Deathleech

In the future, I would check the tracking on their website more so this doesn't happen again. I always do this a few days before so I know the exact day a package will arrive. Once you know the specific day check the tracking every half hour or so that day. Sometimes it can be a pain trying to figure out the specific time, but as soon as it is delivered they will update their websites and mark the shipment as such. Usually you can tell if the package will be delivered earlier or later than the expected date based on where the package currently is.

These videos really highlight the issues I have with the BrickShow perfectly. Great stuff! Pictorial reviews don't have things being pronounced wrong. Maybe spelt wrong, but definitely not pronounced wrong It's not even difficult names that the BrickShow pronounces wrong either, it's pretty common ones. Magneto pronounced Mag-net-oh? How do you mess that up? He is one of the most well known X-men and has been in pretty much every film. I'm not even a huge X-men fan and I know how to pronounce that. I will say the Brickshow seems to have nice picture quality, it's just a shame the content doesn't match. Screaming "the BrickShow", pausing and/or stumbling on their words, getting off topic and dragging out the reviews, being uneducated about the source material, and just saying silly things in general are all huge problems the BrickShow has. A pictorial review can't suffer from most of this,. Maybe they can suffer from not being familiar with the source material, saying silly things, and dragging out the review, but like you said you can easily skim those parts so it's not near as bad.

Ehh, you could try. I am sure if it were a bigger, more successful chain like Target or Wal-Mart you probably wouldn't have any luck. Stores like K-Mart and Toys R Us, who are on their way out, seem like they are more apt to negotiating though. I have heard reports of TRU managers honoring sale/clearance prices with their price match and selling products before the street day just to move more sets. I havn't really heard anything about K-Mart.

This review pretty much hits the nail on the head when it comes to how I feel about the first two Hobbit films. The over use of CGI, dragging scenes out but not focusing on character development, etc. Pretty much the only thing I disagree with are the critics solutions to handling the dwarves. His first solution would of been fine, but killing off dwarves throughout the movie who didn't die in the book, or only starting with seven would of been terrible.

He has some trans red studs below him which I can only assume are blood though...

This is really your only option (and why I keep saying we need just as many Mordor Orcs in an army builder as we do Gondor Soldiers!). About the only set you could use to army build Mordor Orcs was Orc Forge, and even that set was pretty terrible to do it with ($40 for 4 minifigs, one of which was Lurtz). It's also been retired for some time and probably hard to find cheap now. Personally, I would say go BrickLink. You can get so many orcs for so much cheaper than buying the sets if you don't care about the bricks. The bald orcs are rediculously cheap on there, usually under $3. The hair versions can get fairly pricey, easily adding $2-3 bucks per fig. This is what I ended up doing. I bought 40 bald orcs a few weeks ago for the price it would of cost me to get 2 Mines or Moria (on sale), 3 Orc Forge, 3 Warg Attacks, etc.

Very nice! I would suggest scaling waaaaay back on the citadel and using the bricks to raise it's height some. Right now it looks like it's just part of the second level?

This is pretty cool! I like the first picture and how you posterized the edges. Simple yet effective for Lego. I also love the guy getting shot on the wall. He seems awfully happy to be dying though My only question where are the green dragons taking that battering ram? I don't see a door or gate to bash open! And also, how is the soldier being shot off the wall, none of the green dragons have bows?

So after looking at all the info we have for the upcoming wave, I believe more than ever in my "second wave split" theory. I think Lego definitely split their second Hobbit wave into two so they could accommodate the film split. First off at least a few sets from TABA seem to be based on the DoS movie. The Erebor set with Smaug sounds like the end of DoS scene for scene. The Lake-town add on set also seems like it might be based on DoS, but I can't say without more info. I can only assume it's based on DoS though since Smaug won't be in it and there shouldn't be any other action in Lake-town besides that. Possibly it is covering the orcs fighting Legolas and Tauriel? The sets are also being released in October which would of been a few months after TABA was originally going to be released (you figure the Lego sets usually get released a few weeks to a month early). More importantly though, there don't seem to be hardly any set price points over lapping. If you combine wave two and three based on the info we have, it's like every set is intentionally a different price. DoS sets in red, TABA in green: Witch King/Galadrial/Elrond Set - $12.99 Dol Guldur Ambush - $19.99 Mirkwood Elf Army - $29.99 Lake-town Add On - $29.99-39.99(?) Lake-town Chase - $49.99 Bo5A set - $59.99 Dol Guldur Battle - $69.99 Smaug at Erebor - $129.99 The ONLY possible over lap is the $30 set. I am guessing this could be an extra set Lego had to make later on to fill out a wave so there weren't only three sets released in it. The second Hobbit wave was more the mid-range sets but missed the lowest and highest priced ones, while the third wave seems to cover both of those. All of this seems like a little too much of a coincidence for me. I mean the first and second Hobbit waves had material STRICTLY from the corresponding films (or stuff made up by Lego based on the films). Why change now? And why change the December release date? And most importantly, why do both waves miss some major price points but when combined they form a nice, rounded wave? This gives me hope we will still see a final LotR wave next year. If we do, hopefully it will have a $20 set, a $30 Gondor army builder, a $40-50 (Balrog?), and a $60-70 Osgiliath or Minas Tirith wall.

Well its either talk about how much we want a Gondor set for the millionth time, talk about the very little Hobbit info we have (which could very well be totally wrong), or not discuss anything at all.

It sounds like the seller took the parts. He didn't have the box, the bags were cut, and there were only 2 types of parts missing (but multiples of each)..? One of those by themselves may of been a coincidence but all together? It sounds like he just threw the box because he had to open it, then cut the bags and took the parts he needed/wanted out. Why he would do this if the pieces are so cheap is the only real question? I mean why would customs cut the bags open in the first place, and how would only 8 of the same piece get lost but nothing else?

Ya, it's really strange. AUJ made over a billion dollars and DoS is almost at 1 billion but they are treated like direct to video films when it comes to merchandise. I wonder what the deal is.

ToyBiz probably did the best job with their LotR action figure line. They covered every main character, secondary character, even extremely minor characters. They also did several alternate costumes for most characters.

Even if it were just the front gates of Minas Tirith, I think there would be plenty of play features to keep kids entertained. Lego could make Grond swing back and forth and the front gates explode open to reenact that scene in the film. They could also include plenty of catapults/trebuchets that actually make sense and BELONG in the set (unlike in other sets where they will throw a catapult or flick fire missile in a tree or rock). Ideally you would have a bunch of good and bad guys trying to besiege/defend the city which is always fun, and possibly a cool Fel Beast figure to swoosh around. I don't think the play features would be an issue at all. I think keeping the scale and overall design of Minas Tirith in tact while trying to hit a certain price point would by far be Lego's biggest issue. I mean Lego did the Black Gates as a set it literally had nothing except a catapult, trap door Lego made up (not in the films), and the gates that opened and closed. The set is literally just a tower and wall piece. If Lego can make a set of that I am sure a MT gate would be significantly more interesting.

Does anyone else find it a bit ironic the Ghosbuster project that got picked will only be the car, even though it had the fire station too... while the other project was JUST the car and figs but it's not getting made? I know, I know, they said they are making it because it hit 10,000 supports first and because the model was so good, but I wonder if this will make future projects include a bunch of elaborate parts in hopes of getting noticed then just one aspect will be made to keep the cost down?

Yup, and most of the sets, or at least half, seem to be based on DoS which will have been out for over six mounths by the time the third wave hits stores

Yup! The elves number over 1,000, the dwarves 500, and the Lake-town men around 200-300. Of course the goblins(orcs) trump all of them. There are over five times as many goblins as there are humans, elves, and dwarves...combined. That's why I am always wanting a bunch of orcs in the army builder sets. People are like oh we already got orcs in other sets, but if you are trying to re-create the scenes on a smaller scale it just looks wrong. 13 dwarves, Thranduil, Bilbo, Bard, Gandalf, Mirkwood Elf Guard (from the polybag), 3 Mirkwood Elf Scouts, and Beorn so far vs Azog, 2 Goblin Town goblins, and 6 Gundabad Orcs. That's over 22 good minifigures vs 7 bad and who knows if the goblins will even appear at the battle, or if Tauriel and Legolas will be there? Buying more MEA doesn't help either since the elf to orc ratio is wrong. About the only option for building a larger orc force is BrickLinking all the orcs

Exactly. We have already heard everyone's dream wave three over and over again in other threads. I wanted to just hear what everyone wanted the most if they only had one choice. I didn't add a poll because I figured there would be some odd ball choices like a Mt. Doom build, or Isildur minifigure, and people would complain that their option wasn't listed. There are just too many possibilities to list them all.

Just to be clear (again), this is about the one thing you want. Gondor Soldier minifigure? Check. Eowyn? Check. A Balrog? Check. A condensed minifigure scale Minas Tirith building? Check. A Pellenor Fields set with Eowyn, Witch King, Gondor Soldiers, armored Mordor Orcs in new prints, Fel Beast, Gothmog, Denethor, Merry in Rohan attire, Pippin in Gondor attire, a Balrog, Mumakil with Easterling and Haradrim riding, all 9 Fellowship members again, Sauron, and Saruman's grandma? Not quite what I was asking for. We have seen everyone's wish list for wave three sets in the various other LotR threads. Obviously we all want a number of things and we all want one or two big sets to have all the main characters, factions, and builds still missing from the theme. I am asking what is the ONE thing you would like to get though, if you only could get one last thing and nothing else from the Lego LotR line. It doesn't have to be a minifigure or building, but if it is it's just the building or just the minifigure, not an entire $130 set.

Almost all of my Lake-town polybags were bought online so it couldn't of been me

Nifty idea. You said it hasn't fallen over but what if someone bumps it through the rails? Do you have any plans to secure it, especially with kids around?

We already have that!

When they left Lake-town I thought several of them had the guard uniforms on. By the time they got to the mountain they had mostly stripped down or were in rags. Either way, not exactly the most amazing prints to do for minifigures. Especially when their beards cover most of them up. Now if they were decked out in armor ready for the Bo5A that would be a different story...

The first Hobbit wave is still available most places so you can pick up the original dwarves for MSRP, or BL them separately if you just want the dwarves. Personally I don't want the Erebor DoS dwarves because you can EASILY MOC them yourself. Basically just take the Lake-town Guard torso, the dwarf head and legs, and tada... DoS versions! Maybe armored versions from TABA would be ok, but like others I would rather see totally new characters such as Dain, Bolg, etc.

I have noticed that a large number of my new, barely used minifigure legs seem to have stressing on the inside: This isn't really a crack and it doesn't seem to affect the poseability of the minifigure. I noticed it on a large number of their legs, but not all of them. At first I thought I might have done it from bending the legs too far forwards or backwards, but after trying it on legs without any stress they didn't seem to develop any lines. Now I think it's just from the assembly in the factories. The plastic is so thin there that it seems sometimes they develop stress cracks when they are assembled?