Erynion

Love it!! Super excited to see more!

Totally agree about getting the urge to use LEGO for D&D and other tabletop stuff. I have a lot of appropriate LEGO parts for that and I only recently got into tabletop RPGs, and I'd love to be able to use my own minifig instead of buying and possibly painting miniatures. I too have noted that the 3x4 CMF plate doesn't quite fit and had thought about doing something similar to the 3x3 base that you have there. One prohibiting factor in that for myself and I would guess others is that building a lot of those, particularly in the same colour scheme, could get difficult in terms of pieces. Another problem I have with this is that the LEGO minifigures aren't really compatible with the standard tabletop miniatures. The LEGO ones are are substantially taller and much broader. Even a minifig with short legs on a one-plate-high stand is taller than a full-height miniature. This makes it rather difficult to just bring your own minifig to someone else's campaign. If you're the DM on the other hand, or have some arrangement with them to bring all of the pieces and/or pre-assembled minifigs, then yes, I could see this working. It's worth noting, however, that the taller profile of the LEGO minifigs means that they are easier to accidently knock over, which is further compounded by the fact that even with a baseplate, minifigs tend to be more top-heavy than miniatures. One last thing I'm going to comment on - over the last several years of army building and playing games like BrikWars and BrickQuest, I've noted that it takes quite a bit of TIME pre-game to assemble all of the minifigs (and disassemble post-game, if you organize them like I do). While this can be fun for some, for me the enjoyment of it has been wearing off (as much as I love the LEGO minifig appearance), and I'm starting to see why a lot of people might prefer to grab a box of wargame or RPG minis and use whatever they have ready even if it's not quite perfect.

Very helpful explanation thanks! Excited for this set!

Very cool set! I am wondering if I could get a bit more detail on the part of the rocket with the lunar lander and command/service module. 1) It looks to me like the command module is a 4x4x2 white cone in the main build, but... a 4x4x2 printed grey cone when landed (it also appears to show the grey piece on the page with the "Transposition, docking, and extraction")? Does this mean you'd have to physically swap the pieces out? (less cool if so!) 2) Is the command/service module otherwise complete in the rocket? i.e. the engine for the service module looks like it's hiding inside the hollow white cone that hides the lander - does it go all the way through and connect or do you have to "assemble" it (or any other parts) after the hollow cones or the launch escape system come off? These details are important to me . Thanks!

WOW!!! These Castle sets look almost just like the sets they had in the, err, 70's and 80's, or something. They could probably get the same market by just recycling the old sets. There'd be more appeal to the older fans, too, because of the nostalgia, I presume. (Pardon my sarcasm. I couldn't resist that one)

That's amazing! I'd love to see something similar to this made into a set! Hmm, I don't really go for the wings made out of the capes, nor the spikes on the back made out of the minifigure arms. They're both a little... too strange of a use of those parts for me. But other than that, it looks really good.

The Shire? ORCS? Those are Ringwraiths! EDIT: Oh, yeah, nice MOC though It looks a little small, but that's LEGO I guess.

Me too! Those were... adorable I don't actually own any because I started LEGO too late for them

From what I remember, orcs are mutilated Elves, made long ago (I would guess by Morgoth, the first (?) dark lord, but don't quote me on it. It's been quite a few years since I read the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales). I *think* Uruk-hai are orcs/goblins crossed with humans. I recall there was something special about the Uruk-hai that allowed them to travel under the sun, unlike orcs... maybe that was inbreeding with humans. But I'm not really sure on that point of lore. In the Hobbit book, the creatures at the Battle of Five Armies are referred to as goblins, but in the LOTR books, they are referred to as orcs, so I think it is safe to say that they are nearly the same, if not the same, creatures. I personally don't see any reason to separate them in the LEGO sets... As for LOTRO, I would dearly love to play it, but MMORPGs are just too time consuming, especially for someone in university with a huge course load like me.

I thought of this too. What's arguably even worse is that it doesn't appear that they gave him a name. Who does something with a minifig that garners national attention and doesn't even name the poor little guy?

Good job on the Reliant! I love to see high-quality Star Trek MOCs like this. The curve on the saucer section going up to the bridge is particularly impressive.

Whenever I've seen the Roman testudo/tortoise formation, the soldiers were always in a square, not circular, formation. I could be wrong, but I thought that's how it's supposed to be. It's difficult to make this formation in LEGO since the soldiers usually squish in so there's not much of a gap between the shields, but LEGO don't squish...

Okay, you've offered a believable explanation, but I have to say this along with everyone else. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND PICKS A FISHERMAN OVER A SPARTAN??? For those who have suggested that they picked the ones that were cheapest to reproduce, I have to disagree. I expect that the elf and the mummy would be on the more expensive end of the spectrum, because of all the accessories that the elf comes with (not to mention the fabulous printing), and because the mummy has rather rare printing on the sides.

I agree, this is disappointing - I really wanted to get MVR to add to my little Medieval village that I'm working on. Weird how it is so soon. I don't really want to shell out that much money at this time though... I wonder if there's any chance stores around my area will have it on clearance. I'm a big fan of LOTR though, like many others, I don't like fleshies (or licensed set prices).

I just had a chance to look at this in detail and... I'm almost speechless As with any LEGO MOC, you obviously had to do a bit scaling-down to make it fit for a LEGO MOC (not saying this is a bad thing, I just notice details like that) but it's still huge. Looks amazing.

Wow, I love them all! I wish I had skill (and patience) like that. LEGO should just hire you to make the sets for the upcoming LOTR/Hobbit line . I'm sure these are far better than any of the actual sets we will get. P.S. I listened to my FOTR soundtrack while I looked at these. It adds to the experience

I someone else's post about the Licensed forum description and realized that there's something "vexing" me about the new Historic Themes forum. You have "Lord Of The Rings" (capital of/the), but under other themes, the 'of' and 'the' are not capitalized ("Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Age of Sail" under Pirates). So I suggest making 'of' and 'the' in the Historic Themes description all lowercase (I'm pretty sure that's proper English to not capitalize them).

WHY does LEGO hate us so much? They KNOW it'll be the most sought-after, in the greatest quantities too... Anyways, thanks for the review though, it's always useful to me since collectible minifigs is arguably my main theme right now.

A ROMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN LEGIONARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES! YES! YES! THANK YOU LEGO!!! Sorry, I couldn't contain my enthusiasm. I literally screamed out loud when I saw that. I need an army! Although on the downside, he has a spear (pilum?), and not a gladius (roman sword that the S5 Gladiator had). That's too bad.

Right, because LEGO tends to put a lot of work and parts into making beautiful, detailed, COMPLETE architecture and structures in their (especially non-exclusive) licensed sets... (Sorry, that was really sarcastic, just had to say it... I hope you don't take it in a bad way) Because we would have pink people and yellow people together. I almost definitely can't afford to buy the two of them together. Not with my budget over the next few years. And even if I had more money, I don't think I could justify spending that much on LEGO (while that's just me and my shelf decorations, a lot of parents would probably feel the same way). That took the words out of my mouth

I find it difficult to believe that the Temple of Doom was aimed at kids. IMO it was the worst (bloody, violent, dark, etc) of all of them. My younger sister has seen the other 3 Indy films and my parents still don't have any intentions of letting her watch the Temple of Doom. That I could believe How do I say this (not that it really matters)? I don't dispute that parents let their kids watch things that are supposedly above their age level (though I don't necessarily agree with it). I think this is obvious given the licenses LEGO has been pursuing. And as such, I agree with you on this, I don't think that the rating on LOTR or The Hobbit would stop LEGO from doing it, whether or not The Hobbit movie is aimed at a younger audience. P.S. I thought the fourth Pirates was much better than the second or third

Yes. That's a really interesting idea, but I don't know if I can see LEGO doing something so... "innovative", especially in an untried licensed theme. As usual, I could be wrong, but that's my feeling. "NO CROSSBOWS FOR ORCS, THANK YOU!" Here, here! ^^ I kind of disagree with these ideas for at least some battle packs. For Orcs, maybe, since they usually come across as a disorganized rabble anyways. But for soldiers of Gondor, the standard soldiers should all have the same uniform, simply because that's the way it is in the movie and when I build a magnificent army I want them all to look uniform and organized. Sure, including some different weaponry is fine, but the uniforms for standard infantry and archers should be the same. Also, we need to have decent ratios. Normally, battle packs come with at least one "hero" minifig that you really don't want multiples of, which is no fun if you're buying lots of these and trying to build an army. And the Knights battle pack for castle came with two knights (no horses of course ) and three "foot soldiers" - I would hate to have a Gondor battlepack with two Tower Guards and three standard infantry, because there's no way there would be that ratio of elite guards to the regulars (think of the films. We saw, all of what, maybe ten or twenty different Tower Guards, but hundreds upon hundreds of infantry and archers lining the walls in the Siege of Minas Tirith). Obviously, I would also hate to have five Gandalfs or Faramirs running around for my twenty soldiers. So given all that, I think the ideal Gondor battlepack would consist of four regular soldiers (with the same helmets, same torsos, same legs, and then maybe two infantry with shields - one swordsman, one spearmen - and two archers with bows and quivers. Or maybe three infantry and one archer, w/e) and one Tower Guard (with the winged helmet, and slightly nicer torso and legs and a cape such, maybe shield and spear could be the same). Different faces are fine, since that's realistic. EDIT: Actually, just thought of this - one of the archers could be a ranger of Ithilien. That could add some variety. But I repeat, for my standard Gondorian soldiers, I want the SAME HELMET, SAME TORSO, SAME LEGS, SAME SHIELDS... That being said, LEGO hasn't been giving us such nicely uniformed soldiers in the same set for decades now, so it probably won't happen. The Uruk-hai are also dressed pretty similarly, though I guess the Riders of Rohan have a fair bit of variety. However, a Riders battlepack MUST come with horses for each man (like that'll ever happen ) for it to be any good. Do we know for sure that the Hobbit is aimed at a younger audience? Because they're including a lot of extra content from beyond the book that is arguably only relevant in the larger context of LOTR lore (meeting of the White Council, expulsion of Sauron/The Necromancer from Dol Guldur), even though this was happening at the time of the Hobbit story. Sorry for being too obsessed with detail, but I'm looking at IMBb and it says the first two Indiana Jones are PG I'm still a little sceptical of the theme. I think if LEGO does come out with it, it won't be nearly what AFOLs are expecting (certainly not Elander ) and we'll be largely disappointed. So, what's better, no theme, or a disappointingly poor theme? I don't know. And I also just realized, if they come out with LOTR, then I'll have to decide whether my favourite minifigures is LEGOlas or Robin Hood. They'll fight for it in my head, they'll fight for my avatar, they'll fight for the prominent place on my desk and in my army battle formation and... oh dear...

You found something to quibble about. For some reason, I'm sort of impressed by that. 110% praise starts to... I dunno... lose its luster after a while, if you know what I mean? I kind of agree about the massiveness. The buildings are taller than some of the castles I've built - not that that's saying anything since I haven't built many impressive castles, but still - the roofs of the buildings just seem very big. Maybe they're accurate to medieval building styles, but to me they seem a little top-heavy. Still a great MOC though, and

First of all, for all of you who keep saying "dwarfs", I'd like to correct you. "Dwarfs" is the proper English plural of "dwarf", but in Tolkien's world, the proper plural is "dwarves" (he says something about this in the introductory material to either FOTR or The Hobbit). So if we're talking about the dwarfs from the Fantasy Era line, yes, say "dwarfs", but if we're referring to anything from Tolkien's world, say "dwarves". I have mixed feelings about a LOTR theme. LOTR is probably the biggest focus of my... "fan-dom" and I'd love to see some good LOTR sets, but I feel that I wouldn't really go for the sets due to LEGO's style. LOTR is so epic, so huge, and the sets these days are just... not epic. Sorry, maybe I'm pessimistic, but LEGO sets don't come anywhere close to being large enough for LOTR scale. And of course, my biggest objection is that the people would come in pink skin . I have been entertaining plans of creating my own LOTR minifigure collection, but I want them YELLOW. And just buying the licensed figures and replacing the heads/hands with yellow ones can't be counted on because sometimes skin colour appears on torso print too. Besides all this, licensed sets tend to be very expensive and my budget is a little tight over the next few years with school. I would hate to have to hold off buying LOTR sets when they come out and then pay triple the price in five years when I can actually afford them. As far as moulds go, I agree with what's been said about brickbuilt monsters, with maybe moulds for the smaller eagles/trolls. I prefer brickbuilt creatures anyway (MMV chickens were better than Mill Village Raid chickens). I agree that LOTR has HUGE potential for LEGO - the options for sets are endless, the fan base is probably pretty decent between adults and children (even some children that read the books and haven't seen the movies yet). But I don't think LEGO would go nearly as far as they've done with Star Wars, simply because SW is (I think...) still a lot more popular among children, which is what LEGO is mostly aimed at (I... think?). As far as locations go, I personally can't see LEGO doing relatively insignificant areas like the stone trolls, or Argonath, or whatever, to name just a couple - nothing really happens at either of these places. Yes, maybe if the line got recycled over and over again for a decade or more like SW, we might get that, but like I said, I don't think that will happen with LOTR. But of course, that's just my feeling, and anything can happen in the future. I too think that the violence argument is irrelevant. They're doing POTC and IJ, they can do LOTR (that being said, I don't think that the underraged children that mostly use LEGO should be watching ANY of those, but parents tend to let anything go these days). And I highly doubt the Ring piece problem would stop LEGO, despite all the AFOLs crying bloody murder. All that being said, I think a LOTR video game would be great - I would almost definitely buy it. Wow, that really got long. I was on my way to find a review for Blacksmith Attack, saw this thread, and an hour later I'm still here So in closing, I'd like LEGO to please make a LOTR line, with cheap, massive, epic sets and yellow minifigures. P.S. Many thanks to the people who jokingly posted about UCS Balrog and Minas Tirith like that. I laughed so hard.