Deathleech

The second LotR wave had $13, 30, 60, and 100 sets (in US). That means if there is a third wave it should have a $20, 30-50, 70-80, and possible a 120-130. Obviously there might be some overlap if Lego had to add an additional set or two to fill out a wave (so it's 4 sets instead of 2-3). With the Hobbit wave we seem to be getting a $30 set in both the second and third wave if rumors are true. A $30 Gondor Army set and then the biggest set saved for a piece of Minas Tirith or Osgiliath you can add it on to doesn't seem that unlikely to me. Who knows what the other two sets could be though.

I dunno, I was looking at all the $30 sets for comparison. They are listed below with their piece count: $29.99 - Uruk-hai Army - 257 $29.99 - Escape from Mirkwood Spiders - 298 $29.99 - Council of Elrond - 243 $29.99 - Mirkwood Elf Army - 276 You would THINK UHA and MEA would have the lowest piece counts due to higher than average minifigure count and the large molded creature both include (horse and warg). That's not the case though. Council of Elrond actually has the lowest number of parts which I assume is due to all the large panels and plates in it. MEA has the second highest piece count. All four sets are within 55 pieces of each other. It's harder to compare other price points in the LotR/Hobbit lines because there aren't near as many. Just taking a look though: $69.99- An Unexpected Gathering - 652 $69.99 - Dol Guldur Battle - 797 $79.99 - Mines of Moria -776 $99.99 - Goblin King Battle - 841 $99.99 - Pirate Ship Ambush - 756 $129.99 - Battle of Helm's Deep - 1368 So looking at these, the prices seem to be all over the place. The 70-100 dollar priced sets are all within 200 pieces of each other. Pirate Ship Ambush has the worst piece count for it's price but this is no doubt due to all the large molded ship haul pieces. Helm's Deep and DGB are the best in terms of price per piece because of course they have no large molded pieces between them other than a horse. If the Erebor set really is $129.99 and has 858 piece that would put the price per piece at $0.15. Of the sets listed above Pirate Ship Ambush has the worst ppp at just over 13 cents. Could a large molded dragon really account of that much of the set's price (almost $40-50?)? It seems unlikely considering the dragon in the Castle set came in a $50 set and had hundreds of pieces and several minifigures with it...

I would assume Lego doesn't do it more often because it greatly increases the price of the packaging. Maybe some people don't want to pay that premium for the package when all they really want are the contents?

If they were trying to charge a premium for their availability and selection, why constantly have the sales and deals which bring their prices back down to around MSRP? I think TRU just does it to try and trick people. If they sell product between their promos then they make a ton off them, and when they DO have the sales and deals they look good to customers. If you had no idea about TRU's business practice you would obviously think their BOGO 50% off is a MUCH better deal than just going to Target and buying it at full retail price. Toys R Us wants to give the image they are constantly having great sales and deals but without actually costing them money.

Looks good! You will probably have to mold one yourself...

Do you have a link to this? I know there has been tons of speculation about it, but I don't recall any Lego reps ever saying it point blank. Plus as SirBlake points out it's hard to wrap your head around because there is no current LotR action figures being released and there haven't been for years. You would THINK they would be much more lenient with a license like that than say Star Wars where Hasbro has the action figure license, is currently using it, and it's one of their main lines. At any rate I agree with SirBlake and Alcarin, even if Lego is confined to larger army builder sets due to the licensing agreement why not give us more of them? I want to believe this may be due to my wave two split theory. Why else would we get an army builder in the second Hobbit wave and not the second LotR wave, but the third LotR wave would seem to set us up perfectly for a (Gondor) army builder while it appears that reports of the third Hobbit wave won't have an army builder? The only real question then, would be why no army builder in the first Hobbit wave? I guess maybe one didn't fit as well? I find it hard to believe they couldn't of made a Goblin Town battle pack though with some goblins, orc hunters, maybe even a Warg and some rope bridge pieces top make the Goblin King Battle set more expansive. A couple of these army builders added on would make the set feel MUCH more like the movie with tons of bridges connected and hanging all over.

Doesn't Lego use place holders for their early set piece counts? For instance the $50-60 sets are usually listed as 471 pieces but can vary when the set is actually released? I always see people get worked up and confused about a piece count early on only to find out it wasn't the real piece count. Just look at Lake-town Chase last year. Everyone was confused why it had so few pieces at CC but the real piece count turned out to be much higher. 858 pieces for a $130 set seems small. Really small. Even if it has a huge molded dragon I can't imagine it being under 900 pieces unless it is just littered with panels and huge parts. Even Dol Guldur Battle had quite a few bigger pieces and that set still had 797 piece and was almost half the price at $70 MSRP. You are telling me a dragon and 50 more pieces = $60? No way. As for the "confirmed" info on the Hobbit wave.. just look at the info Floundie posted. All the reports are conflicting so it's no wonder we dunno the exact details. One report says Smaug looks like he is in the Lake-town set, two others say Erebor. One report says Lake-town is a smaller set ($30?) while another list it as being bigger ($60?). About the only consistent info is Galadriel and the Witch King are in the smallest set.

The three sets that actually have a significant building component all look kind of bland. I am not a fan of the kreons either. It looks like Hasbro is trying to market the line as a game? I haven't really heard a lot about it. I do like how they have so many options to collect the figures though. I Wish Lego would take a hint and do the same for their LotR/Hobbit themes...

I bought one of these display shelves from Ikea. They are kind of expensive but it has 6 shelves and was holding three full LotR/Hobbit waves comfortably which was about 15-20 sets. The second Hobbit wave (forth total for the Middle-Earth theme) did me in. I need to get another because as is it's getting pretty cluttered.

I was looking into this and it seems the WoW license wasn't a big hit for them so a lot of people were thinking they ditched the SC license.

I would love to see them just by themselves if you don't have time to create a MOC or vignette! It's interesting to see your versions of some of the characters compared to what Lego ended up creating like Saruman, Arwen, etc.

Oh it's definitely a marketing scheme. TRU constantly has sales to make it look like they are offering products for less. With the mark up they really aren't though. The average customer/parent probably doesn't realize this, sees a sale, and jumps all over it thinking they are saving a ton of money. TRU literally has a Lego sale about once a month, more than any other retailer I have seen. That's their business though, jack up prices and then have sales to bring the prices back down near MSRP so customers think they are getting a good deal without having TRU actually take a hit to sales at all. I dunno how they work in other countries, but here in the US almost every Lego set is at least a few dollars above MSRP while bigger sets can be as much as $30-40 over.

It shouldn't really be an issue if they phase them in as the current ones break. Few, if any of the existing molds will still be used 16 years from now...

Toys R Us regularly does these kinds of sales. BOGO 50% off, 25% off, 15$ off 50, etc. The thing is, TRU marks up their prices so much that these "sales" usually account for little more than a few dollars off. Sometimes you end up saving nothing. For instance TRU has Mirkwood Elf Army listed as $39.99. If you buy two during the BOGO 50% deal you are spending $60. Seems like a great deal, right? Wrong! The set has an MSRP of $29.99 so you could go to Target or the Lego Store and get two of them for $60 anyways without any sales or deals (and plus both of those stores offer 5% back so are actually better deals).

What is weight price? Someone made a thread about that awhile back and the weight of each set is surprisingly close to one another depending on the price point. Price per piece generally isn't a great way to measure the value of a set because some sets have a ton of large panels and such which are going to cost Lego much more to produce than tiny cheese slopes or what have you. They all count as one piece though.

I don't think the whole wave was discontinued quicker, just a few select sets? I remember Attack on Weathertop was the first to get discontinued at around 8 months, followed shortly after by Gandalf Arrives. It seemed like Mines of Moria and Shelob Attacks had the average life span of about a year. Orc Forge (because it was an exclusive maybe?) seemed to last a little longer than a year, as did Helm's Deep and Uruk-hai Army. Yup! $30 battle packs are hard to amass armies with, even for AFOLs. That's roughly $5 per minifigure and one of them is even a unique character. You are paying a lot of money for all the brick pieces you get in these sets. A $12.99-14.99 BP like the ones for Star Wars would give us 8 minifigures for the same, or even a slightly lower price. Not only that but you would get two more figs. If they needed to include a named character I think it would be easy enough. Just keep making them fairly generic looking characters that can double as regular soldiers. Eomer or Gamling for Rohan, Faramir as an Ithilien Ranger or suited up in his Gondor armor in the Gondor Army set, one of any number of named orcs we see (Grishnak, Gorbag, etc.) for Mordor. Honestly I would even be fine with the $30 army builders if we could have gotten more of them. As it stands we only have two in the four waves released. The inclusion of a large molded creature in them is definitely appreciated even if they are a bit more expensive and hard to truly army build with. The first Hobbit wave could of had a Goblin Town Army set for $30. It could of been done a number of ways.. 3-4 goblins and some Orc Hunters with a gray Warg, an eagle instead of the Warg for the large creature, no hunters, etc. I am not sure who the good guys in the set could of been. Maybe a few Rivendell Knights and try to make the set cover a few different scenes in the film? For the second LotR wave the choice is pretty simple. Give us a set with 2-3 Mordor Orcs, 1-2 Haradrim, and 1-2 Easterlings. It could be used with the Black Gate set and significantly help boltser the ranks. It could also be used to cover a few scenes. Again I'm not sure who the good guys would be or if you even have to include. So far the formula has always been 2 vs 4 and a large moldec creature. If Lego deems they are absolutely necessary just throw in a new Rohan Soldier and a new Gondor Soldier (both could be re-used in Uruk-hai Army and Gondor Army later on), and make it have 2 Mordor Orcs, 1 Easterling, and 1 Haradrim. The large molded creature seems like a no brainer here if the set is suppose to be paired with Black Gates.. give us another eagle, or even a different colored horse. I think a troll or Fel Beast would be too big or I would say throw one of them in instead.

I know I can get a little fanatical about army building. Some people have little to no interest in it and just want the core characters. Other people want nice display sets, and some don't care about the theme at all and just want the sets to use as a parts packs. Not everyone wants the same thing from a line and it's obvious some don't see the use in battle packs (and I probably over emphasis it at times ). The thing is, I think LotR is the absolute perfect theme for doing battle packs/army builders. I mean literally half RotK is the Battle of Pelennor Fields, the Battle at the Black Gates, or the lead up to them. A huge chunk of TTT is the Battle of Helm's Deep. Sure Tolkien hated war, but there is no denying they are a HUGE part of the books and films. I can't even think of a ton of films where you see 10,000 soldiers attacking a castle like Helm's Deep, let alone 100,000+ attacking a huge city like Minas Tirith. I think LotR is perfectly suited for army builder so it's just a shame to see all that potential go to waste. Literally every time a $30 army builder is announced in a new wave it piques my interest ten fold. These $30 army builders are better than nothing, sure, but they are still far from perfect and there aren't even enough of them imo. I just want to see the true potential of this theme. It make me so frusterated to see Hasbro doing battle packs for crappy Kre-O, yet we have LotR and the best we get is a $30 "army builder" every other wave

I would love to see how those troll helms turned out, as well as any other customs you still haven't shown us!

Or eBay could just keep track of when payment is received and make sure it is the correct amount and then require the seller to leave feedback to log into their account or something. I know this wouldn't be perfect because buyers can still do crappy things like claim to of never gotten a package when they really did, or leave negative feedback over something extremely minor (small dent on package when slight wear is stated in auction). Maybe there could be some sort of rebuttal process then where the seller can go back and at the very least argue the feedback or change the positive one for the buyer to neutral? Idk, there has to be some solution because you are right, as is the system is broker.

None of them wanted to conquer or control the other like Sauron did though, they were all just being greedy or trying to take what they thought they deserved. Just because they didn't see eye to eye doesn't make one of these factions "bad". Regardless what side they were on, in the book it listed the force sizes or gave rough estimates. There were around 200-300 men, 500 Iron Hill Dwarves, 1000 or so elves and.... over 6,000 goblins and wargs! Obviously I don't want 6,000+ goblins, but when we have 2 Lake-town Guards, 5-6 elven soldiers and only 6 Gundabad Orcs and 2 goblins I find those numbers to be pretty off. Add in all the named characters and it makes the bad side look that much smaller and more lopsided. That's true. I am sure if Lego left out some main characters people would be upset. I just wish they could of gotten a better balance. All the extra Gandalf's, Bilbo's, Gimli's, and Frodo's is annoying. It's not as bad as some themes, I know, but it is still not great how many extra we get. Really I would of loved to have seen two additional $12.99 battle packs with each wave. Especially for the last two waves which were only four sets each. Surely Lego could of added two smaller battle packs to them? I mean how much extra work would that of really been on Lego's part? The first LotR wave could of had eight sets total. Split Uruk-hai Army into a smaller version and create a separate Rohan Army set, both priced at $12.99. The Rohan army one could have Eomer, or preferably Gamling (and put Eomer in the Helm's Deep set). Throw in the orange haired grunt we got in UHA and two other grunts. Give one of them the horse helm we already got, and the other two this helm. Give Gamling some existing hair from another theme. Two new prints between them all and BAM! Money in Lego's pocket! They even could of given us two soldiers, an elf soldier, and a horse instead. The build could of been a smaller wall piece. The UHA set would pretty much stay the same except shrink down the bolt thrower slightly. For the first Hobbit wave Lego really should of given us a $12.99 goblin battle pack. Four goblins total, re-use the two normal ones from Goblin King battle and create one new one with a new print. Throw in a small rope bridge piece. BAM! More money in Lego's pocket! Lego could of even gotten rid of the Riddles for the Ring set and just included Gollum in the Goblin King Battle set since that set was terrible. I'm not really sure what the good guy BP could of been here, Lego could of skipped doing one I guess? For the second LotR wave Lego really should of given us two proper battle packs and one definitely should of been a Mordor Orc set. Use the Moria Orc torso and just make some small modifications like change the neck color and arm color to red. It would look close enough to the Morannon Orcs. All Lego would of had to do is give us one or two new helm molds but if they REALLY wanted to skimp out they could of just made this helm in a gray color. That means the only really new prints would of been the orc heads. Give us one mint green colored orc (like the trolls from the Fantasy era Castle sets), an orang-ish yellow one, and then just re-use the existing dark tan Mordor Orc heads on the last two Mordor Orcs. The build could of been another catapult we see outside Minas Tirith. This set could easily be used with the Black Gates, Pirate Ship Ambush, Shelob Attacks, and even Orc Forge (though not technically correct). For the good guy battle pack Lego could of just thrown in four undead soldiers and a small rock structure with skulls? I am not really sure since nothing else would of really worked here in conjunction with the existing sets. For the second Hobbit wave just give us a Gundabad Orc set with three Gundabad Orcs and the brown Warg, and then one with three elves (one in armor seen at the water gate, one in dark green hoods, and one with hair and ears) and an eagle? The Gundabard Orcs may of required an additional print and the elves definetly would of for the armored elf. This would of eliminated the need for the MEA set and made that wave only five set total. That leaves the last, yet un-released waves. Obviously everyone is hoping for a third LotR with some Gondor stuff. A $12.99 Gondor Army battle pack would be PERFECT here. It would only require one or two new molds. Give us the standard Gondor helm on two identical soldiers. One Ithilien Ranger using the existing hood and then one White Tree Guard. The tree guard could use the standard Gondor Helm but it could have holes in it on the sides where you can put feathers. That way Lego doesn't even need to make two separate molds. Just one new helm mold and possibly a new shield mold. All four minifigs would require new prints but it would be worth it. The "bad guy" BP for this wave could have two Haradrim and two Easterlings. The Easterling would require a new helm mold but that would be the only one required for this set as the Haradrim could use existing hoods from the Ninja/PoP/etc. themes. The last Hobbit wave could have a rag tag human battle pack and an Iron Hill dwarf one. Without seeing the last film it's hard to comment on the exact details at this point. This would of made EVERYONE happy I think. It would of just broke the more expensive army builders in the waves down into two separate ones for each faction. It seems like people think army builders need to sell more than the standard small sets but I just don't see how that is true. If Lego sells a single $12.99 army builder or a single Gandalf Arrives/Wizard Battle, they are making the same amount of money as long as the molds used are the same and not exclusive, are they not? Obviously I mentioned a lot of new molds but they could have been used in the bigger sets as well, and none except maybe one or two were really necessary. The difference is army builders have the potential to sell dozens upon dozens of sets. I don't know a single person who bought more than one or two of Gandalf Arrizes or Wizard Battle. I definitely don't know any that bought a dozen or more, like I would of any of the BPs I listed above. The only REAL question is if kids would buy at least one of each of the listed BPs? I think they would. Even one of each set would significantly increase their army sizes. The first LotR wave did a really good job, imo, of giving us a varied wave. We got the entire Fellowhsip, while at the same time a great number of Uruk-hai and Mordor Orcs (over 10+ even if you only bought one of each set).

Maybe that applies to very young children in the 3-6 range, but after 6 or 7 I don't think most kids are using Han solo as a cowboy or dinosaurs to fight the evil justice league. When I was around 9 years old I was using the characters as I saw them in movies and just using my imagination to make up my own scenarios. Luke Skywalker trapped in a cave on Hoth as Snow Troopers searched for him, Scout Troopers ambushing the Ewok village, Jabbar's Palace being raided by the Empire, etc. That is the market Lego is trying to appeal to with their LotR line, the 8-13 year olds. These kids are going to want soldiers to mimic the big battles seen on film, not 15 Gandalfs. I am not talking about exactly replicating the battles either. To do that you would need thousands upon thousands of soldiers for each side. I am just talking about giving people a decent number of soldiers. As I said before the number of good characters in the Hobbit line vs the number of bad is so lopsided it's not even funny. I also forgot some other good characters like the elves in the Barrel Escape set, and I excluded all the doubles you get like Bilbo and Gandalf. Even still there are 3x as many good as there are bad, but that's not at all how it is in the films. I understand parents are going to want to buy a random assortment of sets and not 10 of the same army builder or battle pack over and over. That's not what we were talking about though. We were talking about a $2.50-3 CMF style polybag, not even a full set. Even a $12.99 battle pack like Lego puts out for Star Wars. I mean if parents buy just 2-3 of those, that's more than the one any of them will buy of Riddles for the Ring. And plus, if a parent won't even buy multiples of a $2.50 polybag or a $12.99 BP set why on Earth would they buy multiples of Mirkwood Elf Army for $30, or worse yet the Black Gates for $60? It seems hypocritical to use this argument when Lego DOES offer army builders and for a much higher price.

I was the same way. I have said it before, but when I was younger I ALWAYS wanted tons of grunts. I wanted at least a dozen Foot Soldiers, Storm Troopers, etc. I mean you only see Luke, Han, etc. face Vader what, a few times in the entire trilogy or the Ninja Turtles face Shredder once an episode? And they are under special circumstances. Meanwhile they are facing the mundane Stormtroopers for over half the movie or Foot Soldiers half an episode. I wanted to re-create the scenes as close as possible to their source material. LotR is the same way except they have some amazing epic battles. I don't want Gandalf in ten sets. A few is fine cause people need options at different price points, but I would rather have tons of sets where you get extra soldiers. It's beyond stupid that with the Hobbit line, for example, you would have almost triple the good guys as you do bad if you bought one of every set. 13 dwarves, Gandalf, Bilbo, 2x Lake-town Guard, 4x Mirkwood Elves, Thranduil, Legolas, Taurial, Bard, Beorn, and Radagast is 27 minifigures vs what? The Goblin King, 2 goblins, Yazneg, Azog, the Necromancer, and 6 Gundabad Orcs? That's only 12. So kids really want to face their 27 good figures vs 12 bad? Especially when most of those bad ones are getting taken out left and right in the films and there are literally thousands of them? And the worst part is this doesn't even include all the duplicates of the good characters you get. Add in a couple more Bilbos, Gandalf, and another Thorin and the numbers are closer to 30+ vs 12

I saw those as well. $2.50 for a blind polybag, all of which looked to have soldier types. They also have $4 sets that have named characters with a small built piece, and then the bigger sets with several figures and more significant builds. If Lego had done this for the LotR they would of been printing money. Obviously the sets aren't that spectacular, but they don't even have any above $25. The focus was definitely on the minifigs. I seriously wish Lego would of focused a little more on this and the army building. People say kids don't like to army build yet Hasbro can get away with it with one of their lines? Riiiight...

I think it's confusing because most brands don't call what they produce their actual company name. For instance Hasbro toys are not called "Hasbros" or "Hasbro", they are called action figures. Pyrex are called containers or dishes, Mercedes are cars or SUVs, etc. I think the bigger issue is people calling Lego bricks just simply Legos or Lego when they are referring to the actual pieces and not the company? Sorry, totally off topic I know. To get back on topic I would have preferred Lego done Futurama instead of Simpsons but then I guess the yellow characters wouldn't have fit as well. It would of been a more interesting/popular license at least. O am kind of interested in seeing the Simpson episode if done in all Lego despite never watching the show.

He probably wasn't getting any bites and had little/no interest in it from other people. $10,000 is a lot of money for one go on toys and very few people can afford it. Heck, very few can afford to just throw down $100 on a single auction for used toys.