Deathleech

I don't mind how he changed them to make them more distinguishable, I just wish some weren't quite as flamboyant as they turned out. Mainly the younger dwarves who barely have more than newly grown goatees for facial hair. After all, the long, thick beards are a trait dwarves are most known for so it just looks odd when characters like Thorin and Kili/Fili have facial hair that looks like they grew out in less than a weeks time. I'm so confused. I heard that was a big rumor going around Comic Con, but I thought that it had already been put to rest: http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/13/comic-con-no-third-hobbit-movie-for-peter-jackson

Sure, I will take a picture of it next to Helm's Deep later today or tomorrow. Be warned though, I am in the process of moving so I have a temporary set up that is pretty messy atm, lol.

I will definitely be putting the window up higher next time. With the moss, if I put more of it down near the bottom it would pretty much all be green I fear and might look a little odd.

Ya, I left the second one pretty much entirely because I was running low on bricks so I didn't have much choice. I wanted to build this solely from two Uruk-hai Army sets and almost accomplished that if not for having to add a few of the 1x2 bricks at the very top. I ended up using every last 1x1, 1x2, and 1x3 brick the two sets offered. In the end I don't think it looks that bad. Next time I will probably make the second arrow slit up a tad bit more so one soldier can shoot out it from the stairs, and another can shoot out the bottom from the ground level/beneath the stairs.

I haven't seen anyone else really do this so I figured I would since it's soo easy. While the Uruk-hai Army set is great for adding length to your Helm's Deep wall, I have found after 3-4 sets it starts to get a little too long. Because of this I decided to use two sets and build up instead of out. Total this took maybe 10-20 minutes to do. I used only pieces form two Uruk-Hai Army sets plus an additional two or three 1x2 light gray bricks. Front of wall Back of wall Wall with minifig to show scale Double tall compared to regular size wall While I personally was really pleased with how this turned out since it makes the walls scale much better in comparison to the minifigs, there was one major downside. Building the wall twice as big makes it look a little odd when placed next to the rest of the Helm's Deep since it is much taller than most of that set. The wall is almost as big as the front entrance/gate area of Helm's Deep, being only 1-2 flat tiles shorter and it's several bricks taller than the rest of it (other than the tower obviously). I am going to use a few more Uruk-Hai Army walls though and see if I can't somehow raise the rest of the Helm's Deep keep a bit so it doesn't look as odd, or at least make the height difference less noticeable and mesh the sets together a bit better. sorry, I would of taken pics but my Helm's Deep is currently displayed with tons of minifigs around it and I didn't want to move it all. Let me know what you think!

Well I am sure that's the case with the vast majority of MoCs that are well done, after all they usually include triple, quadruple, or more the amount of bricks a normal Lego set does! A lot of people bash the Mines of Moria set but I actually don't think it's that bad. Instead of shrinking it all down like they did with Weathertop and Helm's Deep and making it more of a connected set, they decided to make it all much more realistically sized and just included a few set pieces. Sure Lego could of made it feel more "connected" and like more of a playset by shrinking it down and including some stairs or a bridge and making the door and wall piece attached, but then the set would of been done much less to scale. It also might of been kind of boring since the caves and tunnels only have so much variation. Plus, I really think we will get a Balrog set in a future wave that can be added on to the Mines of Moria set, much like the Uruk-Hai Army set can be added to Helm's Deep. Speaking of Helm's Deep and the Uruk-Hai Army set, I felt like both of those were also fantastic. Sure they aren't as big or grand as their source material, but for the price I think Lego did a fantastic job.

Ya, that's pretty much what I figured, which makes perfect sense. Still, it just seems a little weird the Joker is the only one in the costume if they are all in an Akham Asylum set. They could of put Poison Ivy in an orange jump suit since she seems to be the exact same one that comes with the Batcave set and have the other two villains, the Penguin and Scarecrow breaking everyone out. I wouldn't want the Penguin or Scarecrow in the orange since we don't have any other versions still available in stores.

If I had to guess, I would say they are going to release new Superman sets to coincide with the June 2013 Superman movie coming out. We prolly won't see anything Lego Superman wise till Toyfair next year. Also, I see everyone speculating that there will be an Arkham Asylum set that includes most the villains shown off at Comic Con. Howevere, does anyone else find it a little odd the Joker is the only one in an orange jumpsuit? If the Penguin, Poison Ivy, and Scarecrow are all in this set why are they in their normal costumes but not the Joker? Not that I am complaining since we already have a bunch of Jokers in his classic purple costume readily available and no current Penguin or Scarecrow minifigs.. I just found that a little odd though.

Agree, X-men are my favorite Marvel line while Batman is my favorite from DC. I hope this doesn't mean we won't see any this year or early next. Regardless I do love the new Batman minifigs shown off, especially the baddies like Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and the Scarecrow!

I'm not a huge CMF fan since I recently got back into Lego, but there are generally 2-3 that I pick up from the last few waves because I really like the way they look. Howevere this wave doesn't seem to have any such minifigs. I'm not saying it's a terrible wave, it's just not really my cup of tea.

Definitely cool. It looks like it is aimed more at younger children though, as the book as listed under the "children's book" section on his website and some of the designs are pretty simple. Still, it looks like it has some great ideas and would be an excellent start for someone new to doing Lego MOCs.

No problem, though davee123 deserves a lot more credit than I do. I think it's interesting to note that of the LotR figures I have, NONE of the flesh colored ones have the 3 bar design on their head stud. It seems only one person(?) has a flesh colored figure with a 3 bar head stud, but other than that everyone seems to have the filled design on their LotR minifigs. ALL the Mordor Orcs that I have heard about have the 3 bar stud design so those two groups (Mordor Orcs and humans) seem to all be produced from the same mold with little to no variance. The Uruk-hai on the other hand, are a different story. They seem to be a mixed bag. As of right now I have roughly 36 Uruk-hai excluding Lurtz and the Berserker. Of them, 7 have the 3 bar design and the other 29 have it filled. That means just under 20%(19.4% to be exact) of them are from the older molds and the other 80% are from the new. Unless I just got a really mixed up bunch of sets, that should give us a little idea of how many old/new head molds are in use. Of course we would need LOTS more data to get a more accurate number, but 1/5 molds being the older 3 bar design seems likely. I am sure in the future we will see less and less of the old 3 bar design until it disappears completely.

I doubt it. The Rancor Pit and Jabbas palace both have a lot of screen time and are really memorable. The rest of Hobbiton is barely even seen in the movies other than a few quick shots here and there.

I can't imagine they would look different since we just got the Moria Orc mold and it has barely been used. Then again if they look way different in the Hobbit movie than they did in LotR I wouldn't be surprised if we saw new minifigs to represent them (which is a good possibility considering how the look of other creatures have changed so much from LotR to the Hobbit). Ya, I seriously doubt they will pass up doing a Balrog set. That's one of the most iconic scenes/creatures from the Fellowship of the Ring film. If I had to guess I would say it will be in the next LotR wave, or at the latest the wave after that. Kids and adults alike would eat it up. Wearhertop was one of the worst deals in the first Lego LotR wave at 0.14 cents per piece (only Gandalf Arrives was worse and it was a very small set which is common to have a higher PPP). It seemed to get the most mixed reactions of any LotR sets and many people felt it was underwhelming. With that in mind it's no wonder this set seems like such a great deal at $60.

At least they gave us an MSRP of $59.99, exactly where it should be!

That tower looks to be pretty tall too, at least twice as tall as the tower in the Helm's Deep set.

Indeed, here is what it's model after from the film...

Oh I totally agree, it just seemed like a lot of people were talking about how it looked like a complete set with it being fully enclosed, and would be great for displaying and such (and how cool the pull off top was). Personally I am kind of happy the back is open. This makes it a little more easily accessible for play, and at the same time keeps the price lower. I was a little worried this set was going to be in the $80+ range, but with no back I think it will only be around $60... at least I would hope.

Ouch, it's not a fully enclosed set with a pull off top. I bet that crushed a lot of people dreams/expectations of this set, lol...

Well I did some searching around and this thread seems to have a bit of information in it regarding the filled head peg vs the 3 bar design for the Lego minifigures. Long thread short, TLG basically used to use the filled head design when they first started making minifigures. They switched over to the 3 bar design as a safety precaution so small children who swallowed the head could still get air. More recently they decided to go back to the filled peg design so that they could stick their "Lego" logo in the head peg and make the heads even more brand recognizable. The minifigure head, along with the 2x4 brick are supposedly the most iconic and the minifig head hasn't had any Lego stamp on it for some time. There really is no where else it can go that is still easily viewable, and also doesn't obstruct the detail of the minifig's head. With a growing number of brick building competitors (Mega Blok/Kre-O) Lego decided the branding out weighed the relatively small safety measure and decided to go back to the old filled peg design for the heads (not that the 3 bar design did any good for a side ways lodged head anyways.. and what 6 year old chokes on a minifig head anyways?!?). So then, how do we still have all current sets coming with both designs, and even more perplexing some sets coming with two different head designs in the exact same box? Well Lego still uses all their working machine molds for production. They most likely have a mixture of older machines with the 3 bar head molds they are trying to phase out and won't get rid of until they break down, and some newer machines with the filled head molds. At any given production facility they may have several molds for the same piece. For example the Billund factory in Denmark may have 10 head molds with 3 of them being the 3 bar design and the other 7 being the newer filled design. This would make sense considering the vast majority of my LotR figures (~80%) have the newer filled design. What I don't get is why only the Uruk-hai are being produced on the older machines and none of the flesh colored figures. If I had to guess I would say since China is a relatively newer factory, their 3 bar head designs seen in all CMF are from newer molds that were made right before the transition. We probably won't see any CMF with the filled head design for awhile from them. Btw, I gotta give credit to davee123 as he was the one who explained most of this to me and gave me most the info.

Dang, he titled the thread setS, I thought there were more revealed :(

An amazing looking set! I love all the green used and definitely like that the top looks like it comes off for easy access to the middle. I do wish the set was a little more oval or circular shaped rather than rectangular, but I am sure that would be hard to do with blocky Lego bricks and a set price point. Speaking of which, I really REALLY hope this set is around 60 bucks, and not the $80 being reported by that one site that had all the Hobbit sets listed. At $60 it would be a good deal, at 80 dollars it would start to be over priced imo. Really that would be the only thing that could hurt this amazing looking set in my eyes. Now, if only we got to see more.. (not really expecting to as it would prolly give away some key moments from the upcoming film that they want to keep secret a little while longer)

Ya I get that, but just make them look more realistic and updated, not different. Like the Wargs in LotR you can tell look kind of fake in some of the scenes, so just make them look better now. They could still look the same but look more realistic with their fur and texturing and against the backdrops. The trolls I guess could be explained as the troll in Moria was a cave troll, and the trolls in the Hobbit are stone trolls so that's not as big of deal in my eyes. Plus, they still look sort of similar to each other unlike the Wargs which look nothing alike really other than being an animal on all fours.

Well they did the same with the first LotR wave. They left out a TON of classic scenes and creatures, and rightfully so. The Balrog fight, Minas Tirith, Rivendell, the Warg Ambush, Ents, undead, fel beasts, etc. Don't forget they need to leave some of the really memorable stuff for other waves which I am sure there will be many, many more of.

I gotta agree with pig here. When I was a kid I ALWAYS looked forward to the big action sequences in cartoons and movies. Those were what I wanted to replicate with my toys, not the more serene, peaceful parts. While the less action packed scenes are nice and can be super appealing to AFOLs, they just don't offer the same kind of appeal to most kids. If Lego only has one spot per wave for a big 130 dollar set, what do you think they are going to use it for? Look at the first wave if you are confused. Of the 7 sets released, only 2 were not conflicts and one was a 13 dollar set, the least expensive of the wave (and The Orc Forge was more of an army builder in my eyes anyways). Plus keep in mind MMV had a ton going for it. It was an exclusive, it had a lot of cool parts, and of course it was a phenomenal deal (6 cents per piece with 2 cows, a horse, and 8 minifigs?!?). And while it didn't have any bad guys or conflict in it, it did include 2 soldier figures so you could easily pretend some of the towns folk were bandits or something, or get a small set with an opposing faction and have them battle.