Deathleech

I don't think Lego can legally use the licensed hairpieces in non-licensed sets. For instance you won't see Leia's bun hair on a City girl. One time the elf hairpieces were for sale on their website but when I bought them I was later contacted and told it was an error and they couldn't sell the piece because it was for a property they didn't create. This is probably why there are so many licensed theme hair pieces used so little. Of course if it's something like Gandalf's hair that already existed and Lego just made due with it that's another story. The hair piece has to be unique and created specifically for a licensed character.

I would scatter some light gray bricks throughout the walls to break up the solid white, maybe make some of them the detail masonry brick?

Mine were as well. When the sets were first released I visited three different Targets and noticed they all had about the same stock. They only had 2-3 of each set, and a few Targets were missing a set completely such as DGB. They didn't seem very well stocked. On top of that they were at the end of an aisle at every Target on a Lego display with Ninjago. The Ninjago stuff was facing customers as they walked by while the Hobbit sets were tucked to the side kind of out of view

I usually only get one or two Lego sets for Christmas and then usually a gift card or some small non-building pieces. My sister got me a few LotR/Hobbit key chains this year and a salt and pepper shaker among other things and my parents got me a Lego storage bin with some cash (last year a gift card to the Lego store and more key chains). Last year I also got 2 of the Hobbit sets from my in-laws. I generally don't expect many Lego sets for Xmas as I tend to buy them all myself as soon as they are released since I can't wait

Really? Why? The first wave had so much going for it. It had almost double the amount of sets so there were more options, the scenes were more iconic as a whole and seemed better built, and there weren't near as many figure rehashes (though admittedly this was because it was the first wave). The second wave was just so meh. Wizard Battle and Council of Elrond were cool, except the Council set had more Gimli and Frodo rehashes. Black Gates was a nice iconic set, but it was little more than a black wall and Lego advertised buying two yet had a horrible minifigure selection if you did buy that many. The Pirate Ship Ambush was the big flagship set and yet it was based on a scene not even in the films 10 minutes, even in the extended editions. The Mordor Orcs in all the sets were the same we got in the first wave but with Uruk-hai armor. Of the 20 minifigures in the wave, only 11 were new or variants (and that's counting things like Gandalf with hair).

Yes, it seems completely silly, especially considering all the missed opportunities in the last LotR wave. I'm just worried with all the negative reports we have (yes most are local shops or friends of friends so take them for what they are), and no advertisement in this year's Hobbit wave (when we have had an advertisement the last three waves), Lego might of pulled the plug and ended the line prematurely. If sales were bad enough they easily could of dropped any further LotR plans. The fact the last wave was extremely lackluster can't really help matters.

Well Lego wouldn't be under cutting them, they would be offering completely different incentives so people actually buy stuff directly from Lego which I assume makes Lego more net profit per set since they cut out the middle man. Amazon and other retailers would still have much better prices even if Lego did everything I suggested (which was 15% back on purchases over $50 and 20-25% back on purchases over $100, all in the form of additional sets). Amazon regularly discounts ALL sets 20-30% and you don't even need to spend a certain amount to get the discounts, you get them on EVERY purchase whether it be a $13 set or a $130 one. They also give you a flat dollar amount off, not additional sets. I think it would work because AFOLs and parents who currently buy from Amazon would still do the majority of their buying there. Some might start going to the Lego store instead, but I can't imagine they would abandon Amazone in droves. At the same time people who buy at the Lego store might be more likely to buy extra stuff there if there are incentives or make impusle buys when they would otherwise just browse the store. If Lego doesn't want to sell stuff at their stores why even have them? They need to offer SOMETHING. Even Lego's sales are pretty pathetic, usually only 10% discounts when other stores are doing 30%+. They currently aren't even in the same ballpark. This is true, and even Amazon and TRU who regularly have sales and discounts don't have them 365 days a year. Maybe Lego could just do one or the other, they could offer 10% VIP back OR a polybag or small set when you spend a certain dollar amount. When they have sales they could offer both?

Hello again! After recently reviewing the Mirkwood Elf Army set I figured I would try my hand at another review, albiet a much smaller set this time.. the Lake-town Guard polybag! Name: Lake-town Guard Set Number: 30216 Pieces: 31 Price: $4.99 Ages: 6-12 Minifigures: 1 Theme: The Hobbit Year of Release: December 1st, 2013 Price Per Piece: $0.16 Package This set comes in a standard sized polybag with clear plastic on the top and bottom and printing in the middle. We have the same blue scene at the top with the dwarves hiking across a mountanous landscape. In the foreground we have the contents of the polybag assembled which are the small catapult firing, a weapon rack holding a bow, and Lake-town Guard holding a spear. We see everything placed on a dock, and in the background a nice looking Lake-town building. There's not much going on with the back of the package, as to be expected. Just some legal mumbo jumbo, info about where the parts are made, and a sad baby because he isn't old enough to play with Lego yet. Contents Here we see all the pieces inside the polybag. There is a nice amount of brown pieces, a few dark green, dark red, black, and gray pieces. The instructions all folded out. Like the other Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug sets we get a nice blue weatherd look on the instructions. The front page shows the complete catapult build and the start of the weapon rack. There is also the friendly reminder not to fire catapults at your friend's head. The back of the instructions show the rest of the weapon rack build and the finished results on the left side. On the right side we have an advertisement for just the Lake-town Chase set which makes sense considering that would be the set you most likely want to use the Lake-town Guard polybag with. Minifigure Ahh, finally the good stuff! The stuff everyone is going to buy this polybag for! The STUFF everyone buys ALL Lego for! Err, ahem, too far? In all seriousness though, this is an excellent polybag for this minifigure alone. He has very detailed armor printing on his torso and legs and comes with a new molded helmet only seen in one other set which is Lake-town Chase. The silver arms are a nice touch, though they seem to be a bit darker than some of the printing on the torso and legs. Still, it's not terribly noticeable. The back of the minifigure. There is much less printing on the torso and none on the legs, but it still looks nice. There is no double sided printing on the head because the back is visible even with the helm on. Another frontal view, this time with the helm off. The helm is definetly a nice piece with several different colors and textures. You have the marking on the front, the fur below that sticks out on the sides, and then the ear flaps below that on either side. The minifigures beard looks more orange in my pictures than it really is. It is more closely the the light brown/tan color seen on Eomer. This is a new head print apparently only found in this set and the Lake-town Chase which has an identicle Lake-town Guard. Build Wow that was fast! With most of the instructions for this build on one page in the instruction manual, there isn't a lot of step by step to show you guys that you can't see yourself. I feel like the dark red and green pieces sort of clash with the brown of this set, but I guess it adds some detail. Obviously the build is extremely quick and nothing terribly interesting sine the polybag focus seems to be on the minifigure. Still, it's nice to have gotten two different weapons even if one is an old spear mold (would of loved a newer one in black with a silver tip). Extra Pieces Again not much to show when it comes to the extra pieces in this set. You get a gray pin, a dark green cheese slope, and... that's it! As to be expected in a set only containing 31 pieces I suppose. Conclusion Overall I think this is one of the BEST LotR/Hobbit polybags we have recieved yet. The Uruk-hai polybag in the first LotR wave was great, but we already had the Uruk-hai Army set as a cheap way to mass soldiers and bricks making it a bit redundant. The Mirkwood Elf polybag released last year with the first Hobbit wave was more unique and gave people a nice option to mass elves at the time, but with the release of the Mirkwood Army set this year it has severely diminished the value imo. You can get elves and bricks in the MEA for cheaper AND they have proper printing that's not an olive green/dark green clash. There is also the Frodo, Gandalf, and yet to be released Legolas polybags, but all of these characters can be gotten in more interesting sets so they don't have much appeal besides as super cheap impusle buys for kids, or parts packs for AFOLs. The Lake-town Guard minifigure is only available in one other $50 set at the moment, but he is a figure I think most people will want at least a couple of. It's nice to get a rare character people will want mulitples of, in a cheap set, with the correct printing. Maybe Lego will release another cheap option with Lake-town Guards in it next year, but as things stand now the polybag is the ONLY option to get Lake-town Guards on the cheap. They also seem to be much more widely available at TRU here in the states right now making it easier to obtain. The Mirkwood Elf poly was only available two times or so at TRU last year and that was it, but the Lake-town Guard has been made available multiple times already. Playability: 8/10 For a $5 set I feel it has quite a bit of playability. You get the catapult and a weapon rack for the guard to use, both things a soldier would want I suppose. Design: 7/10 Neither of these builds are seen in the movie, from what I remember, and the colors kind of clash, but overall the builds feel ok. Price: 9/10 Since a large part of the piece count is the minifigure, the price seems ok. I would of preferred $4 (who wouldn't?), but $5 isn't bad. It may also be $5 because as of right now it's only available at TRU and we all know how they love to mark up the prices on their sets. If you can find it during a BOGO 50% off or $25 off $100 sale, both of which Toys R Us commonly runs, you can get this set for just under 4 bucks making it a much better deal. Minifigure: 11/10 This is obviously the main draw of the set. The figure has beautiful printing and a new helmet mold, as well as offering a great option to collect a few Lake-town Guard figures if you so choose to do so. I feel like the minifigure is obviously the star of the set and the main reason anyone would get it, even more so than with another bigger Lego set. Parts: 7/10 Nothing really great in the parts selection. Even the weapons are pretty common. The only unique parts are the minifigure Total: 42/50 Thanks for reading guys! I hope you all enjoyed this (short) review!

Couldn't the exact same be said about the Watcher in the Water if he is brick built? We already have tons of tentacle molds and other ways to recreate the Watcher in the Water with existing pieces. I think it's just as easy, if not more so to recreate a Watcher than it is a band of Rohan soldiers. I mean sure the Rohan soldiers aren't THAT hard to make since a variety of Castle torsos and fleshy heads make building the rag tag band fairly easy. But the Watcher isn't hard either. I think the main thing a Rohan battle pack could offer that we can't get anywhere else is a new Rohan helm mold. Something like either of these: A new helm mold would make the set really appealing not only to LotR fans, but Castle/History fans alike. Then just throw in a posable horse in another color (even though they are widely available in other themes), Gamling as the unique character, and 3 grunts all with different prints and you have an AMAZING battle pack imo. It would be significantly better for Rohan army building than the Uruk-hai Army set. That set only gave us one helm mold and one grunt with a unique Eomer, which isn't much of an army builder at all. Just to get a band of 10 purist Rohan soldiers I would have to spend $300 bucks MSRP on Uruk-hai Army sets.

I completely agree with this. While I love going into the Lego store and looking around, I rarely buy anything there. Why would I buy a $100 set at Lego for 5% VIP back and a 5 dollar polybag (and only at certain times) when I can wait, go to Amazon within 3 months of a set's release, and get it for 20-30% off? That's easily double or triple the incentive Lego offers. I am sorry but no matter how great the experience is you can't win most people over with that big of a difference. Sure Lego can make sales to kids and parent's unaware of the huge Amazon savings, but I think more and more are becoming aware of places like Amazon and their deals. I think Lego needs better incentives for sure to help close to gap. If they offered 10% VIP back all the time and some other incentive I could see myself buying directly from them more often. Maybe they could offer the 10% VIP, a polybag related to every theme all year round on $50 purchases, and on $100+ ones you get the smallest set in the wave free (or two polybags if you would rather that)? That means you basically get 15% back on $50 purchases and 20-25% on $100+ ones. I think this would defensively even the playing field with other big retailers like Amazon and Wal-mart, while not cutting into Lego's profits too much nor under cutting and ticking the other retailers off.

Nothing is remotely confirmed, things just seem to indicate there won't be another LotR wave. The fact we haven't heard anything about the summer wave doesn't really mean anything considering we haven't heard on ANY of the summer 2014 Lego sets. I find it hard to believe the Lego Movie sets would of knocked out the LotR theme in the summer. I feel like the Lego movie is going to be a one and done line. They did a HUGE push with the movie's release and that will be it. That's why we had so many sets for it, they wanted to capitalize on all the hype. I mean sure we might get another wave when the movie is released on DVD, but I doubt it. As it stands the biggest indicator about a future LotR wave is the advertisement in the back of the second wave Hobbit sets. Usually we get a LotR advertisement, but we didn't this year. Why not? Nothing has really changed, Lego knew full well there was going to be another Hobbit wave a year later even with wave 1, but despite this they advertised for the NEXT Middle-Earth wave in each set last year. Even when there was a LotR video game taking up advertisement in the first LotR wave Lego still hinted at the game and the next Hobbit wave.

I personally think LEGO should do away with ALL themes and just focus entirely on LotR and the Hobbit! Back to being serious, Friends will end when Lego has something better they think can replace it, or sales drop off. Then and only then will it retire. I think it's funny some people seem to be implying Friends will become more popular than other boy-aimed themes and take them over. Keep in mind while Friends is incredibly popular with girls and AFOLs, it's not exactly turning tons of young boys over to the theme. How many 6-12 year olds are buying Friend sets?

IF there is a Hobbit wave next summer instead of a LotR one, does that mean we will probably get 2 Hobbit waves next year? One to help promote the game and for any sets they missed in the summer, and then the winter wave will cover the final film?

Just to throw my 2 cents in, I agree as well. If people wanted to get the polybags on eBay they would simply go there and do a search and buy them. Why does he need to make a thread about it here? Just to advertise his auction? That doesn't seem very helpful to the community.

Hate is such a strong word I don't hate the set, I just think it could of been better. The fact it is an army builder and includes a cool brown Warg really boosts the appeal for me. My main issues with it are just the pitifully short walls and Thrandiul being in an army builder. No armored elf, no orc hair/ears, and too many elves (this is a personal issue, I know lots of people actually prefer more elves) are the minor gripes I have with it. I think I tend to grade a little harder so you could probably add a few points to my review if it were someone else doing it.

I honestly wonder how Lego decides what to put in their army builders and how they get their info. I would love to see their sales and marketing research data. I guess it sort of makes sense they would include a unique character in a $30 "army builder". Lego probably figures kids are only going to buy one of the set at $30 so a unique character just boosts the appeal. For AFOLS they figure the unique character probably doesn't hurt sales that much, and it must be a sacrifice they are willing to take because of the increased appeal it has to kids. Otherwise why would they do it? It makes no sense to us. This makes me wonder though, in the designer videos we have seen them show us goblin and orc armies and configurations a few times now. The last we saw was all the Goblin Town goblin configurations. Why would they show us that though? The goblins are ONLY in a $100 set so far and most people aren't going to buy more than 1 or 2 of this set, or BL a few of the goblins. I mean I guess we might get more goblins in the third Hobbit wave, but if not why even show us that? It makes Lego seem a tad out of touch. "Ya, here are all the combinations you can do with these goblins.. but it doesn't matter because we only give you THREE in a single $100 set!"

Right, the mold is already there so offering a Warg in another color isn't a big deal to Lego. I guess I just have trouble seeing where they would fit it in though. We already have a Warg in an army builder type set so I find it unlikely we would get a Warg in another army builder. It seems redundant, even if it is a different color. I guess Lego could include one in the big set if it's based on the Bo5A but who knows. As for horses, they only come in three main colors usually.. white, black, and brown. We already have three colors for the Wargs and they will be used MUCH less. Horses have WAY more uses beyond just LotR/Hobbit since they can be used across multiple themes. Of course there are variations on the horses like markings, the red demon eyes, etc. but you get the point. I view the Warg much like the eagle. Lego will throw them at us once in awhile, but not every chance they get because they still want to keep the few sets with them appealing. I mean the Warg could of already appeared in multiple other sets that it wasn't in such as DGB and Orthanc, but Lego chose not to put it there.

It would be nice, but I don't think it's very important or likely at this point. We already have the Warg in dark brown, gray, and white, and one of them comes in an army builder type set. I highly doubt Lego will give us a forth option considering we already have so many, but who knows. For those following the Hobbit vlogs and info, is there even going to be an actual battle at Dol Guldur? I thought there might be one between the White Council, Sauron, the elves, and the Gundabad Orcs, but at the end of DoS all the Gundabad Orcs are seen leaving DG. This leads me to believe we will see something more along the lines of the book where it's just the White Council vs Sauron. If that's the case I doubt Lego will do anything further with Dol Guldur. They will probably give us a big Smaug set and a few Bo5A sets with a Bo5A army builder.

It's also the holidays so some people may not ship right away if they are busy.

This is a bit tougher. I don't think Rohan really got the attention it deserved when it comes to the soldiers since we only got one grunt and Eomer. At the same time, a Watcher in the Water set would be totally unique and offer a creature unlike any other in Middle Earth. I think in the end I would have to go with the Rohan Battle pack though due to me being a huge army builder fan. Three to four new soldiers all with new prints, 1-2 new helms and another horse in a different color would be perfect.

Well for a lot of people it would feel unfinished. Maybe their favorite character is Faramir or Eowyn, or maybe their favorite faction Gondor. To have a LotR line with two waves and not get them when people were expecting to can be very upsetting and quickly make them lose interest in the line.

Well you guys seem to be the minority, in the other thread a lot of people were saying they would stop buying LotR/Hobbit sets immediately if we don't get a third LotR wave.

A few people like Fives have tried to contact the designers and they just said they cannot comment on the future of the LotR theme. I have talked about this before, but Lego does indeed have something to lose if they announce the LotR theme is done. How many new people are going to want to get into a theme ending and buy the second wave of LotR sets currently out? How many would want the Hobbit sets? How many people already collecting the theme would want to continue collecting it knowing it will never be "complete" (we are missing a lot of characters and at least one main faction still)? Lego isn't going to announce anything for as long as possible, they don't want to hurt current set sales.

How do you figure it was better than the year before? 3x VIP is 15% back. Last year it was 10% off, plus the normal 5% VIP which is also 15%? I would rather have the 10% off on the spot, and have it all week, than 10% back in VIP and only offered one day.

Well the LotR video game kind of had an obscure character with Elrond in his Second Age armor. Elrond is already a secondary character and then he was in armor only featured very briefly in the prologue of the film. I think anything could be fair game but agree, a main character variant seems more likely. Video games are generally aimed at boys, how many 8 year olds are clamoring for a Galadriel? As for new molds ya, it seems they will unveil one first in a promo but it won't be exclusive there. Azog is another example, his new mold was first available in the Comic-con exclusive but later made widely available in the DGB set.