Deathleech

I think that is exactly why Lego didn't though - to keep the price down. For a lot of people the back side isn't that big of a deal since the model sits on a shelve and no one will see the back anyways. The extra 50 bucks would of been for little gain to them. The set looks fairly easy to mod too, so if you really want to make it have walls on every side you have the option to invest some extra money in pieces and make it happen.

This picture shows the back of the Ent, not too bad...

To me it says the exact opposite. Why would Lego purposely make a generic Ent instead of Treebeard, unless they plan to do a Treebeard set later (and include Merry and Pippin in it)? They could of easily made the Orthanc Ent into Treebeard if they don't plan on making him in another set. I mean why else would they purposely pass up an easy way to include a main supporting character unless they plan to give him his own set later on? I think they are trying to make it look different for when the different characters look into it and see different things? A little bit, ya. Another thing to note, as TheLegoDr pointed out in the press release thread, the printing on his skirt and torso don't seem to match up in the pictures. Kinda lame if that's how he actually turns out looking. I dunno why Lego would make high rez pictures using a flawed print.

If Lego were gonna make a new orc, I would of thought they would have done it by now for the Black Gate or Corsair Ship sets since neither of these would of had Isengard Orcs present. Instead we got the exact same orc as in the Orc Forge and Orthanc sets. This leads me to believe it's just a generic Mordor Orc that they plan on reusing for awhile regardless of location

Yes he does. You can see both pieces in this picture (he has his legs on and his skirt piece is to the right): You can also see both versions here:

I didn't even realize how big that Ent was. After looking at more pictures, I almost wish they HADN'T included him just to keep the price closer to $160 like Arkham Asylum was. They could of released an Ent set later for $20 bucks or so (I plan of buying every set so it wouldn't really save me money, just help space things out more). At the same time I can see why Lego did decide to include him though, it probably is a nice selling point to younger fans and offers a lot of extra play options. Plus, as has been mentioned, I am sure a Treebeard w/Merry and Pippin set is coming out in the future so they probably didn't want two sets that were so similar being released.

Ya, the fact the face sort of shows through on the back was really sloppy, but I would take the bald caps to nothing any day of the week

Ahh, so they do! It's hard to notice since their beards cover so much of their faces And, while they are new prints, I don't think they will really be a deciding factor if people buy the Orthanc set or not since they are such subtle changes (like Golem in the Riddles for the Ring set). As for other orcs, like I said, all Lego has to do is mix and match pieces already used. Why not use the Hobbit Goblin head and bald cap and plop it on a Mordor Orc body? Or re-use some existing Castle helms? It seems so easy it's painful. I know I could do this myself but I came out of my dark ages with the Lego LotR line so I don't have many older helmets. I don't really feel like spending $2-3 on BL for them either when Lego could easily just include them in sets instead of using the EXACT SAME Mordor Orc!.

Unfortunately Lego S@H doesn't have many good deals like other sites/stores. I think I will wait till double VIP points in October, that way I will score 20 points for this thing and it will probably be the best deal we will see on it for a few years. The waiting a few extra months might kill me though Not having a ton of figures isn't what bugs me so much as the amount of rehashes. I am fine with Saruman since he has his robe, and Grima since he is obviously completely new. The White Hand armored Uruk-hai is also nice since we don't have him available in many other sets. Another Gandalf the Gray is pretty meh, but at least he has his hair making the Wizard Duel an easy set to pass up if you want to get Orthanc instead. Another bald Mordor Orc though? Really? REALLY? When this line was first unveiled I wanted Mordor Orcs (and all orcs for the matter) to be available in huge quantities. Little did I know they would be reusing the same Mordor Orc for EVERY LotR set! Come on Lego, at least give us fome old Kingdoms helms, or mix and match existing pieces you already made for the LotR/Hobbit line (Hobbit goblin heads and bald caps, Moria torsos, etc.).

FINALLY we get some info! This is almost everything I hoped for! We get a brand new Grima figure and Saruman with new robe (and normal legs), which are nice. All of the rest of the minifigures look like they can be gotten in other sets. The Mordor Orc without ears/hair, or different printing is lame, but that's pretty much to be expected at this point seeing as how Lego has released the same one in every other set that has Mordor Orc(s). The White Hand armored Uruk-hai is nice to get more of, but also nothing new. Gandalf the Gray with hair will be the exact same minifigure released in the Wizard Duel set a month or two before Orthanc, as will the Eagle also being released in the Black Gates set. I kind of wish we could of gotten a few more minifigures, but they would of probably just been more Mordor Orcs or Uruk-hai which would increase the price and be unnecessary. As for the build, it looks GREAT! I kind of would have preferred no interior, and just a full outside done, but I doubt it would of been any cheaper. The set will still look great from the front while offering tons of play features in the back the way Lego did it too. The best of both worlds I suppose. I really love all the little details Lego did inside and the outside looks great for display purposes. The price does seem a little steep at $200. I would of gladly payed that for a Minas Tirith set, but Orthanc...? Meh. All the same the price per piece is relatively low being just under 9 cents per piece. Pretty good for a licensed set. I wonder if some people will opt for Orthanc, OR the entire 2nd LotR since they both come out to be right around $200? Being a Lego Shop exclusive means we prolly won't see many/any deals on this set where as you will prolly find the 2nd LotR wave sets for 25% off within the first month. I kind of wish Lego would of left one of the levels of the tower bare and made it so the Wizard Duel set fit in there. This would of knocked off about $10 of the set. Not much but it's something. Lastly there is the Ent. Personally I think it looks fine. I have seen lots of Ent MOCs and this one probably falls at the higher end in terms of looking good. I am sure Lego tried to keep it's size down a bit to keep the overall set price down. Personally I would of prefered no Ent at all after seeing the price, and had Lego release another $20-30 set later on with Merry/Pippin in it, but all well. No Ent and the Wizard Duel connecting would of prolly knocked the price of this set down to $170 which is much easier to stomache. Speaking of Ents though... My thoughts exactly! Why blatantly leave Merry, Pippin, and Treebeard out, yet include an Ent? I think this is a pretty strong indicator we will get a Treabeard set in a future LotR wave. I see no other reason to leave a named character out of a set like this, and include a random no name Ent instead.

Exactly! We want different helms and a variation, we don't want them all to be uniform (or wearing the distinct Uruk-hai helms as they will be in the upcoming sets). With that said I dunno why Lego didn't just take a bunch of helms they already have from previous Castle themes and include them on the Mordor Orcs. That was my point with the helms I linked earlier, they can be re-used from previous Castle sets and some look fairly similar to what the Orcs actually wore. The fact they aren't exactly the same is fine since the Mordor Orcs were pretty rag tag anyways.

Thanks for the pics! I think the middle helms looks good decent as is, but would look significantly better in dark gray w/o the speckles. Do you by chance have the speckled breastplate you spoke of (guessing no since you didn't take a pic of it ), and can take a pic of it with the helm? Do you also have a visor you can put on the on the Moria Orc helm o the left?

This is how I feel when people bring up Lego prices in the U.S. vs other countries. It's as if they think Lego is bias and favoring the U.S. with lower prices, but that simply not the case at all. It's business. I understand it can be frustrating seeing the USD worth less than your own countries currency yet seeing Lego prices lower in the U.S., but there IS a reason Lego is cheaper here. Lego is a business, they charge what the market will bear and want to make the maximum amount of money they can. I am sure they would love to charge double per set if they could in the U.S. They aren't giving the U.S. lower prices just because they are bias though. They do it because the U.S. consumes a TON of product each year and there is a lot of competition. If Lego charged the same prices in the U.S. as in say Australia, they would tank over night and lose a huge portion of sales since people would simply buy another cheaper building toy or buy another toy type altogether. I would too, but I agree with Delta that it's probably to late now. The only other set we probably would even see Moria Orcs in is a Balrog set or a battle pack, but who knows if the ladder will be made or the Balrog would even include a Moria Orc (and I seriously doubt they would make a new helm mold for one set when it's not even a main character). I tried to look on BL for something similar but it's too unique for anything to really come close... the best I could find was this, which still looks pretty far off: I still think just using this helm in dark gray would work for a lot of the Mordor Orc soldiers though: It looks close enough to these helms:

That's pretty cool! It just goes to show you what a "complete" Mines of Moria set would look like (and cost). While it definitely looks more complete and cooler than the official set, I am not sure double the cost (extra MoM set pieces, +$15 large gray baseplate, plus extra loose bricks from personal collection?) is worth it when it doesn't really add any play features for kids. I mean the official set still gives a pretty good feeling.

Well technically so did Gandalf the Gray (and several scenes before Boromir), but he has already been in a couple of sets. Of course it's a bit different since Gandalf players a much bigger role and comes back as Gandalf the White. As for Boromir, I agree there aren't a ton of sets he can appear in since he dies off fairly early and isn't in a ton of important or action packed scenes. A Balrog set, Amon Hen, and The Council of Elrond would be it, unless Lego decides to make a really obscure set which he could be included in again. Personally I don't really want to see him again, or any of the Fellowship for that matter, but I know kids and AFOLS getting into the line late need some options. With that being said I wouldn't mind seeing another option for Boromir. I would much rather see him than a fifth and sixth Aragorn/Gimli. As for Frodo/Sam, an Osgiliath set with Faramir would be good, or a Mount Doom set could also be done. Other than that I don't think there are a ton of options to include Samwise so we may not see many/any more of him than we already have.

Great point and that is just more reasoning that Lego might be doing a third LotR wave with a lot of Gondor inspired sets. Maybe we will see Pippin in his Gondor attire and in a Minas Tirith set, Merry in his Rohan outfit with Eomer vs the Witch King on Fel Beast, and Boromir again in a Balrog set? Of course we could always see the two Hobbits in an Ent Set like you mention. That just leaves Samwise not featured in any additional sets....

The second LotR wave has Gandalf, Frodo, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas in it which is five of the nine Fellpwship and just over half. At least two of them are new prints. I hope at the very least they re-use the Goblin King Battle goblins, or some parts. If we get more Mordor Orcs identicle to the Orc Forge set with Uruk-hai armor I will be very annoyed.

That's what I was thinking they will do, and maybe have some variations if they appear in different outfits in the movies. Trying to include all 13 dwarves plus Gandalf and Bilbo doesn't really leave much room for any other characters. I don't see Lego doing it every wave. I COULD see them doing half in the next wave and half in the third quite easily though.

I would easily have double the amount of LotR minifigures right now if they offered us "real" battle packs. A standard Star Wars BP is what, 4 minfigures for $13? That comes out to be right around $3.25 per minfigure, plus dozens of bricks. That would make it SO much easier to amass armies rather than paying $4-5 bucks per minifigure like we have to right now off eBay or BL (except for the Uruk-hai which are barely under $3). I don't see how the BPs could possibly fail either, I mean the current smallest LotR/Hobbit sets seem to be the ones clogging shelves anyways (at least around me). The Wizard Duel might be a different story since it has Gandalf with hair and Saruman, both of which are currently exclusive to the set. If they aren't going to do BPs, they should at least keep up this trend to make the smallest sets appealing. There are so many armies and creatures in LotR they could easiy make 10+ sets that are totally different BPs alone.

Here in the U.S. it is $99.99 and has 756 pieces. That's 13 cents per piece. While that seems a little high, remember it has 9 minifigures and some rather large ship haul pieces. There were a few more than that, weren't there? I thought Bridge Direct released five single figures and another four 2-packs, so 9 different sets total? At any rate I agree, I can't imagine Lego minifigures really taking away from the action figure sales, especially with something like LotR that doesn't even have any action figures currently being released. If this really is what's prohibiting Lego from releasing more standard battle packs though, I am totally fine with them making additional sets similar to the Uruk-Hai Army. I could totally see a white wall piece with a catapult including Faramir, a Gondor soldier or two, and three to four Mordor Orcs. Or how about an Oliphant with a brick built saddle platform and three Haradrim, the Haradrim Chief, and then a Rohan soldier or two on different colored horses? There are tons of possibilities at the ~$30 price range.

Ya, but for $6.99 you might as well just go for the smallest LotR/Hobbit sets for a few dollars more and get the minifigures that way, plus Gandalf or Gollum.

We hear these "rumors" all the time but there is little to no hard evidence. We have no sales figures at all and nothing said on the matter from higher ups (everything is from a friend's employee or store manager who has little say if a line continues or not, maybe their store just doesn't have the demand others do?). The only time we have heard Lego LotR even specifically mentioned was in an interview with the CEO from last year where he said they were selling "very well". Other than that nothing. We have a report from Lego for 2012 but it gives us little insight as to how well LotR is doing since it only list the top three performers and we all pretty much knew these themes were Star Wars, Ninjago, and Friends. Was LotR 4th on that list, or dead last? As for battle packs, it seems most people actually think the exact opposite of what you are saying and BPs cater to adults more than kids (since kids want to buy sets with recognizable named characters, not masses of no name grunts). There are only 4 sets this year, but Orthanc is all but confirmed later in the year bringing the total to 5. One of those is obviously going to be a bigger set, probably D2C and cost at least $150+. It makes sense then that Lego would only do 5 total LotR sets with one being so big and also the Hobbit sets coming out 5-6 months later (10+ sets per year dedicated to Tolkien material is quite a bit). This is pure speculation on my part, but as I said before the complete lack of sets based on some of the biggest factions/locations/scenes tells me Lego is holding back some of their material for later waves. If not why not put their best stuff out now to see if the line is worth continuing? Lastly LotR sets look NOTHING like the Castle ones since they are all dark neutral colors used to make the sets and the packaging is totally different and darker as well. Castle on the other hand is MUCH brighter with yellows, reds, and blues. The building shapes for LotR are nothing like the conventional square Castle ones. Heck, the logos aren't even anything alike either. I doubt at all Lego rushed the Castle line out again to confuse parents and grandparents into buying LotR sets.

The retail catalog stated a June release, which is when last years LotR wave was set to be released as well. Of course some retailers got them early and in May so I assume the same will happen this year. The October release is most likely Orthanc as it lines up with the same Lego D2C release time line as last year (Haunted House).

That picture is missing the weapon rack and has both platforms mushed together so it looks a bit smaller than it is, I think. Either way it's only a 30 dollar set so there isn't a ton they could do with it unfortunately. I would of rather seen a "spinning Gandalf" feature. Then it would of at least portrayed something from the movie.

K-mart also has the Croc Swamp Hideout up and that one is not available yet on top of being listed for $19.99 when it should be, at the minimum, a $59.99 set. If K-Mart wasn't so far gone already I would bet they would get a lot of backlash for these listing.