Gryphon Ink

Nice review, it's nice to get a good look at the features of the set. It looks a little more substantial than I had thought, but I'm still not crazy about this set. It's probably the only one I don't want to buy unless it goes on clearance. That's Boromir, not Aragorn, by the way. Too bad it is, since this is the only set he comes in. Boromir and the troll are the big selling points of this set in my opinion. I wonder if this set will connect with other Moria sets to come in later waves. I kind of doubt it, but it would give the set a lot more value.

Nice review. I bet this set is going to sell like crazy - aside from the one unique minifig, it's a perfect set for army builders, and even Eomer can be reused with a few part swaps. I love the ballista a little more every time I see a new picture of it. I will buy this as soon as I can, while I save up the money for Helm's Deep. My daughter wants every one of the LOTR sets except for Shelob - she hates spiders. We were in TRU the other day looking for them. Unfortunately, all they had on the shelves was Moria, which is the one set I don't plan to buy (especially at TRU markup), but even as her mom and I were talking about how Moria is nothing special, she was all "but look at the minifigs! And the troll! And there's a book, and all these other cool parts! It's a great set!" So, yeah, there ARE kids out there who want these sets. I'm sure LOTR won't be as popular with kids as, say, Ninjago and Superheroes, but it's not a completely unknown property with kids.

You could be right. Either way the design is a little odd. Both of the Dragon guys could easily be knights or bishops, and the Lions as well. I might want to do some tweaking to make it a little more obvious who is what.

Wait, you expect TLG to want to increase the value and uniqueness of a set that they're giving away for free? Thereby driving up the secondary market price, which they get no profit from?

Sounds like I'm the only one here who would like this as an actual chess set. It does make a sweet army builder, for sure, but I'd rather keep it to play chess. Which doesn't mean the figs can't still be used as reserve forces for the grand battles we have around the house from time to time! I'm pretty sure whoever took the pictures for the box art does not play chess. The jesters are most likely supposed to be bishops, not knights, since the Lions already have actual knights. If so, the Lion bishops and knights are in the wrong positions.

Easy. Those aren't fire extinguishers. They're ketchup dispensers.

Yes, No, and Maybe. I will say that I'm initially attracted to some licensed sets because of the fandom, but more often than not I will decide to buy or not based on the design, the parts and the value, not the license. Avengers is a great example. I had originally not liked Loki's Cosmic Cube Escape at all. Then I saw the movie and thought "well, now that set really makes sense, and I would like at least one Avengers set because the movie rocked the house" - but then I looked at the set's reviews again, and found that I still don't like it at all, so I haven't bought it and am not likely to. There are a few things that I just have to have, though. Star Wars is a franchise that I really don't buy much of, but it was the Luke's Landspeeder set that brought me out of my very long dark age because I HAD to have a Lego landspeeder as soon as I saw it. I'll probably buy an X-Wing at some point, too. Because, dude, it's an X-Wing. Its parts-to-price ratio sucks, and there are better Lego sets available right now, but none of them are an X-Wing.

I really thought this set would grow on me after I saw the movie, but now that I've seen it I like the set even less. I was disappointed originally that this was just one of those sets that capture a couple of scenes but don't turn them into a coherent tableau. Now I know that it doesn't even capture the scenes properly - none of the details are right in this set. It's not just one or two things that are off, but really every single thing. The only thing I really like about this one is Thor. That is one beautiful minifig. Loki is not bad, Hawkeye misses the mark, and the Hulk looks nice but loses big points for insufficient articulation.

Exactly! I'd rather buy a semi-crippled $100 train and some individual track pieces one bit at a time than shell out $200 for the "complete" set - which, as we all know, really isn't complete because once you've done that you want to do a different layout, and add another car, and hey you need a couple of crossings to intersect with your City layout, and what about this and what about that... But really, I do understand that a $100 set is never going to happen. I think the current passenger train is about as inexpensive as Trains are ever going to get. It just means that I'm probably not going to get into Trains any time soon.

First of all, I wasn't complaining. I simply stated that my personal limit on Lego spending is around $100, and that I'd like to see an entry-level train at that price point. That's what I can afford to pay for toys. If you can afford more than that, good for you. I guess you win the Internets. Secondly, it's "a bit rich" to complain about what you "have to pay" for Lego. You do realise you don't have to pay for Lego at all, right? It's a hobby, not a necessity. You make the choice to pay those prices. If the price is too high, don't buy it. But then you'd be in the same boat as me, and you wouldn't win the Internets.

Aaaaaand we've shot right into "you're not a REAL fan" territory, where frank exchange of opinions goes to die. Seriously, people? They're opinions. Much like bellybuttons, everybody has one, and mine doesn't have to be the same as yours. Some of us like OT, some of us like PT, some of us like CW, and some of us like Babylon 5. There are even a few of us around who think science fiction in general is a massive waste of time. And that's okay. The same goes for the minifigs. Yes, maybe it's silly to abstain from buying CW sets because of "a few lines of paint". But if those odd-looking minifigs make a set unattractive to someone, why should they have to buy it? And for the record, just because there is "over 100 hours of CW material" does not mean CW is good. It just means there's a lot of it. Personally, I saw a few episodes of CW and thought it was okay. Not great, not terrible either. But it didn't interest me enough to stick with it.

My favorite until yesterday was the Burrow. Not the biggest set around, not the most important Harry Potter location and definitely not the greatest play features, but SO cute and so much love in that design. Beautiful minifigs, too. As of yesterday, my new favorite is my newest acquisition, the Alien Conquest Earth Defense HQ. I've lusted after it since I saw the first teaser pics, read every glowing review including the silly reviews on Amazon and stared at it in TRU displays. I always knew it was a great set. But I really fell in love with it when I actually brought it home and built it. Aesthetically, it's a beautiful military sci-fi design. As a play set, it has unlimited possibilities based on a few great action features, a perfect selection of minifigs that allow a wide range of scenarios, and the fact that it combines military and scientific roles. It makes a great shelf model AND a great toy, and my kids spent hours playing with it yesterday and today. That's a perfect Lego set, to me.

I totally get that, and I don't blame Lego for it. It's just ugly and makes we not want to buy the sets.

I finally got the Earth Defense HQ. I am in love with it. I think I'm going to leave my wife and go off and live with it. Anyone who thinks this is crazy talk does not have an Earth Defense HQ. I think that's all the Lego I can buy until LOTR comes out. You guys always make me jealous with the pictures of your big hauls. I'm strictly one set at a time.

Love it! Very well designed. I think the engine itself looks a little underwhelming, but I get that you wanted it to look like alien tech and not just a morphed human train engine. Still, maybe you could bulk up the front end of it and solve your weight problem at the same time. Good thing the aliens use standard Lego gauge, eh? It's a nice coincidence, I just bought the EDHQ and was thinking this morning that the aliens definitely need some more firepower and ground-based vehicles to match the ADU's heavy weaponry. Such a shame AC ended so soon, I would have loved to see another wave with at least one alien tank to throw up against the HQ. This train would fill that niche very nicely!

Right there with you. I don't like the faces at all. They seem to come out okay with some of the more alien faces, but the humans in the lineup look grotesque. I don't collect much Star Wars anyway because of the high price for what you get, but the predominance of CW faces in the SW theme makes me turn away from SW altogether these days. It's a shame because even though the OT is "my" Star Wars, the PT actually has some really great vehicle designs.

I wanted to throw in my two cents and share what may be an unpopular opinion, because I've thought about buying at least one train to share with my kids. But it hasn't happened yet, because the existing train sets are too expensive. I generally don't buy any sets over $100, and I've only bought three at that price point. I just think it's a little crazy, at least at our income level, to spend more than that on a Lego set when there are infinite toys and activities available that cost far less. I do think trains are interesting "educational toys", and TLG could make money on them if they lowered the entry cost. I'd love to see a $100 intro train set, just an engine and one car, a basic track layout and PF setup, with additional structures and cars available to buy separately. I don't think it would have to be aimed at AFOLs specifically, because they already have the AFOLs covered with the more expensive train sets.

Um, yes. My daughter is very excited about it. Other kids I don't know about, but I suspect most of them don't know that there is a movie coming out. How many people were excited about the Avengers movie before they found out it was happening? The kids will hear about the Hobbit when the real marketing begins. Maybe then they will be excited, maybe not. Until then, Bigfoot lives in my house.

There was a thread on a knitting forum last week about whether it's "okay" for adults to enjoy "kid stuff". Lots of people talked about how they still like things like coloring books and cartoons, and how some of them were happy they had kids so they could get back in touch with stuff they loved as children. Naturally, Lego came up, and I'm happy to report there were people - not dedicated AFOLs, mind you - who said Lego isn't just for kids. More to the point, I mentioned that I'm saving up money so I can buy the LOTR sets when they come out. PEOPLE WENT WILD. Nobody outside of the AFOL community and the rabid LOTR fans who read the One Ring updates regularly knows that this theme is coming. I posted some details and a pic of the Helm's Deep box, and there was a lot of interest. I guarantee that a lot of adults who never had any interest in Lego will be buying these sets. I don't know if kids will get into it as well, and I'm not at all sure Lego LOTR has the same legs as LSW, but there will be buyers. My prediction is this will not get as big as SW, but will still be one of the more successful crossover themes. Definitely better than POTC and Indiana Jones, at least.

Yep, the one with the "monster truck". It looks like it should have enough pieces to build up the back of the triceratops truck into a kind of mobile headquarters, with maybe even a turret on the top since it does have a turntable. At first sight I thought it even had the same tires as the triceratops set, which had me all excited for a six-wheeled vehicle. But I guess those aren't the right tires after all. Sadly, I don't have very many yellow pieces except for Technic beams.

Once again I'm in total agreement with you. Maybe I'm just being petty, but if you claim to be a big fan of the movies, you should probably not mispronounce EVERY! SINGLE! NAME! in your video review. That minifig is not Eragon, dude. That was a different series. That said, it was an informative review and pretty much confirmed that I am buying this set.

I just bought this set. I wanted at least one Dino set, and this seemed like the best one to represent the theme. The pricing is not quite as ridiculous as it might seem. You don't get many pieces, but they are big pieces, and the truck is apocalyptic. It looks like something from Avatar. The triceratops is beautiful, too. I do think they should have thrown in at least one more minifig - the two guys here seem kind of lonely - and at least a little standalone plant for the trike to munch on. It would have made the set seem much more substantial and worth the price. Now the truck is just screaming, "militarize me!!" I wonder if you could combine it with a Raptor set to build it into more of a tank.

Looks like a great set. Like others have said, it begs comparison to Star Wars vehicles and comes out the clear winner. I don't think Black Widow looks that bad - the problem with BW as a character is that she's totally nondescript, a real generic super-femme-fatale, so I'm not surprised her minifig has the same problem. The real letdown for me here is the villains. Bad enough having Loki again, but those alien warriors look absolutely terrible.

Because (in my opinion) it makes his head too big. Minifig design shouldn't be compromised in an effort to capture a nonessential play feature. I understand that there are plenty of people who think he looks fine, and I'm totally okay with that. I personally think it looks silly and out of place in the superhero lineup.

I totally agree. His head is as big as his torso! I know minifigs aren't exactly anatomically correct or even roughly proportionate, but this just looks silly. It's such a gimmick, too. Iron Man has no more reason to have a lift-away faceplate than any other hero. Batman and Catwoman both revealed their identities multiple times in the comics and the movies, but neither one of their minifigs has this kind of silliness. The Batman minifig is made in such a way that you really CAN'T pose him with his cowl off. Loki's helmet horns are also oversized, although not quite as bad.