Darth Caedus

It's from the first preview in the year 2000. They had not yet worked out how all the designs and armor types would play out at that point, and they also are flying Sauron's banner, which ends up being less prominent in the final films.

Master Builder 1: *pufffffffffffffffff* Master Builder 2: Bro, lemme get somma that dank. MB 1: Smoke up, dude. MB 2: *pufffffffffffffffff* MB 1: Dude. DUDE. MB 2: Whaaat. MB 1: You know what's freakin' SCARY? MB 2: What bro what MB 1: THE MOUTH OF SAURON MAN MB 2: AAHHH DUDE WTF YOU'RE FREAKIN' ME OUT MB 1: YEAH MAN HE'S LIKE....TEETH, AND S*** MB 2: Dude Mouth of Sauron is baller though. Black Numenorean, he goes HARD MB 1: Word up. Bro we should make a Mouth of Sauron set MB 2: DUDE LET'S SERIOUSLY DO THAT Master Builder 3: Yo guys, but what about the Witch-King? MB 1: F*** the Witch-King. He's a little b****. MB 2: Yeah. F*** the Witch-King, he gets killed by MERRY, man. Freakin' HOBBIT killed him. MB 1: Yeah. We're making a Mouth of Sauron first, dude. 2 to 1. Deaaaaal with it. Master Builder 3: I'm too goddam sober for this right now. I'm gonna go get some food. Do what you want. You know the AFOLs are going to go ballistic, right? MB 1: Screw the AFOLs. We do what we want man, we gangsta. MB 2: Dude pick me up some cheetos?

Well, you really should have all 13 Dwarves and the 9 Fellowship at the very least, so def. get it with figs.

This is really Lego's issue when it comes to licensed lines that aren't as regulated as Star Wars. Their approach is very random and scattershot, with the only unity being overly simple ideas like "all 9 Fellowship in wave 1" or "all dwarves in Hobbit Wave 1." Things need to be planned out much better. THIS is how to do it: 1. Determine number of sets you're working with, and figure out what rough pricepoints corporate tells you that you have to hit. 13 bucks, 50 bucks, 100 bucks, etc. 2. Determine which type of license this is. Is this a Batman-style, where all sets are driven by one core character (Jack Sparrow is the Batman of POTC, par exemple)? Is this Star Wars style, where the vehicles are the focal point and the minifigs can be slotted in wherever without it mattering? Or is this Tolkien style, where the visual appearance of specific characters are iconic above all, and recognizable scenes are also very important? 3. Make a list of unique characters, with essentials at highest priority and cool side characters or minor characters as the second tier. 4. Make a list of non-unique characters if this applies. Not super relevant to Lone Ranger, but they made a smart choice with the Civil War battlepack. Not relevant at all to Harry Potter. Super relevant to Star Wars and Tolkien. 5. DISTRIBUTE THESE UNIQUE AND NON UNIQUE CHARACTERS ACROSS THE RANGE OF PRICEPOINTS, with at least one set that is exclusively non-uniques. Popular characters need to be obtainable too, so if you need to double up character appearances, give them different outfits. 6. FIT THE SCENES AROUND THE MINIFIG DISTRIBUTION. Not the other way 'round. Licensed material has a wide range of scenes to choose from. As long as every set isn't just some grey rocks, people are going to flock to the sets with their favorite characters. Time for examples: -Weathertop was clearly created because "this is a cool scene, let's do this." But approaching with the scene focus first is an automatic handicap, because you're locked into certain characters who MUST appear. This scene REQUIRES Frodo, Aragorn, and a Nazgul. Frodo and Aragorn are key characters and this means that they'll very likely be doubled up if you're just picking cool scenes to design your sets around, and that's a path to inefficiency and wasted slots. The Nazgul HAS to be there, but Weathertop is too big - at least from their design standpoint - to effectively let buyers get all 9. Then Merry, who's really not important to the scene, gets thrown in because they haven't selected a scene where Merry is important -they've just selected scenes without thinking about characters enough. -Goblintown - same deal. They wanted a Goblintown set, but they put concept over minifig selection and the set suffered. At $100 they had the budget to make unique, useless Goblin prints because the set is too big to have room for any other Goblintown set in the line. Looking at Goblintown, you realize everything but the throne is extraneous. Having a boatload of Goblins is *crucial* to the whole Goblintown sequence. If they plotted it out paying attention to uniques and non-uniques, they could have made a more impressive, uniques-only Goblin throne set with the King and a few key dwarves, and then made a smaller goblin-battle armybuilder with a modular bridge that could connect to the throne and be doubled up indefinitely. Obviously there are exceptions - some things are about scene and location first, like Helm's Deep and Orthanc. Even there, however, they could have benefitted from better minifig planning. If you're going to make a Weathertop set and HD set in 1 wave, both require Aragorn, it's an essential character. So give him a distinct Helm's deep print for HD. You increase the appeal of Weathertop and HD. People who don't care about prints will still buy what they'll buy, and people who do care will have more of a reason to get both. Orthanc, as I've said time and time again, should have had Gandalf the White on Shadowfax - nobody needs a repeat Gandalf the Grey in a 200 dollar set, anyone buying (it's AFOL oriented) that has almost surely gotten GtG already. LOTR Wave 2 is a serious offender - they said, Rivendell's cool, let's do it. But they chose scene over selection without thinking - you do the Council itself, you're forced to have Gimli and Frodo and Elrond. Elrond will show up in TABA, and Frodo is overdone by that point. The proper approach is to say: Rivendell is a cool location. Let's see what minifigs haven't been done - or done enough of - and build a swag Rivendell location around that. Imagine a similar Rivendell set that had Boromir, a rarer figure, casual Aragorn, a new print, Old Bilbo, a much desired minor character, and Arwen like the set has already. You still get the awesome Rivendell trees and architecture, but you've got a minifig selection that more people can get behind, and doesn't overlap with the rest of the Wave whatsoever.

I'm actually fine with the Mouth being there since subbing him for 1 Gondorian wouldn't help too much -they'd go for 10 bucks a pop on the secondary market or more, which is excessive. They need to be in a $30 set or cheaper. The Mouth being made before the Witchking is the bigger baffler.

Lego's a business. They're not targeting people who are poor enough to only get the smallest set, remember. Also, it's all about distribution, as I've said before. Ditch Gandalf's cart and there's still many different ways to snag a Gandalf, there's one in every wave! A better Frodo, and a Gollum too, comes in Shelob's Lair. Saruman could easily have been shunted to the TABA DG set. Problem solved. And when purchasing for adults as a novelty, there's not a colossal amount of difference between dropping $13 and $20. Really, my beef with lego is that sets need to be meticulously planned. Build intricacy is secondary to minifig and price distribution. You make $20 sets heavy with unique characters, make the $13 the armybuilders. Very straightforward and easy to do, and Lego has demonstrated that they can do this (Shelob's Lair being the prime example of a set with iconic characters at an affordable price).

That's not what I said at all. I said every $12.99 set should be a battle pack - a totally reasonable assertion. And even if AFOLs make up only 5% of the market, a superb $12.99 battle pack is something that will be bought in the dozens. There's nothing to indicate that a cool $12.99 set with armybuilders would sell any less than Gandalf's horse and buggy. The Treason of Isengard is, I'll grant you, important, but it's definitely not in the top 10. Gandalf's cart and the Riddle scene don't rate at all - Riddles is a fun sequence from the book but doesn't adapt well to Lego (just like Minas Tirith is too big to depict in Lego, or Mount Doom is too sparse, Riddles is too cerebral. different sides same coin). But just to show you that I'm not an armybuilder fanatic, here is another set of alternatives that would have included main characters. It's not as good as the ideal (most desirable armybuilders for LOTR and the Hobbit are Gondor, Easterlings, 2nd Age, Mordor Orcs, and Erebor or Iron Hills Dwarves) but it's still leagues better than what we got. LOTR Wave 1: Lose the Cart. Slot Gandalf into Mines of Moria, cuz why not. $12.99 - Witch-King Showdown. Eowyn, Merry (helmetless, no new molds), Witchking with flail and spinny-base action. Maybe a catapult for Merry, who cares. Iconic scene that doubles as a functional armybuilder - Eowyn and Merry can be stripped for parts, Witchking is a hoodswap away from being a normal Nazgul. Hobbit Wave 1: Adjust Riddles for the Ring.... $12.99 - Gollum Ambush. Bilbo with a blue-tinted Sting (painted, printed, whatever, makes it interesting), Gollum with his Smeagol devious plotting face as opposed to the pretty angry one from the set, 1x Goblintown Goblin with sword, a few mushrooms and Gollums boat. Iconic scene that makes Goblins more affordable. LOTR Wave 2: Lose Wizard Duel, toss true palantir in Orthanc, put a Saruman in TABA DG set. $12.99 - Defense of Osgiliath. 1x Armored Faramir, 1x Gondorian Soldier, 1x Morgul Orc (pale green skin), small rubble/statue/archway/whatever. Armored Faramir isn't quite scene accurate but who cares, he's a headswap away from being a helmetless Gondorian. If you HAD to make him Ranger form, fine, though it's a more unique outfit that's harder to reuse for generic rangers. Ideally it'd be Madril for the unique slot and not Faramir, but he's not exactly an iconic character, lol.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the ideal place for a 'cheap' Saruman would be adding him to the upcoming Dol Guldur TABA set, because I'll acknowledge that many can't afford the $200 Orthanc (I really couldn't either, but budget be damned). As to the other criticisms of 'making everything armybuilders', my thought experiment was very deliberate: this method would have left all the other sets in the wave quite intact, and 90% of them are non-armybuilders. Gandalf's Cart is redundant because Shelob costs only slightly more for a much more exciting build with more characters. Gandalf could have easily rested in the MoM in that wave given how many other ways there are to acquire him. The Wizard Battle is pointless because by then there are already enough Gandalfs, and Saruman could have fit into the cheap TABA set. And Riddles for the Ring is, as said above, pure trash, because it has no play value or collector value. The figures are rehashes, the build is garbage, and it's the least action-y scene that Lego's adapted. If they HAD to keep it, they should've made it 13 bucks and tossed in a goblin, there's one right in the freakin' scene! And LOTR armybuilders are hardly 'generic'. An example of a "generic" looking arymbuilder: The TOR Star Wars battlepack went on clearance for a reason: the troop designs have no resonance with anyone except a tiny minority of EU fans (and I love EU). Excellent battlepack, with 2 of each faction, but with 0% appeal to casuals or kids. A LOTR battlepack as I described above would have things people can recognize: the fierce Orcs of Mordor, the golden-armored Easterlings, the elegant Noldor, and above all, the silver-helmed Gondorians. This. A 1000 times this. I'm 21 and have been collecting since I was 5. When Lego SW hit in '99 I was a 7-year-old ecstatic child. This was huge. But it was supremely irritating that it was so hard to get bad guys! Having all the good guys and all they can fight is Vader and a couple scout troopers? The big heroes and villains are important, but I *always* wanted to have at least a few generics involved. That's why lego battle droids were great - easy to get a lot of them and have little Lego Qui-gon and Obi-wan eviscerate them. I was a teenager by the time the battlepacks hit, and they were still so awesome I had to get lots of them. FINALLY, to have a squad of the iconic Rebel Fleet Troopers! Epic! I remember being irritated that other lines were so main-character heavy. It was frustrating. So many darn Harry Potters when you only needed around 3 variations max. And that wasn't even a franchise that much at all in the way of armybuilding! It's excusable in Batman stuff since he has so many suit variants (though they still don't make enough variations. Every suit should be different, prints cost next to nothing and add colossal value - imagine a freakin' Brightest Day or Dark Knight of the Round Table Batman) - but Star Wars and LOTR are franchises that are about battle and adventure. They understand this with Star Wars - why don't they get that it's the same with LOTR? Especially since the designs of LOTR armies are more intricate and spectacular than Saleucami/Utapau clone troopers or whatever dregs from the bottom of the barrel they're dredging up in Lego SW these days (don't get me wrong, I love clone variants, but it's not *that* exciting, except when it's swag helmets like Death Star Gunners).

If Lego wanted a killer, auto-profit final wave, they'd release 4 things: balrog, Witchking showdown, an osgiliath armybuilder (gondor/orcs), and the flagship set would be a brickbuilt Mumakil. It'd be a very appealing item to both AFOLs, kids, and casuals - kids like elephants, and Mumaks are the coolest elephants of them all - plus it is a "vehicle," which Lego loves to make. Casuals recognize the Mumaks from ROTK and it'd be a cool display piece. And AFOLs would eat it up because the thing would inherently be a monstrous armybuilder. A Mumak with half a dozen Haradrim/Easterlings, throw in Gamling mounted with a bow as the unique fig? Instant win. This came up in a another thread - Lego not using the 13 buck slot properly. So far the 13 & 20 slots have been royally screwed up by Lego, with all the other sets generally coming out much better than these smaller ones: Gandalfs Cart: terrible set. Cart itself is lame, Gandalf is barely armed, and Frodo is in his most boring outfit with zero gear. Its only value would be as a display piece for Gandalf's memorable arrival and the drive to Bag End, but it can only sit one minifig! Shelobs Lair: Best of the cheap sets, and the only exception to this rule. Makes Gandalfs cart super-stupid since you can get the ultimate Frodo in this set, with his phial, elven cloak, Sting, and proper outfit - plus Sam. And what's Frodo without Sam?! Riddles Ring: worst set of the whole line. Rocky turd, rehashed Gollum, boring Bilbo. Wizard Duel: Redundant. Saruman is fine as an exclusive to Orthanc. The Palantir could have been there instead of the light up crap. DGA: Dumb set. Beorn's headmold, not enough Orcs to justify an armybuilder, a scene that doesn't even occur at all. Mediocre build too. Shelobs Lair is good, and I'll excuse DGA because of the movie split. But this would have been the proper alternative: LOTR Wave 1: Lose the Cart. Slot Gandalf into Mines of Moria, cuz why not. $12.99 - The Last Alliance. 1x Numenorean, 1x Noldor, 1x Mordor Orc (grey skin), rock formation, mini catapult or flick fire. Hobbit Wave 1: Lose Riddles for the Ring. Toss Bilbo and Gollum into Goblintown - problem solved! $9.99 - Azanulbizar Conflict. 1x Erebor Dwarf, 1x Azanulbizar Orc (black or deep green skin), rock formation, mini catapult or flick fire. LOTR Wave 2: Lose Wizard Duel, toss true palantir in Orthanc. $12.99 - Defense of Osgiliath. 1x Gondorian Soldier, 1x Morgul Orc (pale green skin) 1x Easterling, small rubble/statue/archway/whatever.

If Lego knew how to maximize their profits, every wave would've had a 12.99 set with 3 or 4 armybuilder minifigs in it. But at this point I'll take what I can get. Although 12 figs and 2 molded beasts would be the ideal $60 armybuilder, with no more than 2 unique characters, that's not gonna happen. Worst case scenario it's a Black Gate 2.0 with a few uniques and a couple terrible minions, or an LTC with lots of cool characters but only 1 armybuilder fig. I'm hoping for a solid 8 figs, with only 2 uniques, and at least one molded beast.

Clearly a prelim version - final will be in the red Armor from AUJ. Which is similar in pattern, just not in color to the Last Alliance Elves.

Hope she has a different outfit and fresh facial prints, at least, if we're going to get a repeat character.

Agreed. Spectacular line that should have been renewed for The Hobbit.

#1 wanted Minifigure: Gondorian Soldier w/ unique helm & unique chestplate white-tree print or #1 wanted Set: "The Siege Of Gondor" - ~$30 battlepack with Osgiliath rubble, 2-3x Gondorian Soldier, 1x different Mordor Orc, 1x Haradrim Warrior, 1x Easterling Pikeman, 1x Nazgul on Fellbeast

A page is still a page. We need to find out what was on it - if it was just Wave 2 or something else.

Not much to speak of until the 29th at the earliest, guv. I'm with Alcarin on the Hoods debate. Basically, in addition to the lack of Elves wearing them in the film, it boils down to this for me: Lego minifigs look stupid with hoods when they have no capes. All Lego gear is inherently oversized - swords, hoods, everything. But as long as everything balances out it's okay. When Elves have these big hoods and then just a normal torso and legs it looks goofy and much less awesome. The Elves at Helm's Deep looked cool because they were wearing hoods and full cloaks. A hood without a cape is always quite out of place. The point is, Lego does cloaks/hoods/capes properly elsewhere (hooded Jedi/Sith come with matching capes, for example) - so when they make the majority of an armybuilder hooded Elves without capes, it looks wacky and out-of-place. It becomes more of an egregious error when we learn that MEA will be the only Hobbit-line armybuilder, given the mistake of making BO5A a $60 set (barring a miracle where it has 8+ non unique minifigs). If that was going to be the only Elf armybuilder, screw scene accuracy, it should have been Thranduil and 3 of these epic Elves (the 2nd best Elf design in all of PJ, only surpassed by the iconic glory that is the Last Alliance Elves).

Alcarin, it's better if we don't get Theoden and Snowmane in the set because it would keep the price as low as possible, which would make it easier to armybuild Fell-beasts. In fact, a Witch-King showdown is an inadvertent armybuilder anyways. If the Witchking had removable shoulder armor, you could get more Nazgul + Fellbeasts simply by swapping in a normal black hood for the WK's molded helm/hood. Eowyn, depending on her helmet mold and torso print, could easily be headswapped to bolster Rohirric ranks. Merry's Rohan armor is pretty generic too, swap out his head and put in tall legs and you have another Rohan warrior.

He's not being harsh. Hooded elves are indeed not in the film and it's Lego's way of cheaping out and making a weak armybuilder character. Elves need either their pointy ears or epic helmets to distinguish them. $60 BO5A is very depressing. It'll be Dain and likely Bolg, and I bet they'll waste another slot on an armored Company member or something. Lego almost had it right with this wave - swap the Laketown set into the 60 buck slot and throw in more buildings, but the BO5A set in the 30 slot and make it Dain + 5 mooks. Wondering who will be in the Windlance set though. Since Smaug isn't included, it'll need to have some other sort of 'conflict'. This would actually be a good place to put Bolg (instead of BO5A) since he shows up in Laketown at the end of TDOS, and scene accuracy is irrelevant.

An excellent example of why people should work out their unresolved personal issues before raging like a maniac on a Lego forum, of all things. Personally, I've come to terms with the fact that Orthanc could well be the last LOTR set ever. Did Lego make poor decisions in set/minifig choices for Wave 2? Yes. Would these sets be better if AFOLs from Eurobricks selected the subject and the minifigs for each set? Without a doubt. But it's all water under the bridge. I'm not going to absolve Lego with the "at least we got any LOTR sets at all" but neither will I rail against them. At this point, I'll take any more LOTR sets as a divine miracle, and hope eagerly that the TABA sets include a good armybuilder and a half-decent Smaug. This is one thing that bugs me though - Castle may be an evergreen theme, but it's an evergreen theme that Lego has been doing rather poorly of late. Uninspired sets and forgettable factions and designs. It's why Lego Tolkien has been a breath of fresh air IMO, and I'm not eager to go back to more year-in year-out generic Castle stuff. However, if we can get more stuff like the Joust or the Medieval Market or even the brilliant little blacksmith set, it'll live up a lot better to the concept of Castle as an evergreen theme.

Witchking - we do need him in his special helm, yeah. And we really ought to have a Fellbeast. Eowyn - that solution wouldn't work, Eowyn's armor looks nothing like the UHA Rohirrim. But I agree she would require no new molds. Galadriel - she's confirmed for Hobbit sets for sure, so no worries there Faramir - gaaaah to the idea that he's 'not a hugely important character'... but he definitely cannot be MOC'd. You need SOME kind of Gondorian torso, whether it's his light brown ranger vest thing with the white tree on it, or full Gondorian plate armor.

Agreed. Assuming a $20 pricepoint (better if it's somehow even lower) this sounds like a spectacular set on all fronts. Works for kids because it's some big-name characters that they'll recognize. Is great for us AFOLs because Galadriel is one of the 3 key remaining unique must-have Tolkien characters (leaving Faramir and Eowyn), a new Elrond is quite welcome (plus the small price point means his red-armor outfit can be bricklinked for Rivendell Elf warriors more easily), and with LOTR in limbo we'll take any Witch-King we can get for the time being. The Twilight Nazgul also look similar enough that depending on how the mold ends up looking, one could get 5 (or 9) Twilight Nazgul ironically for cheaper than normal Nazgul, lol. And it'll make a great gift for any Tolkien fan in general due to the sheer glorious obscurity of it. I mean, come on, how wonderfully absurd is it that we're getting a Lego set of the White Council Assaulting Dol Guldur?! A scene buried so deep in the Appendices, and yet in less than a year's time it'll be immortalized in plastic forever.

Well, this is pretty solid news. A small Smaug is disappointing, but a new Elrond I will take either way (a cheap reuse of the 2nd Age armor, or a new red-armor reskin). Twilight Witchking - hilarious that we're getting him and not ROTK Witchking, but I'll take what I can get. Bain son of Bard was an obvious inclusion, glad he's gonna be there. Now I'm just hoping that the $30 set is a BO5A armybuilder.

A little less than 4 euro per polybag, including tax. I love my 16x Laketown guard polys, but Lego really should release them abroad as well.

Actually, if Beorn is dropped from a theoretical BO5A armybuilder and replaced with boar-riding Dain, it'd be fine, since although Dain would be trickier to reuse, you'd armybuild boars, which is awesome.

Well, since the effective demise of the LOTR line makes speculating about that pretty pointless, time to dream about the TABA wave. $15 Dol Guldur Attack: Galadriel (serene face and rage face), a molded Sauron, attachable to DGA and DGB. Red Elrond (rage face and worried face) if we're lucky. $30 Dale Showdown: Ruined Dale building, 3x new-mold Dol Guldur Orcs, 1x Armored Mirkwood Elf, 1x Iron Hills Dwarf, 1x Laketown Warrior. Beorn in Bear-form would be the most ideal unique because then you're just armybuilding Beornings, and there's nothing wrong with that. OR! Just put a slightly altered print on an Eagle and call it Gwaihir. $60 The Battle of Five Armies: Armored Thorin (fear face and teeth gritted face), Armored Bilbo (smile face and angry face), Bolg with his warg. Dain with battleboar. Any more minifigs should be, in order of priority - Armored Kili, Armored Fili, Armored Balin. Gate of Erebor or battle terrain, I don't really care that much. You might need to toss in some bats or a DG Orc to balance it a little, idk - this set should be heavy on the good guys since we need Armored Bilbo and Armored Thorin and Dain quite desperately. $130 Smaug The Terrible: Epic, colossal brickbuilt Smaug, Laketown tower with Wind-Lance. Battle-damaged Bard (print is sooty, torn, burned, etc.) with different facial expressions (LTC had wry smile and determined ferocity, Smaug set should have terrified and battle roar). Bain son of Bard (scared face and neutral face). Alfrid (sneer face and terrified face). Laketown Guards x2 - with different face prints. Why not make one or both of them battle-damaged too. If that's not enough minifigs, or also if you want to swap out LT Guards, put in a casual Bofur (solemn face and laughing face) and/or a wounded Kili (smiling lovey dovey face and morgul terror face a la shelob frodo).