Flieger

The dragon looks amazing to me! 100% buying the baddies, just for the shields and torsos. They will serve a Targaryen-army well

Sure, Gondorians or the Witch King would be sellers, but let's not understate the importance of the scenes covered in the next wave: - Council of Elrond: a centerpiece of the first movie, here the fellowship forms up - Black Gate: the last battle of the movies; I'd see the Mouth as a pleasant add, not the main feature - Wizard Battle The only odd choice may be the ship, although the arrival of the Army of the Dead at Minas Tirith is the turning point of the batte (THAT's the scene of the set, otherwise we'd had more pirates) So we have important sets, just not the arguably most important. But then wave one also skipped the Witch King etc.

Not a fan of chromed parts myself, but swords and armour were cleaned very seriously. It is not like they had stainless steel. Clovis executed a soldier for having a rusty battle axe e.g. Shiny metal is clean metal and therefore good. On the other hand: since when is Lego historically accurate? That is why I do not mind dragons and a bit fantasy at all. As long as Castle does not become World of Warcraft.

... well having some collapsible parts hopefully does not violate the license; I mean it is not like you need a license for destructable gates or so. But with lawyers around, who knows? License issues; only construction sets and promotional stuff. At least that can be most frequently read.

Agreed. Add to it reasonable play features like Orcs falling down on Uruk-Hai, the magic web of the Two Watchers', and the collapsing of the door by the phial of Galadriel (although the latter two were not seen in the movies).

The second seems more likely, after all, would TLG create so many new necessary molds (armour pieces different from the Ring War era) just for one set (since I do not see any other use)? Not that I am disappointed, I dislike the PJ-armoured Sauron. Let's see about the Necromancer.

Thanks for the welcome!

The evil knights' heraldry actually looks quite nice to me, although the colours of the minifigs and the good guys in general are not what I like. But the baddies' shield reminds me of the wolfpack, whose shields I loved.

Hello there, I recently rediscovered Lego - and the fun I had to build it when I was young. Back then I loved the castle-themes, but also the pirates. 15 years ago I gave away all my Lego to a younger member of my family, but at times I would look at the Lego in local stores, every 5 years or so... :D Last time, don't know when exactly (2005?), I saw brightly coloured, pain ugly knights who looked like Power Rangers... meh. But now I have seen the Lord of Rings stuff and was deeply impressed. I passed on the POTC and I have a general distaste for licenses, but LOTR just looked too nice. The fun I had building the small Wall-part of Helm's Deep in the Uruk-Hai Army set was so great that I could not resist buying all Helm's Deep. Well, and here I am, soaking up every info on Lego I can get. :)