General Magma

I agree with the printing issue being lazy on LEGO's part, similar issues existed well over a decade ago and they still haven't bothered to do much about it. I think the printing would look a lot better if the white were actually proper white.

It's definitely grown on me and makes more sense than a regular one.

The ultimate troll move would be if it has no buildings and the whole set is another continuation to the classics with the fortress reduced to rubble by the BSB's cannons

Could be a placeholder date. What does access mean here, reveal? Wouldn't make sense to reveal it six months prior.

I do wonder how the red bricks on the white walls will be done, I'd be fine with either tiles or printing.

I also hope the fortress is fully enclosed rather than having an open section in the back like a lot of sets tend to have nowadays. I think the ramp will be studded so it can actually be used for something, I've seen some MOC remakes of the set that tackle this quite well with slanted plates.

Signs are pointing towards it being a direct remake of Eldorado Fortress.

Since the Barracuda Bay set is meant to be a continuation to the pirates line and supposedly aged up some of the characters, shown by adding some gray to Redbeard's beard, might they do yet another slightly different version of him in this one, as this is an actual remake?

I decided to run a little experiment to see if it would work to use classic style heads on otherwise modern figures, also to see my preference and it's actually a pretty tough call. Going fully modern definitely allows for a wider range of variety in terms of head options, but the classic style heads also work well it seems like. What do you guys think?

The one thing here that makes me wonder is the fact that it's double sided, so if it is indeed in the set, then perhaps the figure using it will have a hat with hairpiece attached to it. The head seems to be a good fit for the governor, what with the moustache and stubble.

I wouldn't be surprised if that head turns up in the Eldorado Fortress set.

Has anybody tried swapping the brick bricks out for something more akin to the printed dark gray bricks they used to do in the actual classic sets? I think that would be one of the best visual mods for this set.

They pump all these new moulds into HP sets but LOTR doesn't even get Gandalf a proper hat-and-hair combination in a behemoth set. Anyway, I still think it's pretty cool and on a more positive note in regards to new moulds, the new weapons are great. Hope everyone who gets it will enjoy it fully, me personally I realised I should just peek at some replica miniatures instead.

Super cool, set looks great. The figures do too. Although, a few things I would change, such as more dual moulded boots on certain figures and swapping Elrond's head and hairpiece out for the original ones, Gandalf also deserved a new hat piece with hair and it would've been better if they had white hobbit hair for Bilbo. Couple of the original face prints were better, if you ask me, but overall they succeeded for sure and it may be hard to resist getting this one. Good to see the theme back, hope it does well and spawns more LOTR sets. All the new moulds are really cool, they even gave Boromir his own sword mould.

With the Woody legs and arms being back in use with the Avatar sets, Sauron is most likely going to have them as well.