Deathleech

That's definitely not a hand. If you look at just2good's higher rez version of the picture you will see it better. It sorta resembles an upside down hand, but the palm is way to fat, there are extra spots on each side of the palm, and there is no thumb (if it were a hand it would be making the Vulcan salute with a finger coming out the middle and no thumb, lol?). At any rate I think the hair on the orcs is nice, and a new face print is good for diversity, but I am not sure why Lego insists on giving us such specialized new molds and prints when there are so many better options. A new orc helmet and print on the Mordor Orcs used in four or five other sets would have been a MUCH better use of resources than a new face print and specialized hair that will only appear in one set.

After the third Hobbit wave has come and gone it would be nice if Lego would at least let us fans know what is up with their Middle-Earth themes. I think that's the worst part, not knowing. Did poorer then expected sales lead to a quick end? Did the Hobbit movies changing and the term of the license agreement prevent a third LotR wave? Did the Lego Movie affect the timeline? Was there never even a third wave planned because anything Gondor would be seen as to similar to existing Castle? Knowing the reasoning behind everything might not fix the huge glaring hole Lego left, but it would at least help ease us and maybe help us understand why Lego seems to have made such a silly mistake leaving such a big hole in their LotR line.

Maybe in the beginning with the first waves, but after that it seems like Lego really stopped putting as much effort and resources into the sequential waves. Four sets in each wave compared to the six and seven in the first waves, fewer new molds, lackluster set builds, etc. They also made what seem like a lot of questionable decisions to us. The Mouth of Sauron over the Witch King and the Council of Elrond set over say a Gondor or Balrog set were HUGE issues in a lot of people's eyes that made little to no sense.

Can we also see it on a regular Nazgul without the hood and the crown on instead? I know it won't look perfect but just interested in seeing how it looks anyways. That's kind of what I am thinking. Don't they usually release those books while a theme is still active? Not at the very end months after the last wave was released?

And several Middle-Earth themed projects all getting 10,000 votes, on top of a petition with 10,000+ signatures could REALLY get Lego's attention...

DGB has the (slightly) better build, but I think the minifigure selection of Goblin King Battle is significantly better. Almost every minifig in GKB is exclusive minus Gandalf. In DGB you only have Radaghast, the Necromancer, and I technically Azog as exclusives even though Azogs facial expression isn't that big of deal imho and the Necromancer looks terrible. GKB also has Ori, Nori, and Dori and it looks like that will be the only way to ever get those three dwarves.

Ya, I just never was really satisfied with the DGB set. I was hoping with enough of these smaller add-on sets I could actually make it look like something I would want to display I guess just throwing WKB near DGB will have to do.

It would work if Smaug weren't waaaaay bigger. I think having Smaug the same size as the Fel Beast would look really weird, especially considering Smaug is easily 3x+ the size of a Fel Beast in the films. Ahh cool, thanks! So it's impossible to connect all three sets in their entirety then?

I would rank these sets, based on pictures alone, as follows: 1.) Witch King Battle 2.) Lake-Town 3.) Erebor 4.) Battle of Five Armies The Bo5A is the clear loser this wave with arguably the worst build and most uninteresting characters. Dain and King Thorin look great, but re-hash Legolas and near same Azog, eagle (Gwaihir), and Gundabad Orcs do nothing for me. Erebor is slightly better and Smaug looks fantastic but the low number of minifigures, high price tag, and lackluster build keep it from the top spots. The WKB and Lake-town sets actually have some decent characters and the builds look ok, especially when combined with sets from the previous wave. These two are a close first and second for me. Speaking of which, can SOMEONE give us a picture of the WKB and past DBA and DGB sets all together? That and some size comparisons of Smaug to other large molded creatures (previous dragons, Dino t-rex, minifigures) would be fantastic. Personally I am not going to be buying any of these sets until they go at least 25% off. None are must buy for me or really that interesting imho. This wave and the second LotR wave just don't have that "gotta get em asap appeal" to me

I would like to see a comparrison shot of him next to some dragons and also the t-rex from the most recent dinosaur theme to see how he measures up.

Ya, he is MUCH larger than I was thinking, based on that video. We really haven't got a lot of comparison pictures of Smaug from the Erebor set...

No one else bothered making these helmets though, so it's not like they are cutting into Lego's revenue. They are just filling that giant, gapping hole Lego left

I'm sorry, I guess I am just failing to see your issue with this. What does it matter if Lego calls him Gwaihir or not? In the films Gwaihir looks almost identical to the rest of the eagles so who cares if Lego uses the same eagle mold/print for both? How or why would they bother differentiating him when he is barely different looking in the films? I mean I can understand if you were upset about the orcs or something else where they all look VASTLY different, but the difference between Gwaihir and the rest of the eagles is so miniscule it's really not worth making a separate print for. It's like the Witch King at Weathertop. He looks the EXACT same as the rest of the Nazgul there so if Lego wanted to list one of the Nazgul as the Witch King I would see absolutely no issue with it? Sure Lego could just put the eagle in all their sets and not bother listing him as Gwaihir ever, but then I am sure some people would complain we never got a Gwaihir and the Bo5A set wouldn't seem as appealing to some.

I dunno, I think it actually makes a lot of sense. There is almost no difference between Gwaihir and the rest of the eagles so why wouldn't Lego use it to their advantage? Why waste the money doing some elaborate new print when Gwaihir is barely different from the other eagles in the films? Lego can pick and choose where to put the common eagles and Gwaihir and it makes total sense. Black Gates was advertised as a multiple set purchase so put the eagle mold in that set as a normal "Greater Eagle". Bo5A is probably the last Middle-Earth themed set we will get, and most definitely the last that includes the eagle. It has almost no multiple purchase appeal so it's the perfect time to list the eagle as Gwaihir. That way people think they are getting something different than in Orthanc or Black Gates, but it doesn't actually cost Lego a penny in new prints or molds. It's a simple marketing technique. As for the Mordor Orcs, I think that is one place we SHOULD have gotten new prints but never did. The same print was just used so much and made little sense in a lot of the sets. We got "Mordor Orcs" in over four sets and they were the EXACT same in every one (besides accessories like the wrong helm's or hair with hairs). I would have loved to have seen at least one or two different prints where they are in armor. Heck, Lego could have even re-used the Moria Orc print and just changed the green chest part to tan and the arms from green to red or gray and that would have made for an excellent Morannon Orc. This helmet in the same gray and you have a brand new, almost perfectly accurate Orc for almost no cost to Lego.

That Minas Tirith has also been up for a few years though (it had over 2,500 votes on Cuusoo before being grand fathered into Ideas with all of it's votes). The petition hasn't even been up a month. I agree though, I think supporting both is the best bet. If Lego sees a dozen Idea projects all get 10,000 votes AND a petition with 10,000+ votes they are going to be much more likely to give us another LotR wave than if they only saw one or the other.

Well in the films they still look different, at least moreso than Gwaihir does compared to the other eagles. Lego just gave them different titles to make them seem more appealing while not having to change their prints at all. The Orc Pitmaster isn't the exact same as the Orc Hunters you keep referring to either btw. The Orc Hunters have different legs. They use the loin cloth legs. The "Orc Pitmaster" is the EXACT same as the Mordor Orc in Orc Forge (the one without hair, he has the same head and torso and solid brown legs). Really Lego is just using the Mordor Orc title as a very broad, generic term though. It seems to cover Morgul/Morannon/Black Uruk Orcs (Pirate Ship Ambush, Black Gates),and Snaga (Orc Forge/Orthanc). Well there is some benefit for Lego to do it the way they did. Lego advertised buying multiples of the Black Gate set so they would want to make multi set purchases as appealing as possible. The set already has a fair number of named characters (Aragorn, Gandalf the White, Mouth of Sauron) so they probably wanted some generic figures as well (Mordor Orcs and eagles). The build also supports multi purchases. If Lego listed the eagle as Gwaihir in Black Gates it would have that much less appeal to people buying doubles or more. Now with the Bo5A set there is NO multi purchase appeal outside the two orcs. The build isn't multi purchase friendly so why not list the eagle as Gwaihir to give the set more appeal? Lego obviously won't be putting the eagle mold in more sets either so might as well tell us the BoFA eagle is Gwaihir and keep from people complaining we never got an "official" one.

No we shouldn't. Lego has yet to give us a huge $200+ Cuusoo/Idea set, they tend to stick around the $30-50 price range. They also don't do new molds for Ideas projects. And even If we got one of those Idea projects to 10,000 votes there is no guarantee it will be made into a set. Considering Lego already has the LotR/Hobbit building license I think the chances of them making a set from an Ideas project is that much less likely. On top of all of those things listed above it seems people are really split on liking/disliking a lot of the Ideas projects and won't vote for them if they aren't exactly how they imagine the set being made. If we just pool all of our votes from the Idea projects we can collect them in one place and the "what if" of future waves could inspire more people to sign the petition.

It's definitely a cool looking MOC, but not what most people picture when they think of a Balrog. The huge over sized head and wings coupled with the small body give it a little more comical look.

Can we get some comparison pics of Gwaihirto the other common eagles? People were reporting earlier there was no difference.

Ahh, ok. That's not the norm, in most other major areas there was a small price difference between all of these sets. Of course there are some countries where the prices get really messed up. I never said the Orc Pitmaster was a named character. I was pointing out that Lego has used the same minifigure before for two different characters in the LotR theme. I guess it's a little more weird they have a common and named character using the same mold rather than two common characters or factions, but in this particular case it actually makes more sense. I mean does Gwaihir even look different from the rest of the eagles? In the films I can never tell them apart and just assume Gwaihir is the one leading the pack. He doesn't have any significant size difference or marking though so why would Lego waste budget differentiating him? There is literally nothing logical Lego could do to differentiate him so why would they bother and add unnecessary cost?

I think just MOCing your own would be MUCH cheaper and easier, and probably look better than buying multiple Lake-town sets and combining them. Why? Lego has done this before, even in the LotR/Hobbit lines. For example the Mordor Orc from the Orc Forge set is the EXACT same minifigure as the one found in Orthanc, but in Orthanc he is listed as the "Pit Master". It seems you are looking at the U.S. dollar price on the Witch King Battle and thinking that's the euro price? Riddles for the Ring was actually 13 euros and Wizard Duel was 15. The Witch King Battle is 15 dollars so it will undoubtedly be close to 18-20 euros. In the U.S., those sets are $10, 13, and 15 dollars respectively. Riddles and Witch King both come out to be 1 minifigure per $5 and Wizard Duel is slightly more at $6.50. All the time with the Star Wars Battlepacks. They are $12.99 and usually have four minifigures. Some other license themes have given us similair figure ratios in cheap sets, such as PotC. They had a $14.99 BP and it contained five minifigs. I'm not saying the WKB set is bad by any means, all three minifigures are exclusive to the set and look fantastic. It's just not really any more minifigs for the price than we have gotten in the past.

That's what I did. I bought two Orthanc sets and got them both during double VIP. Not a great discount, but better than nothing. I bought the first, got free shipping, and got $10 off a purchase which I used for my second Orthanc purchase a few days later. I also did it during the holiday promo so I got one of the small holiday exclusive sets with each purchase which I turned around and sold for $20 each on eBay. All in all the Orthanc's each came out to cost me around $170.

This guy had started to mold a bunch of troll helmets but we never got any updates or anything beyond the initial stuff he had started. They looked pretty cool. It was just the helms he was doing though, no other armor. The trolls are kind of hard to make Lego brick armor for because other than the head they have no studs on them...

Pretty sure that is retail/MSRP. People were talking about other sets being at TRU as well and noted the $30/60/130 which we had confirmed for those sets. TRU usually has them for MSRP when the sets first come out, before they realize the error of their ways and jack the price up Anyways, nice review! Not sure if I will be buying a ton of these like other people keep mentioning. Galadriel isn't terribly useful after you get one of her and the Witch King is nice, but other than maybe making 9 Twilight Nazgul has no real use either for multiples. That leaves one figure worth army building with in a $15 set.. not exactly ideal.

So it appears that Smaug's wings are indeed rubber and not fabric?