Deathleech

You don't have to be a pessimist, it's just being logical. A lot of factors pointed towards Beorn's head being one piece. There was no other facial expression shown, the printing looked like one piece in the close up pics, and the biggest indicator (imo), was how much higher the head sat on the minifig's shoulders. Obviously Lego did this to give him some extra height as you can clearly see by the inside of the head where the bars push it up. Why Lego didn't just use the Woody legs and arms is beyond me, it would of gave him more height and still allowed for mixing and matching with his head and hair, as well as a second expression. Maybe they thought his legs would look to lanky and long then? Who knows. Eh, it would be better in a darker colo imo. Either the light or dark brown would have been ideal. The blonde/yellow one is too unique to Legolas to really serve as a common grunt imo. Plus, you can BL the yellow ones for less than 2 dollars. Unless the polybag has good parts, that might be a better option. I guess for MOCs the yellow might be ok though.

Are you crAzY?! We get a pair of Gundabad Orcs in three different sets. Two of those sets are pretty cheap and fairly easy ways to army build with. We don't get the Lake Town Guard in any other sets except the fairly expensive Lake Town Chase. I think the guard is actually the best LotR/Hobbit polybag to date. It's a figure only in one other expensive set, but people will want to army build with it a lot due to them being the human faction and taking part in the Bo5A. Now Legolas is another story.. kind of a pointless polybag imo. Especially with the Mirkwood Spider set still being readily available. Now THAT polybag I agree, I would of rather had a Gundabad Orc in instead. If it was an orc with the shoulders and hair/ears this wave would of easily been one of the tops for me, just because of the amazing polybag selection and Mirkwood Elf Army builder alone. I wonder what this means that the polybag is actually listed in the booklet this time, unlike with previous ones? Hopefully it will actually have good distribution?? The only thing worrying me about the polybag is they can be pretty hit and miss to come by, and some countries never even get them at all.

Most rare? How so?

Ehh, Radagast head piece looks like a pretty standard one. It's probably just a single molded hat and beard that fits over the minifigure head, much like all the dwarves with a single hair/beard piece.

I was thinking maybe they advertised the Hobbit wave to help alleviate confusion? Previously the tag line has always been the "journey continues in 20XX". If 2014 is the last year for both lines, maybe they didn't want to advertise LotR as the "journey concluding" when the Hobbit wave was still coming out after? They also didn't want to advertise it as the journey continuing when that would be the last wave. I know it's probably a long shot and I don't want to come off sounding overly optimistic and naive as there seems to be a very good chance we won't get a third LotR wave based on all the indicators. I just have hope Lego still might have something up their sleeve though. It would be a huge shame to see the LotR almost complete and perfect only to end one wave short. Of course there is the chance of a special D2C stand alone set or something for LotR that won't be advertised specifically until a few months before it's release. If there is, it would pretty much HAVE to be Minas Tirith/Battle of Pelennor Fields to incorporate all the missing main characters we still have. Eowyn, Faramir, and the With King specifically, though it has tons of potential with Gothmog, Denethor, and even Merry and Pippin in their alternate attire. I would love a huge Minas Tirith and a $30 army builder to go along with it since I don't see Gondor soldier army building possible at all off one large D2C set. If we got this I could easily live without a Balrog, Mumakil, (proper) Treebeard, Mount Doom, etc.

He posted the advertisements: http://cdn.vanillaforums.com/brickset.vanillaforums.com/FileUpload/5a/5b0b19d826b7fc79148aaaf27aa475.jpg http://cdn.vanillaforums.com/brickset.vanillaforums.com/FileUpload/cf/a51ea6e772acfe61bb268ae47693a8.jpg

Some other guy got the sets and opened em, here is what he said about the advertisement:

Ya tell me about it. I had a really fun time at TRU tonight too. Not. It started out great, I went into the store and saw the new Hobbit sets out on shelves with an MSRP price tag and got all excited. I swoop several up and take them up to the register. There were only 3 registers open and one was cash only. The register had 3 people in line and the third only had two woman who were together. I go to the line with two woman only to stand in it for over 10 minutes as the ladies argue with the cashier that the 25% off advertised in the paper is for their items as well (they had some coupon which was only for specific items it didn't include what they were buying but TRU apparently had a sign up in the wrong area or something). After waiting for them to get a manager and check the price I decide it will be quicker to go to a different register as the line seemed to die down. Of course when I get over there I realize some lady has a huge cart full of literally 30+ items. Rather than letting me go ahead and get out of there with my 6 sets, she decides to start unloading it all. Finally after another 5-10 minutes I get up to the register and am finally about to be out of that dreadful store, only to have the cashier ring up the sets and say they shouldn't be out and are being listed as not for sale till December 1st. I am like well there is no way to sell them now? You have them all out with price tags. She calls up the manager who says they have to follow the street date or they can get in some serious trouble. I end up leaving empty handed and hating TRU even more so than usual.

Some TRU stores seem to be letting people even though they technically aren't suppose to until Dec 1. It's prolly hit and miss. Mine wouldn't let me buy them but some other guy was able to.

Well I just got back from my local TRU. They had all the wave 2 Hobbit sets out but when I tried to buy some they said they would not be able to sell them until their street release date of December 1st. So close yet so far away... EDIT: Pics -

Right, and even if there is an ad there are (extremely slim) chances the third LotR wave could still be cancelled before it actually gets released. It just bodes well if there is an ad. No ad is probably a pretty bad sign considering every LotR/Hobbit wave so far has advertised the next wave.

Definitely the Fantasy Era stuff, and specifically the trolls. While not new in other mediums by any means, it was something different LEGO did with Castle which was refreshing imo.

Easily $250, possibly as much as $400? I would guess somewhere in the 300-350 range though.

I was hoping someone had gotten their hands on the new Hobbit sets

Right, 2014 Castle would probably be a summer/June release, much like a third LotR wave. Everything being shown off right now is January 2014, or early 2014. We won't be getting any news on the summer 2014 stuff till probably March or April (and maybe a hint at a LotR wave in the back of the Hobbit instruction books...).

Right, I meant for the second Hobbit wave though. It looks like it's just the 4 sets with a possible fifth D2C set in a few months.

There is definitely no retailer exclusive, it would of been listed in the Lego catalog people are starting to receive like all past retailer exclusives. The only possibility now is a D2C set released a little after the second Hobbit wave hits retailers.

Where did you get that?! I like how they put the Laketown Guard and Master on the "evil" side too in the poster, lol.

The more I look at the picture I posted, the more it looks kind of weird like there is actually something on the neck raising Beorn's head/hair piece. Look at the part in the beard specifically. It looks like the beard is raised up a good bit as it does not seemed pushed down all the way so it sits flush on the shoulders.

This is a very cool MOC! It depicts the scene near perfectly and the tree looks MUCH better than the one we got in the official set. My only criticism would be with the eagle, in the films their heads are brown instead of white. Also the head on your eagle seems a little large and the eagle is a bit blocky.

That wouldn't be much better than it being one piece imo. I mean it might allow for a second facial expression on the back which would definitely be nice, but without the Beorn hair piece it would look really weird on other figs and wouldn't line up right with most hair or beard pieces.

I don't really understand all the complaining about the heads being too big. They are based on cartoon characters who have fairly large heads and/or oversized hairdos. They look perfectly fine IMHO. If you are wanting to use them alongside normal Lego minifigures they might look a bit odd, but its a small price to pay to get the unique head shapes a lot of the Simpson characters have.

Everything just seems to point to Beorn's head and hair being one piece as of right now. We have not seen a second face print at all despite seeing both of almost every other characters', the printing looks kind of funky in the one shot, and the head sits higher up than a normal minifigures'. Of course it could just be a weird picture and something raising the head up, and a coincidence we havn't seen the other side of the face print, but it might also be one piece. Personally I would rather the hair and head be two seperate pieces so their are more options for the head in MOCs and facial expressions, but if not it isn't that big of a deal. Thranduil's neck ears are more worrisome than Beorn's hair being connected to his head imo.

Except it's not just the weird printing that leads us the believe the hair and head are one piece. All the pictures showing the lineup of minifigures on the front of the box clearly show Beorn being taller and his head positioned at least half a minifigure head taller than the other figs. Here is a close up of what I am talking about for reference. Notice the orc on the far right has the shoulders but his head is only SLIGHLTY taller than the middle one?

Ya, I got the catalog yesterday and saw those prices. They are what I was expecting and I am glad to see they are confirmed now. Dol Guldur Battle would of seemed like a rip off at $80, what with only 6 minifigures. I dunno if piece counts have been officially announced, but this is what they are for each set (as well as the price per piece): $19.99 Dol Guldur Ambush - 217 pieces, $0.09 ppp $29.99 Mirkwood Elf Army - 276 pieces, $0.11 ppp $49.99 Laketown Chase - 470 pieces, $0.11 ppp $69.99 Dol Guldur Battle - 797 pieces, $0.09 ppp I touched on this a little in my "How Many Mirkwood Elf Army Sets Will you Buy" thread. I pretty much agree with your speculations. I think the Gundabad Orc will be a lot like the Mordor Orc or even the Uruk-hai. The prices will vary greatly based on what it has. The base one with no hair and no shoulders will probably be under $3 relatively quickly much like the Uruk-hai with no armor and hair or the Mordor Orc with no armor/hair. The Gundabad Orc with shoulders will hover 50 cents to a dollar more, and the one with hair and armor might catch around $4-4.50? It's hard to say because the hair ones are in the cheapest set, but it's not really an army builder like the Mirkwood Elf Army set so people won't be buying as many in theory. I think the shoulders will also bump the price up a good bit because it looks like a nice, useful piece that is brand new(?). I don't see the Mirkwood Elves bringing in much at all. The hooded ones will probably be lucky to fetch $3 apiece and the hair one will be the big winner from the MEA set (other than the brown Warg), going for around $4. As for the rest of the minfigures, I agree with Beorn and Thranduil being the cheapest. They are in fairly cheap sets that people will be buying multiples of for the OTHER minifigs included with them (orcs and elves). I would say Beorn and Thrandiul will end up being around $2.50-$3 a few months after release. Radagast, the Necromancer, and Azog will all be the most expensive, easily fetching $6-8 for awhile after initial release. The Master of Laketown, Bard, and new outfit Thorin will probably be right behind them, being a dollar or 2 less only because the set is cheaper. That leaves 2 figures I could see going either way. I don't see people really trying to army build with the Laketown Guard yet because there is only one and he should theoretically be released later on in a Bo5A set. That SHOULD be an easier way to get him. I can't imagine people trying to army build with 1 fig only released in a $50 set right now, but who knows. I know some people scooped up the Rohan Soldier in droves (myself included) to army build despite there only being one (technically), and in a $30 set. I would guess, based on the Rohan Soldier who fetches about $5, that the Laketown Guard will be around $6-6.50 just because he is in a more expensive set. Finally that leaves the Warg. Personally, this is the big hit of the wave in terms of army building. If others feel as I do, I can see the Warg fetching a pretty good premium. However, the gray Warg is down to around $8 so I can't imagine the brown being any higher than that considering it's availability in a cheaper, army builder set. I would say the price for the brown Warg will probably be around $6-7 a few months after the sets are released.