SheepEater

I don't buy the 'blocky' argument. First, it's supposed to look Lego-ish, it's a Lego game. Second, have you ever been at Train/City exposition and seen a highly detailed Lego city, with insane landscaping? You can find hundreds of those on brickshelf, flickr, youtube etc. Most of those real life Lego creations would put the bland buildings from the game to shame. And they're actually made of Lego. One random example that took me 2 seconds to find (and looks 1000x more beautiful that everything I've seen in the game so far)

We Canadians also have to pay more than our southern neighbors for toys, gas, electronics, car & car parts, prescription drugs (as much as 300% more on those! There was an article about it in the newspaper)... and hundreds of other things. We don't have it as bad as Europe though, and nowhere as bad as the poor Australians. Ouch.

That one?

Very nice! I like Saruman's quote. I'm not a mod, but I think you should have used this thread (LOTR Army Building) http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=71682&st=0

Well, we'll know who to blame if Lego runs out of 9471s before christmas!

I want a set with the Eagles. That way, I can play my own LOTR scenario where the Great Eagle speedily flies Frodo into Mordor where he just chucks it into the volcano. One does not simply walk into Mordor. So, you fly over it. This page debates this possibility and dates back to before the movies were even made. http://www.sean-crist.com/personal/pages/eagles/index.html Funny youtube vid relating to this

Interesting you saying that; I happen to own a few of the very first batch of 16t gears, from the set 8857 - motorcycle with sidecar, from 1980, and had to take them aside and replace them because they were warped/un-circular and would generate lots of friction as a result. You wouldn't know it just by looking at them, though.

Thanks for the suggestion, but that won't do, obviously, because we need a skull with a standard "happy" skull pattern, but Lego hasn't made them yet in black. Those black skulls look far too evil for Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. I want these in black!

Congratulations! Interesting verb, 'Bricklinking'... I have done that for a few sets back in late 2002, when I got back into the hobby, because at that time I couldn't get any of those two sets for a decent price on eBay or BL, and they were made of very basic bricks. Obviously this was far less work than you but I still remember that it was quite addicting. And I had to do it all manually, at that time there was no feature to import a set into a wanted list - heck, there were hardly any Bricklink inventories at all, it was only peeron. So I have "bricklinked" these two sets entirely from scratch. Ordered the 3-2 finger hinges instead of the old 2-1 finger hinges. Eventually got the original instructions and original boxes, more than 2 years later. (In the meantime, to build them I used crappy inkjet printouts of downloaded instructions). For my 856, I actually have the 856 box, but 951 instructions And when I bought this set on eBay a bit later, 3/4 of the bricks were wrong, so I ended up 'Bricklinking' it as well. I remember that it was a PAIN to get decent transparent 1x4 bricks that actually stuck together. This was also when I started to create my own black Lego string (ie: from fabric store, and tainted black), identical to the original Lego string.

Novelty or no, the 8479 truck was a fantastic model and a pleasure to build with tons of complex technic nitbits. It was the last large truck to have a working real steering + hand of god steering. Also one of the few models who made good use of the flex system (the other being the T-Rex in 8485). I rank it above 8480 space shuttle. I rank it #3 of all the 90s technic sets (8868 is #1, 8880 is #2, 8479 is #3, 8480 is #4, 8485 is #5, 8460 is #6, 8448 is #7)

I became compulsive FOR this theme, which is very unlike me. Before LOTR came along I was strictly into Technic & Town and a very, very patient collector. But now I became so rabidly obsessed with Tolkien that I will have to wait for sales for the 2012 technic & city sets I want... thankfully, not that many so far. Only the new 4x4 RC off roader, the big yellow helicopter, and the city parking garage. The mining collection left me cold. I'll wait until january/february to pick them up since it's that time of the year that TRU tends to have sales on Technic & City (which might not happen with LOTR stuff). The LOTR/Hobbit stuff though, I will continue to rabidly collect and be a completionist! As for Elrond pictured above... not that often does a minifig look BADASS instead of cute in my eyes but this one does. For reference, most minifigs look cute to me, even (especially!) intimidating villains like the Nazgul or Darth Vader.

Nothing like seeing massive armies of cute little plastic people fighting each other to the death

The minifig I would have most wanted to see in a polybag is the Rohan soldier from 9471. And include some piece of wall or mini catapult so that Hasbro doesn't sue.

Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen - calcinated remains.

You can always do a MOC using generic, non LOTR-minifigs in the meantime.

Pics please?

I haven't heard a single opinion on them yet, although they were introduced in 2011 (my 8043 excavator bought last year also had them). Thoughts? Do they perform better/worse than the old part in MOCs? The old 16t gear has lasted an amazing 30 years. Not that many parts last that long without modifications.

M 2 cents... I have many sets from all eras, dating as far back as 1977... Personally I only wish Lego would STILL mix both old & new styles like they did for a short period in the late 90s/early 00s. The 8448 and 8466 were friggin' masterpieces. While I'm nostalgic with the old style, it can't match the newer style for efficiency, robustness and compactness. Motorizing the bigger models was always hard. On the other hand, like the first few posters said, the newer technic doesn't mesh very well with classic Lego bricks. BTW It's ironic how in 8448 and 8466, the technic bricks formed the chassis and the studless beams were used for the body and decoration, while for 8421 and 8275 (while I was grateful they included the old style technic bricks) it's the opposite! EDIT: My bad, this is an old thread. Sorry for bumping it. I found it with the search function, precisely because the mods don't like it when people create a topic that already exists

Personally the females I'm most eager to see are the LOTR ones: Galadriel, Eowyn, Arwen... ... heck, throw in Rosie as well

I can't wait to see the second, "adventuring" Bilbo minifigure with that bright red coat.

Man, I remember watching the Sylvester Stallone movie when I was a teen This time, Judge Dredd will be played by this guy. Don't expect a Lego license. And don't expect him to take his helmet off - Sly did, and fans of the comics complained about it for a decade.

A new update for your software is available for download. Do you wish to update now? Yes No Remind me later Maybe I wouldn't be so ambivalent about this constant pestering if updated software always meant better software.

Building the Mines of Moria I see? That's the only set with a large amount of stickers. The only other set with stickers is Helm's Deep, but it only comes with 6.

Not so sure that it's Thorin. It might also be Gloin or Bifur.

I'd love to have the Rancor shown side-to-side with the Lord of the Rings cave troll, just to see who is taller. I think it's a bit disappointing to see a big molded creature after almost a decade of seeing great brick-built MOCs like this one for instance