Hive

Did LEGO get a special offer on gold parts or what? The Pirate, the Conquistador, the Bavarian and the Hamlet-type guy are all destined to join my collection.

Interesting. The preview looked quite good.

...from which Gandalf was missing. Perhaps to save him for a Balrog set to be used as an "add-on" to the Moria set? It could have roughly the same size as the Shelob set. I'm shocked to see that this new Bag End set doesn't cost more than Weathertop, as it seems full of so many more new molds and colors. Weathertop seems like a less impressive deal now, compared to this.

Thanks for the explanation, Deathleech.

Interesting. The set looks a lot more like a detailed MOC than like a traditional LEGO set, to me. ...which means that the set will have a really high piece count - and an absurdly high price.

Absolutely stunning, I have never quite seen anything like it. It's especially impressive since LEGO has never done such a theme for you guys to use ideas, figures and parts from. Amazing work.

ACPin, what are those interesting shields you use for your impressive Persian army?

This was actually my first Castle set when I got out of my dark ages. Got it fairly cheaply MISB in an online auction together with some MISB Pirates stuff. I agree that LEGO should do more naval Castle stuff. Doesn't have to be huge like the Troll Warship.

I do agree that just the one generic human soldier in an entire wave is not at all optimal. They should do a human soldier impulse set. I wouldn't have complained if Aragon had been swapped with a soldier in this set, but I understand why LEGO felt they wanted to include at least 2 characters from the fellowship in this flagship set. And though I may get flack for this, as everyone of course loves elves, I think they could have replaced Haldir as well, saving him for another wall-add-on to Helm's Deep (like Uruk-Hai army, but with a generic elv instead of generic human) in the second wave. He's a nice exclusive fig, but feels a bit out of place to me. Come to think of it, I'm actually really impressed with the fact that this set has (so far) 3 exclusive figs. That's not something I notice that often in LEGO sets of any size.

A splendid set indeed, I sure wouldn't mind stumbling across it. And the design is timeless; replace the blue with dark green and BOOM you could easily use it for the Dragon Knights from Kingdoms.

I didn't mean to offend anyone, and I'd hardly call it a personal insult. It surely wasn't meant as a such. I'm merely trying to suggest that people might get more out of a set such as this if they forget the movie/book context for a second and let their imaginations roam free instead. But that has always been the way with LEGO (or any other toy for that matter): if you want an abundance of figures that can oppose each other, you'll have to spend some money and invest in more than a few sets. Nothing new here in regards to this theme or even LEGO compared to other toy brands. People are of course allowed to disagree with my viewpoint, but I'll repeat that LEGO sets today individually offers more opportunities for conflicts between opposing faction than in the old days. Would you have prefered the days of 6080 that came with 12 minifigs (yes I know we got more figs back then, but those days are long gone and expecting anything else is futile) - with ALL of them being of the faction belonging to the castle and pretty much identical? Sure, you get your foot soldier army that way... but you'd still need to buy at least one other set to be able to play out a conflict! At least nowadays, you can play out a small conflict right out of the box and won't necessarily have to buy other sets - unless you want to enlargen the battle and possibilities. Which, again, is just the way toys work.

Well that's something, at least. Thanks again!

I bought 11 random series 5 minifigs at 75 % off, hoping to score some ekstra dwarfs... but no so luck, only got crap. Someone had probably picked the good stuff already. :( Oh well, got myself another Aqua de Vida/Fountain of Youth set for roughly 1/3 of its original price. Not because I have a use for it per se, but it was damn cheap!

Uruk Hai Army is a battlepack of sorts and contains two good-side soldiers. If you don't have the imagination to switch some heads and gear around to make the extra Eomer figs not all be him, then I'd once again argue that the limit is not with the sets themselves. Also, with a Fellowship containing a whooping 9 main characters and only a limited range of sets (naturally) for a first-wave release, what were LEGO to do? Excluse some of the main characters in favor of generic ones? Imagine the reactions from people if they had done that... and this isn't the 80's, we won't see a set like this containing 12 minifigs and 4 horses ever again. The number of figs for this set is equal to unlicensed sets of a similar size. I'm not sure LEGO's main concerns about playability evolve around children "killing" the minfigs, nor do I think it ever should. And I'd like to remind you, btw, that in the 80's, while a castle of this size did indeed offer more figs than now. As I mentioned, perhaps 11-12 minifigs would have included for this one had it been released back then. But then again, they would probably all just have belonged to the faction holding the castle and offered no adversaries for conflict-playability on its own - so I'm not sure how that would have been better; in both cases, you'd have to buy extra sets to get where you want to be.

Yeah with London Escape, I at least have a use for the two soldiers (with yellow-fications) - and in fact really want the officer. But for this set, I would be likely not be keeping any of the figs... and I too enjoy the two carts, even the coal one. How sturdy is the wheel attached in this set? Is it flimsy and easy to trigger or will it stay put?

While not as good as the previous series, it wasn't as bad as people get it flack for being... it dragged on for too long though and had some stuff that makes even less sense than Star Trek usually does. But I'll take it any day of the week instead of Enterprise or the new movies!

Indeed, plus you need to pick the right sets to do this with, as not all sets apply. I recently checked Bricklink to see what it would cost me to get some select Fantasy Castle and Knights Kingdom II sets and discovered that some sets had tripled in price while some others had barely increased... and a few would actually be cheaper for me to get now than had I bought it ad MSRP (Denmark prices) when they came out.

I will never ever forgive them for rendering 21 combined seasons of TNG, DS9 and VOY as having "never happened". Bastards. As for these sets, I think Star Trek as a construction theme would need an ongoing TV show to be a success. A mediocre movie every 3 years or so just won't do it. Not enough inspiration for good sets and not enough exposure; children won't buy them due to the lack of exposion and adult trekkies won't buy them because they aren't featuring classic Star Trek.

So what? I repeat myself: if you can only see this set in the strict context of the movie and can only use minifigs with it that *were there* in the movie, it's not a problem with the set but with your imagination. So maybe Frodo was never there in the books or movies... but why can't he be there when children play or AFOLs create an imaginative scene? Why can't Gandalf lead the defense instead of Aragorn? Or maybe the ring wraiths join the attack? Your imaginaton is the limit, not the set. With all due respect.

I agree that licensed sets most often focus on the minifigs in a too limited and often not all that aesthetic "scene". POTC especially suffered heavily from this in my opinion. And I think it's definately the case in some of the LOTR sets as well, perhaps most notably in the Mines of Moria set. But I don't see this is one such set at all. It has a fine assortment of figures (though it could have used a couple more, but such are all LEGO sets these days) and is, although not enclosed like most castles, full of possibilities and diversity. And let's not forget that it's compatible with another set, how often do we see that in LEGO these days? And to say that it lacks detail makes me doubt that we're even looking at the same set... I mean, when is the last time you saw a castle with this kind of detail? I've personally never done so before! I'd argue that if people have a hard time using this set for more than that one battle, the problem lies not with the set but with their own imaginations being unable to abstract from the movie they have seen.

Really? I haven't noticed any of my own recent figs having that filled stud... not even the collectible minifigs, which we known for sure are made outside of Billund.

I've wanted the London Escape set pretty much since the first time I saw it, for a long time it was even the only POTC set I wanted... don't know quite why though, as I agree that the structure itself doesn't quite seem that finished. Damn, now I'm back up on the fence about this set...

It seems strange to me, as I thought LEGO introduced the "3 bar" version back in the days to counter choking hazards if kids put the heads in their mouths. So why would they abandon it?

Large castle wall parts isn't a problem as such, I find them to be quite usefull actually. It just doesn't seem much like a mill to me... it has a huge wheel as a playfeature which I don't really care for and a clock tower (why does a mill have this?) which overall doesn't impress me much. I already have the Kingdoms mill, which I find to be a much better mill. I suppose it could be a fine parts pack if I found a use for the wheel parts though. It would be a lot cheaper, but sadly not free - due to the prices here being a LOT higher than in eg. USA, I won't be able to close the gap entirely by selling the minifigs. But I will indeed try to sell off most of the figs from the POTC sets I buy in an attempt to make the sets cheaper for me, as very few of the figs interest me.

Yeah you're probably right, thanks. I know for sure that I'll be getting Whitecap Bay, London Escape, The Black Pearl and Queen Anne's Revenge - I was just on the fence with this one. But all in all, it's probably not worth it for me.