DaleDVM

30 days from now I will be meeting up to party hard with ABS plastic and I suppose you AFOLs are OK too. I will be staying at the hotel for all 5 nights of the event and will be starting on Wednesday night with the mixer party! With all of the meetings, and setup, and layout repair, and late nights, and the public exhibition, I will be starving by Saturday night. Hint: If you do not eat until Saturday night the pizza tastes even better! So by popular demand it will be Lou Malnatti's for the Eurobricks pizza party again! I will be running the party. Like Stash said... it used to be a small group of us Eurobricks members. Now this event is huge. Last year we had over 40 members eating. So to all of the newbies who want in... my name is Dale Klein. Hello. [beauty pageant wave] My brick badge looks like a castle. My castle display is usually one of the largest individual displays at the event so it is not too hard to find. If you need to, just ask around and someone will send you my way. What I need from you: a smile, introduce yourself to me, and please let me know what your name is on Eurobricks. I also need a whole $5 from you and to know what kind of pizza you like. I need this by 2pm on Saturday. I am going to try and order early before public hours are over so we will have pizza by 5pm at the latest. Any later than that and the Europeans turn cannibal! True story... I am excited to see everyone again and look forward to meeting new friends. This should be a blast!

Those are pretty good deals. As soon as the LEGO store has an AFOL day and I get my 15% off I am going to buy a large number of battle packs. 20 or so of each. I want to gather an army of at least 100 of each of these factions. I do really enjoy some of the figures even if their heraldry is very childish. I do like the variety of torsos in the battle packs and prefer that for army building as opposed to the sets. In all honesty I just don't need that much more brick from the sets either. I am still opening and sorting out all of the sets I bought 3-4 years ago. I am very disappointed that they replaced one of the figs in the battle pack with a little set! What will be really upsetting, is when they come out with a chess set right after I make my purchase of battle packs. That would make my purchase totally stupid on a per figure cost comparison.

Bravo to everyone who is posting! Love the classic castle guys! My army of them is similar sized but mostly the lions at a 4:1 ratio. It is great that yours is more balanced!

I actually love the builds... Is it me or do most people not understand what this theme is doing? The object is for these vehicles to look like they are made out of the parts of a building. In fact almost all of the vehicles are made using this same concept. In this case, I think they have done a fantastic job! The biplane is incredible in my eyes and I wouldn't change much. Thanks for the review.

G-day Kane! My name is Dale and I am a long time Brickworld veteran. I am a castle builder and the pizza party coordinator for Brickworld. Looking forward to meeting you and teaching you about Chicago pizza as well. Why don't you give us some detail about what you like to build. Are you planning on bringing some MOCs on your long journey or just hanging out with friends? Either way I can guarantee Brickworld is a great time for anyone looking for fun!

@SMC I agree with you completely! That would be sweet. @ Mutant Orc Good point! I am also concerned with the quality of some of the figs we get. However, when I am putting 3 or 4 hundred figs onto a MOC minor defects don't bother me nearly as much as paying $5 or more per figure. Cuz that hurts really bad...

After reading several pages, I was very glad that someone had finally notice the arches in light bley. This is the most important development for me since I love to build MOCs. I have them in other colors but for castle builders light bley is crucial. I love the minifigs. I think they are perfectly representative of their movie counterparts. I do not blame LEGO for PJ's designs. As for the builds. I think DGA and DGB are nice representations of the ruins. DGB does remind me a lot of the Moria set. The MEA is an alright army builder set, although I don't know what to do with all of those Thranduils. The build does leave a bit to be desired but it has the aforementioned arch in it! As for the elf debate. Sure it would be nice to get the elvish helms and shields. However, they are so unique that it would be hard to use them for any other purpose without making an army look like the elves. However considering they make new molds for something like a hat or beard that will never be used again, I suppose the helms and shields will get more use overall. Last but not least as an avid army builder I can say this. Although some of these sets are conducive to army building on a small scale, it is still incredibly expensive to do so with the Hobbit or LOTR sets. Elf army at $40 ends up being 5.71 per fig if you include the Warg as a figure. Uruk hai army was better at $30 coming out to 4.29 per fig including the horse. Unless TLG releases some sort of small battle packs like they do with Star Wars, I will just save my money for castle armies. Unfortunately I have had to shy away from LOTR armies since the cost per fig is just too high. Don't get me wrong. If TLG does offer battle packs, I will be buying them up like crazy. After all the epic LOTR MOCs need armies counting in the hundreds to populate the huge battle scenes from the movies. Right now it is just not very cost effective compared to castle figs. Castle figs not only come in battle packs but in chess sets at very low prices which add up to less than $2 per fig.

Nathan, the trailer looks great. I am so proud and happy for you! I hope the movie is a big hit. Then I can see it here across the pond! In the meantime build me a castle to look at when you are not busy... cheers indeed, Dale

Sure the new pirate heads are interesting. However, These battle packs including the pirate captain are just silly IMHO. How many pirate captains do we need? If this had 3 different pirate crewmembers and the female pirate it would sell like hotcakes. It would be a battle pack and people would buy dozens to fill their ships. If they did this with soldiers. Red or Blue the response would be absolutely insane. Wake up LEGO and give the masses what they want... Real Battlepacks.

I read the last 10 pages to see if anyone noted this. I am so surprised of the snow and ice depicted in the Laketown set. They arrive in the barrels on September 22nd and winter is still several months away. I know they are just copying the movie and I just watched the trailer. Plenty of snow and ice around. Peter Jackson is an idiot for messing with timelines. They find the door on Durin's day which happens to be the last week of fall that year. Just sayin.... On topic. The brown arches are exciting. Looks like a nice build.

Opening ceremonies in a couple hours and I still have 10 hours of building to do. Yikes! No sleep on brickworld eve again! @Mark can't wait to see what you have done. @4WD come over and introduce yourself to me. You want to be there early and have the entire day to view. Sunday's hours are short as it is. I recommend buying your tickets in advance and being there before public hours begin. I will be there for 4 days and still will not see everything I want to.

LOL. My LUG is full of smart ashes! I appreciate the offer Scott. If I need help I know you guys will be there. @SilverSmith you are more than welcome to stop by. It should be a blast as usual this year. Socializing is the best part of the event!

You can never have enough dark blue Simon! I will order extra pizza for you to take home. You probably should leave your MOCs with me to make room for the pizza! I love the way you build. LOL Vincent. Mr. Tomato Bread himself. I still say it is not pizza without crust, sauce, and cheese! I will work something out for you. I am really looking forward to this year. Should be a lot of fun with everyone in one big room. Bring comfortable shoes everyone. The floor in the convention center is bare concrete!

I have been lurking but haven't posted in the 2013 thread yet. I am sorry that some of our European friends are not going to be coming this year. I hate when life gets in the way of a good time! Congrats to Quarryman on his pending nuptials, and ZCerberus on the arrival of a BFOL. Cop Mike, I don't know why you are not coming, but you will be sorely missed. Don't worry guys I will eat your share of pizza this year! Speaking of pizza. I am organizing the annual Saturday night pizza party again. Like last year the fee will be $5 and you get all of the pizza you will want. Please bring something to drink for dinner. This get together has been growing every year and has outgrown my cooler. I expect about 40 or so of us Eurobrick's members this year. I will try to have the pizzas delivered Saturday evening around 6 PM at the convention center. Since this is a new venue, I am not sure where exactly we will eat, but I will let you know after I do some recon. This year I am going to hand out name tags for everyone to fill out with their real name and their log in name. This will hopefully make it easier for us to meet the people we chat with in the forums and put faces to the names. I don't even know the screen names of some of the guys in my own LUG. To find me and sign up for this event come to the Northern Illinois LEGO Train Club (NILTC) layout. We have a big banner and a 90 foot layout. My name is Dale and I have a 25 foot long castle display. You can't miss it! Come up and say hello. Let me know what kind of pizza you like. We will be ordering from Lou Malnati's. We get their deep dish every year and the folks from out of town love it! Less than 3 weeks to go and I have at least a hundred hours of building left...

I love the series! The honeypot print is great looking. Everything else I adore has already been mentioned. Now lets hope the distribution for army building figs is good again!

Glad you decided to pick it up. I have 6 of these and do not regret buying a single one. I agree it is the best set for the money LEGO has ever produced. All of the new figures, cows, etc. have lost a little luster since they can be found in other sets now, but at the time of release this set was just flat out awesome!

The silver and yellow dragon shield is my favorite as well. Here is a unit I made with that heraldry. The green unicorn and the sand blue snake shields are also impressive. Those were all released in the second wave of KKII. The first wave was such a dismal failure that even those great knights from the second wave couldn't save that theme! I was an adult by the time KKII came out so the rolling horses didn't quite do it for me... If it wasn't for the cartoony lion I wouldn't mind the Royal knights heraldry either. If it comes in a dark blue that would be pretty interesting...

I have been away for too long. Fun to read all of the pages of speculation and debate. As a long time collector, I find the builds to look pretty interesting. I do not find the sets to look like Knights Kingdom 1 or 2. When we get two knights jousting on wheeled horses propelled by plungers... then I will get upset. What reminded me of KK2 was my first impression of those Chima sets. I am certain the castle will look just fine. In the long run however, the minifig and heraldry designs mean the most to me. I can MOC castles, but as a purist I work with the heraldry LEGO gives me. LIke most, I am not really looking forward to a rehash of the Royal knights. Actually I am not looking forward to a rehash of any Lion faction ever again. This is our 6th or 7th Lion faction to be created. I could think of a hundred forms of heraldry I would rather have. A new wolf faction is interesting to me since this was only done a short time for the wolfpack. I do find the color scheme to be boring. I would love something new. I know the jellybeans are not the way to go but something with a bit of purple, orange, or another new color would be welcome by me. In the end I am happy to be seeing a new castle line. I would have preferred a continuation of Kingdoms but alas, I will take what I get.

Off topic: No I have not. I am not planning to until the spring. Brickworld is the only show where the lights would even be seen. I have been building my next section for a show in December. I have also displayed 2 more times since BrickWorld. All of the work needed each time I display the monstosity that is Goldcrest has eaten up all of my LEGO time. On topic: The change in the mane color makes all of the difference in the world! I might make a guess that the wargs body may be reused for other animals with short tails. I wish instead of the dishes they made the 4x4 round plate in brown. That would be a great addition to the barrels set.

Thank you deskp for putting the pictures of the minifigs together. Thanks to Wolvarie for making most of my points since I typed out a full review of the sets and lost the darn post. since I agree on almost all points I will not retype it and just say ditto! I agree with deskp's assesment of the minifigs for the most part. I only note that Oin's beard looks better now from the front view where you can see more of his grey beard under his white mustache. The biggest thing for me in these sets are the torsos. If TLG were to release civilian castle sets yearly for the next ten years I doubt we would get a variety of colors and style of torsos the dwarves give us! Just look at the nobles, adventurers, peasants, and merchants you can make with those. My castle world is going to be much more diverse with these available. Of note are the leaves in new colors and mushrooms. I just wish there were more.

I always though there were more in the white counsel than those 4 characters.

Galadriel handing Celeborn the broom just cracked me up! Awesome video clip! I think that TLG will not release the barrels nor the spider sets. If the second movie was coming in the summer perhaps they would, but it is a long time until December 2013. I think they will come out with an exclusive rivendell to add to the other 4 sets making for a decent release. They may work out another couple of small (perhaps polybag) sets as well.

I just ordered the pc version of the game. Elrond is just too good to pass up. The game poster is just flat out incredible. I am hoping the troll was made so the helmet and armor just get put onto the normal troll. That would be some smart engineereing. The Balrog looks fantastic. I know it is hard to see detail but I love all of the flame printing on the Balrog parts. Saruman is literally perfect. Thanks for sharing.

Sorry Durin's Bane for this response. Yes, they are giving up on the line before the first of 3 movies over 2 years are even released... before the movies are allowed to drive sales of the products they took so long to design. All of those new molds and designs never to be used again... The cost of the license... That could be the dumbest thing I have ever heard! I can't believe all of the sheep who listen to this drivel...

Thanks, I searched both of those areas to no avail earlier. I guess we will just have to wait.