Sasaki

Not trying to be optimistic with the current situation with my favorite Lego line and I do not really know much about the sales plans and particular circumstances of those retail stores in US, UK or any other European countries, but here in Asia, specifically in Korea and Japan as I travelled back and forth weekly, I have seen local official Lego stores to re-stock the first and second wave of Middle Earth sets so many times and the Lego communities of these countries really fond of collecting LOTR minifigures and building LOTR MOC to the extent that I bet if you have seen a MOC of Helm's Deep battle with over 1500 minifigures created by Koreans, I guarantee a majority of them is too shy to show off their collections which would not be dwarfed by the mentioned Helm's Deep MOC one. Personally I have seen with my own eyes one of my friends to purchase 30 of the set Pirates Ship Ambush just to get the ships solely to recreate the scene of Umbar Pirates sailing to Minas Tirith, thanks to him I got 60 of the gorgeous Soldiers of the dead which are glowing and taking a part of my collection. You can imagine that not all of them can communicate effectively using English to surf the foreign websites to get pieces and minifigures from Bricklink or ebay so most of the time, they purchased sets just to get enough pieces to build their own creations, and in this particular case, Middle Earth sets have been driving them crazy with a variety of wonderful minifigures and special color bricks. So same case with Eurobricks, not so many of them would come here to confirm about the popularity of Lego LOTR&Hobbit and how fast the shelves have been cleared and re-stocked with those sets. Just few lines of my thought which I kept for myself to look forward for more Middle Earths sets coming after next or the next 2 years, it's fine since I'm still busy collecting minifigures of the previous sets and I guess the longer the time that research&development department of Lego takes to put ideas and notable scenes from the last LOTR movies into sets, the more surprising and awesome they would be.

Nothing new, unless you haven't seen The Hobbit game's poster which included the mighty Smaug there, just turn 1 page back and you would see :)

:D I do acknowledge that fact already, just because the image of Deathwing was visualized first (though from the divine imagination of Tolkien) by Blizzard and then now Smaug comes a little bit later so just a bit of wondering :D.

Just me or anyone realized the Smaug's orange chest looks quite identical to Deathwing from WoW, just without some chest armor ? :D

I enjoy the build and exclusive minifigures of Dol Guldur Battle :)

I remain 1% of hope to see if there's any exclusive hobbit/lotr set to be revealed, or else I guess we would have just more time to get more current sets/ minifigures :) and patiently wait to the next summer's toy fair :D

It's tough choice for only 1 most wanted one, I would go for Fell Beast riden by Witch King. Thinking about 9 fell beasts in Lego form bombarding Minas Tirith has always been one of my dreams ;)

:D just worried this threat would escalate to be an discussion about which one is most necessary or wanted so everyone should just tell the self perspective and preferred ones. :)

I'm more interested with the dark side so anything concerns the evil fractions to appear in the battle on Palennor fields is in my wish list, Oliphaunt and its rider, Battle trolls, Witch King, Fell beast, Gothmoth, orc's generals ... all of them. I promise if any of these mentioned ones to be produced into official set, I would purchase 25 of each and give to all my colleagues in my office.

I agree with this point since I got 10 pirates ship ambush for the price of just 5 which is ridiculously cheap (purchased when I got chance visiting London), I ended up loving the look of the whole army of the dead so I'm stocking up with those green spooky paranormal guys. Recalling the Sun's promotion, I got literally 133 uruk hai polybags due to the close relationship with the publisher, I know with other countries it would be tough getting those polybags but it's frequent in UK to have those local newspapers or even stores to have flash promotion with Lego minifigures or "build yourself kit".

Thanks, I have never tried that service before but will do now.

So your King of the dead also has the back locates on the front side too? my figure has just 1 side printed and the other side with nothing, plain color. Perhaps he was too creepy to be re-produced into Lego form? :D

Yes especially with the newer sets, I perceive Lego to apply stricter quality control than before so unlikely there should be any other "special" piece would be found within the other Umbar pirates ships that still sealed in my storage.

it's supposed to be the back of the torso but instead ending up in front and the back is plain color :D

plain olive green on the other side :D, currently away from home but I would post the other side when I grab any chance :D. I am still hoping eventually a new testing mold like the orange darth vader's helmet would show up within a set I purchase :D