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.

I'd only agree in regards to a few of them. Then again my standards for displayability are pretty high and tend to only be reached by a number of more recent larger sized sets and then it also depends in what way you'd display them.

It's great to see LOTR returning as a LEGO theme, and the dual moulded feet I envisioned would make for much improved hobbits at some point actually being a thing now is a cool development. While more affordable sets would be great, LOTR is exactly one of those themes where only larger and more detailed sets can do it justice. System sets are great for kids but I've long outgrown seeing them as display-worthy, most of them at least, so I welcome large sets in the HP D2C vein with open arms. Not that my wallet does, but let's find a way around that... It's also awesome they've got the entire Fellowship in a single set, that way any future sets can bring variations of them. If that Barad-dûr set does come out, though, or any other sets with orcs for that matter, they better make the orcs as varied and cool looking as they are on-screen. The original theme's orcs had cool hairpieces and heads but were overall lackluster in terms of doing the movie orcs justice. Let them come in different colours, from olive green to dark tan to dark gray and brown and even sand blue.

What are people's stances on the black trees? I like the throwback to the classic ones although I'm considering attempting to make them dark brown if that works

Wow. Best set of all time. Gonna require an army of those figures as well... I would like it if the Forest Hideout made a return for this so I can get a second one of those, a solid worldbuilding piece for a modern classic castle landscape, add this to the equation, and you're golden... Quite a price tag but it's not 450 and very acceptable for what you get. Super nice. Did anyone else notice that the trees here also have black branches? It fits exactly with the Forest Hideout, I just noticed, and that's super cool.

With a black treehouse and a blue roof on the treehouse, right? That seems solid.

There is a good chance that they will come with the classic faces as it's basically part of their uniform at this point.

The lion king, a man on a hobby horse? They sure had to do some budget cuts to afford a sizable castle by the sound of it

Maybe there aren't just gold coins in that barrel...

Perhaps it was quite a lot to expect a throwback series but this is going to be a wallet saver... Will get the knight and the pirate but that's it for this one really

Is there a list of suitable medieval civilian parts anywhere?