AmperZand

Like @Sir Dano, I go for variety over quantity (though I do like seeing the large collections of others'). Here is my Orc King's army. It includes allies in addition to orcs: goblins, goblinoids, kobolds, ogres and even a war wyvern! Not all the parts are purist. In addition to this army, I also have an army of Tolkien orcs, goblins and uruks (not shown).

@granz Very cool! Thanks for sharing. I hadn’t even thought about whether 10497 could be remade in other colours. A version that replaced 10497’s bley parts for white to emulate the early- to mid-1980s CS colour scheme might work quite well.

I still prefer my Yellowship of the Ring. I can’t abide fleshies and the K2 short legs with fleshy feet in the new Rivendell set are a turn for the worse. They, like all fleshy parts, are an abomination.

I realise that LEGO has said that further LotR sets are contingent on Rivendell selling well, but I strongly suspect that Barad-dûr is already in the works regardless. I have reason to believe that some of the LEGO Ambassadors, i.e. select influencers, have already seen it or have had its release confirmed by LEGO. The leaked image of it only reinforces that belief and the fact that the survey it leaked from was about pricing, not features, makes me doubly sure. A Barad-dûr set including a Sauron minifigure will be released. That’s my strong suspicion.

The type of survey sounds exactly like a product features survey using ‘conjoint analysis’ in which respondents select between different features and price points. Every respondent doesn’t see every possible set of features and price point - that would be overwhelming. Instead, each respondent sees a small subset and by deduction across many respondents, LEGO’s market researchers are able to identify the most desirable features and what the price should be. There are other methods for determining price, but you can certainly use conjoint analysis for it.

Don’t know if we can discuss rumours in this thread, but the word on the street is that there’s going to be a Maleficent in dragon form as part of the Disney centenary range. Unclear if that will be the dragon as it appears in Sleeping Beauty or the phoenix-like creature in the second Maleficent film. My guess would be the former as it’s more iconic. Either way, I’m looking forwards to it!

Very cool . Rather than attack the castle, couldn’t the skeletons just lay siege to it? They’re infinitely patient, and require no food, drink, fuel (to keep warm) or sleep. Perfect besiegers! I only have one 3-in-1 Creator Castle, but am also using it as the home of my Black Falcons. I found the yellow infill in the walls to be too garish, so replaced those pieces with tan ones, and swapped the red quadrants on the banners with more appropriate blue ones. Here’s a CMF Series 24 falconer converted to an archer and set on the barbican tower.

Cool Black Falcons army! I especially like the soldiers with the halberds and the kettle hats. Somehow, that style of helmet really suits them. My vampire army - with some sarcophagi for flavour:

A bit late in posting these...

I used an illegal technique to reverse the orientation of the mod in the build below. Specifically, I used blue Technic pins to turn a couple of anti-stud surfaces into studded ones. It's illegal because the pins don't go all the way through and are therefore stressed. But I'm not too worried because: Even if the pins eventually break, I have loads of spares. Besides, they're readily available very cheaply on the secondary market and likely always will be. I have designed it so that the pins are easily accessed. I hardly have to do any deconstruction to get to them. There is no structural dependency on the pins. If they break, gravity will keep the build together anyway. I would need to turn it upside down for it to fall apart, and I don't intended to ever turn it over. It's not hard to remember or figure out where the pins are. If you follow the four principles above (spare parts, access, no structural dependency and minimal required record keeping), you should be fine regardless of what illegal technique you use.

Thanks ☺️ In case anyone was wondering, the three weapons and the shield on the left are third party pieces, not LEGO.

Great tip! Thank you. In true orkish style, I have stolen your idea for my orc on the right...

Hello, Willie, At the risk of stating the obvious and this probably isn’t much use given where you’re based, but I got 10 of them today from one of the Westfield stores in London: 3 Orcs 3 Falconers 2 Brown Spacemen & Baby Bennies 2 T-Rex Guys They had all of them though and, it seemed, plenty of each.

@Vliebricker, Yes, I can well imagine a squad of powerful wizards being the equal of an army of knights, men-at-arms and rank-and-file soldiers. In my headcanon, wizardry takes innate ability, considerable intellect and long years of study as an apprentice to a powerful wizard or at a university/college of magic, making wizards extremely rare. If that were not the case and any Joe Schmo could master the arcane arts, wizards would dominate the battlefield - and the world!

Indeed. In some settings such as those in most D&D worlds, a group of high level (i.e. powerful) wizards could certainly hold their own against melee, missile and monster combatants. Likewise in the Marvel universe where sorcerers such as Wong, Dr Strange and their sorcerous companions are portrayed in battle in the MCU.