Brickadiergerard

80 million! Wow... I reconciled myself to scenes that were only in the books never making it into official sets. I made a Bombadil using a blue top, yellow legs, Sorting Hat with the face rubbed off with Brasso and a blue feather attached, and Santa beard painted brown. Goldberry I made using the green princess body from the Knights Kingdom Joust, fleshie arms and face, and blonde hair. Both work for me. The Collectable MFs knight makes a decent base for an Imrahil too - replace the visored helmet with a silver great helm, add a white plume and fleshie head, and a great sword and you have a passable Prince of Dol Amroth. Not worked out how to get a decent Swan shield though.

There are enormous and complicated legal dividing lines in terms of what can and can't be used by PJ and Lego - if it's in LOTR and it's appendices or the Hobbit it's ok, if it's in the Silmarillion it's not. It's to do with the rights the Tolkien Estate sold and has caused others to get into difficulties in producing metal miniatures that were really from the Silmarillion rather than the LOTR. So although we can see aspects of the Second Age in the films and official sets, Numenor and Beleriand will be MOC territory.

While we're on dream ones, Judge Dredd would be awesome. Middle-Earth and Batman were dream ones too.

Clayface and Batgirl please.

What a wonderful range this has turned out to be. I was expecting another POTC - good for a few torsos and fleshie heads to add a bit of variety to Gotham or Middle-Earth - and instead we get an inspired take on the Old West in tiny plastic bricks. Only the demands of space and the risk of marital disharmony will prevent me buying every single one of these sets, so I think I'll have to settle for Colby City and the Stage, and maybe the cavalry troopers so I can finally give Theoden a horse that looks like Snowmane. I can then quietly browse BL and create by stealth a little supporting cast of townsfolk in the same way I've managed to with Gotham. Instead of business types, mobsters, conmen and cops, I can get shop keepers, snake oil salesmen and bartenders. Just need to work out the best way of creating Al Swearengen and Gus McCrae. I can't wait.

Now that I've seen the photos on FBTB I know I'll be buying the Wizards' duel and the Council of Elrond as soon as they're released. I had reservations about the latter because it seemed too small to do justice to Rivendell, but now that I've seen it, I can see that it 's a neat set that captures some of the feel of the place and comes at a great price. 2 of the figures are amazing, 2 a bit of a let down - if we have to have another Gimli couldn't we have had an old Bilbo or Gloin instead of yet another Frodo? But even so, it's a great set. I expect I'll try and get hold of a duplicate to enlarge it. Which brings me on to the Black Gate, aka The Tooth of Mordor. What a weird half set it is. Kind of like the Mines of Moria but worse. Whereas Moria could hide the fact it was half a room with the whole acessibilty-for-play thing, having only one of the two gate towers does make for a really odd looking Black Gate. I'd sooner have had two towers, and got my great eagle in a more sensibly proportioned Warg Attack set (smaller tree with fewer functions, one less rock thing, one less Orc = room for an eagle). Like Rivendell, and Moria, I think this is another set that will be massively improved by the purchase of a duplicate to bulk it out, get that tower and an extra eagle, and then sell off the minifigs to recoup the purchase price. And like Rivendell the minifigs are a mixture of the great and the not-so-great, with the fab 3 of Gandalf, Aragorn and The Mouth set against yet more old Orcs. My big problem with that Orc is his face - those rings down his forehead make him too individual to be reused again and again. I think it's a real pity that we didn't get a new Mordor Orc figure. Finally the eagle - not as big as in the films, but not so far from the ones in the books as to make me anything other than really keen to get one. A figure can sit on its back, and the printing on the wings and head looks great. All in all, while I'm still surprised about what isn't in this wave, I'm more happy with these sets than I thought I'd be - they're more than just fillers between Helms Deep and Ents, Balrogs, Witch Kings and Gondorians.

It was quite a high pressure situation for him; that whole "if it doesn't after we eats it" probably prompted a certain seriousness of expression.

Great review - balanced, funny, informative. It helped me decide to get the set after all. I bought the it with some Christmas money and VIP points, which brought it just below the magic psychological £100 barrier. It is a fun build, and some of the techniques that have gone into it made me smile - the window, the gargoyles, the statues etc. I might mod it slightly - replace the bars to the cells with glass, get some extra pieces to fill the smashed windows near Ivy's cell, move the red phone in the hall onto the guard desk - but that's just personal preference as the Animated series tended to show Arkham cells like that. It's also also a good play item and has got some serious use from my kids since we assembled it. I've got the same reservations others have expressed about the look of Mr Freeze, especially his face - absence of red goggles and angry face were a deal breaker for us, so the old Freeze head and Hawkeye's were both tried instead before we settled on the old Freeze one. We switched Scarecrow's legs to the same brown as his torso too. But that's all our tinkering: one of the things that makes this set great is that it allows it!

Paraphrasing a different series, "They'll be back!" . You might well be right. But I hope not!

A great review, thanks very much for it. It'll be a post-Christmas purchase I suspect. Mr Freeze will get his old goggled head, and I'm not too sure how much use we'll get from "Artic" Batman, but the boat is great, and comes in at a sensible price even in the UK.

I know that, but it's not in the first movie so I don't think we'll see it at all. Ever. There's a scene which blends the book's Carrock and Eagles' Eyrie. In the book the Eyrie is the nest at the eastern edge of the Misty Mountains, the Carrock is an island of rock in the Anduin a little way to the esat of the Eyrie. An eyrie is a name for an eagle's nest, so allowing for the perils of translation, a set called Eagle's Nest could reflect a scene from the film. And eagles are too big a part of both the Hobbit and LOTR not to eventually end up as a set. So for my part, I'm hopeful we'll get one.

That's a great little video. I wonder if he prefers his Gandalf or his Magneto incarnation in tiny minifigure form. I wonder what it's like to have that kind of dilemma! It'll get worse when Gandalf the White is released.

Quite right, Durins Bane, bizarre not to have had it in the opening sets in the range: iconic in the book, important in the film, would make a great set with loads of play options. Even when TLG were working on there being 2 films you'd think they would have picked the trolls over, say, a massive tree without an eagle. But, a bit like Eowyn and the Witch King on his fell beast, or Saruman, or Treebeard, surely it's too significant not to eventually end up as a set. After all, now we have spiders and barrels, two iconic sets for the parts of the book which will make up DoS have already been taken, which hopefully raises the chances of trolls being a retrospective in the next wave.

Lady Marrion and the Robin Hood from earlier in the CMF line would both be pretty great Forestmen preludes. CMF has been a kind of teaser for some sets, notably MF. I wondered if the Heroic Knight was a prelude or a farewell to Crown Knights.

I agree with Hawkman, and plenty of the rest of you, that: 1. Lego did a pretty good job on most of the characters, especially the dwarves; 2. There are no real disasters in colour choices (orange not brown is not too awful) etc like there were in LOTR with Aragorn; 3. Having seen the film today the set choices are pretty bizarre and must have been, as Deathleech has said, to do with picking scenes which also appeared in the books at a time when 2 films were expected in order not to give too much away and to appeal to lovers of the book too I suppose. I'm not going to spoil anything, but the film is fantastic, and there are some incredible scenes which would have leant themselves to some great sets. Go see it and find out!

I'm sold. If the range in general is as good as that image, it will be great in itself and fantastic as a source for parts for others. It's been said before, but 2013 is going to be an expensive year.

Hello Eurobricks members. I'm very pleased to have joined this wonderful community, I've got round to posting an avatar, and now here's a bit about me. I came out of my dark age with Batman 1, which I persuaded myself I had to buy for my eldest daughter who was then, er, 1. But they were for the future, something for us to enjoy. And I was right, as Batman 1 and 2 are firm favourites with her and her sister, and me. Even my (very patient) wife agrees they're great. We've created some great civilians, cops and villains, as well as a few vehicles, over time to flesh out our Gotham community. Particular favourites are a police SWAT team with an armured truck and some hairy bikers. Also a tiny Lego Strike Team as a homage to "The Shield". Since then the Lego from my childhood that has managed to survive the passage of the years has also become a firm favourite, after a bit of part-enrichment from BL, and now the children are, if not Black Falcon fanatics like me, at least willing to let the greatest ever Castle range feature in their medieval games. Usually as baddies. As well as Batman and Castle, I'm a fan of the Middle-Earth ranges. I'm one of those people who loved the books as a child and teenager, and then enjoyed the films. I had a pretty clear idea in my mind as to how I thought charaters and places looked, and some of that chimed with PJ's vision, and some didn't. So I've adapted the LOTR range quite a bit to tie it in with my images in my head, and have built some minifigs and scenes which didn't make it into the films - Prince Imrahil, Tom Bombadil, a barrow, that kind of thing. I'll get round to posting pictures to share them with you all. And the Batman stuff. Apart from those core obsessions, we've got a few pirates (hence the current Avatar image, my Lego Jack Aubrey), quite a bit of Star Wars (mostly daughter number 2's) and a fair number of CMFs (mostly daughter number 1's). But my favourite set? The one that makes me smile every time I see it? That's Spaceship 918. Takes me right back to 1979 and where this wonderful hobby began for me. .

2 styles of Sauron in the game. If they ever make a set with Sauron in it, it'll either be a show-down in Dol Guldor or the fight with Elendil and Isildur on Mount Doom. Either way, he'd need to be HF style or even brick built Lex-Luthor-robot style to carry off the size distinction. What a great set that would be.

I'm just hoping that heroic knight has a white swan on his shield so he can be a LOTR knight of Dol Amroth. That would be absolutely great. And there's a chance he will have - lions and crowns should be out, and nothing says "goody knight" quite like a swan. Other than that, the minifigs that are getting me excited are the cyclops, Chicken Suit, Maid Marion and Dr Splitz. Parts- wise the judge's wig will be good for a governor in a pirates MOC, and the cop hat a must for Gotham 's finest. The one figure that really bugs me is Caesar. Why did they go for yellow legs with printing on again?! It made the otherwise brilliant Roman legionary look ridiculous and does the same for Caesar - it looks like he's been to the bathroom and got his toga stuck in his underwear. Compare it with the gladiator who had tan legs with yellow and brown printing and is one of the best realised figures in the CMF range. I just don't understand how, if they can do it for him, the designers can look at the other Romans and decide yellow legs were the way forward. And it'll happen again with the Centurion in series 10....

I'm with Wolvarie. Now we have a Mirkwood elf, his top 3 fantasy fantasy polybags nail it.

A great find, and wonderful figures. Well done everyone for the detective work and the construction. The centurion and the tomahawk warrior are my own particular favourites, with the revolutionary war soldier a close 3rd. But I agree with the general opinion - this is a fine return to form for the CMF range.

The mix of the first three leaked sets plus the next four would make for an interesting selection, which would cover a lot of price points. But having an eagle's nest as part of the LOTR range rather than the Hobbit range would be daft - sure, the eagles are important rescuers in LOTR, but they're pretty central to the Hobbit (ok, as rescuers as well) and the nests hemselves appear there not in LOTR. That makes me think that the Dutch site is more of a jumble of different sets from both ranges. You would think that surely there's bound to be an eagles set in the next Hobbit wave, but then TLG has decided to release two other takes on eagles sets in 2013, which leaves me wondering - you wait for 39 years for a lego eagle and three flap along at once. After all, if we were to think about the Middle-Earth range sensibly we'd think that: 1.Aragorn wouldn't have tan trousers, but would have maybe a bit of green somewhere and a cloak. 2. Legolas's hairpiece would have been designed to work with a quiver. 3. Saruman would have been in the Orc Forge. 4. The Orc Forge! As one of the first sets! Seriously! 5. Baldy Gandalfs just look a bit odd, so if you can design a beardy/hair combo to work with Blackbeard, you can do one for the most famous magician in the world, after Merlin, and maybe David Blaine. And Harry Potter, sadly. 6. If you can do leg printing, you can leg print some feet for the hobbits. So I suppose what I'm saying is that Orthanc, the Bridge of Khazad Dum, Treebeard, and Frodo's encounter with a Ringwraith (in the Shire) are really logical and very exciting sets, whereas an eagle's nest and a Corsair ship are slightly odder choices for LOTR, but TLG's made a few pretty odd choices in this range already. Maybe we should move on to discussing the most random sets or features we can think of for the next wave and see if any make it. How about the Green Dragon Inn with a turntable to allow for "Hobbit dancing playfeature". And some flickfire missiles of course ...

If it's any consolation, the release of the Hobbit sets in the UK is proving pretty random too. For those of us who took advantage of the Amazon pre-order price reduction, the sets are now listed in our accounts as not arriving before Christmas. TRU meanwhile have them down as being released on 1st December. There's no TRU mark-up in the UK, but the sets are expensive at full price. It leaves me in a bit of a dilemma, as my youngest has "Lego Bag End" as item 2 on her letter to Father Christmas. Getting it from Amazon for £44.99 was great, so I'll be pretty unimpressed if I end up having to get it at the full price of £59.99 to be certain of having it wrapped and under the tree come the 25th.

I grew up with the Black Falcons, Crusaders and Forestmen, and my kids have got into Castle Lego with the latest Dragon Knights and Lion Knights, so I think I've been pretty fortunate to have seen two goldenish eras. Trying to be objective and impartial, it is my considered opinion that a revised and updated version of the Black Falcons vs the Forestmen would be the most fantastically wonderful Castle range imaginable! Based on those possible names though, looks like the Falcons' return is still a dream, but a Forestmen of some kind does seem likely.

For me it's been some minifigure free versions of Mines of Moris, Helm's Deep and Weathertop. I've used the Moria set to give me the other 2 sides of the Chamber of Mazarbul. I built it like it appears in the books - so with another smaller door for the Fellowship to escape through. Helm's Deep I'll use to enhance the set I already have - higher battlements, more wall etc. I'm going to use with a load of BL green bricks to make a barrow for an MOC Barrow Downs. I've made a wight already - MF zombie head, plus HP Dementor cloak and body - so it'll be nice to give him a home. I have in mind a green hill, which opens across the middle on hinges. At one end a grey doorway, standing stones on the hill top, and arched burial chamber inside. Aargh, predictive text "Mines of Morris"!!! You get the idea.