Deathleech

You just HAD to be different, didn't you?!

People act like this is a gang war or something and are fiercely defending Lego while bashing Mega Bloks. Some are worried, or telling others not to be like Lego could actually be in trouble. Really, isn't this a GOOD thing though? More competition means Lego might up their game even more. More competitive pricing, better quality, even more fresh and innovative ideas, etc. Obviously Lego is and will continue to be the top dog in the building category. They better be, that is their main focus after all. Kre-O for Hasbro and Mega Bloks for Mattel are just one of a million types of different products those companies offer so they don't have the same focus on them. They just use them to buffer overall sales. If by some chance Mega Bloks becames more popular than Lego wouldn't that be ok though? That would mean Mega Bloks has obviously surpassed Lego in a number of regards, whether it be innovation, quality, etc. It's not like Mega Bloks is going to steal the top spot and run Lego out of business with their poor interlocking bricks, lack of actual building components, and mass licensing. At least I would hope not. It's like people think Mega Bloks even has the chance to run Lego out of business offering the same "cheap" product they do now (the perception many consumers have of Mega Bloks...). and that is all we will be left with to buy. If by some chance Mattel is able to make Mega Bloks the number one building brand in a decade or two, then then something will have obviously changed. Either Mega Bloks has a huge surge in quality and innovation or Lego would of had to make a TON of horrible mistakes to kill themselves off. Regardless it's not going to happen over night and without reason.

The Thing looks SOO much better in the light orange. Great job on these!

While everyone has their own idea of what a "perfect wave" would be, I think we all are happy with the first LotR wave for the most part. Lego did an excellent job of picking suitable scenes, designing the sets and minifigures, promoting it, etc. Sure there are little things Lego could of maybe done better, like more accurate colors on outfits or slightly better scenes to make sets out of rather than Orc Forge, but these are really minor gripes. Lego DID do a great job with the first wave... and then it's like everything went out the window and they stopped trying with wave two. Only a few sets, most not even based on memorable scenes, the total lack of anything Gondor and major characters like Eowyn and the Witch King, etc. If they are well stocked and selling out that's terrific. The thing is, I don't think that's what has happened. Of all my local Targets and Wal-marts I only ever saw maybe 2-3 of each wave two Hobbit set on shelves, and they weren't quick to be restocked it seems. This leads me to believe stores simply didn't order much stock due to poor wave two LotR sales. Of course I could be wrong and the sets could be flying off shelves and it just appears they are never re-stocked because they sell so fast, but considering most are clearanced already when I DO find them, or there were never even proper spots/tags leaves me to believe otherwise.

Ahh, ya after looking back over your list I see now you just removed them from some sets but added them to others (and upped the price of those sets). Honestly I think SOME characters could of afforded to be in fewer sets. Specifically Frodo, Gimli, Bilbo, and especially Gandalf. Even just removing each from 1-2 sets each would give us room for significantly more new characters or soldiers. For instance I would of liked to of seen Gimli removed from the Pirate Ship set. I get they wanted Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli there since they are all there in the movie and them coming off the ship is iconic, but they split up characters in tons of other sets so why not here? He is already in two other expensive sets (Mines and Helm's) and a cheap one (Council). This would of left room for an additional Corsair or another Undead without having to up the price at all. They could of done the same with all the other characters I mentioned before too.

I basically just stick to one theme and buy the crap out of it, lol. Right now it's LotR and the Hobbit (ok, I guess that's technically two themes?). I buy at least two of every set and then multiples of ones I really like or that have a lot of minifigures for army building. I also have BrickLinked quite a few figs. I try to set a limit for myself but I seem to end up wanting more and more! First it was 50 Uruk-hai, then 100, then 150... While I don't do so sticking to my limit, I have managed to stick with just one (or two) themes. I have been tempted to get into some others but I will probably wait until the LotR and Hobbit lines end. I might jump into the Super Heroes themes then, and maybe something else since those don't have a lot of multi purchase appeal.

I agree with pretty much everything you listed. There's only two possible issues. First off UHA and Orc Forge seem too close in price and minifigures to both be army builders. Based on what we have seen from Lego, I don't see them realistically doing that despite it being incredibly appealing. I really wish they would of just given us three Mordor Orcs in the Orc Forge like they originally showed at Toy Fair when they unveiled the set. So that would of been five figs total, two Mordor Orcs with hair, one bald, Lurtz, and a White Hand Uruk-hai. Even that would of made the set SOO much more appealing. Then it would of been a quasi-army builder at least and a decent way to stock up on Mordor Orcs. The second issue with your set ideas is Lego seems to LOVE to load their sets with main characters and you eliminated a number of them in their sets (good for us - less duplicates, supposedly bad for Lego - not as much appeal to kids). As for the rest of the set ideas, I really like them more than what we actually got. If Black Gates was $80 bucks I think it would need at least 7 minifigures though? I wouldn't of minded seeing two Easterlings added to the existing line up since we probably won't ever get them in another set. That way the Black Gates set could of covered two scenes from the film. Also, honestly, I think Orc Forge could of been scraped for something more original or at least useful. I would of much rather seen Lego give us a good army builder and an evil one if at all possible. The good could of had Eomer, three Rohan Soldiers, and two elves while the evil could of just had Lurtz from Orc Forge, a White Hand Uruk-hai, two Mordor Orcs, and two regular Uruk-hai. BAM! You get everything in UHA and Orc Forge and then some.

Well I was just thinking about Kre-O and how their quality seems decent. It's at least MUCH better than Mega Bloks. Maybe having a bigger company own Mega Bloks would lead to them upping the quality of their product? Who knows. There are only so many cartoons and kid movies Lego can get the license for before they start getting a little redundant. I think having a wide variety of licenses works better than just scooping up all the 6-8 year old aimed ones. Also I know AFOLs aren't a huge portion of Lego's overall sales, but they still account for something. I actually would like to see Lego do some more really adult oriented themes and just have them be limited runs and offered D2C on their site. Kind of like the Simpsons but even more adult oriented. Game of Thrones, Vikings, etc. I know it will probably never happen but it would be cool for us AFOLs.

Indeed. When you only have four sets in a wave you really need at least two or three of them to be big hits. You can't have a small wave full of sub par sets. It would of been like the first LotR wave just having Gandalf Arrives, Orc Forge, Attack on Weathertop, and Mines of Moria. None of them were really the stars of the first wave and were more support than anything. They worked though because they were still decent sets and you had the really awesome sets like Shelob Attacks and Helm's Deep to go along with them. If the second LotR wave had a big $100 Osgiliath set and a $30 Gondor Soldier set to go along with it, then the Wizard Battle and Black Gates setswould have been ok and it would of been a MUCH stronger wave two. Then the third wave could have hopefully had a couple strong sets like an $80 Witch King vs Eowyn set, a $60 Oliphant, and then Council of Elrond and the Pirate Ship Ambush to support them. As is those four sets we got in the second LotR wave all feel like B or even C team material, none of them were A team in my mind. There are so many issues with the Black Gates it's not even funny. A 60 dollar set that Lego wants you to buy two of? Yet they make three of the five characters uniques? As much as I love the Mouth of Sauron figure I would of much rather had a Gondor Soldier or something I would of actually wanted two or more of. Plus he is only in the Extended Editions so he isn't exactly a must have, despite how cool he is. I also would of rather seen Gandalf the White in another set, but I am not sure where considering the line up. He doesn't really fit anywhere else. At any rate people say parents won't buy their kids army builders at $13 or even $30 so why on earth would they buy a $60 set twice?? And a set that has so many useless uniques to boot? I would of rather seen Lego just make it an $80 set. Add another tower on the side and give us a few more minifigures and call it a day. None of this buy two Black Gates and get all these unique characters you don't want, and a gate that opens in two spots unlike the movie without MODing nonsense.

Does this mean the quality of Mega Bloks might actually improve too? Kre-O seems decent quality where as Mega Bloks seems to be the company every one complains has the distinct lack of.

I feel like Lego pretty much hit everything with their wave one Hobbit line. I can't think of any major scenes they didn't cover or that would have worked. Maybe a Rivendell Knight vs Warg Rider set? Other than that they pretty much nailed all the main action sequences and iconic locations (as well as some from DoS...). I mostly feel the same about the second Hobbit wave as well. I think Dol Guldur could of been less of a gray wall and more peaked towers, stairs, and ruins to better give the feeling of Dol Guldur, and the MEA set should of been a water gate with an armored elf, but overall the sets weren't that bad. I feel like most kids just aren't interested in Hobbit toys and I don't understand why. Was the original LotR merchandise a big hit back in the early 2000's when the movies were released? ToyBiz seemed to have done pretty well with it considering they made a variant of pretty much every main character in every outfit? They even did a ton of lesser characters and soldiers.

Because he said they had the rest of the dwarves for wave 2, and since the first wave only had 5 of the dwarves that meant at least 8 were going to be released in wave 2 along with Thranduil and Radagast. Instead of splitting them up though, which would of been 5-6 figures for wave 2 and 5-6 for wave 3, they just released two figs for wave 2 in the US. That's hardly splitting them up when there are at least 10 figures and only 2 were released in a wave...

Bridge Direct only released like two figures here in the U.S. for the second movie though, from my understanding. It's not like they split the wave up, they just didn't put out hardly anything for DoS...

Ya, I said it before but it's just nuts that a fantasy movie can have almost 1 billion dollars in revenue and then have almost no merchandise to go alongside it. Someone is really dropping the ball there. I can't imagine no one is interested in any of the merchandise with those kinds of numbers.

Ya, even when I DO see the second Hobbit wave sets in stores, I never see Dol Guldur Battle. The only brick and mortar store I have seen them all in is Toys R Us.

Has anyone else noticed that hardly any stores are stocking the second Hobbit wave sets in their area? Of the three Wal-marts and four Targets I have visited recently, only one of each had ANY Hobbit sets and neither had the full range of four. What's the deal? Are stores just not ordering as much stock due to (poor) wave two LotR sales? It's been almost three months since they were first released, shouldn't we be seeing them more in stores by now...?

I have no idea. I assume the plastic they use for packaging is much cheaper quality than what they use for actual pieces you build with. As for why Lego doesn't include base plates in sets anymore.. well look at the retail price of them. Just a standard green base plate is what, $5? That's a nice chunk of change to add on to a set. Some of them were unique and cool, but others could get redundant much like the brick separators Lego includes in every larger set now. I would rather be able to just buy the base plate separate if I want it than have it forced on me in a set. Then again we don't really get the cool printed ones we use to, just standard green, blue, or gray base plates now. It would be nice if Lego offered some printed ones for individual sale...

They could probably make it a little more clear this isn't specifically "Benny" from the movie, and is in fact just a regular blue space figure. Like Faefrost points out though, Benny is based on the classic blue space man so even if it's not Benny specifically it's still the figure he was based on.

I think it was just an error in the image. I don't remember my set coming with one either. think the sets need to be $49.99 or $59.99 or more (can't remember which) to include a separator.

It makes you wonder how many bricks they cracked, dented, and otherwise broke doing that...

Exactly. Which seems more likely, all the stuff stating an October release is just older, out of date material OR the poster at NYTF was a misprint and stated December when the release date is still October? I doubt Lego is going to go through and create a whole new book every time there are a few updates.

Why would he need to make it yellow? Friends dolls are all flesh colored, not yellow like minifigures?

Are we sure the Hobbit's third wave release is October? That catalog seems older and possibly outdated? Look at a number of the pics for other themes, a lot of them have the confidential stamp yet they have already been publicly released for months now. The Lego Movie in particular. I wouldn't be suprised if that catalog was done up before the date change, much like London Toy Fair just a few weeks before. It's possible neither had the new, updated release date yet? The prices on all the sets are higher in Canada EXCEPT 79018. It seems to be the exception. Who knows why they have that one marked up so much while the rest are marked up much less in comparison, and one is even marked down?

By Fangorn Forest, are we talking about a Treebeard set? I assume yes because otherwise Fangorn Forest would be fairly dull with a bunch of random trees and maybe Merry, Pippin, and a few orcs? Regardless I think I have to go with Minas Morgul again. The minifigure possibilities are too good what with the chance to include the Witch King, Gothmog, and more Orcs or Nazgul. That definitely beats out a possible Treebeard build (especially since the Ent in Orthanc looks close enough to Treebeard).

No, I was talking about the LotR waves. The Hobbit waves look to be these price points (wave 2 is blue, wave 3 in red): Galadriel and Witch King - $14.99 Dol Guldur Ambush - $19.99 Mirkwood Elf Army - $29.99 Lake-town add-on - $29.99 Lake-town Chase - $49.99 Bo5A - $59.99 Dol Guldur Battle - $69.99 The Lonely Mountain - $129.99