Bobbtom

I'm waiting on a sale to get the Lonely Mountain or 2x points. After watching the movie I just knew that I wanted to get the BOFA sets. Though for $130 I can wait.

8813 Battle at the Pass. for $40. Was an amazing set you got ELEVEN minifigures for the armies to fight each other. ELEVEN. Now we got Battle of FIve Armies that doesn't even have any armies in it besides the two regular orcs.

This is only a minor complication that did not stop lego from making sets that buyers actually want. Uruk Hai army is the only set that was bought at stores from shoppers at a similar rate of sets like Star Wars or the Ugly Chima sets. It didn't languish on shelves for years like the Goblin King Battle. We could have gotten sets that didn't only focus on characters which consumers didn't buy at all. Sets that would have appealed to fans of the movie that liked the battles or castle buyers for example include: Gothmog and an squad of orcs with a catapult or grond. Even better. Minias Tinith or Elven Warriors with a wall or siege weapon. (Mirkwood Elf army actually was bought by consumers).

Kind of hard to replicate that Finn comparison if the only soldier we got in the LOTR line was the singular rohan soldier. If this "limit" is true then it effectively killed the line for lego. You cannot represent the charge of the Rohirrim with ONLY and JUST Emoer. A person that watched the movie knows that eomer did not have the glory charging down the hill. All his soldiers shared it together. Lego instead focused its attention on the same and repetitive characters over and over that didn't appeal to anyone at all. Either it be those that watched the movies or people that went to the store and bought the "coolest" looking set on the shelves. In the end, sets like the Goblin King Battle sold at 50% off.

You have fail to see what you're arguing for. Your points are as to why the line is suceeding. Which we know isn't true. LOTR and Hobbit sets have been sitting on shelves longer than Lone Ranger (which had a battle pack) sets in some stores. Lego's research has failed. Research doesn't always yield correct info which led to the dismal sales of this line. We all know it, but won't admit it. Boss battles aren't the draw of the line and you know it. Otherwise we would have better sales for many of these sets. Once again it's the battles. If it weren't the battles the line would have succeeded. Moria had a fine number of orcs but it was an $80 set that gave a tiny set in comparison to other $80 sets. @Q197. Your logic makes no sense. Because orcs are weak no one wants them? I'm done if you continue this point. "As for the multiple Gandalfs and Gimlis, most kids aren't going to get every single set in the entire line up. If they only included each character in a single set, then that character will be unavailable to the vast majority of the target demographic. " I addressed this already. Read my last posts to find your answer.

My kids are exactly the same. They don't know anyone else's names when they watched the movies besides Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. The only thing they were telling me was how cool the cavalry charge and the arrow barrages were. It is this that many members here and AFOLS forget. You don't watch the movies for when the Fellowship is sitting around smiling. You don't watch it only for the character development. You watch these movies for the epic battle scenes that everyone remembers.

That is true, no average kid can buy MM on random day. However, if a parent were looking to buy a kid a large set for a special occasion, there is no reason to buy The Goblin king or Moria. For the price of the Goblin King, a parent could buy an entire castle for the same price. What do you get with the Goblin king? A throne and two platforms. It is with this fact that led to so many LOTR and The Hobbit sets not being bought. If someone which would be many adults was just looking to buy a lego gift and had no exact request from a child they will and did pass over many of the LOTR and Hobbit sets. The sets are too small in comparison to other sets with the same price. This partially explains the poor sales. The movies being old and for older audiences also reduced sales, but not by much. Many themes such as city have no largely popular movie yet still sell well. It's good business for a line that has many sets. There is nearly no incentive to buy more LOTR/Hobbit sets if you feel like you already have the set. Star Wars has many many characters that many buyers want, but the line is extremely varied and you won't have a problem with constant repeated characters. The battlepacks are an amazing success for the Star Wars lines. When the Imperial Dropship came out, my sons wanted mass amounts of stormtroops to build their army. It was a great set. No repeating characters like Darth Vader in it that would make one hesitant to buy it again. You'll always need more stromtroopers, but more than one or two Vaders? The $20 sets with Vader filled this void.

Movie.

But what do these characters fight? 100 Gandalfs v 100 Gimlis?? Chima just released cheap battle packs with 4 minifigures each. Kids want characters yes, but these characters need someone to fight and if the kids watch the movies, there becomes a point where they want to recreate the battle scenes. Hence why chima released battlepacks. When someone thinks of LOTR, they think of the characters int he BATTLES. That's nearly the entire main focusing point of the movies. The battles. If they didn't watch the movies, what's the point of buying a wide variety of LOTR sets if the sets keep repeating minifigures?

My point is what I said in my last paragraph. There was no point for many kdis to buy these sets. Hence the huge amounts of sets left over and clearances. I know it and you know it. More over the constant repeat of characters without a good army builder helped to reduce the sales of this theme. With the 117th Gandalf in a set or the 200th Gimli, what's the point of anyone buying more sets? Sure you want the main characters for the movie, but what are these characters going to fight? The two orcs that comes from mines of moria? At least there are orcs, there are zero regular soldiers except for the one rohan archer in Uruk Hai army. How is any suppoesd to recreate the awesome scenes from LOTR with these terrible minifig placements? That is for the fans of LOTR. If someone didn't see the movie which is probably many kids. LOTR/Hobbit was the main psuedo "castle" line, but there was simply no chance or opportunity to build an army for those that usually buy this genre. There is no appeal for collecting many of these sets. Once again, the PPP and the set size is terrible for many of these sets in comparison to what is on the shelves. For example, those ugly Chima sets that so many kids buy. Don't confuse me as a person that despises the line. I'm pointing out the flaws that everyone here knows is in the line but won't readily admit it. These flaws prevented more waves of this line that I would gladly buy. I have mines of Moria and it's a great sest. Very iconic. For an AFOL. For my kids, it isn't.

The set line for theme as been extremely lackluster at best. While some sets such as the Uruk-Hai army was well designed many other sets just weren't. Look at Dul Guldor Ambush for $20. It's plain ugly and not appealing at all to anyone kids and AFOLS. The goblin king battle. For $100 you get a tiny little set in comparison to other $100 sets. The mines of moria. Cool yes and with essential minifgures, but for $80 you barely get anything. In summary, the reason for the poor sales was the simple lack luster design and price point when compared to other sets. During the release of many of these sets, you could get much more for the same price. Hence why many kids probably passed over these sets which resulted in poor sales.

http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/2015 The wiki says that LOTR is ending in 2015. Anyone have a source?

Anyone have instructions on how to combine it like this? http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/lego/images/c/c3/2z4d7on.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width/640?cb=20130413063152