Tyrant

I'm sure some of this has already been said but I will voice my support if nothing else. If the current line were to continue, I would like to see the following: -A large fortress for the Dragon faction -Some type of civilian set that isn’t just a rehash of something we have had in the last few years -A jousting set -A ship and port set -A smaller ship for whichever faction doesn’t get the larger ship in the above set In general I would like to see the following sets and design ideas: -Stop having the evil faction ruled by wizards. Give them a King and Queen. They can keep the Wizard, just give us real rulers. Likewise, the good faction can have a wizard too. I would be okay with both factions getting Jesters too for that matter. -Stop making one faction blatantly evil. -If we are just going to repeat factions, start repeating the others like Black Falcon and Forestmen. -We need more ships -Both sides need actual castles -There need to be civilian sets. They can either be neutral and then added to either side or they can make different ones for each side -There should be more than 2 factions -A large, highly detailed castle (similar the SW UCS sets), but with figures, would be nice. Given that it would be on the expensive end, I don’t believe it needs to belong to the current “good guys” -We need some way for older factions to get barding, oval shields, and more detailed figures -More individuals beyond the royalty would be nice. Nobles or knight captains for instance -In the vein of the above, smaller keeps/forts for the nobles or knight captains -A neutral town assembled building by building like the winter sets

I have 11-12 Uruk Hai Army sets. Looking over my lists it looks like I only paid retail for 2 of them and that was part of an order to get a promo figure from TLG. I sold the extra Eomer figures to make up some of the money. As for the Mirkwod set, it will ultimately depend on how easily I can get rid of the extra Thranduil figures and if I can get them on any kind of sale. I plan to get 3-4 right now, and more if the situation is right. I like the elves and the orcs (though I do agree that they should have hair and that armored elves would be nice at some point) and I can use most of the parts. Likewise with the Dol Guldur Ambush if I can find them cheap or find a way to offload the extra Beorns then I will geta number of them as well. I like that this wave will give us yet more variety for the orcs and elves. I just wish there was a cheap set with Moria Orcs.

At TRU using their Buy 1 Get 1 Half Off sale (plus getting 2 $10 gift cards by splitting it up into two purchases) I got 4 Forest Ambush sets and 2 Gatehouse Raids. Then at KMart's additional 50% off clearance sale I bought 2 Uruk Hai Army sets for $14 each (and sold the Eomer figures for $3.25 each further reducing what I had in them) and 1 copy of Attack of the Wargs for $23.50 (I also sold the Dwarves and White Warg to split that cost in half again). I am hoping to get the Tower of Orthanc this month during double points.

I voted for Generic, but I agree with SerenityInFire that a mix of the two might be possible. Named Kings, Queens, Wizards, etc. are all something we have had in the past so we know they work. If we had more sets (like we could possibly have if the line had a cartoon or something to help push it) then we could add a few named knights, lords/nobles, merchants, etc for each side while still having the nameless legions. I could see an approach more in line with LotR or Star Wars where you have named characters and the massive armies and not just a few named characters from both sides fighting it out.

I agree with a lot that has been said here. I think the internet has helped kick start this increase in creativity (from TLG and from AFOLS). Now everyone can compare notes and come up with new ideas to show off. Together with TLG taking an interest in the fan communities I think the improvement of sets was bound to happen. I know that I had no tremendous interest in the Lone Ranger sets before I saw them, but now that I have the Mine looks great and the Train might be a purchase for me too.

I mean the average set sales of one line vs the average set sales of a different line when I say set by set. Probably not the best wording, but what I mean is that they look at SW and see that SW sets sell x number of units on average and likewise whatever-other-theme-you-want sells y number of sets on average. My point being that there is a measurement that I consider it fairly likely to be the one used when comparing lines where the number of sets available becomes less of a factor. Otherwise, sure, the larger series should have higher sales. I take it either you haven't seen the Ninjago Will Return poster or that has been found to be a fake and I am as of yet unaware of said find.

I've noticed a couple of mentions of Ninjago being retired. I was pretty sure it will have sets in 2014, and it has 2013 sets, so what retirement?

I believe Troop Builder sets akin to SW would sell for LotR. At the end of the day, the battle in LotR are on a greater scale (in terms of the number of soldiers) than the ones in SW. The Battle of Hoth is (I believe) the largest ground battle in the OT and it doesn't involve that many soldiers. The Battle of Geonosis is (again, I believe) the largest ground battle in the PT and we can't even see large chunks of it (due to dust) but we can see that it is "big". For Hoth I got the impression that we are looking at hundreds or very low thousands (assuming we somehow can't see 99% of the battle). The Battle of Helm's Deep, on the other hand, has an army in the tens of thousands on one side. The battle of Pelennor Fields has hundreds of thousands assaulting the city. The scale isn't even close. So, if battle packs can sell for the series that really doesn't have that huge of battles then I think it's a no brainer for the one that is known for, among other things, the large scale battles. As for kids, as a kid my Cobra figures outnumbered my G.I.Joe figures by a pretty sizeable margin and I had multiples of the Cobra generics I liked, just like the show. With LEGO, it was Pirates where I built up a sizeable number of one type of figure (Blue Coats, then Red Coats) as a kid by purchasing the smallish sets over and over. If TLG thinks only AFOLs will buy them, make them in such a way that they are attractive to AFOLs and then make them Exclusives (and presumably a more limited run).

True, but do we know if they mean Star Wars and City sets outsold the other themes on a set by set basis, or the total lines? If it's set by set, total numbers of sets in the series matters less.

I think the sets look okay. The Kingdoms sets were better, but these aren't terrible IMO. I like the look of the figures. The dragon emblem is different, but I like the look of the Dragon soldiers and I always welcome more printed euro armor. I also like the Lion/Crown figures. There seems to be a nice mix of figures for that side and I like the color scheme. Honestly, for me the only major disappointment is that the bad guys are lead by a wizard again. I guess an actual King or Queen is too much to ask for the "bad guys". I also really like that keyhole piece. The sets themselves are okay with me. I like the sturdy looking gatehouse on the castle and the overall design looks decent. Not great, but decent. I buy most of the castle sets for parts these days anyway, but I do build them once to see them and then I consider keeping them as is, modifying them, or dismantling them. Would I have vastly preferred new Black Falcons, Forestmen, Wolfpack, or new old style-esque Crusaders? Absolutely. I just don't think I had any real reason to believe that was going to happen. I am surprised they keep using Dragons and Lions/Crowns. Since they are reusing them this much though, I would find it curious if we don't see remakes of the other factions down the road.

As much as I want the Black Falcons back, I agree that they (and any other faction) would need to be revamped and not just the same old figures/shields. I would prefer they keep the core emblem of the black/white falcon but add detail like the new figures/shields. The one we got in the Joust set is improvement enough for me if they nake more of them (not that I would turn down further improvement).

I do hope that this rumor pans out. It's not out of a lack of interest in LotR. I have all of the LotR sets with some in multiples. However I do think the two can exist side by side because they really aren't that similar in several ways that matter. The number of actual castles and castle like structures that LotR could spawn is quite small, and I believe that number is made smaller by scale issues (Barad Dur is depicted as taller than any real world building, for instance). Helm's Deep is one of the few that vaguely looks right at minifig scale. Orthanc isn't a problem because it's essentially just a big, black tower. Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul are whole cities though. Barad Dur is gigantic. That doesn't leave a whole lot. I think the potential issue with Kingdoms was the increased focus on civilian sets. That is an area where the two could conflict because the potential Rohan civilian sets wouldn't be all that different. So, I would think a returned Castle would either continue Kingdoms (potentially without the civilian component), be a reimagining of the 80s Castle series (likely minus Forestmen), or be remade with the focus on actual characters akin to Ninjago.

I'm wondering if we might see it go on sale on Black Friday. That's what I am hoping for anyway. I've got a couple of them already but if it goes on sale I will get a couple more to combine into larger buildings.

I honestly don't think it was a mistake, but that's just my opinion. If the sets stated to be on sale will be on sale, I am probably going to get SW sets anyway. I have $100 in credit and with 20% off and free shipping the Super Star Destroyer isn't looking too bad.

I think everyone should just wait and see what happens. As I said several pages ago, I made 3 orders last year and got 3 Shadow Troopers but only 1 of those orders had any SW sets. My most recent order got me another one and it was not entirely SW sets (maybe not any, I have to look it up) and that was only a month or two ago. So, I would imagine their computer system won't differentiate between SW and non SW based on the past. Time will tell though.