Deathleech

He has a huge part in the battle of Dol Guldur? I thought he was only seen at the entrance exploring and that scene was cut from the film? Also Beorn is a pretty major part of the plot, in fact he is the whole reason the Bo5A turns out the way it does. I would say his role is just as important as Eowyn's is in the LotR, he is just shown a lot less.

I just ordered 4 more Mirkwood Elf Army sets for almost 20% off on Amazon, and 10 Moria Orcs on BrickLink after seeing my Moria Orc faction was a little lacking I should be good now until October when the next Hobbit wave hits. Time to save!

Ehh, if the Mordor Orcs had a new print and armor that would be ideal, but honestly I would take the same old ones we have got the last few waves as long as they have the hair and ears. If Lego DID make an army builder they would probably put some good and bad guys in it like they have for the past few Middle-Earth army builders. Mordor Orcs have been in a number of sets, but most of them are higher priced and none are really good army builders save maybe Orc Forge (which still was pretty bad for this at $10 per minifigiure). We need a GOOD way to actually bulk up our Mordor army. If Lego made a Gondor Soldier set I could easily see myself buying 25-40 of them. I would love to kill two birds with one stone and amass a huge Mordor army while also getting all the Gondor Soldiers.

Thanks! My "good" army isn't near as large as my evil one. I tried to keep the numbers similar to what they are in the movie (10 orcs for every 1 man). Right now I am sitting at about 3 for every 1. Hopefully I will get a chance to pull all the good guys out and get pictures of them up in a couple days.

I completely agree. I would even say I prefer a proper Gondor Army builder over a Minas Tirith set. As long as it had Faramir in it, it would be more valuable imo. You can always MOC a Minas Tirith but massing a Gondor force? Not so easy if the soldiers are only available in a $100+ set. Ideally we would get both, an army builder add on and a big set, but if I had to choose I would be fine with a white wall piece that had some Gondor Soldiers and Mordor Orcs.

Definitely get Helm's Deep. It's been retired for a few months now and the price is starting to sky rocket. Plus, I feel like it's a better set overall despite being a bit smaller. You get a lot of nice exclusive figures and it's one of the best castle's Lego has ever created.

What's your point? Pretty much every Lego set is off in terms of scale. Bag End has one room inside it. Helm's Deep is missing the entire mountain it butts up against and and the Glittering Caves among many other things (the walls are roughly 2 minifigures tall yet in the film they are AT LEAST 10 men high). Mines of Moria has only two walls. Weathertop is about a tenth the size it is in the film. Shall I go on? I can guarantee you Lego is NOT going to waste a set re-making a boat they already made just to make it slightly larger and fit more barrels. It would be the biggest waste of a set EVER. Well you are entitled to your opinion, but the general consensus does not agree with you. The LotR films all hold a 90%+ fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes while neither of the two Hobbit movies are above 75%. In fact AUJ is only 65% and DoS is 75% atm. That's a long way off from the 91%, 96%, and 94% FotR, TTT, and RotK hold. Also just because you like AUJ and DoS does not mean you will like TABA unless you are being bias. PJ is adding TONS of his own material so the book and movie versions may end up being quite different.

Wow, very nice! The elven architecture is spectacular! My only criticism would be the tree seems a little blocky, maybe the use of more slope pieces would help with that?

Here is my "evil" army: Mordor Orcs, Gundabad Orcs, Orc Hunters, and Goblins lead by Azog and the "Necromancer". Yazneg and the Scribe accompanying them Brown and Gray Wargs, Moria Orcs, and Cave Trolls lead by the 9 Nazgul Uruk-hai lead by Saruman and Grima The whole army. This collection is about 98% complete. I still want to get 4 more Mirkwood Elf Army sets for the 4 brown Warg and 8 Gundabad Orcs but figured it was close enough to complete for now. I will be uploading pics of my "good" army in a few days hopefully

He is talking about the Hobbit advertisement in the 2013 Hobbit wave:

I dunno, it seems like they have tons of sales in the UK and they often are better than the US ones from what I recall on Toys n Bricks. Everyone complains about not getting the Mirkwood Elf Guard polybag but it's not really that great anymore with the release of the Mirkwood Elf Army set. I would of MUCH rather had the super cheap Uruk-hai polybags. They are just more useful for buying en mass quantities. I actually ended up selling a bunch of my Mirkwood Elf polybags off when MEA came out. Why have a slopped together minifigure with mis matched colors and the servant print when you can get the actual scout print?

Bo5A, Erebor, and/or Smaug will probably by covered in the third Hobbit wave. The others you mentioned like Dale are probably the setting for sets like the Bo5A. Bard's boat was in Lake-town's Chase. Most of those are pretty redundant.

They were only available at Lego Discovery Centers (only 6 in the US and all Mideast/East coast locations), and Five Below stores. I honestly think the UK has it the best when it comes to Lego. Their Lego prices are almost the same as the US, they get almost everything released there that we do, and they have the ridiculously good newspaper promos where they can get minifigures for less than a buck.

To be honest, you guys aren't missing much. All the Middle-Earth polybags so far have been pretty sub par. The Frodo and Gandalf ones were down right terrible. Legolas seems like he will only be useful for the hair piece (much cheaper to buy em on BL though if that's all you want). The Uruk-hai poly was nice, but the Uruk-hai Army set had more value for the price. It had a better price per piece, the new swords and shields, $5 per figure, and a horse. Of course not all minifigures were Uruk-hai, so the polybag did have it's merits if you just wanted to build a huge Uruk-hai Army but had no interest in Rohirrim. It was only widely available in the UK though (and dirt cheap to boot), through the newspaper so us Americans didn't even have that one widely available. The Mirkwood Elf polybag was also decent, but with the release of the Mirkwood Elf Army set it's pretty much worthless. MEA gives you better elf prints, an elf with ears, plus all the orcs and warg with more pieces. The ONLY poly that is really useful and unique right now with no better options for massing armies is the Lake-town Guard. I am sure come the third Hobbit wave though we will get another option for them and that poly will be sub par eventually as well.

I don't think using Dain's boar as a great beast would work. Dain's boar is going to be MUCH smaller I would imagine, and the great beasts that pull Grond look more like rhino's than boars:

I dunno, I feel like the beacon kind of makes the set stand out despite being out of place. If the beacon wasn't there, it would just be another wall with a gate like Mines of Moria, Dol Guldur Battle, and the Black Gates sets. If Lego were to go this route ultimately I think they should do the sets in different tiers. How they would connect them and make them actually resemble Minas Tirith is beyond me.

Reps can be totally clueless. Just look at the rep last year in the MTV interview when asked about the second Hobbit wave. She thought there would be 5+ sets for that wave and possibly a Smaug set, but now we know neither was true. She seemed pretty unsure about everything, even the characters in the Lake-town Chase set. If that is a rep doing an interview I can only imagine how knowledgeable the reps answering e-mails are...

It looks pretty good! How many pieces did it take? It looks like it would be around the $80-100 price point since it appears significantly bigger than the $60 Black Gates set. Now just give us that and another $30 army builder add on and I think fans would be satisfied.

The e-mails just seem to be a totally mixed bag. a few people were told the LotR line will continue, a few told it will be ending, and most were not told much of anything at all. Like others have said, I doubt the reps really know anything themselves.

Here's the response I got: "Hello and thank you for contacting The Lego Group. Unfortunately at this time we cannot tell you ANYTHING about the future of our Lord of the Rings line. Stop asking. While you wait for news please feel free to go out and buy more of our product though. Lots and lots of product! Thanks again for getting in touch. We're always pleased to receive feedback! If you could take a moment to complete a four question survey by going to the link below, it will help us make sure we are providing the best customer service to you."

I would like at LEAST one more big LotR wave to make sure all the main characters and factions are sufficiently covered. It would have: 1.) A Gondor Soldier/Mordor Orc Army builder set with Faramir, at least 2 Gondor Soldiers in armor, and 3 Mordor Orcs with new armor and prints 2.) Osgiliath (or preferably a huge Minas Tirith) with Gothmog, Denethor, Pippin in Gondor armor, etc. 3.) A Balrog set with a few Moria Orcs that each have new helms and Gandalf and Boromir, 4.) A Witch King vs Eowyn set which would also include Merry in Rohan armor These would be the four most desired sets in the next wave. It would cover all the major factions and characters and leave nothing major out. A fourth wave after that wouldn't be totally necessary, but there would still be enough untouched material to make some interesting and distinct sets from. It could have stuff like an Oliphant with some Haradrim and Easterlings, Treebeard with Grishnak, Merry, and Pippin, Mount Doom with Frodo, Sam, and Gollum, and Lothlorien with Galadriel, Celeborn, the mirror and some nice white trees with bridges and buildings in them. A proper Rohan Soldier army builder would also be a plus, maybe they could just have the Golden Hall with them, Theoden without armor, Eowyn in dress, Gamling, etc.

I honestly have no idea. Almost all the sets were bought at 20-25% off U.S. prices, and the BrickLinked figures were mostly $3-4 a piece save some of the rarer ones like then Nazgul and Undead. I have other hobbies, but don't spend any money on other Lego themes, just LotR and the Hobbit.

Actually people can express their love for LotR all they want, but if the sales aren't there it doesn't matter. Lego isn't going to continue a line that isn't making them money no matter how much people ask for it. Don't just contact Lego, actually go out and buy those sets you were on the fence about. That speaks volumes more than sending them an e-mail saying you like the line and want to see it continue. That's pretty much how I feel. I got 2 of every set so far except a few where I got 3-5. The "army builders" Lego releases are a whole nother story (UHA and MEA). I got 7 Mirkwood Elf Army so far (plan to get 11) and 21 Uruk-hai Army. Here's what my purchases look like: 2x Gandalf polybag 2x Frodo polybag 2x Blue coat Bilbo 2x Uruk-hai polybag (not widely available here in the U.S.) 2x Gandalf Arrives 2x Shelob Attacks 2x Attack on Weathertop 2x Mines of Moria 2x Battle at Helm's Deep 2x Riddles for the Ring 2x Escape from Mirkwood Spiders 2x Barrel Escape 2x An Unexpected Gathering 2x Goblin King Battle 2x Wizard Battle 2x Council of Elrond 2x Pirate Ship Ambush 2x Tower of Orthanc 2x Lake-town Chase 2x Dol Guldur Battle 3x Elrond polybag 3x Dol Guldur Ambush 3x Attack of the Wargs 3x Black Gates 6x Orc Forge 11x Mirkwood Elf Army 11x Mirkwood Elf polybag (ended up selling 10 when MEA came out) 21x Uruk-hai Army 68x Lake-town Guard polybag As you can see if it's a proper army builder the sales are ten fold what I get of the other sets. Oh, and this isn't even mentioning all the minifigures I had to BrickLink because there was no other cheap way to get them in complete sets. I ended up BLing: 2x Cave Troll 4x Gray Warg 7x Nazgul 8x Undead Soldiers 10x Goblins 20x Orc Hunters 20x Rohan Soldier 28x Moria Orcs 40x Mordor Orc 40x Gundabad Orc 60x Uruk-hai

I don't see the resemblance at all.. On a more serious note, that is awesome work and I too would love to see some different pictures/views if you have them.

Ya, I figured AFOLs would buy dozens but I was thinking more about the kids who make up the majority of Lego's sales. If each kid only buys 1 or 2 that's not a ton more than the Council of Elrond. Then again 1-2 Gondor Army sets is still double if they are buying 0-1 of the Council of Elrond