MOC: LOTR Chess

[Fonzy]

Since Lego has released several chess sets I thought why not build a LOTR chess game.

An overview of the complete board.

A closer look at "black" site.

There could be only one "king" on this site, the all-seeing-eye.

And the "Queen" had to be Saruman. I used a temporary substitute until Lego releases a Saruman minifig.

The two towers Barad-dur and Isengard.

As pawns I chose Orcs since I wanted to use as much different characters as possible,

I guess some of you might think Uruk-hai would make a better army. So here's a picture with Uruk-hai instead of Orcs.

A better army would be more Uruk-hai.

Or even more Uruk-hai.

And now a closer look at the "white" site.

I wanted to put all 9 characters of the fellowship of the ring on the back line.

Also there could be only one king. I had to give him a throne so as a chess-piece it is obvious the King.

But how to put 9 figures on 8 squares? Here's my solution.

As "Towers" I tried to make some ents, since these could easily be combined with Merry and Pippin.

For pawns I would have preferred Elves, but since I don't have many of them I had to go for Rohan soldiers.

Still 1 important character is missing, which I gave it's own special place right in the center.

Some more pictures and some slightly bigger pictures can be found at Flickr

Hope you like it.

All C&C welcome.

[Bob De Quatre]

Really great chess pieces !!

It's nice how you included Golum.

I think elves would be a little out of place. Rohan soldier (or Gondor when available) are the best choices.

Oh and I always knew that Gandalf was a queen

[LegoLotRGuy]

this is awesome! great work hope you work on it only more to rock my world a little more!

[Wedge09]

Very good work :thumbup:

Legolas with Gimli is absolutely laughing :laugh:

[LEGO Guy Bri]

Quite possibly the coolest LEGO Chess set I've seen. I'm not a big fan of LotR, I do like the story behind and films, don't get me wrong, but this is still something I would LOVE to have and play! The roles are perfect and the board looks wonderful. And Gollum, very nice to include him. Great job on this

[soccerkid6]

One of the best chess sets I've seen I especially like the "underground" part with Gollum. Also using the ents with Merry and Pippin was very clever

[Chriswilson2]

Wow, looks really cool, I especially like the raised up effect!

[Brinstar]

That is an absolutely wonderful MOC. I really like the intricate design of the board and the mix of brick built and mini-fig pieces. I'm not sure if Lego will make a LOTR chess set but if they do I hope its half as good as this!

[SheepEater]

Love it

Is the red uruk-hai supposed ot be Lurtz, or the nameless leader at the battle of helm's deep?

Personally I'd have gotten rid of Boromir and put Gimli in his place

Ents as towers is perfect.

[Deathleech]

Overall I really like this MOC. I like the choice of minifigures for the most part, the elevated board, how you included all 9 Fellowship characters as pieces, and really just the general idea of a Lego Chess set! With that being said, there are a couple things that I would change. Some are more of personal taste/preference so take the suggestions with a grain of salt.

The majority of my criticism comes with your towers. I know you had limited bricks to make them, but the Ents feel really blocky and I am not a fan of their legs. As for the black sides towers, I think they look fine by themselves, but as a pair look a little odd. Maybe if you tried to make them closer in height and girth? I would probably also use Saruman as the queen and Sauron as the king when/if they get released and ditch the eye, since you already have the tower it rest on as another piece and it seems a bit redundant.

Lastly I love the board, but I do think the design is a little much for the checkered part. You have square patterns within square patterns within square patterns all over, even for the borders and corners. Maybe just making some soldier outlines or using some colors that contrast better would make it easier to look at? Right now it seems to take a sec to differentiate the squares rather than being instantly recognizable and I think thats due to how much you have going on with the design.

Other than that I think the set looks fantastic! And, like I said, most of these critiques are a matter of preference so take them for what they are worth

Edited October 12, 2012 by Deathleech

[Fonzy]

Thanks for all your feedback.

Overall I really like this MOC. I like the choice of minifigures for the most part, the elevated board, how you included all 9 Fellowship characters as pieces, and really just the general idea of a Lego Chess set! With that being said, there are a couple things that I would change. Some are more of personal taste/preference so take the suggestions with a grain of salt.

The majority of my criticism comes with your towers. I know you had limited bricks to make them, but the Ents feel really blocky and I am not a fan of their legs. As for the black sides towers, I think they look fine by themselves, but as a pair look a little odd. Maybe if you tried to make them closer in height and girth? I would probably also use Saruman as the queen and Sauron as the king when/if they get released and ditch the eye, since you already have the tower it rest on as another piece and it seems a bit redundant.

Lastly I love the board, but I do think the design is a little much for the checkered part. You have square patterns within square patterns within square patterns all over, even for the borders and corners. Maybe just making some soldier outlines or using some colors that contrast better would make it easier to look at? Right now it seems to take a sec to differentiate the squares rather than being instantly recognizable and I think thats due to how much you have going on with the design.

Other than that I think the set looks fantastic! And, like I said, most of these critiques are a matter of preference so take them for what they are worth

I suppose I could try to work on the Ents. I agree they are somewhat blocky. Another thing that bothers me is that they are quite fragile (leaves keep falling off, or is that because it is autumn)

I also understand what you say about the board. At one hand it gives a nice effect, on the other hand it is somewhat hard to see the squares. I tried squares of one color, but that looks a bit dull to me. If I had more 2x2 tiles I might have gone rid of the 1x2 and 1x1 tiles. Or if 1x1 dark tan tiles existed I could get rid of 2 colors. I will play around a bit with all my tiles and see if I can come up with something that is both nice to look at and a better differentiation between the chess-board squares.

[KristofBD]

Good job! What I love the most is actually all the thought you put into it (Gimli, Gollum etc). Looks like a wonderful 'set'. I'm not a fan of how you depicted Saruman (looks a bit like a beggar to me), but that that's about the only minor point I have.

[Watchman]

love the touches in this set - great design ideas - perhaps TLG will be inspired by your work ?!

[JTredders]

The only thing I would suggest is add a steward's chair at the base of Aragorn's throne.

[Duce]

That's an awesome looking chess set, you should submit it in hopes lego build it as I'd suspect it would get 10k backers no problem.

Although I suspect lego might not want a set of this caliber and amount of cool mini figs released

[HawkLord]

I board itself is alittle hard to see, but otherwise, I have no critiques whatsoever. Very outstanding!

[Bilbo Baggins]

This is great, I love Sauron

[Masked Builder]

Wow, I would love to play on that board! Maybe you should do a couple of version as LEGO release more characters, with say Arwen as the queen. I love how you've raised it too, gives it a good sense of depth.

[DarthPotato]

Wow, awesome chess set! Your small models of all those scenes, characters, and locations look great! I like the place for Gollum too.

[Ferrik]

This is a brilliant idea: LOTR chess. This MOC looks amazing. I really like how you made the chess tiles with many different LEGO pieces to add more variation and the chess pieces are very creative looking. Excellent work on this MOC, and let's hope we see more of your spectacular MOCs.

[XimenaPaulina]

It is these types of unique MOC concepts that I really admire - great job on this exemplary LEGO LOTR Chess set!

The choice of the characters and mini-builds for the chess pieces are brilliantly spot-on, though I would have to echo similar sentiments on the checkered part of the board. If I may suggest you could probably make the outline of the squares into one color (probably dark brown) while still retaining the alternating 2x2 tiles inside the 4x4 square area - I think that way you'll be able to tone down the "too much checkered look" but at the same time not making the board too dull.

[Darth Dino]

Hi

that is really great! I love how you choose the characters. If you look at your choice - it is quiet obviously - there is no other way. The horses, the towers, the Ents... everything fits very very good.

Even if you compare the "classes" it still fits: The white side towers are fighting against the black side towers and the white side pawn had to defeat the black side pawns.

Dino

[TheLegoDr]

Great MOC. I don't own any of the other chess sets. I was in my dark ages during that time of the originals. And I don't own the Kingdoms set either. But this is very cleverly built.

The character usage is brilliant. I think Rohan soldiers fit well as the pawns. I picture orcs more as pawns, but technically the uruks would fit better in a chess set. Gimli and Legolas belong together anyway so they can keep up their competition. Ents make perfect sense as rooks, but the scale might be difficult to make them sturdy and shapely.

And Gollum belongs below in the caves, perfect place for him.

And Gandalf being a queen, didn't Sir Ian come out as gay at one time?? So I suppose that is fitting.

This is brilliant. Keep up the good work. We'll see what LEGO decides to do.

[Deathleech]

I know it's difficult to do now with there being so few options available, but I would of preferred to see all the pawns as Moria Orcs OR Mordor Orcs, one or the other. The same with the Rohan Soldiers, I would of preferred they all match or at least use the same weapons. This is really just more of OCD thing than an actual criticism as I like all the pawns to be the same.

I also would of loved to see the Cave Trolls used somewhere, but I can understand how that would be hard since they are so large and probably wouldn't fit in their spaces very well. Really though, like I said in my previous post with the tower changes, these are more personal preference rather than things that are actually wrong with your chess set.

[Fonzy]

First of all thanks for all the feedback.

I changed the board a little. Though I think the old board looks nicer, with the modified board it is more clear which square is which.

I also modified the Ents. I'm not sure if the are less "blocky" than before, at least the are a lot less fragile (while playing the leaves don't fall of constantly anymore).

Good job! What I love the most is actually all the thought you put into it (Gimli, Gollum etc). Looks like a wonderful 'set'. I'm not a fan of how you depicted Saruman (looks a bit like a beggar to me), but that that's about the only minor point I have.

Fair enough about Saruman. I looked at BrickLink, but didn't find anything that would be great to use for Saruman. Let's hope Lego will release a Saruman soon.

The only thing I would suggest is add a steward's chair at the base of Aragorn's throne.

Well you really challenge me, there ain't much room left at the base of the throne.

Wow, I would love to play on that board! Maybe you should do a couple of version as LEGO release more characters, with say Arwen as the queen. I love how you've raised it too, gives it a good sense of depth.

I suppose with all the characters in the LOTR there could be several variations on the chess-pieces. Well it all depends on the characters Lego will release in the future.

I know it's difficult to do now with there being so few options available, but I would of preferred to see all the pawns as Moria Orcs OR Mordor Orcs, one or the other. The same with the Rohan Soldiers, I would of preferred they all match or at least use the same weapons. This is really just more of OCD thing than an actual criticism as I like all the pawns to be the same.

I also would of loved to see the Cave Trolls used somewhere, but I can understand how that would be hard since they are so large and probably wouldn't fit in their spaces very well. Really though, like I said in my previous post with the tower changes, these are more personal preference rather than things that are actually wrong with your chess set.

Well to have all the pawns the same I would have to buy even more sets. Not that I don't want to, but Lego produces to much cool stuff, it's a matter of choices. Personally the mixture of Orcs doesn't bother be. Though I must admit that I would have preferred the Rohan Soldiers to be the same.

And I have thought of using the cave Trolls. I thought it would be nice to have 4 of them carrying the corners of the upper-board, but I only own 2 of them. So who knows somewhere in the future.

All photo's can be found at Flickr .