LEGO LotR - general discussion

[MKJoshA]

No one has thousands of Gandalf Arrives.....

I do...

[Darth Caedus]

If LOTR ends a Gondor Soldier fig in that set would be far more exciting to probably 90%+ LOTR fans than Mouth ever will be :)

I find no excitement in him neither in movies nor in the books I mean he is barely on what 2 pages? Or was it 3 lol

I'm actually fine with the Mouth being there since subbing him for 1 Gondorian wouldn't help too much -they'd go for 10 bucks a pop on the secondary market or more, which is excessive. They need to be in a $30 set or cheaper. The Mouth being made before the Witchking is the bigger baffler.

[Blakstone]

The Witchking wouldn't fit in that set. I firmly believe they did this set just to use the eagle. Either to make the accounting of the new eagle mold exclusively for this set or to split the cost between this set and the Orthanc.

[Deathleech]

Perhaps the cost of doing a new print is relatively cheap. I don't believe new molds were made for the small goblins, I seem to remember the head pieces being used elsewhere, but I could be wrong on that.

Nope, it was a brand new mold/head piece for the goblins unless it was used in some other theme I am unaware of.

(And no, comparing Gondor soldiers to the Goblin King set does not work. The Goblin King was the Wave one flagship for a different theme. It would have a much different parts budget than second or third wave of LotR.)

Ok, then look at the Black Gates. While I love the Mouth of Sauron minifigure, was he really necessary? That's a second wave set that used a new mold for a character not even seen in the theatrical versions of the film. It was also a very violent scene. This goes against everything Lego supposedly looks at when deciding what to make. Does he have mass appeal to kids help move the sets? No. Is the scene kid friendly? No. Why not use the Mouth slot to give us a new Gondor helm and a new Gondor print instead? It would kill two birds with one stone by making the set more multi purchase friendly too, like Lego advertises, since there would be less unique characters (though still too many to really justify buying more than one).

The lack of diversity in Orc prints might not be an oversight. It may be by design. More or less targeted at the Army builders. When trying to present an Orc horde you really either need an awful lot of variation, or you need them to all be pretty much the same in order to make to sell the look to your eye. In that case having two variants of Orc prints can actually look worse to the eye than just one. Or it is more likely that as a simple nameless generic foe, orcs fall into the same general category as henchmen in other lines. The "generic baddies" tend not to get a lot of detail print love. And it is generally not felt as necessary. Remember these are toys not models. To the average customer who uses the sets for their designed purpose, play, it is doubtful that they would even notice a difference in Orc prints, let alone get excited by them. It is the protagonist side that generally wants the variety. Just look at the last Castle line. Notice how many Lion/Crown torsos there are vs how many Red Dragons? Same deal. Just like they don't give a lot of torso variety to the Jokers Henchmen.

I don't think that's the reason. The prelim pics of the wave two LotR sets showed the orcs with new prints and helms that looked similar the their armor in the film. This shows Lego was obviously considering it. I think Lego just got super lazy and said screw it, throw in the old Mordor Orc with a Uruk-hai helm and call it a day! Of course Lego skimps out on the henchmen in the Batman sets because they only appear in one, maybe two sets max. Even then the Joker, Two Face, etc. have their own set of henchmen with special prints. As for the current Castle theme, there was only one more good guy print than there was bad..? But there were tons more good guy soldiers offered in the sets (11 good soldiers vs 9 bad, not including uniques)? I don't have the sets, but from what I can tell there are three good soldier prints and two bad soldier prints. Both had a knight with a new printed armor. This of course excludes special characters like the king, princess, wizard, etc.

EDIT: Here is the prelim pic I am talking about.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Deathleech

[deskp]

I don't think that's the reason. The prelim pics of the wave two LotR sets showed the orcs with new prints and helms that looked similar the their armor in the film. This shows Lego was obviously considering it. I think Lego just got super lazy and said screw it, throw in the old Mordor Orc with a Uruk-hai helm and call it a day! Of course Lego skimps out on the henchmen in the Batman sets because they only appear in one, maybe two sets max. Even then the Joker, Two Face, etc. have their own set of henchmen with special prints. As for the current Castle theme, there was only one more good guy print than there was bad..? But there were tons more good guy soldiers offered in the sets (11 good soldiers vs 9 bad, not including uniques)? I don't have the sets, but from what I can tell there are three good soldier prints and two bad soldier prints. Both had a knight with a new printed armor. This of course excludes special characters like the king, princess, wizard, etc.

EDIT: Here is the prelim pic I am talking about.

Thats not a new print, the armor is same as ever, and the helmets are the orc(?) helemts from tha fantasy? theme or whatever it was.

They did get lazy not making those helmets int he right color and putting them in the set yes, but the print was never new.

Edited February 5, 2014 by deskp

[Deathleech]

Thats not a new print, the armor is same as ever, and the helmets are the orc(?) helemts from tha fantasy? theme or whatever it was.

They did get lazy not making those helmets int he right color and putting them in the set yes, but the print was never new.

I don't think so. The Fantasy Orc helmets seem to sit higher, covers less face in both the forehead and cheek area, and it doesn't have the line detail doing down the entire front of the forehead:

vs

I think Lego was going for this helm design, which admittedly looks similar to the Fantasty troll helm. As for the print it's hard to say since it's covered up by the chest piece. Regardless the point still stands, Lego was trying to differentiate the Black Gate/Pirate Ship Orcs from the other Mordor Orcs we got.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Deathleech

[deskp]

I don't think so.

It's this helmet, thought that was for the orcs. http://brickowl.com/files/image_cache/larger/lego-black-dark-knight-helmet-48493-26-579619-38.jpg

[Haltiamieli]

If LOTR ends a Gondor Soldier fig in that set would be far more exciting to probably 90%+ LOTR fans than Mouth ever will be :)

And if Lego LotR doesn't end yet and we get a third wave full of Gondor stuff 90+ percent of us will be happy that they put Mouth of Sauron there (the only set ever where we could get him) instead of one Gondorian soldier who would just make some eBay sellers rich before the third wave floods the market.

And if they would cancelled the third wave (similarly like they seem to have actually done) just with that one Gondorian instead of MoS in the Black Gate set, I'm not sure if there'd really be considerably less backlash amongst fans. They would still have cut the theme prematurely (as it appears to us), that would still be only one single Gondorian in a pretty expensive set not too suitable for multiple buys, there'd still be no Minas Tirith/Osgiliath, no Eowyn, no Witch-King... It's so easy to take all we get as granted and crave for just a little bit more.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Haltiamieli

[Deathleech]

It's this helmet, thought that was for the orcs. http://brickowl.com/...6-579619-38.jpg

Ahh, maybe it was that one. That raises an even bigger question, if they have an existing helm that looks closer to the helms in the movie why on earth would they give us Uruk-hai armor? That Castle helm mold is obviously still in use, Lego just used it on some of the new dragon Castle minifigures.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Deathleech

[Faefrost]

Ahh, maybe it was that one. That raises an even bigger question, if they have an existing helm that looks closer to the helms in the movie why on earth would they give us Uruk-hai armor? That Castle helm mold is obviously still in use, Lego just used it on some of the new dragon Castle minifigures.

Accounting? To further amortize the cost of the Uruk Hai Orc helms. The Castle Evil helms have been used enough that they are already paid for? Plus possibly the idea that the Uruk Hai helm, while not right for that scene or group of Orcs, is however more recognizable as an Orc helm to the general viewer. So even if not accurate it looks more right to most buyers.

[SheepEater]

If LOTR ends a Gondor Soldier fig in that set would be far more exciting to probably 90%+ LOTR fans than Mouth ever will be :)

My two 2008 Gondorian crown knights beg to differ

Edited February 6, 2014 by SheepEater

[greenalfonzo]

I think the prelim picture that had orcs in new helmet & chest armor was the Pirate ship.

[Deathleech]

Accounting? To further amortize the cost of the Uruk Hai Orc helms. The Castle Evil helms have been used enough that they are already paid for? Plus possibly the idea that the Uruk Hai helm, while not right for that scene or group of Orcs, is however more recognizable as an Orc helm to the general viewer. So even if not accurate it looks more right to most buyers.

See, this is the big issue I have with a lot of people's arguments defending Lego's decisions. They like to cherry pick things. I am not saying you are wrong (because you probably are right, Lego has to have a reason), and this isn't directed soley at you, but on one hand people claim "oh, Lego needs to put accurate characters into sets and they need to be child friendly!" But Lego doesn't do this all the time. This helm is a perfect example. They could of used the existing castle helm they have in a dark pearl gray color and it would have worked almost perfectly for the Morannon Orcs armor. Instead they use the Uruk-hai helm which is totally wrong and never seen once on a Morannon Orc?

People say the sets have to be child friendly and have recognizable characters like Frodo, Gandalf, etc., but then we get sets like Black Gates which has the Mouth of Sauron who is ONLY seen in the Extended Edition of the films and it's during a pretty gory scene. And likewise we get Frodo and Gimli in Council of Elrond, but how much did including Arwen and Elrond hurt that sets sale with kids? I imagine Elrond is like old Obi-Won Kenobi and not exactly a highly sought after character among children. We all know how little boys feel about female characters.

People say $12.99 army builders won't sell well with kids because they don't include main characters and parents won't want to buy multiples for their children. But parents WILL want to buy a $30 army builder set, and kids will want it for that one special Eomer character? Or Black Gates.. how many parents really bought two of that set like the back packaging suggests? What about the Mirkwood Elf Army where it's advertised you should buy multiples to hook the walls together? How many parents are going to dole out $60, $90, or more to get enough for their kids to connect them all? I think parents would be MUCH more likely to buy a couple $12.99 army builders and then get their kids a $20 set with most the name characters, like Darth Caedus suggests.

And don't even get me started on the waste of prints. Seriously, Lego can give us three goblin prints and three undead prints all of which are only used in ONE set but they can't give us more than a SINGLE Mordor Orc print, which is used in four or more sets? I mean I am sure Lego has a reason for doing it, otherwise it is a HUGE oversight on their part (which wouldn't be impossible considering we get elf hair that doesn't even accommodate quivers and clothing colors that are all wrong ala Aragorn... ). But it's just like a giant WTF moment. It seems to defy all laws of common sense.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Deathleech

[Ardelon]

I think a lot of people forget that Gandalf Arrives introduced us to the new horse. Otherwise, though, the set really was a rather redundant when the Frodo and Gandalf polybags came out - though I would actually say it's the other way around - the set with both figs and the horse makes more sense that the limited distribution polybags.

I also assume that there are (much, much) more parents and non-FOLs that buy the smallest sets exactly for the few main characters, than there are army-building AFOLs who would buy multiples of an army builder set. So I'd say TLG is making the right business move on the smallest sets. Of course, I would definitely not complain abouth army building sets instead.

I do agree about the torso print redudnacy, though. I dont think it can be helped in the Goblin Town set (where else would the extra prints be allocated? - thought thats assuming the print allowance is granted per set rather than per theme?). But I wish the the designers would have made a new Orc torso instead of one of the "Oathbreaker" torsos in the Corsair ship set, and also used it for the Orcs in the Black Gate set to recoup costs (and maybe even in the upcoming BO5A set, we'll see how those guys look).

[Brickdiction]

TLG has put themselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the Middle Earth theme. As you've pointed out Deethleech, sets border on pleasing kids and AFOL's alike and then seem to do neither. Although the current lack of approval from AFOL's has a lot to do with the thought that we won't be getting a third wave. If we see a third and final wave that has at least a 1 good Rohirrim battle pack we won't have "that" much left to complain about.

As has been pointed out numerous times in this thread the set choices are a little mind boggling at times. You can look at all the sets from wave 1 and minus Gandalf Arrives they're pretty good. Orc forge although not the best had nice printing, a light brick and Lurtz. Shelob was great, Helm's Deep is amazing, and Uruk-Hai Army is a great add on. Mines of Moria which took a lot of criticism for a while has some great figs, a cave troll and captures the scene perfectly. Even Gandalf Arrives is a cute little set but it could have been better as Darth Caedus suggested with 2 fantastic alternatives.

But then you have wave 2. Sets from violent scenes (which used to be a LEGO no no), sets from scenes barely recognizable, and yet Orthanc which is still one of the best selling sets and it isn't widely available. Overall I like the sets IF it is a filler wave and we're going to see more things Middle Earth. Good pieces in CoE (I can't say enough how much I love the dark orange limb elements) and two characters we can't find anywhere else (third age rendition anyways). Mouth of Sauron is creepy as hell and Aragon looks fantastic in his king attire in Black Gate. Pirate Ship has some great minifigs and the ship does look pretty good. Even Wizard battle although my least favorite allows fans to pick up Saruman for a good price. If this is it, seriously what gives? This isn't Castle where you can go back next year and redo the theme. This is the Lord of the Rings, an epic masterpiece that redefined the Fantasy genre. As far as fantasy goes there is slim pickings in the LEGO world these days and it will become slimmer soon.

There has to be licensing issues which has impacted TLG's set choices and lack of battle packs. Or maybe someone just dropped the ball, repeatedly. I still think there's time for TLG to remedy the situation even if they don't have a third wave planned. Extend the license if needed, sort through the gold mine of information on this forum and watch the cash come in.

[Robert_88]

It would be very interesting to know which sets weren't allowed by New Line. Unfortunately we will never find out.

I hope somebody asks TLG at the NY Toy Fair about the future of Lego LotR. We might hear the typical answers but maybe somebody is allowed to be more specific.

[Alcarin]

See, this is the big issue I have with a lot of people's arguments defending Lego's decisions. They like to cherry pick things. I am not saying you are wrong (because you probably are right, Lego has to have a reason), and this isn't directed soley at you, but on one hand people claim "oh, Lego needs to put accurate characters into sets and they need to be child friendly!" But Lego doesn't do this all the time. This helm is a perfect example. They could of used the existing castle helm they have in a dark pearl gray color and it would have worked almost perfectly for the Morannon Orcs armor. Instead they use the Uruk-hai helm which is totally wrong and never seen once on a Morannon Orc?

People say the sets have to be child friendly and have recognizable characters like Frodo, Gandalf, etc., but then we get sets like Black Gates which has the Mouth of Sauron who is ONLY seen in the Extended Edition of the films and it's during a pretty gory scene. And likewise we get Frodo and Gimli in Council of Elrond, but how much did including Arwen and Elrond hurt that sets sale with kids? I imagine Elrond is like old Obi-Won Kenobi and not exactly a highly sought after character among children. We all know how little boys feel about female characters.

People say $12.99 army builders won' sell well with kids because they don't include main characters and parents won't want to buy multiples for their children. But parents WILL want to buy a $30 army builder set, and kids will want it for that one special Eomer character? Or Black Gates.. how many parents really bought two of that set like the back suggests? What about the Mirkwood Elf Army where it's advertised you should buy multiples to hook the wall together? How many parents are going to dole out $60, $90, or more to get enough for their kids to conect them all? I think parents would be MUCH more likely to buy a couple $12.99 army builders and then get their kids a $20 set with most the name characters, like Darth Caedus suggests.

And don't even get me started on the waste of prints. Seriously, Lego can give us three goblin prints and three undead prints all of which are only used in ONE set but they can't give us more than a SINGLE Mordor Orc print, which is used in four or more sets? I mean I am sure Lego has a reason for doing it, otherwise it is a HUGE oversight on their part (which wouldn't be impossible considering we get elf hair that doesn't even accommodate quivers and clothing colors that are all wrong ala Aragorn... ). But it's just like a giant WTF moment. It seems to defy all laws of common sense.

Exactly this Deathleech.... It seems ''defenders'' of TLG logic are indeed cherry picking... When it suits their argument they pick License and when it contradicts the license logic they use TLG costs or whatever TLG facotr in it....

The most logical reason so far I had is the one where a guy says they wanted to please both kids and Adults.... but to me they massively failed if we exclude Orthanc and Helm's Deep..... Fellowship looks great so does uruk-hais but thats about it...

[Deathleech]

TLG has put themselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the Middle Earth theme. As you've pointed out Deethleech, sets border on pleasing kids and AFOL's alike and then seem to do neither. Although the current lack of approval from AFOL's has a lot to do with the thought that we won't be getting a third wave. If we see a third and final wave that has at least a 1 good Rohirrim battle pack we won't have "that" much left to complain about.

I dunno, I feel like even if we get the "dream" wave three (Witch Kings vs Eowyn, some sort of Gondor set/army builder, and a Balrog), people will still be a little upset Lego missed out on opportunities in wave two. I know I would of MUCH rather seen a Mumakil set with some Haradrim than the Pirate Ship Ambush. I would love a $20 Treebeard set with Merry, Pippin, and Grishnak, more Rohan Soldier variations, some Easterlings, a Golden Hall and Lothlorien set, etc. Of course I am realistic and I know we aren't going to get every last set we want. I do think giving us a Gondor set and a third wave would really help satiate fans appetite. Then we wouldn't feel like the line is only half complete.

One other thing I forgot to mention in my long rant above is I don't understand the licensing agreement either. How can Star Wars have the battle packs they do when Hasbro is actively producing SW action figures and it's one of their main lines, yet Lego can't do the same type of BPs for LotR when there are literally no LotR action figures on the market and there haven't been for almost a decade? It just seems crazy. I know there has to be an explanation for all of this and I am sure there are a number of check boxes Lego needs to mark when making a set. I just wish we had some explanation from them. I love seeing the designer videos because they often drop us some hints about their thought and design process, I just wish we had more so we didn't have to speculate on pretty much everything.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Deathleech

[Darth Punk]

I dunno, I feel like even if we get the "dream" wave three (Witch Kings vs Eowyn, some sort of Gondor set/army builder, and a Balrog), people will still be a little upset Lego missed out on opportunities in wave two. I know I would of MUCH rather seen a Mumakil set with some Haradrim than the Pirate Ship Ambush. I would love a $20 Treebeard set with Merry, Pippin, and Grishnak, more Rohan Soldier variations, some Easterlings, a Golden Hall and Lothlorien set, etc. Of course I am realistic and I know we aren't going to get every last set we want. I do think giving us a Gondor set and a third wave would really help satiate fans appetite. Then we wouldn't feel like the line is only half complete.

One other thing I forgot to mention in my long rant above is I don't understand the licensing agreement either. How can Star Wars have the battle packs they do when Hasbro is actively producing SW action figures and it's one of their main lines, yet Lego can't do the same type of BPs for LotR when there are literally no LotR action figures on the market and there haven't been for almost a decade? It just seems crazy. I know there has to be an explanation for all of this and I am sure there are a number of check boxes Lego needs to mark when making a set. I just wish we had some explanation from them. I love seeing the designer videos because they often drop us some hints about their thought and design process, I just wish we had more so we didn't have to speculate on pretty much everything.

I think you answered your own question. Lucas liked action figures, thus action figures were produced. The license holders of TLoR are not interested in action figures, thus no battle packs or action figures. I think if you really want to,know ask the,license holders, not TLG. You are much more likely going to get an answer.

[Deathleech]

I think you answered your own question. Lucas liked action figures, thus action figures were produced. The license holders of TLoR are not interested in action figures, thus no battle packs or action figures. I think if you really want to,know ask the,license holders, not TLG. You are much more likely going to get an answer.

That wasn't my point though. Usually with a license it is granted for a specific type of toy or merchandise. When one company get's it they usually have some sort of exclusive contract so only they can produce that type of product. In Hasbro's case they have the action figure license for Star Wars and Lego has the construction license. This is one of the reasons why Lego said they couldn't do the Cussoo Dark Bucket project, because it was nothing but 100 minifigures and would breach their contract. Likewise Lego had to start gluing their magnetic figures to bases because of legal issues and them being to close to action figures. Of course there are plenty of other examples. The SW Battle Packs are about as much as Lego can get away with because they still have a fairly decent size brick built vehicle included with them.

My question is, why does the LotR/Hobbit license seem more strict with the brick to minifigure ratio than SW is? Hasbro has an action figure license and obviously doesn't want Lego encroaching on it because it can hurt their sales. SW action figures are one of Hasbro's main products. No one has a LotR action figure license right now though? Maybe a company has the license to do statues or one or two highly detailed action figures, but neither are being used hardly at all. You would think LotR would be the license Lego could get away with more and throw together a $12.99 with a bunch of minifigures and a minimal build.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Deathleech

[naf]

That wasn't my point though. Usually with a license it is granted for a specific type of toy or merchandise. When one company get's it they usually have some sort of exclusive contract so only they can produce that type of product. In Hasbro's case they have the action figure license for Star Wars and Lego has the construction license. This is one of the reasons why Lego said they couldn't do the Cussoo Dark Bucket project, because it was nothing but 100 minifigures and would breach their contract. Likewise Lego had to start gluing their magnetic figures to bases because of legal issues and them being to close to action figures. Of course there are plenty of other examples. The SW Battle Packs are about as much as Lego can get away with because they still have a fairly decent size brick built vehicle included with them.

My question is, why does the LotR/Hobbit license seem more strict with the brick to minifigure ratio than SW is? Hasbro has an action figure license and obviously doesn't want Lego encroaching on it because it can hurt their sales. SW action figures are one of Hasbro's main products. No one has a LotR action figure license right now though? Maybe a company has the license to do statues or one or two highly detailed action figures, but neither are being used hardly at all. You would think LotR would be the license Lego could get away with more and throw together a $12.99 with a bunch of minifigures and a minimal build.

Let's assume that no one currently holds an action figure license for Lord of the Rings. That doesn't meant that Lego can just start selling minifigures separately, they would still have to buy the action figure license, along with the construction toy license to do both. It probably wasn't profitable to buy both types of licenses, hence they only hold the construction toy one.

As to why Lego hasn't produces Star Wars style battlepacks for the Middle Earth themes, there's either something in the license terms preventing it, or they simply didn't want to make them. I'm leaning towards the former.

Edited February 6, 2014 by naf

[Deathleech]

Well of course Lego couldn't just start making minifigure (action figure) packs with no brick built components. Even if no one else has the action figure license, I am sure WB would be pretty ticked if they found out Lego was making something without having bought the license to do so. I just imagine SW-type battle packs would be something Leg could get away with MUCH easier than they can with SW since no one seems to be holding the LotR action figure license (or really using it). I am guessing that Lego didn't pay a ton for the LotR license though, or WB is much stricter, so that is indeed what's prohibiting it.

This brings up yet another question I would love to know the answer to. What kind of prices did Lego pay for the LotR license? It's not a current merchanding juggernaut like Star Wars and the movies are a decade old so I can't imagine they paid a ton. I am guessing it was kind of a two for one deal where they got the Hobbit license and the LotR was thrown in for a relatively small fee or negotiated in for a little more?

[Faefrost]

See, this is the big issue I have with a lot of people's arguments defending Lego's decisions. They like to cherry pick things. I am not saying you are wrong (because you probably are right, Lego has to have a reason), and this isn't directed soley at you, but on one hand people claim "oh, Lego needs to put accurate characters into sets and they need to be child friendly!" But Lego doesn't do this all the time. This helm is a perfect example. They could of used the existing castle helm they have in a dark pearl gray color and it would have worked almost perfectly for the Morannon Orcs armor. Instead they use the Uruk-hai helm which is totally wrong and never seen once on a Morannon Orc?

As others have pointed out in many other threads around here, there is more to designing Lego sets than we can even begin to imagine. Manufacturing is is rather complex beast. Product trade offs are often made. And often we the end user would never be able to predict or understand why.

Take that Castle Evil Helm as an example? Yes it would have worked well for the Mordor Orcs. BUT there are a lot of potential design and production factors that we will rarely think of. Here is a possible scenario regarding the helm decision;

The Castle Evil Helm would work well for the orcs, but there was a Castle theme in production at the same time as the second LotR wave. It was also using that helm in a different color. There was probably only one set of tooling for that helm, the themes were coming from different factories and the tooling would only be available for use on one theme as a result. The LotR factory had the tooling for the Uruk Hai Orc helm on site and some stock of those parts. So the decision was made to use the known Orc helm piece for LotR and use the Evil Helm for the Castle line as that would use the piece in more sets.

Remember design and production is 4 dimensional. Time factors in. It is not simply being able to do something, but can it be done at x point in time without conflicting with y? Granted the above is pure speculation on my part, but it reflects a reasonable scenario that would probably be the most likely example of why the helm changed from the prototype Castle one to the Uruk Hai.

I hate to break it to you all, but the level of intensity over LotR accuracy around here tends to be just a bit more past the last stop on the crazy train, than tends to be the norm. The number of Lego customers that really care which helm they chose to use probably numbers in the low 4 figures. At best. Yes would others "prefer" an exact helm? Or even a correct helm? Sure. But it's not a key decision point around which their purchasing decisions revolve. It is more important that the minifig be quickly visually identifiable as an Orc, than it is that it be identifiable as a specific make or model of Orc from a specific scene doing a specific action. The Uruk Hai helm while not perfect, is sufficient for communicating "Orc".

As far as new Orc prints vs other new torso prints. The orcs are probably last on the print list. Besides the reasons I said above, the orcs can also easily be differentiated with armor, helms, hair and shoulders, etc. the Goblins and undead could not. (Well the undead could, but that becomes more complicated than simply doing it with print.)

The decision path that gave us the Mouth of Sauron instead of something like the Witch King is as much a mystery to me as it is to you? I like the fig. He is wonderfully cool and creepy. But yeah, Lego's tendency to do the unexpected leads one to suspect they stopped corporate drug testing back in the 70's and currently operate on a perpetual low level buzz.

[Mahtion]

At least orcs have helmets......one day the Eldar will don them as well, Varda willing.

[Darth Caedus]

The decision path that gave us the Mouth of Sauron instead of something like the Witch King is as much a mystery to me as it is to you? I like the fig. He is wonderfully cool and creepy. But yeah, Lego's tendency to do the unexpected leads one to suspect they stopped corporate drug testing back in the 70's and currently operate on a perpetual low level buzz.

Master Builder 1: *pufffffffffffffffff*

Master Builder 2: Bro, lemme get somma that dank.

MB 1: Smoke up, dude.

MB 2: *pufffffffffffffffff*

MB 1: Dude. DUDE.

MB 2: Whaaat.

MB 1: You know what's freakin' SCARY?

MB 2: What bro what

MB 1: THE MOUTH OF SAURON MAN

MB 2: AAHHH DUDE WTF YOU'RE FREAKIN' ME OUT

MB 1: YEAH MAN HE'S LIKE....TEETH, AND S***

MB 2: Dude Mouth of Sauron is baller though. Black Numenorean, he goes HARD

MB 1: Word up. Bro we should make a Mouth of Sauron set

MB 2: DUDE LET'S SERIOUSLY DO THAT

Master Builder 3: Yo guys, but what about the Witch-King?

MB 1: F*** the Witch-King. He's a little b****.

MB 2: Yeah. F*** the Witch-King, he gets killed by MERRY, man. Freakin' HOBBIT killed him.

MB 1: Yeah. We're making a Mouth of Sauron first, dude. 2 to 1. Deaaaaal with it.

Master Builder 3: I'm too goddam sober for this right now. I'm gonna go get some food. Do what you want. You know the AFOLs are going to go ballistic, right?

MB 1: Screw the AFOLs. We do what we want man, we gangsta.

MB 2: Dude pick me up some cheetos?

Edited February 7, 2014 by Darth Caedus