Brickmamba]

Regardless these columns look mighty good, talking about an official set I reckon you got to at least have some of the main characters and/or Balrog

[The_Cook]

And you get now the order to build army building sets for LotR! What would you do? How would you work?

For an Army building set, give them just that! 852922 Battle Pack is one example, although historically you've got 6103 Castle Minifigures. The question I'd be asking would should we go with single faction sets like 852922 Dragon Knights, or mixed faction sets like 6013 Castle Minifigures? I'm sure the TLG accountants and product analysts have histroic sales figures that they can use to determine whether single or mixed faction packs will sell better.

Average cost of a minifig seems to be around £2, $3 or 3EUR, so 4 or 5 minifigs with weapons should retail for about £10, $15 or 15EUR. A low enough price point that they're just about in the "impulse" category.

As a designer my aim with 5 figures would be to provide 5 torso variants, 5 head variants and 5 weapon/helmet variants. If you multiply those 5 options together 5 x 5 x 5 then you get 125 possible combinations before you repeat.

No scenery! Army building isn't about scenery it's about massed ranks of Minifigs. That's not to say that your columns aren't nice, they're a great start for a moc but they're not the aim of Army building.

I would however look to produce some other small sets in the £10 price bracket that contain some "built" props. My example of this would be 6012 Siege Cart, 2 minifigures and a simple trebuchet. Obviously the precise details would need to be tailored to the faction in question, I'm no expert on LoTR so I really don't know what to suggest. Some form of simple battering ram for the Ork faction perhaps. For the riders of Rohan two riders on horses with weaponry would hit the £10 bracket, a historic example would be 6021 Jousting Knights.

Only time will tell if Lego decides to take LoTR down the Army Building route. At the moment they seem to be going down the Minifig collection route with each set having their own individual minifigs that can be collected. The fellowship plays to this marketing strategy very nicely, I'm sure that when the Hobit releases come out we'll find they've pursued the same strategy with the band of dwarves that accompany Bilbo.

Edited January 29, 2012 by The_Cook

[Elander]

Thanks for your comments.

I've tried to create a set where we find Moria Goblins for a great army and important grey bricks for MOCcing other buildings.

I thought it would be helpful to combine useful bricks & minifigures and to put both into 1x LEGO set. That would give us a reason to buy this set multiple times.

But you are right if you say...

If you were a parent, looking for a set for a kid's birthday, what set would look more appealling: A fire engine, a helicopter or a big stone pillar? That's the problem with an idea like this, bits of scenery just don't have mass appeal.

...yepp, I agree, a scenery set needs more as just scenery. It needs playable things...

And you are right if you say...

For an Army building set, give them just that! 852922 Battle Pack is one example, although historically you've got 6103 Castle Minifigures. The question I'd be asking would should we go with single faction sets like 852922 Dragon Knights, or mixed faction sets like 6013 Castle Minifigures? I'm sure the TLG accountants and product analysts have histroic sales figures that they can use to determine whether single or mixed faction packs will sell better.

...if you only need minifigures, then is that the right way.

I would however look to produce some other small sets in the £10 price bracket that contain some "built" props. My example of this would be 6012 Siege Cart, 2 minifigures and a simple trebuchet. Obviously the precise details would need to be tailored to the faction in question, I'm no expert on LoTR so I really don't know what to suggest. Some form of simple battering ram for the Ork faction perhaps. For the riders of Rohan two riders on horses with weaponry would hit the £10 bracket, a historic example would be 6021 Jousting Knights....

The simple trebuchet is a good idea. That set were alike a catapult with some orcs a nice army building set! But why not with a bit scenery? With a Osgiliath ruin (grey bricks), or a Minas Tirith city wall (white bricks), or a small orc fortress (dark grey/black bricks) for example. I think these bricks were anytime welcome.

Greetings

Elander

[deskp]

I think lego has done a good job so far in the lotr theme, if u buy helms deep, uruk hai army and orc forge you should have 11 uruk-hai. obviously that isnt the same as the minifigure 5 packs people would like, but I'm sure those will appear at some point.

Also good on Lego for not jumping into all the stuff with the orcs in first wave. It would have made the amount of both orcs and Uruks much lower.

As for your MOC it looks good, I'd prefer it in darker gray.

You should use a bigger plate for the base (maybe 4 of the plate you're using now) so when you put togetehr a whole bunch of them they make up the room with the floor.

[DaleDVM]

Very nice pillars Elander. I am truly impressed you made them modular like that. I agree that I would like them even more in dark grey. If a pillar was ever going to make up a set this would be the way to do it.

However, I agree that these are great for a MOC and lack the playability needed for children to buy them.

I personally think that army building sets should be just that, army builders with very few bricks if any at all.

Only one faction should ever be in an army building set. Mixing figures of differing factions sets the ratio of one faction vs another. This can force one faction to be larger than the other or force them to be the same size. I like to make up my own ratio for good to bad guys. It also doesn't account for people who only want to collect certain factions and not the others.

The castle battle packs from the fantasy era and kingdoms have been almost perfect in my eyes. They had 5 different figures all from the same faction with no extraneous parts. The way those battle packs sold out in a very short period of time should be proof of their success. Hopefully TLG has learned from these and will keep making them like that.

On the contrary the POTC, pirates, and pharoahs quest battle packs have suffered from flaws. POTC and pirates battle packs have mixed factions. They also contain individual characters i.e. Pirate Captain/Jack Sparrow. Who wants 20 pirate captains? The Pirates/Pharoahs quest had non army building parts i.e. (sarcophagus,treasure chest) I have seen every one of these battle packs put on clearance at one point because they didn't sell well. If pharoahs quest had a couple of anubite warriors instead of the sarcophagus I would have bought them up.

The alien conquest battle pack has a civilian in a suit. The other four figures are pretty good army builders. I wonder how it will sell?

[Poison Ivy]

I do like the pillars Elander, I just can't see them becoming an actual set. Not that I wouldn't love it, just that the lack of any action in the scene besides the goblina/orcs climbing down the pillars makes it unlikely as a set. A more realistic version of this set would perhaps have someone for the goblins to fight, making the set have 'action', so as to sell well with children who like to have battles with their LEGO toys.

[MattTheLegoman]

The Battlepack could include the Galadhrim? Or Moria Goblins and Lothlorien Elves could be two Battlepacks, like the Star Wars style (AU$15-20). Will edit to pounds/euro sometime today.

[Dwellington]

Let's see here...

Fellowship packs:

The Ford of Bruinen, since Weathertop doesn't have enough Ringwraiths!

Moira goblins.

Isengard scout Uruks (FIND THE HALFLINGS!)

Two Towers

Isengard/Mordor team pack (maybe too close to the scouting Uruks)

RIDERS OF ROHAN, with at least one horse...

We're kind of getting Isengard Uruks with that one set, but maybe a pack of pikemen?

The Galahrim, with at least two helmetless elf heads.

Faramir's team.

Return of the King

Osgiliath orcs, maybe with Gothmog?

Gondorian soldiers.

A band of Easterlings and Haradrim, but they'll probably save that one crazy guy on the Mumak for a giant elephant set...

Morannon pack, with Mordor orcs and one troll.

The Dead Army?

The Corsairs, which would secretly be Peter Jackson, that Weta guy whose name I just forgot, and that other production guy who I think was in that scene.

That would be kind of radical...