Metanoios

A set like Helms Deep or Edoras are far more likely. A home for the Rohirrim... And eventually a remake of Orthanc

Looking closely at the two white statues I think they are reusing the crown and hair piece from Aragorn recoloured in white for at least one of the statues, could als be both. The one on the left is not clearly visible in the footage. The one on the right of the hall has a beard and from the side profile of the hair piece it looks like the crown

The 2 side sections of the front wall have 2 of the looser ball socket connectors towards the gate in light grey (that wre previously used with cars/trucks and their corresponding trailers) and 2 tan axle connectors towards the back of the model that should lock them in place but make it easy enough to remove

The set contains 2 statue minifigures in the hall of kings, so theoretically it is 12 minifigs plus Shadowfax. I hope the white tree placards below the two white statues in the Hall of Kings are also printed but could be stickers. Overall I think they could keep this set sticker free

Minas Tirith looks great. Since they included 4 additional smaller scene locations in the removable sections already which depict smaller scenes/easter eggs like the Archives from Fellowship, Houses of Healing (or on second thought that could be the room with balcony where Gandalf and Pippin have their "The Deep Breath Before the Plunge" scene), Palantir and the pyre, I think logically that leaves only a few locations/scenes for the GWP. For the usual size of the GWP I could imagine either the Beacon of Gondor with an additional Gondor soldier minifig or alternatively since they chose to keep the gate in a kind of minifig scale Grond with an Orc minifig on the Pelennor. Regarding new pieces/moulds we get the cloth piece for Arwen's Gondor banner, Aragorns crown with hair, Gondor soldier helmet. A lot of new prints like an additonal Palantir print depicting on one side the Eye of Sauron (otherside is not visible), 1x1 floor tile pattern in the Hall of Kings, 1x2 scroll in the archives (could be a reuse from Harry Potter). Aragorn's armor looks like it's the final design of the print but the Gondor soldiers seem to have a kind of sticker decal applied to them (which hopefully wille be a print in the final version). Pippin shares the torso with the other 4 Gondor soldiers. Aragorn and Arwen have arm-printing and Arwen has a new head print. Recoloured pieces include the Hylian shield from Zelda unprinted in I think a medium nougat colour and the large technic gear section in black for the arch. Also Faramir hair piece is a recolour in dark orange from a Friends hair peice

There are six new orc helmets in the set (two of the more generic ones appear twice and the two unique ones each for Frodo and Sam) and also 4 of the new shields. One is used as an improvised bench in the kitchen, two in the armoury display stand and the one the olive green orc is holding. What the designers allude to here is that the decision to make the design an actual set might have been dependent on the success of Rivendell but they definitely didn't start designing it from scratch after the Rivendell release. The survey leak with Barad-Dur happened even before Rivendell was released, so it was already designed and almost finished before Rivendell was officially unveiled. Their might have been a few pieces like the new helmet molds that were just digitally designed and only in the prototype phase but the build and rough minifig selection was definitely completed at that point. Management at Lego can occasionaly scrap finished sets even last minute as can be seen with Inidana Jones Temple of Doom, Overwatch, Vidiyo (which had more than a complete wave scrapped just before release), when there is uncertainty of the financial viability or if there is fear of a bad impression on the brand identity

The pieces are indeed dark brown, reddish brown and few even from the nougat colour range. The lego model obviously follows the older Weta collectible very closely in colour choices, where Weta also had reddish brownish shading on top of the tower and also on some lower parts to simulate illuminated parts, rust and a generally more weathered look, not just mono-chromatic black. Some pieces like the speed champion slopes from last year in dark brown do not yet come in black, although you could leave them and only replace the nougat and reddish brown parts since dark brown is already very close to black. The use of brown pieces on the model around the eye etc. was also visible in the survey pic

Looks like the designers are using two light yellow 62361 Vehicle, Mudguard 1 1/2 x 6 x 1 with Arch https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=62361&idColor=90#T=S&C=103&O={"color":"103","iconly":0}

It's the sorcereress on the top-right side of the bridge, next to the displacer beast. She has a small staff (with the normal trans-light blue jewel and monkey kid handle piece), a spell book and a dress piece just like the left silhouette with a new hair mould (in the set in dark brown with medium nougat elf ears)

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Myconid

Additional brick-built creatures besides the reddish-orange dragon and the beholder are an owl bear and a displacer beast. The minifigs seem to represent a Dragonborn bard, a warrior, white-haired druid, a rogue, a wizard/sorcerer and a black-robed figure with a staff on top of the tower (not clear if this is a kind of final boss character or also a player character like a warlock) It looks like the druid is using the white Gandalf/Dumbledore beard with the new goblin hair mould in white (with the long pointy ears)

Owl bear, displacer beast and a beholder are the 3 brickbuilt creatures. The dragon is now a red dragon with cloth wings. The minifigs are a green Dragonborn bard (recolour of vidyo dragon head), a rogue, a warrior, a white haired High-Elven druid, a conjourer with a book and a black-robed warlock on top of the tower by the looks of it. Furthermore there is a small myconid colony under the bridge (using the Dreamzz bodies for 2 of the myconids).

Oh man, you are right. Lego will probably leave out the 20 completely essential Mordor lava cows. Everyone knows that this is a key character in the Mount Doom scenes when the ring is destroyed. How will we be able to recreate those scenes, if they cut the budget and leave out all those beautiful cows??? The deserted wasteland surrounding Barad-Dur will be devoid of any farm animals that would have enticed me to buy the set 5 times

It had the funding in the first ten minutes after the sale went live. It is almost sold out. All of the projects have reached the funded state

The set introduces a completely new wooden-panel-style door piece which can fit a square window lattice piece or the small window glass piece. It can be seen on the right building part of the farm building (tan and brown building with the fences on the back of it and the dark tan roof). Also there are more hidden easter eggs that are not directly shown on the main product photographs. Including new nano-figs and exclusive shield printing. We are getting a ton of useful civilian torsos and exclusive prints (more than in any previous single castle set). For me personally this set is an upgrade compared to the previous Medieval Market village because the buildings are more diverse and detailed. I can understand the disappointment regarding the number of animals but most of the animals in the prelim were just plain boring reuses. I much rather like to see fewer animals with new recolours and "new" moulds like the dbg goat than a a dozen animals that were available for the last two years in other sets and on the Lego PAB online store.