Haltiamieli

While it's great to hear how rich everyone is was, could we just agree that all the fans of the theme should buy as much as they can... whether that means 17th Uruk-Hai Army or the first. These possessions lists do get a bit tedious after a while, no offence.

I can get the black and dark bley bricks I need from BL, so certainly Lórien.

Storywise it wouldn't make much sense to use the pieces from micromanagers, as they are the threat that causes the characters to redesign their vehicles.

That's why I put the s in parenthesis.

Rohan Battle Pack, hands down. Even in the worst case scenario (lame build, repetition of earlier Rohan minifig(s), no new molds) Rohan Battle Pack would be at least a passable set, Mount Doom more or less requires the best case scenario (including Sauron and/or other Second Age figs, somehow managing an interesting build against all odds) to be any good at all.

Oo, a reddish brown 1x1 round stud with a hole. That would be very welcome!

Err... Tolkien did indeed update The Hobbit a bit to make it agree with LotR better, true, but only in one case he did considerable rewriting: The Riddles in the Dark, which played out quite differently in the original. Of course the book started as stories told to Tolkien's children, but even the first published version of 1937 was quite the same thing we have today. He did contemplate bigger rewrite, but in the end decided it wasn't worth it - the end result would have been a completely different and possibly less enchanting tale. As to whether it was part of overall mythos, that's debatable. All of the legendarium was still unpublished and thus in a fluid state, changing constantly and without clear borders. The story had some loose elements from his earlier stories from very early on, even if it took The Lord of the Rings to put the book definitely in its place in Middle-earth history. I'd like to know a bit more of that (before I believe you). "my buddy the Historian and professional researcher" "who dug up and read much of the supporting LotR documents a few years ago" is quite too vague for my liking, considering this is something I have never heard of or even hinted about. Maybe you mean Tolkien's comments on Zimmerman's screenplay sketch from the late 50s? That I haven't read in its entirety, though I find it odd that no one would have publicized such a juicy and unique bit.

That's not a pope but Sinterklaas, a version of Santa Claus popular in parts of continental Europe. The picture, I presume, is from Lego's webpages. Doubt it's ever going to see the light of day as a real minifigure, but it would be a cool figure for sure.

True enough, but that's more or less the story of all my favourite projects too. If I am to have any hope in them, I have to hope that in the long run the supporting patterns may still change a bit. Undoubtedly the vast majority of AFOLs is currently either indifferent or somewhat disillusioned when it comes to Cuusoo. But every new Cuusoo product (or refinement of Cuusoo system) may spark interest in some of them, which in turn could result in even "nonlicenced" projects (which cannot rely on outside-of-fandom support) getting a bit more votes. Hopefully, though I haven't been too impressed with the other Rome projects I've found either, they tend to propose bland and/or huge sets. In comparison The Glory of Rome even with all of its failings seemed to be one of the better thought out ones. But maybe the best one is yet to come. :)

Hmm, is that roboskeleton normal bley? If so, it'll be great for statues and reliefs. Sans the robo head, of course. Somehow I've presumed it to be completely of some metallic colour, which is a bit silly of me.

The clarification of the rules sounds good, though it's a bit sad that for example The Glory of Rome theme project, long ago deserted by its creator, will presumably get deleted "wasting" 3700 supports. I think a set idea could have been chosen and (vetted from new pieces) it could have still satisfied most of the supporters and have a fighting chance of surviving through the review. I was kind of hoping that if the project would have ever got close to 10000 supporters the creator's interest would have awoken.

And it was easier for Lego to market the new theme when it is "really something new" instead of just a bit tweaked City. Thus previously uninterested girls take notice and get interested but boys don't feel alienated. As a side effect this scheme had the potential to alienate those girls who already were Lego fans, and to some extent we can see it did, but mostly they too have probably either embraced or ignored Friends in their spending habits. Long term consequences of the introduction of the minidoll are an interesting question: Does Lego have a plan, and for how many years? It is, however, rather impossible to answer with our knowledge.

As you said, high heels may explain some cases but it's not a very good explanation for others - ymmv, but the peasant women of my Castle builds are certainly not walking around in high heels. The height difference is small enough that it doesn't bother me too much, but ideally the dress piece would match the height of legs piece.

Simulated wear and unique mold for a "cracked" helmet, cf. link Lyichir shared recently in this thread:

I'd like a new dress piece with similar studs to normal leg piece, so that the minifigs with dress piece wouldn't snap from the middle so easily. At the same time they could correct the height issue too. And they should avert printing bare skin on torsos whenever possible, so that one could use either flesh-toned or yellow head. Those are my main gripes.

I think it's more that her eyes are printed rather low and thus closer to mouth, which makes them seem more apart? It's probably because of the hairpiece which might otherwise hide her eyebrows underneath, but it does make her face look a bit off.

I've yet to acquire any Series 11 figures, as hunting the ones I want from BL for acceptable price is just too bothersome compared to physically visiting nearby stores and feeling the packages for a while. All in all the non-availability of Series 11 has sort of lessened my interest in the theme as a whole, or distanced me from the (relative) buying frenzy I had with a few preceding series. That may result in me buying less of the "so-so" Series 12 figures (figures that aren't that cool or novel or useful for me as whole but have an interesting part or two) than I would have done in series past. I think themed or licenced waves (The Lego Movie, The Simpsons, MMOG, what ever comes after) are, on the whole, a wise choice to keep the theme moving and evolving instead of stagnating in the same model until it dies out. Let's just hope we'll get many more waves, licenced and/or not. I have no problem skipping some series like The Simpsons completely if it keeps other series more fitting for me coming now and then. MMOG series could be the bestest ever.

I suspect he misspoke and actually meant either one of the Dwarven rings (obtained from Thráin) or one of the nine rings given to men. I don't see anything that PJ could gain from introducing new set of rings. But, well, who knows. :P Anyway, at least it isn't The One Ring.

This is rather off-topic and really nitpicky, but actually the blue wizards are not named or mentioned even in The Silmarillion, nor are their colour specified in the LotR (in theory Jackson & co. pushed their luck when Gandalf mentions the blue wizards in the movie, names or not... but not even the Tolkien Estate is that trigger-happy). Blue Wizards, Ithryn Luin, is a name they are given in an unfinished essay published in Unfinished Tales, while their specific names, Alatar and Pallando, are from a related note (also published in UT). Then again Tolkien did give them different names, Morinehtar and Rómestámo (or something like that), in a very late in life piece of writing that has been published in History of Middle-earth XII.

The gateway does look somewhat better than I expected (the part above the gate especially), but really nothing to write home about. Just compare what City and Western builders are getting: new exciting figures, designs and vehicles... we get a gateway building we are bound to get in every Castle wave anyway and two common figs from the latest theme (and one unrelated to Castle, though the torso could be useful). Nevertheless it's certainly better than nothing, especially with absurdly high piece count - 424 pieces, really? How? The set looks quite like The Gatehouse Raid but has more pieces than Dragon Mountain!

So 70812 and 70813 are NOT 2 in 1 builds even though they are clearly based on similar scenes as 70804, 70805, 70806 and 70811. That is kinda sorta cool, actually, as 70812 and 70813 obviously still have good assortment of pieces to make one's own alternative build. Boosting creativity! Or maybe alternative builds will be downloadable extra content? Didn't think I'd ever see a portable toilet in an official Lego set!

I voted for Lincoln, though Shakespeare and Wild West Wyldstyle are not far behind. Lincoln is iconic and well-executed (is that a politically correct statement?), but something that really wouldn't have worked in usual generic series (Shakespeare I think could have appeared as "Playwright" and maybe even WW Wyldstyle as something like "Goth Girl"). I appreciate the chance to get, for a change, some slightly different figures than we've got in the past series. Some of the other figures are a bit too tightly tied to the movie, but that's the price we have to pay, and many of them still provide us with very nice pieces.

I too favour the Black Falcons. They are nicely ambiguous on good or evil scale and have distinctive heraldry and colours. And pretty good sets too, like possibly the best siege engine Lego has ever produced - it's so beautifully grotesque and utilitarian, and shoots rather well. I'm a bit too young to have really experienced the heyday of Black Falcons, I was more concerned with being born, learning to walk and all that stuff, but luckily I have a five years older brother so my childhood collection included/includes quite a few of them. Maybe that's part of the reason why I favour them so high, they were sort of "stuff of the legends" for me even back then. Other great factions from the days of yore are Forestmen and Wolfpack. Of the numerous lion factions my favourite is Kingdoms lions. In the dragon category, on the other hand, I can't pick a clear favourite, there's too many good ones.

Bob's Kabobs can be seen in the one of the Bricksburg pictures on the Lego site... has a bit different colour scheme and pieces that the thing in 70812, it seems? Fire Brigade with an added floor in the background.

They could rename the series LEGO Collectible Minifigures (instead of just LEGO Minifigures, as they are officially known nowadays). That would be funny. Well, obviously that wouldn't be different enough to really draw a line between the old and new series, seriously speaking. But I agree that it seems very improbable that Lego would just return to numbered series like nothing happened after The Lego Movie series, The Simpsons series and whatnot. That would really confound customers, whether Lego would decide to skip the unnumbered series in the numbering system or not.