Deathleech

I can understand some people's frustration though. It's almost like Lego is taunting us. How could they make the pirate ship and yet not make a single Gondor set? Literally no one was asking for a pirate ship and yet EVERYONE wanted something Gondor. Why did Lego give us two prints for the Undead Soldiers and Goblin Town goblins, which are only in one set each, but then give us a single print for the Mordor Orcs which are in 4+ sets? Why did we get Arwen before Eowyn, and the Mouth of Sauron before the Witch King? Like I said, it just seems like Lego is messing with us. It's one thing if they did a limited one wave run and only had a few select spots they could fill. Obviously they would of gave us the absolute most important characters (the Fellowship). I could understand leaving out important secondary characters and even factions then. That's not what happened though. Sure we only got two waves (so far), but a TON of important things were left out in favor of stuff much less important. The first wave really wasn't bad (probably could of done without the Orc Forge and had Lurtz in Orthanc or something), but the second wave was a pretty big disappointment. Even just switching out the Pirate Ship Ambush for a section of Minas Tirith would of made it significantly better. We could of got the Witch King on Fel Beast, Gothmog, Faramir, Eowyn, Merry in Rohan Gear, Pippin in Gondor gear, some Gondor Soldiers, and Orcs in a set like that. That would of literally covered everything important still missing in ONE set! Throw in a $30 Gondor Soldier/Mordor Orc army builder and I think fans would of been more than satisfied with just two waves. As is it just feels like there is a HUGE gap in the line. It would be like Star Wars without Darth Vader and Storm Troopers. 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.

Wow, that was extremely well done. I wasn't expecting something so professional!

The Lake-Town Guard polybag has China listed on the back of the packaging as one of the areas the components come from. I would assume the helmet is the only piece though as it's a pretty unique shape. The legs have the LEGO copyright on the bottom of the feet and the neck has the black bar on it, neither of these things are on Chinese made minifigs.

True, but Jabba's Palace just sat on top of the Rancor Pit. There weren't any walls being attached to the side or multiple pieces being stacked.

I thought it was already reported that the Erebor set was the inside of the mountain and included piles of gold and the forge? That's why I guessed most of the dwarves would be in the set, they are the only ones in that scene at the end of DoS. If it were a Bo5A Erebor I figured Lego would focus more on the front gates and outside rather than the inside. In the book, only the 13 dwarves are inside Erebor during the Bo5A and they are only barricaded near the front gate for a short while before they come out and help fight the goblins. It would be weird to focus on the forge and gold if it's a Bo5A based set considering none of that will even be shown in TABA (unless PJ made some huge changes). I hope I am wrong because personally I would love to get new Bo5A characters over the dwarves, even dwarves with new prints. Maybe Erebor with a forge and gold piles was just someone's wish, not the actual set though? It's hard to keep facts and wish lists straight. I think including Smaug in Lake-town makes MUCH more sense, as others have pointed out. You get Smaug and Bard to do battle and plus Smaug will only be seen in Lake-town during TABA before he dies. This would leave the biggest Erebor set to give us more new exclusive figures for the Bo5A. Maybe it would allow Lego to include a bear form Beorn in the Erebor set too? I could see the set having Bolg, Thorin, Fili, Kili (all new prints in armor), Dain, and a few armored orcs. The last couple spots could be taken up by elf/human/dwarf soldiers, or other characters that take part in the battle like Thranduil, Gandalf, and Bilbo (really don't want anymore of those two though). This would leave the smaller $30 set to focus strictly on the soldiers and not be cluttered with unique characters. They have done this a few times. The goblins in the Goblin King Battle set had three different torso prints and a two sided head yet they only have appeared in ONE set so far. Not sure what Lego's logic is there.. why do two prints for figures only in one set yet have the Mordor Orc in four sets and all share the one and only print for them?

I know, it's too boxy atm. The angle on the curved sections needs to be changed and possibly add a slight curve to the "straight" pieces as well. I took about 20 minutes to make it though just to give a rough idea, I hope Lego would take a little longer to do an official set Honestly I don't see Lego making something this modular. The furthest they seem to go with modular builds is two totally separate sets attached by pins. They don't really do any stacking on top of each other or mixing and matching wall sections. And why would they, it's not like the sets are made of tons of bricks that can be connected togeth... oh wait

I can think of a number of reasons why Lego would split the second LotR wave in half. Maybe they wanted to keep consistency with the smaller Hobbit waves? Maybe their data shows sets sell better individually when they offer them spaced out more through several waves rather than offer a ton of sets in a single wave? Maybe they wanted a Middle-Earth wave to go along with the big Hobbit finale boxed set when its released on DVD? Maybe they had Orthanc planned as the sending off set and just switched it and the third LotR wave around? Maybe Lego just wants to have two Middle-Earth waves released near the TABA film because they wanted to capitalize on it's release (one a few months before in October and one a few after in Feb-Apr)? Maybe Lego looked at their 2014 release schedule for all their themes and figured it was too crowded to give us a full 7-8 set LotR wave? There are literally dozens of possible explanations.

Good question. I would guess to keep interest going longer for the two lines.

So Erebor will be the biggest set in wave three? That means 8-9 minifigures and the molded Smaug, right? If it's based off the last scenes we see in DoS, the minifigures are most likely going to be Thorin, blue coat Bilbo, and 6-7 other dwarves who accompanied them to the Lonely Mountain. There are really no other possibilities since these are the only characters we see inside Erebor. They could possibly leave Thorin or Bilbo out since we just got them in the last wave and focus on all the other dwarves, but I don't think that's very likely since they are the main characters. Lake-town sounds to be about a $50-60 set which puts it at 5 minifigures. Bain was pretty much confirmed. I could see a number of other characters taking up the other slots. We could get the rest of the dwarves here like Fili, Kili, Bofur, etc. We could also get Bard's two daughters to go with the son. Yet another possibility is Bolg, Legolas and Tauriel. Of course last but not least is Braga and Alfrid. We already pretty much know for sure the smallest $12-20 set will have Galadriel, Elrond, and the twilight Witch King. That just leaves the $30-40 set. I am hoping it's an army builder, but who knows at this point. If Bolg isn't in Lake-town, they need to still fit him in another set. We also need Dain, and preferably Beorn in bear form. That's a possible three characters that need to be covered. I am hoping Bolg is in Lake-town though and that leaves the $30 set a standard army builder like we have seen thus far. Dain, an armored dwarf, an armored elf, a Lake-town militia, and maybe two armored Gundabad Orcs would be perfect. I am not crazy about the molded creature being Beorn, but I think I would rather have him in an army builder and get him then not have him at all. If Lego doesn't do Beorn in bear form in any set I think it will be a missed opportunity. Sure you can use the City bear, but what kid wouldn't love to have a cool printed Beorn bear?

And here is an overlay. The troll one definitely isn't perfect, the angles need to be more curved and it needs to be slightly concave in the middle. It's a way better overall shape than the Roman shield though and is lacking the huge stud in the middle. Ideally we would get a whole new shield mold, but if we didn't I would settle for a new print on the troll shield. EDIT: And here is what a Gondor Shield print could look like on the troll shield. Not perfect, but not bad imo...

The one I used is almost the exact same shape as the ones used in the film. The white tree symbol is just a bit different. I was going to use the shields in that picture you posted but the resolution was too low and they were too tiny. The side detail is a little less pronounced (which is irrelevant), and they are SLIGHTLY less round on the top and bottom. I blew them up and they still have a significant rounding on the top and bottom though, much more than the Roman shield. The Roman shield is rounded on the front, not the top and bottom. The troll shield has hard edges but it more closely resembles the overall shape. EDIT: Here is one from the film added to the previous picture I posted. As you can see the shape is near identical:

Well of course Lego isn't obligated to do anything (they still haven't given us anything Gondor after all...), and I wasn't saying they need to make a Bo5A army builder set JUST because army is in the title. I was pointing out that it's a clash of five armies so for Lego to skip doing an army builder for the scene would be pretty dumb on their part though. They will make an army builder set out of a small band of elf scouts and orcs skirmishing, but not for the actual armies all tricked out in their armor and having a climactic battle at the end of the film? This is one of the only big battle sequence in the entire three Hobbit films so it seems like a no brainer to give us an army builder set for it. And what reason does Lego have to do that? They already alienate quite a few fans with even one unique character in their army builders, why add more? People HATE that the Black Gates is marketed as buying doubles yet has so many unique characters. If you add more unique characters to the army builders you are basically doing the same thing.

What if Lego gave us something like this? Sorry, I got lazy and didn't finish it, plus I suck with LDD still, but I think you get the idea: Basically it's three straight walls and a curved wall section. Lego could make a Pelennor Fields/Minas Tirith gate set that had a gate (similar to Yooha's model, but not as tall) and put 2 of the curved wall pieces on each side. Then you could buy the Gondor Soldier army builders that contain the straight wall piece and put as many as you want between the curved walls. So you could put one on the left and two on the right, three on the right and two on the left, etc. Basically it would allow you to choose if you wanted to build out the width OR length of Minas Tirith. I think the curve I have needs to be a little less dramatic but you still get the idea. Inside is a simply brown ladder and armor holding a sword and "Gondor" shield. EDIT: Here is the same curved wall sections, but with three straights wall in the front and two on each side. Ideally the gate would be about the size of one straight wall. The inner court yard is one straight wall connected by the curved ones. You could potentially stack the second row of walls the make the second level of the city and put a base plate under them (this would be 12 Gondor Army sets). Then all you would need is the big mountain in the middle and the top citadel and white tree and voila! Modular Minas Tirith using 2 big sets and tons of army builders!

I still think Lego only originally had two waves planned for each franchise and had to split their second waves in half when the Hobbit movie went from two to three films so they could coincide. It just seems to make the most sense. Why else would BOTH the Hobbit and LotR second waves only be 4 sets instead of 6-8? And why would they be missing really common priced sets like the $100-130 one, and the $10-13 set (for the Hobbit at least)? And of course the biggest question is why the total lack of anything Gondor related in the LotR waves? If they had to split the second LotR wave in half it would make sense to have a Gondor army builder that attached to a bigger Osgiliath or Minas Tirith in the same wave, not split them up. That means all the Gondor stuff in one wave. My guess is Lego had two full waves for each theme planned from the start. When it was announced the Hobbit would be three films instead of two Lego simply cut their waves in half, kept what they had planned for the most part, and then created 1-2 more sets to round out the waves so there weren't any waves with only 2-3 sets. Of course they probably had to re-design some characters and switch things around or modify builds but other than that it would of been the most logical course for Lego and seems to be what all indicators point to. Now whether we actually end up getting the third LotR wave is anyone's guess. I hope poor wave two sales didn't make Lego pull the plug prematurely. I have seen other companies do it with their lines even when they have everything ready to start being produced. I just really hope Lego has enough common sense to see how much fans are clamoring for ANYTHING Gondor.

Ya, I was expecting Eowyn loooooong before ever seeing a Lego version of Arwen. I guess it all depends on what sets they make and which characters they can fit in them though. I just find it puzzling why some sets like Eowyn vs the Witch King haven't been done yet. Or the Balrog. Heck, even a simple white wall Gondor Soldier army builder. They seem like no brainers. They would be huge hits with kids, AFOLs, and Tolkien fans alike and pretty easy sets to recreate with TONS of play features. That pretty much ticks off every box Lego has for making a set, no?

Ahh ok, ya kinda hard to know or not in a 168 page thread if you havn't been following it closely, lol. You don't think they will look like that in the final form though? I kinda hope not, Rocket in particular looks terrible

I absolutely hate them when used with things like quivers, longer wizard hair (Saruman and Gandalf), or the LotR/Hobbit elf hair.

Not sure if anyone has posted this pic before, I haven't been following this thread and only went back several pages so if it's been posted already I apologize but, looks like GotG image from the video game:

But Lego made him in his Necromancer form so surely they could make him in his armored form. I gotta agree with Dr. Cogg, I would have MUCH prefered a Sauron over a twilight Witch King. If it was the normal black garb Witch King that might be another story, but the twilight version is just kind of "meh" in my mind. I am guessing Lego did it because the glow in the dark feature will be big with kids and he must have a big role against Elrond and Galadriel in TABA.

I'm imagining a Minas Tirith being about as wide as Helm's Deep with it's one deepening wall piece (the part that has the stream and blows up). Any add on sets would ideally be curved so they wouldn't be straight out, they would just round the set out more. I am picturing the front gate of Minas Tirith with a little wall section on each side and any add on walls would only expand the wall out a bit, but would curve back towards where the mountain is more than just be a straight jut out like the Helm's Deep walls. In your display a Minas Tirith with several wall add ons would probably cover most the gray base plates in the center with a few studs on each side to spare and half a base plate or so in the front not being taken up.

Minas Tirith would probably be more tall than wide, unlike Helm's Deep that is really long but narrow. Because of this Minas Tirith would probably take up less surface area and be easier to display.

I dunno, I just don't view light-hearted as synonymous with comical I guess. When reading the Hobbit I never really got the vibe it was a hilarious comedy. I would be fine with things not being so serious, but a lot of the stuff in the Hobbit film just struck me as plain dumb. It was not even funny. I mean PJ often uses Gimli as a comical character in LotR, but I was fine with that because it wasn't so over the top and ridiculous. I did like some of the comical stuff, like the scene in Mirkwood when Legolas is searching Gloin's possessions and finds the pictures of his wife and young Gimli and makes the comments about them. That was amusing and something hard core fans AND casual movie goers could get a kick out of even if they didnt totally understand the relevance. I will say I liked that PJ made the dwarves more combative rather than push overs like they are in the book (they don't fight the trolls at all, do very little fighting in Goblin Town, don't kill any Mirkwood Spiders, etc.). He also expands on some stuff that was extremely vague in the book which is nice. I just could do without so much of the slap stick comedy and over the top action. It's great in small doses but not when it's in almost EVERY action scene.

Hmm, maybe the pictures I am thinking of came out in December or January then.

For some reason I am totally drawing a blank, but why didn't we get any info last year about the summer LotR line at any of these fairs? All I remember is some blurry pics being found around March/April showing off the sets and minifigures. Am I remembering things wrong?

I would agree with you if not for the fact it includes Thranduil who has hair that is about as distinct as it comes. Uruk-hai Army is a much better army builder/example imo.