Deathleech

I think I am really starting to understand why Lego has steered clear of a Minas Tirith set so far. We all knew it would be big and require a lot of pieces, but the sheer size and amount of bricks to create anything that still looks like a complete Minas Tirith is just staggering. My model used about 5,350 bricks so far (I added a third row of walls so that's 21 wall sections back there alone), and that's not even including the big mountain, citadel, or white tree in the middle (at least another 2,000-3,000 bricks). It also has no minifigures or catapults. I figure Lego could probably condense my model by using three walls on each side of the gate instead of four, decreasing the height of the gate section by several layers, decreasing the wall height by a few layers, and only using five walls stacked 2x instead of seven stacked 3x. That's 13 less wall sections. Even then you are still looking at 2,800-3,000 bricks, easy, plus another 2,500 from the center. That's roughly a 5,500 piece set, or ~$600. This is for three sections of Minas Tirith mind you and no details inside, no minifigures, and with everything being condensed quite a bit.

You think an iron would melt/damage the bricks?

I really like the Haradrim and Mumakil Rider/Chieftain! They look excellent! I dunno if I am a huge fan of your Faramir though, I don't think that face really works for him and he has leather armor, not chain mail?

I guess it all just depends on what source material you are basing it off of. Like the posters above, I usually visualize him having scaly green skin and being large, but still mostly human looking. There is a versions where he is much more crocodile like though:

I think some of the new Simpson minifigures look like they might be competing for worst spot...

I really, REALLY hope Lego doesn't do that. We already got the Mirkwood Elf Army set which had three elf scouts in it plus Thranduil this year, and last year we got the Mirkwood Elf Guard polybag and some elves in the Barrel Escape set. I have almost as many elf soldiers as I do Rohan Soldiers and I bought half as many MEA as I did UHA. I only bought 10 elf polybags last year but BrickLinked 20 extra Rohan Soldiers AND have all my Eomer's being used as Rohan Soldiers. I'm all elfed out. In contrast how many sets have we gotten dwarf soldiers in? How many sets could they possibly appear in not including the TABA wave? The answer is zero. The only dwarves we have gotten so far are unique ones in Thorin's company and Gimli. The dwarf armies aren't featured much in PJs version of the films so this is our only real shot at getting a dwarf soldier to army builder with. If Lego puts one or two in the Erebor set there will be no feasible way to amass a dwarven army since they will easily be $8+ a shot on BL or eBay. I would rather see Lego make the Bo5A as an army builder that includes a dwarf soldier, an elf soldier, a Lake-town Militia, and 2 armored Gundabad Orcs. Make the unique character Dain, but make him look common enough that he could easily serve as a second dwarf soldier like Eomer can a Rohan soldier. Ideally Lego would of left an extra spot open in the Bo5A army builder by giving us an armored elf in Mirkwood Elf Army, but that didn't happen. They could of also just given us two elf scouts in MEA and three orcs leaving the Bo5A set needing less orcs. I know people love them some elves, but do we really need two army builders back to back with them in each?

I was comparing things to the Shelob Attacks set. That set is $20 for 3 minifigures, a super tiny cave build, and Shelob who is all brick built. The obvious difference between that set and a Fel Beast one would be the large molded creature and the need for some other brick built component. I'm guessing if the Fel Beast was molded that would be at least $8-10 considering the Dragon Mountain set is $50 with 376 pieces while other $50 sets are usually in the 400-500 piece range (if they don't have any large molded pieces themselves like horses or wargs). So you figure a molded Fel Beast and 3 minifigures puts the set at around $17 minimum and that's without any substantial building aspect. Add in another $5-10 for that minimum and you are looking at a $25-30 set. I'm not sure what Lego could include as the building in a set that small really. Of course if the Fel Beast was brick built that would totally change things and the set could easily be $20 because it wouldn't have a large mold nor need a separate building besides the brick Fel Beast.

I think the Fel Beast and Witch King set would have to be significantly more expensive, unless the Fel Beast is all brick built. Lego would need to do a fairly large mold for it and then do some sort of building component to keep with their license. I would guess it would be in the range of $40-60. What could the brick built piece be though besides a Minas Tirith wall/gate? The problem is Eowyn, she only faces the Witch King on Pelennor Fields in front of Minas Tirith. The Witch King could be thrown in pretty much any Minas Tirith or Osgiliath set since he is seen flying around all over.

Ya, the only problem with the courtyard scene is there isn't a lot of action that happens up there. What is Lego going to base the set on, Denethor trying to burn his son Faramir alive? Denethor throwing himself off the top level of the city? I am sure those would be a big hit with kids and parents I guess Lego could do the lighting of the beacon for play features, idk. The only exclusive minifigures a set like that would offer are the Citadel Guard, Faramir, Denethor, and Pippin in Gondor attire. While not a bad selection by any means, I dunno if it's enough to sell a fairly expensive set alone. Minas Tirith gates aren't near as interesting in terms of build, but you can get so many great minifigures and action features from a set based there. Eowyn, Gothmog, Witch King, Rohan Merry, Faramir, Gondor Soldiers and newly armored Mordor Orcs. A Fel Beast and mountain troll would also be possible. The only problem is it would be yet another wall and gate. Osgiliath might just be the best option.

Ya, I didn't either so I re-did it all with the hinged walls. I also added a gate of my own. Here is my Minas Tirith version 2.0

Well the Pirate Ship was definitely unique, but why did Lego release the Black Gates set then? Sure it's a different color than Helm's Deep, but it literally is a black wall and gate. We already have gotten a lot of black spiky pieces with Orthanc and a wall with Helm's Deep, Uruk-hai Army, Mirkwood Elf Army, and Mines of Moria. I mean the Black Gates were not exactly the same as Helm's Deep and were a much lower price point (if you buy one, most seem to of bought two though..), but it's still similar. Minas Tirith would of hopefully been done in mostly white with a few light gray pieces vs Helm's Deep bley and sand green. Sure the color schemes are more similar than Helm's Deep and the Black Gates, but Minas Tirith would of hopefully been more than just a wall and would of had some of it's distinct round shape with tiers going up. So basically the color would of been more similar, but the the shape would of been quite a bit different? I understand where you are coming from though, two big castles aren't near as much variety as a pirate ship and castle. Maybe it was all the other wall based sets on top of Helm's Deep that also contributed to them making the pirate ship? The real question I have is why didn't we get a large creature in the second wave? That would of been WAY different than anything in any of the LotR/Hobbit waves so far. The only other big brick built creatures we have gotten are Shelob who is an 8 legged spider, and the Ent in Orthanc. I think a black Balrog with wings and fire, or a big elephant Mumakil would of been plenty distinct looking. They would of also had a lot of appeal to kids AND to AFOL and LotR fans. Who wouldn't want to display a cool Balrog on their desk, even if they aren't a huge LotR fan? Or heck, why not a Fel Beast? If it was released in the second LotR wave, it would of been 10 months before Smaug is released giving it plenty of spot light on shelves. I feel like the two big selling features the LotR designers should focus on, besides the distinct builds and minifigures, are the army building aspect and the awesome fantasy creatures. AFOLs can get tons of soldiers and kids would love all the creatures because they look so cool, even if they aren't LotR fans. What kid wouldn't love a giant elephant with soldiers on it's back or a flying dragon-type creature? Trying to re-create a huge location like Minas Tirith and do it justice is obviously going to be difficult for Lego with the price points they need to hit. Most of us can't even imagine a Minas Tirith for under $200, and even that would be incredibly condensed. In contrast a $40-50 Balrog or Mumakil would be SUPER easy to pull off. A $15 army builder would too and there are so many figures they could include in an army builder it's not even funny. The LotR films are known for their epic scale battles so it just make sense to do army builders for them. Even if Lego couldn't do a $15 battle pack due to licensing conflicts, they could do more UHA/MEA type sets? I feel like Lego just banked too much on the fact it's a pirate ship and attracting a lot of pirate fans with it (since there are currently no pirate offerings from Lego). They seemed to of alienated a ton of castle/LotR fans in the process though and I don't see a ton of pirate fans getting into LotR or even buying the one set. I mean I am sure there are some out there, but I don't see them rushing out to get the Pirate Ship Ambush set. I know we are adults so don't view things the same as Lego does or as kids do, but Lego doesn't exactly seem to be getting kids clamoring for LotR sets with their current offerings, and they are just making adults go WTF? It's like they are trying to please everyone and hit a home run, but instead are alienating most and striking out.

That is one piece I was considering using. I was also looking at using these two for Eomer: I was worried they might look too feminine and the second doesn't come in the right color. I like the pulled back look in this image. Thoughts? EDIT: Nevermind the second one I posted, I just saw the front view and it's totally wrong.

Here was what I came up with while messing around one night: The biggest problem is how square the first tier wall looks. It's not as bad for the second tier because there aren't as many flat walls making it up so it looks more curved. Here is a hinged version that gives you more "roundness", but at the expense of some big gaps between the walls: This would probably work best as it allows you to make the wall more round no matter how many or few extra walls you buy. No gate, but they could easily be added to a base wall set. I seriously doubt Lego would ever make a set that requires an expensive gate purchase and then 10+ army builder/wall sections like in my first picture, but it's just an example.

Well he was saying the armored versions may require new hair and beard molds for some of the dwarves. I was just pointing out none the DoS versions of the dwarves would require any new molds, they could all use the ones from wave 1 and just have different torso prints. As for the Armenstone, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if PJ changed the story there and kept it out instead of having it be buried. If PJ added the part about it being needed to unite the seven dwarf clans, so I am sure Dain will want to it out.

After looking at some of my LotR characters I decided I would go one step further in making them stand out by giving them hair pieces. The problem is I am not sure which are the best hair options. The main characters I am looking at right now are Eomer and Theoden. Eomer in particular needs to stand out because the cloak alone just isn't doing it for me. I have tons of other minifigures with his face, torso, and helm serving as generic Rohan Soldiers and the cloak is the only thing I use to differentiate Eomer from them. Theoden is already pretty unique with his brown and gold armor but I would like a hair piece for him as well when he isn't all geared up. What have others found to be the best hair piece for these two characters? I was looking some up on BL and it seems the female hair pieces are the best for Eomer as he has fairly long hair? Which is the closest match to his hair in the movie though? I also would like to find some better hair for Gandalf and Lurtz if anyone has any good suggestions for them, though they aren't as important. Their current hair doesn't really look that good and I am sure there are better options out there.

If it's a DoS Erebor, the dwarves would have all the old hair and beard pieces and just slightly different torso printing. They wouldn't be the armored versions. Sure it wouldn't be exciting or all that noticeable but hey, Lego gives them double sided heads when you can't even see the facial expressions so why not?

Except who says we are wrong nd you are right? You could know just as little about Lego's plans as we do. You already demonstrated you have no idea what they were doing with the PotC line.

Ahh, and here is more of the same ranting from MonkeyCrumb because he hasn't done that at all in the past several pages of this thread! So what is your stance on things, please tell us because we are all DYING to know! Yes I think Lego's lack of advertisement for any LotR sets is a bad sign. They advertised in the past 4 waves so why stop now? How is that any sillier than you thinking the blatant lack of Gondor sets means there for sure is a waver 3? As I already pointed out, PotC ran it's complete course and they skipped tons of important sets and characters with that theme so Lego could do it again with LotR. If you have read my past posts though (which you surely have considering you know so much about me!), you will see I agree Lego probably DID plan on having a third LotR wave. I have said it a number of times, I think the second waves were cut in half when the Hobbit was turned into three films. I think most of the Gondor stuff got pushed to the third wave. What I disagree with you on is why would Lego release blatantly less appealing sets if the line's future was in doubt? You still have yet to comment on this and instead keep throwing around YOUR ignorant comments (which not just I, but EVERYONE is sick of reading). If Lego released wave 2 and it severely under performed and caused them to not release the planned wave three, shouldn't Lego of been at least a little aware that would happen with all their testing and data genius? So Lego has enough insight to plan out three waves and mix characters, but not enough to see a poor second wave could kill the line? I said it's LIKE they are teasing us, but I acknowledged full well that's not the case a few pages back. I am pretty sure everyone else feels the same. Great reading comprehension though slick. And here is a small sample of your "nasty" comments (note most people weren't even talking to you before you started spouting your mouth off): Poor baby, you have "nothing left to buy". You poor, poor starving people with your glasses half empty!! What you kids fail to realize And for an 18 and older site, there is a ton of immature tantrum throwing going on. Uh, hey genius, it's the fact that you complain how it "doesn't make sense" Thanks for contributing to the topic, oh wait. You didn't. It's sad how you always have so much to say yet so little of it has meaning.

You aren't whining page after page but you are commenting on literally EVERY post in the past few pages that shows the least bit of concern with Lego's current LotR releases. To make it worse you have a very condescending tone. You keep mentioning how we are all children throwing temper tantrums yet you are the only one I see coming off like a raging teenager with your zealous stance. Your posts are FAR worse than any of the ones complaining about the LotR line. Ya, we get you think Lego gave us more than we deserve, you have made it blatantly clear in the last 10+ posts you made (and all on a single page no less). Give it a rest already? Oh, and it has been pointed out how your logic STILL makes no sense. Sir Blake said it best I think: "Kill a line because it underperformed? Understandable. Load the line with screwball set choices that guarantee poor sales and neglect obvious choices that would certainly sell better? Unforgivable." We all fully understand Lego might have put in some weird set choices to save the "good stuff" for later. What we don't get is why, if the line was doing poor and there is a chance it might be cancelled, Lego wouldn't give us their A-game in terms of releases? You keep talking down to us like we are some kind of idiots, but you seem to be the one too dense to realize we are all well aware companies hold some of the good stuff back for later. The differences is they do it when they KNOW a line is doing well and they have to stretch the releases across many waves, not when the line is in question and could be ending very soon. Why is this so hard for YOU to understand? Ya, no. There was no LotR advertisement in the second Hobbit wave and there is no LotR summer wave in 2014. The ONLY sign pointing towards a third wave is the total lack of Gondor stuff and a few important characters, but Lego has ended lines before without giving us crucial things. Case in point PotC. I'm pretty sure YOU are the one who started getting nasty first? Oh right, YOU were. Just look at Darth Caedus' post above for a small sample of your insulting comments. Are you trolling or really this dense? You come on the forums and criticize literally every one who is upset Lego might not release a full LotR range, then when there is backlash (and rightfully so) you play the victim. And just for the record, here is what I said in one of my posts so obviously I can see logic in some things: "Of course I don't hate Lego for doing what they do and I am sure they had their reasons. Maybe their testing with kids showed that is what would sell best. Who knows? I wouldn't stop buying Lego just out of spite since I seriously doubt they left out certain characters or factions just to spite us. They probably just had trouble fitting them in sets or making sets that hit all their check boxes. If I stop buying Lego after the LotR/Hobbit themes end it will be because nothing else currently interests me. I will be pretty disappointed if we don't get one more wave covering the remaining few important characters and Gondor, but I will be happy we got LotR at all. Most of the sets were amazing and to get the line in the first place really was a treat." You might want to take a good hard look in the mirror before you start chastising everyone else. You would think literally EVERYONE telling you this would be a hint.. but I guess not. And WE are the dense ones

Robert said Lego didn't give us SOME important things, not that they didn't give us ANYTHING important. Maybe you would of seen that part if you could put aside your zealot-like defense of Lego for just a second? Your logic is severely flawed. So Lego is going to release the Mouth of Sauron, a character not even in the standard release of the film (you know, the one the "general public" is most likely to see), but they won't give us a character like Faramir or Eowyn? They play major roles and are seen in huge chunks of the second and third films. MoS isn't even the Extended Edition of the films 5 minutes. Funny how you have commented on EVERYONE'S concern with the LotR wave in the last few pages with your "let's be thankful for anything they give us" attitude. You honestly are coming off MUCH worse than any whining, what with needing to respond to EVERY concern anyone has with the LotR. And no, I don't know about Lego's marketing strategy, DO YOU? You claim to know what they are thinking but there are so many flaws with your logic it's not even funny. Like this: Actually that's not true. Lego has been reported as saying PotC sales were actually pretty good but they intended to end the line regardless because there were no movies to help support sales. If that is true, Lego could of easily planned ahead and made more diverse sets and covered more important characters. You claim Lego released lesser characters to give us something to look forward to later on? Ok, well why would they give us the B or even C team sets when sales from the first wave (A team) were in question? Why not give us the strongest second wave possible if there is a good chance things will be cancelled due to poor sales? Companies generally give costumers "filler" waves when the line is a huge success and they know full well they have many, many waves to produce and can afford to throw in the odd ball character here and there. Also I said a few pages back I have no idea why Lego does what they do. I acknowledged we aren't their main target audience and maybe testing shows that certain sets we find lame would be huge hits with kids. I really don't know.

I was just saying if Lego absolutely needed to fit the Witch King somewhere, and couldn't put him anywhere else, they could of put him in the Black Gates set and just said it was covering two scenes with one set (the other scene being when he flies over the gate to attack Minas Tirith? Idk ) And no, we really aren't missing that many big characters but the ones we ARE missing are pretty substantial. I mean why not give us the Witch King before Mouth of Sauron, the Corsair, Arwen, etc.? The four characters you listed are just the most important characters we are missing but really there are many, MANY more. Gothmog, Denethor, Celeborn, Rohan Merry, Gondor Pippin, Sauron, Easterlings, Wildmen, Haradrim, Haradrim Chief, Gamling, Madril, Grishnak, Shagrat, Snaga, etc. There are TONS of minor characters we are missing.

I would guess that is exactly what Lake-town will have in terms of minifigures. If Bolg isn't in the Erebor set he has to be somewhere. What better place than Lake-town if it doesn't include Smaug? They need to give kids some conflict there to help sell the set. It was reported Bain was in the LT set, but most the other figs were place holders so they probably wouldn't of known who was suppose to be Bolg even if he was there. Actually they said there were three Lake-town buildings but there was NO mention of Smaug in the set whatsoever. Brickfanatics, where the info is from, doesn't specifically state Smaug is in any set. The fact the set seems to depict the end of DoS with the gold and carts and such leads me to further believe the set is strictly DoS based and will be the one with Smaug. Here is what Brickfanatics said (where you are presumably getting the bit about 3 LT buildings and such): "LotR/Hobbit There will be DLC for the game when the third movie comes out. There will be a Smaug similar-sized to the Castle dragon.The Witch King minifig glows in the dark. The Elrond fig looks like the polybag figure. The bargeman’s son comes in one of the sets (3 buildings, an addon to the Laketown Chase)" The only things that seem weird atm are why would Lego base 2 sets (Erebor and Lake-town) on DoS scenes when this is a TABA wave? Also no new characters in Erebor? I mean I could see it, they have several dwarves all with new prints who are out of production from wave 1 to help sell the set. The biggest selling point would obviously be Smaug too. Maybe Lego doesn't feel like they need to include any other new unique characters? But why have so much based off DoS?

The more I think about it, the more I wish the minifigures from Orc Forge would of just been combined with the Tower of Orthanc set and Orc Forge would of been scrapped for something better. Orthanc was already pretty sparse on figs for a $200 set so why not add a couple more? Lurtz, 4 White Hand armored Uruk-hai, 3 Mordor Orcs, and Grima could of all been in the set, with all but the Mordor Orcs as exclusive prints. This would of required no new molds. Lego could of left Saruman out and just put him in the Wizard Duel set even though he is key to Orthanc because honestly, if you can afford a $200 set you are probably going to buy Wizard Battle too. It doesn't work the other way around for kids on a budget wanting him. Lego could of thrown Council of Elrond in the first wave and in the second wave gave us a $30 Gondor army builder in it's place. Pirate Ship Ambush could of been replaced by Osgiliath or a piece of Minas Tirith that the wall hooks to. I think people love that Lego created such an obscure character, but they just hate knowing that he might of took the place of someone else more important. The Black Gates could of easily had the Witch King instead of the Mouth or Sauron.

Dain and Bolg are the only unique Hobbit characters that haven't been accounted for and that could appear in the set. One of them will probably be in the $30 set even if it's an army builder since Lego insists on including at least one unique character in those sets. That leaves only Dain OR Bolg. I guess we could get some soldiers in unique armor, but I would rather see them in the actual army builder set, not exclusive to Erebor. There really aren't that many other characters we haven't seen yet. Lego has most of the big characters already covered. Sure we are missing some secondaries like Alfrid and Braga, but I can't imagine they are a high priority and they would most likely be in the new Lake-town set anyways, not Erebor.

I just find it hard to believe Lego will include any TABA stuff the Erebor set. From the Brickfanatics description, the set pretty much sounds like the last part of the DoS film word for word. He said it was similar to Mines of Moria with a long structure that has transporting baskets, gold melting, a throne room, and hidden caches of treasure. He also said the set had Smaug. I mean sure Lego might throw in some TABA characters, but I just don't see how when it's depicting everything from the end of DoS. Lego has covered two scenes with one set before, but have they added characters to sets that never even appear there in the source material (besides special cases like Yazneg where it was changed last minute and not their fault)? The only way I could see them having TABA characters is if PJ made some big Bo5A scenes take place inside the actual mountain. That would be totally deviating from the book, but not impossible I guess. I really hope I am wrong about this because I agree, no new minifigures and just new printed dwarves would be kind of boring. I could see Lego doing it though, by the time these sets are out the first Hobbit wave will probably be fully retired and kids who missed it will still want the dwarves. Plus it allows Lego to re-use all those special bear molds from the first wave. It would be an incredibly boring minifigure selection for us, but it makes sense for Lego. Really the only TABA characters we need are Dain and Bolg, and Bolg could potentially be in the Lake-town set. That actually makes sense too, if Smaug isn't in Lake-town they would want to give us some action and what better way than with Legolas, Bain, Bolg, etc.? That would leave the Bo5A set as an army builder which only includes Dain as the unique character. We just got Thranduil, Beorn (not bear form though ), and all the other characters in the Bo5A in the second wave so no real need to put them in any wave three sets.