Haltiamieli

I don't see anything like that. Could you take a screencap?

Though actually according to the book the outer wall of Minas Tirith, unlike the inner walls up the hill, was made of a dark substance like Orthanc, Saruman's tower. This detail was not carried to the design used in the movies.

That's some awesome news. As much as I like Lego LotR (I really do), it was very unfortunate that Kingdoms had to end so soon. And I certainly wouldn't complain about any additional Monster Fighters set either.

The emblem of Gondor is the White Tree on a black field, to be exact (and the Rohan emblem in the books is a whole white horse on a green field, in the movies it's not that unified though). Gondorians in the movies tended to have more or less rectangular shield, so the shield from the CMF Roman Soldier would be good. And rohirrim will undoubtedly use the round shield Éomer already has in Uruk-hai Attack set, but one decorated with the white horse would certainly be nice. I don't recall that many red eyes of Sauron in the shields of his forces in the movies, but I might be mistaken?

I too am hoping to use at least Sam with yellow head, he has a nice and useful torso except the flesh triangle, which is hopefully small enough not to bother me too much. After all I am using for example Gibbs' torso from PotC with a yellow head and I don't think it looks that bad. He just has three shirts, apparently. I think Gandalf's torso will be good for a Franciscan mendicant monk – especially as it seems probable that Lego will never officially release such a figure.

Until Lego releases an official statement, take any rumourmongering and Brickipedia pages with an ocean's worth of salt. An ambiguous change in graphics is not a confirmation.

If you are referring to this picture, it was part of the 2010 portfolio that got Alexandre Boudon aka Toth his current job as a Lego designer. There's more of his designs on this Flickr page. Many of them have already seen life as CMFs or parts of Monster Fighters theme. Hopefully more will be done in the future. But no, that picture has no direct relation to Series 8.

That would be quite a niche product indeed. I presume the vast majority of even the dedicated Castle fans would rather welcome a series with other heraldic symbols. Also, associating jacks with bishops seems rather random (and skirting religion improbable for Lego to make), I'm not aware of such tradition? Jacks tend to be depicted as soldiers or servants. If anything, I think aces would be more fitting rank for bishops. Then again, as a minifigure customisation project I think a full deck of four suits of unique minifigures (52 + jokers) would be an awesome idea.

Are you referring to the mentioned tweets from Hasbro employees? Because otherwise that seems to be just a FB supporting group of the (now shelved) project, advicing people to contact Hasbro in support of the theme?

Well, what else could they do? Say the next series will be rather dull* and includes some repetitions? Stay silent? Marketing people will always use hyperbole. And presuming that something must be especially cool if the secret holds better than usual is quite flawed way of thinking and often leads to disappointments. It could be mere chance that it took so long for this series to leak, or maybe they kept it better under radar because of the upcoming Team GB series, or some other reason. * Not my opinion, at least not yet.

If this was just someone's speculative list that had got out (with or without intention) and misinterpreted as a genuine leak, as sometimes happens, I don't think it would include a vampire, cause most everybody knows that there already was one in Series 2 and there's the whole Monster Fighters theme coming out. For example I haven't checked but I suspect there's not a single Vampire guess in the whole Guessing Game topic.

I'm gonna be very disappointed with Lego if they name an american football player "Football Player" Doesn't sound like the most epic series for me, but I reserve most of my judgement until we see pictures or at least get some confirmation of the reality of this rumour. I'm pretty sure diver is old-time diver with a round diving helmet. Trader is an interesting enigma as it could mean so many things. And obviously Vampire is a strange choice, why now? But actually that's the thing that makes this rumour most believable to me: few fans would put Vampire into their speculation list.

I was mostly thinking about the first Hobbit wave, though now I see I didn't write so. A set like "The Gates of Erebor" centered on the Battle of Five Armies could very well be the flagship set of the (all but certain) second Hobbit wave. Erebor is of course a frigging mountain (not something to make a Lego set from), but I suppose even just the gates or so could have enough fortifications in the film to justificate a big Lego structure that could be called a castle or fortress. But we won't see Erebor until movie part 2. Of Dol Guldur I'm not sure whether it will be in the first or the second film, so it could be a flagship set. Depends on how it is portrayed and how much time is spent on it in the film. Personally I think they would rather choose some scene more centered on Bilbo's journey. Both Goblin Town and Thranduil's Halls are underground structures and as such little problematic to portray in Lego. Then again they might even center the wave on small-to-medium sets and let Helm's Deep stay the biggest one for a half year longer.

Sets that are exclusive to one retailer or something like that? I suppose TLC gets nice deals out of those, retailers of course are happy to market a set that you can't get anywhere else (except Lego Stores and S@H).

And the second wave of Kingdoms had a barn as the flagship set. A pretty awesome barn of course, with a windmill included, but hardly a castle or fortress. So I don't think we can make much predictions about the future based on that. Besides, there's more or less no castles in The Hobbit so probably the Hobbit wave will be castle-less too.

I just added the Space Marine and the Bride to my collection (an unlikely couple!). Nice figs both of them, though I admit I don't completely get why they designed the new helmet the way they did, so that no visor can be added (though I do understand the cost-cutting/artistic decision not to include one with the figure). I don't have any of the new round 1x1 tiles yet, would one (transclear maybe) look good on the breastplate of the armour, "Iron Man style"? 1x1 stud looks a bit awkward.

While I'm personally even rather happy that they decided to use stickers instead of printing a heap of bricks and thus limiting their usability and at the same time provided us with a nice sheet of stickers that includes many useful ones that can be used wherever one wants to in MOCs etc., the designers' need to rely on a whole lot of printed details (regardless of whether they are on stickers or on bricks themselves) does in a way imply that maybe indeed the set wasn't thought to be interesting enough without them. There's not much colour or eye-catching elements in it and the overall appearance is rather cluttered. Certainly I do not deny that the set is recognisable, there's all the important storypoint things like the tomb and the well, it's probably more or less as recognisable as it can be with the chosen subject matter, I just doubt it being the most recognisable one (sans figs) or even close to being one.

While I partly agree with you on the slightly questionable subject choices (though with iconic stuff you just cannot win when compared to SW), I don't see how Mines of Moria is any exception to that. On the contrary to me it is the set that perhaps suffers most from the problem you described: it's a group of awesome minifigs and not very recognisable grey blocks of bricks. Not to say that the designers haven't done an admirable job trying to realise the environment from the screen to Lego bricks, but the subject matter just isn't that iconic to begin with. Funny how opinions can vary! While I hope to own all the Lego LotR sets someday, Mines of Moria is the one I'm probably getting last. I could even easily skip it if I could buy the figs cheaply enough (not gonna happen though, them being cheap enough). I don't think I can say the same of any other set from the first wave, though Weathertop is unfortunately expensive. I did vote for the Helm's Deep, which is all kinds of awesome (and quite recognisable even without the minifigs, I think), though it feels a bit unfair considering that the smaller sets have hard time competing with the huge and expensive flagship set? But really I think Gandalf Arrives could have surpassed Helm's Deep in my books if it had just a few parts of foliage or something to suggest lush and peaceful setting of The Shire. I'm really surprised if we don't see both of those before the line is finished. Of Bag End I'm not so sure, I think the best chance is in the first wave for The Hobbit, representing the Unexpected Party.

I'd guess it's either a Roman emperor to go with the soldier or a Wild West sheriff to go with the bandit. A centurion would be too similar to the Roman soldier - if we ever get one, it won't be yet. I think.

One possible reason is Ghost Train from Monster Fighters, maybe they decided that it wouldn't be profitable enough to release two wacky action-theme trains on the same year and the MF train took precedence.

Oh! How did I forgot bulls/oxen?! Very important working animals in the Middle Ages. I'm gonna have to retcon them into my list. Sorry boars, you've been displaced.

Lego has already done more than a hundred figures, it would be mindless for Playmobil to try to avoid using the same ideas. All things considered I think there's surprisingly few figs that could be construed as copied from Lego. Even the ones that are based on similar ideas (punk rocker, mariachi player, Cleopatra, geisha, ice hockey player, grenadier guard, Statue of Liberty...) are mostly realised in an original way that doesn't look like direct copying. Besides, Playmobil is one of the very best toymakers around and quite far from garbage.

I've heard that there might have been a practical reason for the eye patch, not related to eye injuries: the eye behind the patch stayed adapted to dark, and when one descended below deck he could change the patch over the other eye without losing time/initiative getting accustomed to the darker environment. My brother tested this once and said it worked rather well. Ironically, this captain seems to lack an eye patch but possess the hook - and probably a peg leg too.

There's a minor error in the introductory article, as chickens and goats were actually released at the same time in the second Kingdoms wave. My top 5 wish list for new animal molds (not in any particular order) is something like * sheep * deer * wolf * boar ox/bull * falcon "Exotic" animals like giraffe, lion and rhinoceros would be nice too, but I wouldn't personally have much use for them in my mocs and scenarios, so they don't get to the top five. Even penguins are omitted for that reason, as adorable as they are. Any new birds would be cool though, like a stork, a swan, an eagle, a domestic duck or a raven... But those I suppose are mighty unlikely, unfortunately.

The ghost(s) have legs also in this pic, and in the set cover picture. Remains to be seen if there's legs in the final product. Personally I hope against them.