Haltiamieli

It does look significantly bigger than Winter Village sets too. To me that would suggest a one-off set rather than start of a series. It could be around for three or even four Halloweens anyway. One interesting question is whether the set would include other minifigs than the two ghosts visible? Even if the set turns out to be a Monster Fighters exclusive in name, I find it hard to picture any of the heroes included. They are quite silly, after all.

Does it matter how "silly" the theme is if the D2C set looks great by itself? Fantasy Era of the Castle had a lot of silly elements and the Medieval Market Village was part of that theme, but still it wasn't exactly a silly set.

That looks sweet! I really hope it will be an official product. There are other things than Modular Houses in Lego's D2C roster, like the Medieval Market Village or the Kingdoms Joust. I hope and believe it's an upcoming set like those, whether or not it will be officially tied with Monster Fighters. By the looks of it it will be an instant buy for me.

Two sets were chosen when Cuusoo was still restricted to Japan only: Shinkai and Hayabusa.

I think he means the insides of the outer wall of Hornburg itself, the longer curved wall with the gate. I don't think I have seen any pictures of that either, though FBTB has so many pictures that I could have simply forgot. But it would be interesting to see how the side door exit looks from the inside, and the window holes.

No, those are normal 2 studs wide panels, as can be seen in this picture of the backside of the Uruk-hai Army wall structure, in FBTB's photostream. I hope at least parts of the Hornburg walls are simply two studs thick so that the panels would look natural also from the inside. If not, it's probably not hard to mod.

Poor Frodo, he shouldn't have trusted Sam's gardening skills to be applicable to barbering. Even Gollum is aghast.

Oh my. It seems that we are a bit late. Well, at least we can watch the games from the audience and return back to our far northern homelands unscathed. Looking at all the mighty participants from the exotic and lavish lands I must wonder if Koli son of Luosto could ever have survived in these games, as strong and able as he is. And this drow city, the sight of it chills our bones worse than hardest winter nights. It reminds us of the scattered ruins we have in the north, said to be remnants of some ancient renegade wizards' and sorceress' towers from whence they slaved the surrounding tribesfolk to do their bidding. Those ruins are still evil and dangerous to be around, even after millenia... And the towers of this drow city are still inhabited.

Working now.

Awesome, just awesome. I need to start seeking for a well-paying job. I'm gonna be in serious need of money this summer. (And those cheese slopes in Orc Forge are indeed olive green. Sorry for doubting your elven sight, CallMePieOrDie.)

Aren't they dark tan? Olive green wouldn't make much sense in that scene. I like the rock details of the base in Helm's Deep, but in Orc Forge it just feels like waste of bricks that could have gone to the structure itself. Makes great parts packs, and might look good on adult collector's shelf, but two bricks high base doesn't have much playability or interesting building experience.

Yes and no. It is not an exact replica of this design - the details of the prints are different, and I would say that even the crest of the headpiece is slighly different. Nevertheless the swamp creature of this theme is by no doubt designed by Toth too, it is just a little bit updated version.

Yeah, those were the first pictures to leak, iirc Toy fair reports have confirmed that the horses do indeed have articulated hind legs.

Read him the books The Hobbit isn't even that long - LotR on the other hand might take some time. And maybe necessitate skipping some of the scariest parts.

Judging from the German Toy Fair picture, it seems that all the sets in LotR theme will have the new hind-leg-articulated horses (Gandalf's Carriage, Uruk-hai Attack, Weathertop and Helm's Deep). It remains to be seen how well this new mold sits side by side with the old classic one. It seems that the head may have been redesigned with less angular style. But it's hard to say before better pics.

As in "I saw the set at the toy fair/I have other inside information" or "there is a throne room in Hornburg fortress in the movie"? Just checking, these things tend to be confused sometimes. I have to say I'm maybe a bit surprised if there's a throne room in the set, as the exterior design does not include the inner part of the fortress where the hall would be. But then again condensing things in set design is common and understandable, and some playable interior would certainly make the set less "just figs and grey walls".

I agree with your observation, and even started a similarly themed topic on the Action subforum a while back. Your topic has a clearer name, I have to admit.

That pic has been linked in this topic a few times already. Which might mean it shouldn't be linked anymore, but there was some posts asking for it or trying to link to it. I wonder what part is used for the side door of the Helm's Deep? It looks somewhat like this, but I thought it went out of the fashion at least when the other door changed its hinge mechanism?

There has yet been only one grainy pic of The Orc Forge, taken by Huw of Brickset. Here is the complete picture in Flickr, here are crops of all the sets separately.

Close-up pics in Facebook (closer than I've yet seen at least). Gollum design is growing on me. I don't want to burn it right away anymore. Everything else is more or less pure awesomeness.

Awesome, except Gollum. Bloody hell that looks horrible.

I can't understand a word of French, but through Google Translate I do understand that according to this French message forum Alexandre Boudon aka Toth has indeed been working as concept designer for Lego since 2010. Apparently the Space Marine from CMF Series 7 is also his design. I just hope some of his historical/fantastic design will be seen in the future too! "What I can tell you is that the coming years will be terrible. each year is even stronger than the previous one ... and if 2012 promises, I believe that 2013 is even stronger. And we are already working to make 2014 a bomb! Lego saw a fantastic time at the moment. there is a tremendous positive energy in its premises and I think we finally dares to explore themes so far put sides. years of madness into perspective for both children and for AFOL. it will hurt the wallet!" Doesn't sound bad at all! Except the translation.

While I don't see any prefab wall pieces in the Uruk-hai Attack, there's definitely at least a few of them in the Helm's Deep: in Huw's photo from the toy fair you can see that one of the prefab pieces behind Haldir has been put facing the wrong way, making a dent in the wall. Interestingly it seems that the windows of the outer wall are slimmer, so they are apparently not prefab. If the fortress is 1300 pieces as has been claimed, about 7 wall pieces isn't too bad. Weathertop seems to have the function to open wide with hinges, which is interesting as no interior of the hill was shown in the movies.

Hear, hear! Words of wisdom. Admittedly I can't understand why anyone would want to pay to get anything as ugly/boring as that (not saying that the MOC is bad or ugly, just that the thing it it portraying is). But then again, I haven't ever played Minecraft so I probably can't understand. I can't understand many other things either.

Probably not necessary per ce, but at least it does save quite a lot of material.