Lordhelmet

Agreed that there is no reason for them to stop charging higher prices. It doesn’t make the practice good, good would be driving value for customers while maintaining good profit margins to be a thriving business. but there is no incentive for them to do that, so instead we see quality slipping, shortcuts taken (reused prints, stickers), and prices going up faster than inflation. So I think it is good to call them out on that practice even though there is no incentive for them to change (short of good competition, or people just stopping collecting and building)

I agree about fixing the party tree, but also agree with the original post that the side builds make the set feel more well rounded and that it is the shire. I am disappointed about the price (especially in light of Lego financial performance) and the side builds probably contributed to the increase, but they do make the set feel more shire-ish and I think that is a good thing.

MBS Jabbas palace. The main throne room area and the droid room, with the following minifigure line up. Jabba han in carbonite bousch salacious crumb luke c-3po han chewie lando r2d2 oola lyn me Bib Gamorean Ree Yees Quaren rystall joh yowza sy snootles Saelt marae greeta 8d8 ev-9d9

We are definitely missing a lot here, are there any aliens at all in this years line up? Plo, and a kaminoan from the rumors?

Not let down by the set at all, just the price. Minis Tirith or Gondor has to be next, I am good with a future helms deep but Gondor is needed.

While I like the idea of getting two extra minifigs through the Sméagol set. I would have preferred something closer to the main set. Like a Nazgûl on horseback with farmer maggot and his dog (probably too many printed pieces in that idea). Or a Nazgûl with the small tree on the road side. i can’t imagine another chance to get Sméagol and deagol though so i am not disappointed in getting those two minifigs. If that does turn out to be correct.

I hope not, but the rumor has less pieces than the Frodo/Gollum Brickheadz, not sure they can do two hobbits with that few pieces. The two extra minifigures make the $270 ok (not good, or great, just ok) - puts it at $25 per mini figure.

That fell beast was great to build. It felt so good building a small LOtR set again.

I will probably take the side builds and combine them separately from the set. The party was not that close to bag end and combining the party scene and expanding it is probably going to be what I do with it vs. expanding the whole base. I might also make the proudfoot home and lane where Gandalf shoots the fireworks (but good luck figuring that one out because they renamed the homes and the references are limited in the movie). Since we can recreate that scene with the minifigures.

I love the LOTR sets so I don't want to bash the costs too much (I thought Rivendell was fair), I thought Barad Dur was ok with the gwp, this one is ok with a gwp, - it had better be all printed parts on the exterior shots we saw. I agree though with the overall cost bumps beyond inflationary costs making me lose interest in Lego overall. I have already narrowed my lego purchases significantly (I am only planning on 5 sets this year). It is hard to find value in sets anymore. I think a lot of them are cool, or look good but the bump in prices take the interest out for me. So now instead of buying sets outside the themes I collect (which I frequently used to do) I only buy sets from the two areas I collect, and soon I will have achieved my Star Wars collection goals and only buy LOTR sets going forward. Lego really needs to figure out a way to get better value to customers so the decision is based on how the set looks vs. how much it costs which almost instantly zaps interest when they look for the extra 10% which we know is already above where they are comfortably profitable.

Ouch, Lego almost was super cool on a set. Even 250 seemed reasonable for what is there but the extra 20 is the part that makes me laugh.

Lobelia would have been perfect, but on the bright side it would be a lot easier to do a proudfoot home moc and recreate that scene. new wishlist, hobbit battle pack (but instead of swords they have food, and pitchforks) and the side build is just a fence next to corn or another crop with a small path.

I haven’t seen it anywhere else yet either. That would be a cool gwp, it doesn’t really fit the set, but that scene is really a stand alone anyway, and getting two new characters is awesome. I love the set, and am happy with the minifigures. I also can’t believe that we could potentially be getting Rosie, the proud feet, Sméagol and Deagol before Eowyn, the witch king, or faramir (or any Gondor). Crazy to think about but not complaining about the set, it is great, the price is good, the minifigure count is spot on and the selection was right ($22 per minifigure). I am also hoping we will get some torsos and legs in pick a brick to build a few extra hobbits (especially Sméagol and deagol prints).

Where do you see that?

Love the fact we got a bunch of hobbits I see Rosie and some proud feet. I think it looks good, love the new prints for repeat characters. Day one buy for me (hopefully they don’t run out of gwp too fast).

I’d be good with some ST sets every year, makes those fans happy and gives me some slots for sets I know I won’t buy to save some money. Just like I am sure some fans don’t want any OT sets and they would think similarly. i do think there should be at least one OT playset released every year. I don’t care what they do with the rest of the theme but at least one would be good. i do find it interesting that the last time we had no direct OT sets corresponded to a Death Star release. We are two years out from the 50th anniversary of a New Hope, it might make sense for them to maximize Episode IV sets on the shelves for 2027 so assuming we will see a lot (and Mando for the movie) over the next two years.

I don’t know if identifying a trend that is broken after 25 years is the same as identifying a “fun fact”. Being disappointed about something that has been consistent for so long in the theme (I think more than the imperial thing is the lack of any OT playsets) is fair. The OT is the core of Star Wars (not knocking other media some of which is great and some not great). But not having any OT playsets in a year is a big deal. Here is a list of OT playlets from each year 1999 (5). 2000 (5) 2001 (4). 2002 (6). 2003 (7). 2004 (5) 2005 (3) 2006 (7) 2007 (5) 2008 (0*) 2009 (5) 2010 (6) 2011 (3) 2012 (7) 2013 (4) 2014 (6) 2015 (3) 2016 (3) 2017 (3) 2018 (7) 2019 (10) 2020 (5) 2021 (3) 2022 (4) 2023 (2) 2024 (3) 2025 (0) *0 in 2008 excludes the Imperial dropship battle pack and rebel battle pack that we just had the remake for. These numbers are based on brickset for each movie and would exclude 0T themed things that were not from the a particular movie. These number include retail sets from the year for episodes 4-6 and exclude things like midi scale, poly bags, UCS, MBS etc. (so just looking at play sets). Also interesting that 2008 was the Death Star so no specific OT sets, but a Death Star, the biggest difference is the battle packs were OT that year. - Also if we do have a massive Death Star coming out this year having an imperial battle pack seems like it should have been a no brainer (like two storm troopers, a navy trooper and an officer). Would have been a good companion battle pack.

I think the part that is most interesting to me around this discussion is that it has been a very long time, so breaking a trend that has been around since the first or third year out of 26 years is fairly significant. I am curious how the increase in 18+ sets has contributed to the change (as many do not have minifigures). It would be interesting to see if we exclude MBS/UCS/Promos how many play sets we get each year and how many minifigures to see the trend. I would assume we have an overall trend downward in minifigures but it would be interesting to see the details. Also I don't care for the family guy helmets, if we had the older ones I would have bought more of the drop ship.

which characters do you want to be in Brickheadz form? Lots of options, just curious.

Probably right about the process, and a $70 tie avenger would have been a day one buy for me, but I do like the u-wing as an alternate option (I missed the last one so will be picking this one up)

U-wing is a must buy for me, great to see things done well (based on the pictures)

That would be great, hopefully we get details soon.

So LOTR, are we expecting a set reveal this week or next week? Assuming we will see it a few weeks before release. are we thinking $250? 8 -10 minifigures?

Agreed, there is always a group of naysayers on this though. Unfortunately there is no way to prove this without them making some small sets to see how they sell. I agree with you though and believe they would sell.

While they may try to do something worse, I don't want to preemptively lower the bar for Lego. As a company they should be striving for the best for their customers, instead they often take a lot of cost cutting short cuts (and their profit margins are not losing). Lego has been decreasing minifigure value in sets for a long time now (Star Wars is probably the best way to measure given the longevity of the theme). I don't think expecting 1 minifigure for every $25 of spend in a set is unreasonable (Rivendell hits that - and I am including the statues). 20 ish as proposed is around 1 minifigure per every $45 (which matches Barad Dur). While those minifigures were great, that set was short mini figures even if it was 3-4 extra orcs. I vote we say Lego should set high standards for customer value.