Jason7189 Posted August 17, 2014 Posted August 17, 2014 So what are the chances of us actually getting a Minas Tirith. And if so will it be a 200$ set, or will it be another Helms Deep. Quote
Blakstone Posted August 17, 2014 Posted August 17, 2014 I think the Orthanc is the only LotR D2C set. If there is another wave (odds are against it), then it might be $120-130 in size. If you go over that size, you won't sell enough volume to justify any new molds. Quote
Faefrost Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 Harry Potter is the only one that comes to mind. But I really didn't care for any of the films after the 2nd one, so I have no idea about what is or is not there. Harry Potter all but skipped the last 4 movies. They did skip #6 completely. Quote
Jason7189 Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 So no more D2C's for the lotr. Any way, a D2C would probably cost to much for most kids to buy. Quote
Alcarin Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 The key there is the (IMO) part of the phrase. Lego makes decisions based on a much broader amount of information and research. Things that seem obvious and sure wins to us could have been debated and decided against for any number of reasons. Let's dissect one of your speculations. An Oliphant set. How could Lego decide to make the Pirate ship over an Oliphant? Easy, because Lego is a business and they take the entire business into perspective. You just look at it as a very narrow fan. What benefit does an Oliphant set give them? A large pricey set based on an organic figure that they don't have a lot of ability to predict LotR fan interest in. Whereas simultaneously they have Chima reaching year three and planning a Mammoth or elephant tribe. The large organic Elephant type set is a better fit for Chima where it can be better decked out with play features and is much more highly marketable to kids. Whereas the Pirate ship lets Lego leverage some of their other classic fan bases. It gives the ship fans a ship for the year and something different. It gives LotR fans a broad usage set that accounts for both the Army of the Dead and the arrival at Gondor, and it lets them sneak in a Peter Jackson minifig. You might not believe this but it would not surprise me to find that the Pirate Ship sold substantially better than Helms Deep (which as I think we pretty well covered, almost everyone here bought at deep discount). We, or at least you are predicting sales based on your driving passions. Lego basis their predictions on a complex web of data, research and product synergy. We know they explored a Balrog set. Pure speculation on why they did not proceed with it can lead us down a few paths. The most likely being they did not like the results. It may have been felt that it was too much of a Bionacle/Constraction build with not enough traditional bricks. They may have felt that new deeply expensive wings would be required. They may have felt that it was too scary or demonic looking for a kids toy. They've been getting a lot of weird protests lately and may have simply decided this was a war not worth fighting for yet another Gandalf fig. A Witch King and Fel Beast set probably came down to new molds for the Fel Beast. If they were doing Smaug for Hobbit it would be jarring to do the Fel Beast as brick built. And if given the choice between the two WB would have gone for or insisted on Smaug as it is the current marketing drive. And as for Minas Tirith, it may have simply been a matter of scale and size vs viable price points? It may have been a reflection of how Helms Deep sold? As far as characters? Eowyn was the only real loss to the main story characters. Faramir is and always was a pipe dream. The best hope for him was always a S@H bonus fig. Gondor soldiers? It is a toss up. Generic figs really don't drive set sales outside of a very narrow market niche. Nice to accommodate, but other things might take priority. Well if they take an entire business into perspective they should also have taken a perspective of ''How should a set look and what to contain to be WORTHY of multiple purchases'' and sadly they took such perspective only in 1 set....... and thats Uruk-hai Army....... even the set where they ADVERTISED double purchase for the sake of the looks they put in figures that clearly speak against it...... perfect evidence of a failed decision for me....... Uruk-hai army pretty much flew off the shelves where i still see Elrond's council today........ In my ''small'' town of barely 20.000 inhabitans our local toy shop had to restock uruk-hai army 4 times and was never discounted but they stil lhave 1st batch of Elrond's council...... and I bet if youd replace Elrond's Council with the same looking wall just in white and put in 1 gondor soldier (with shield and spear and bow as secondary option) and Faramir in Gondor attire and helmet on horse + 4 Orcs and 2 with new helmets it would not be there anymore........ Uruk-hai army was amongst the first to be sold out and then retired and not restocked, so why would LEGO who you back up as looking over whole business perspective and when $$$ is the main motivation, not put out more similar sets....... I bought 15 uruk-hai armies 3 Helm's Deeps, 1 Mines of Moria, 3 Orc Forges, 1 Gandalf arrives and 1 Weathertop.......the guy in Toy shop told me I was the number 1 buyer of the whole town for Uruk-hai army and LOTR theme and gave me 1 Helm's Deep for 50% off as a thank you. In Other words 1 LOTR AFOL (me) bought more LOTR sets from wave 1, than a WHOLE town of 20.000 people (that surely has over 1000 kids + there are suburbs who shop in town so there is likely 30.000 people around that go to that shop for toys........ granted its only 1 town and only 1 toy shop but it is from Europe where Tolkien was first presented with his work so it has ''more'' legacy.... A Witch King and Fel Beast set probably came down to new molds for the Fel Beast. If they were doing Smaug for Hobbit it would be jarring to do the Fel Beast as brick built. And if given the choice between the two WB would have gone for or insisted on Smaug as it is the current marketing drive. Fair enough, but they could still put Witch king in the battle of the black gates (now dont tell me LEGO cares for cannon cos we both know thats untrue) and replace him with Mouth that is (for everyone apart from true LOTR fans) an unknown character..... And as for Minas Tirith, it may have simply been a matter of scale and size vs viable price points? It may have been a reflection of how Helms Deep sold? I dont want Minas Tirith, its impossible to do it and do it justice, But a cool White tower and courtyard (opposing Orthanc that can easily be modded into the Eye of Sauron would be good enough for MOC starting and then another Uruk-hai army repaint to army build Gondor + Mordor and possibly Haradrim...... I think LEGO did a bad business perspective on the line, Kids below 12 dont have any idea what LOTR is because LOTR is far more ADULT than Hobbit, and Adult LEGO fans, mostly would prefer different set choices if they ought to choose..... I am yet to see someone buying the Pirate ship in masses to make a great fleet...... the true Pirate fans think the ship looks ''not pirate enough'' because for true pure pirate fans ships ought to look like Imperial Flagship or Black Pearl/QAR and Black Seas Baracuda, not a boat with 3 seperate sails...... But ye I am not attacking you just argumenting over your reasoning... LEGO is aimed for kids, but LOTR is not a kid friendly theme, mainly because of reasons its adult oriented and because its more or less atleast 14+ if not even 16+ to actually understand it..... and I either think LEGO had no idea what to do with LOTR theme and just ''did it'' cos they got it in the package or they trully did a bad business plan because if its cancelled due to bad selling thats their design fault not ours really..... I just wont buy 20 Elrond's councils to show them I want more, Ill buy 20 Gondor battle packs though, and they saved me money, not me...... Quote
Darth Caedus Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 Well if they take an entire business into perspective they should also have taken a perspective of ''How should a set look and what to contain to be WORTHY of multiple purchases'' This. A thousand times this. It's so easy to make a set that's not just kid friendly (action figures, cool minifigs, decent build) but also has major multi-purchase value for AFOLs. This could have been done easily in every single wave. LOTR Wave 1: They already did it properly with UHA. Hobbit Wave 1: Riddles for the Ring sold like a stale turd. They should have tossed Gollum and Bilbo in the Goblin-town set. The littlest set should have been $14.99: Battle of Azanulbizar. Rock outcropping with action gimmick, 2x Azanulbizar Orc 1x Erebor Dwarf. Molds required - zero. Give the Orcs a cool print but reuse an old helmet from KK or the original fantasy line. Reuse Gimli's helm for the Erebor dwarves with dark black printing - it's close enough. LOTR Wave 2: Council of Elrond was always a mistake, we were gonna get another Elrond in Hobbit Wave 3 anyways. Scrap it and replace with $29.99: Osgiliath Defense. 1x Armored Knight Faramir w/ helmet. 1x Gondorian Warrior. 1x Ithilien Ranger. 3x Morgul Orcs. Molds required - one. Gondor helmet instead of the hair required for Elrond/Arwen. Could stretch to two if they wanted to make an Orc helmet. Otherwise just keep using different colors of the Orc hair mold. The ULTIMATE armybuilder this set would be. Gondorians and Orcs. Hobbit Wave 2: Adjust the Mirkwood set. Instead, the set should have been $29.99. 3x Armored Elves. 2x Hunter Orcs. 1x Narzug. Molds required - one. Armored elf helmet. Narzug could have that mohawk hair from Wave 3 I suppose if Lego could afford it. Narzug fulfills named character requirement and is generic enough to fit in as a standard Orc. Hobbit Wave 3: Combine Laketown and Smaug to fill $60 slot with armored Bard. $30 slot is modular Dale Ruins (basically current BoFA minus ballista). 2x Dol Guldur Orcs. 1x Iron Hills Dwarf. 1x Armored Elf. 1x Dain (make sure helmet has removable plume). Fulfills named requirement. Dain can easily be de-plumed and reworked as a normal Dwarf. Molds required - one, the IH Dwarf helm. Then make the $130 set have Armored Thranduil to make up for him not being in Wave 2, and it can have angry Azog, Bolg, King Thorin, Fili, Kili, armored Bilbo and whatever other named characters Lego wants to toss in to a big Gates of Erebor or massive Dale ruins set. There you go. Kiddies are satisfied, all the key points they want are still there, and instead of being disappointed, AFOLs buy dozens of every armybuilder. Lego makes $$$$$$. Quote
Alcarin Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 LOTR Wave 2: Council of Elrond was always a mistake, we were gonna get another Elrond in Hobbit Wave 3 anyways. Scrap it and replace with $29.99: Osgiliath Defense. 1x Armored Knight Faramir w/ helmet. 1x Gondorian Warrior. 1x Ithilien Ranger. 3x Morgul Orcs. Molds required - one. Gondor helmet instead of the hair required for Elrond/Arwen. Could stretch to two if they wanted to make an Orc helmet. Otherwise just keep using different colors of the Orc hair mold. The ULTIMATE armybuilder this set would be. Gondorians and Orcs. Just fixing this, I could not bear Gondor battle pack without unique gondorian knight shield preferably new mold or atleast Roman soldier shield with print........ Hobbit Wave 2: Adjust the Mirkwood set. Instead, the set should have been $29.99. 3x Armored Elves. 2x Hunter Orcs. 1x Narzug. Molds required - one. Armored elf helmet. Narzug could have that mohawk hair from Wave 3 I suppose if Lego could afford it. Narzug fulfills named character requirement and is generic enough to fit in as a standard Orc. Oh and same goes here..... armored elf needs that unique shield...... they look so much better with that nicely done shields......... Quote
Darth Caedus Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 (edited) Just fixing this, I could not bear Gondor battle pack without unique gondorian knight shield preferably new mold or atleast Roman soldier shield with print........ Oh and same goes here..... armored elf needs that unique shield...... they look so much better with that nicely done shields......... You're correct, I didn't mention the Gondorian shields. I think I'd be satisfied with a Roman shield with a nice White Tree print. Basically I was trying to outline how Lego could have done with barebones effort what AFOLs wanted to buy bucketloads of while still satisfying KFOLs everywhere. Armored Elves...IMO the Helmet is more key, they could scrape by with that shield that they did throw in randomly in the existing set. But a good Elven Shield Mold could be reused for the true ultimate battlepack - for Last Alliance Elves in a battlepack that would also include Mordor Orcs and Numenoreans. Sigh.It's funny that the very first armored warrior we see in action in the series, the line of Elven Swordsman, remains by far the coolest armor design in the entire PJ universe. Many people post that image of the Lego ranger Faramir, but Armored Faramir is the no-brained way for Lego to go - it can be repurposed with a simple head-swap to a standard Gondorian Warrior. (Yes, I know his helmet and armor is slightly different from the rest of them in the films, but this is Lego). Edited August 18, 2014 by Darth Caedus Quote
Jason7189 Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 (edited) Your right there about Nazug, all it would have taken would have been a new face print. It would have also been good to get some (proper) elf warriors and gondor soldiers, but the elves are an impossibility now. Edited August 18, 2014 by Jason7189 Quote
Faefrost Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 But ye I am not attacking you just argumenting over your reasoning... LEGO is aimed for kids, but LOTR is not a kid friendly theme, mainly because of reasons its adult oriented and because its more or less atleast 14+ if not even 16+ to actually understand it..... and I either think LEGO had no idea what to do with LOTR theme and just ''did it'' cos they got it in the package or they trully did a bad business plan because if its cancelled due to bad selling thats their design fault not ours really..... I just wont buy 20 Elrond's councils to show them I want more, Ill buy 20 Gondor battle packs though, and they saved me money, not me...... You summed up the problem with LotR nicely. It's not a kid friendly line. But as a licensed Lego line it has to be. AFOLs are a nice high margin group. But the shear volume of them is not sufficient to support a licensed line alone. They need the retail big box stores. And Walmart is not stocking Lego to cater to you or me. We are at best happy accidents that fall outside their planning and calculations. The product focus for mainstream retail is kids. So the included figs, subjects and elements are ideally kid friendly. Multiple set purchases by a single customer are not something that is factored into their planning. The basic reason being the number of people that generally do that is small. Even if some individuals buy a lot, it is still not as good as hooking that single purchase regular retail kid market. A full retail production run is in excess of 1 million. There are at most maybe up to 100,000 niche multi set buyers or army builders. (I'm probably grossly overestimating this. We here are one of the larger worldwide AFOL communities with 5k members. I think Brickset has 20k registered users. ) those that would buy more than 2 or 3 are a small fraction of even that. Those that buy like you? Probably less than 1000 worldwide. When they have a product that clicks with these groups it is a wonderful bonus. But they still need to focus on their core, as the niche is a notoriously unpredictable group. Sometimes they throw us something like Uruk Hai army. But they don't design the wave or theme around that. And we are not alone in niche groups that they will try and experiment with, or throw something desirable too. UHA was clearly targeted at Army Builders. Council of Elrond was meant for a different niche. Remember LotR was the replacement for HP. A theme that did well cross gender lines. The Elrond set was an attempt at a more girl friendly Middle Earth set. Softer yet more vibrant colors with those gorgeous arches. The lines lone "Princess" type character. No open adversaries like Orcs. Was it a success? No. That does not mean they should not have tried and should have catered to your or my tastes instead. Actually believe it or not but from my rough observations Council of Elrond kind of proves some of the above points. I think it was bought far more by multiple set buyers than it was by regular retail "play" focused customers. (Those wonderful arches and colors.) which is why it's overall sales were poor. Not enough niche customers to make up for the retail ones disinterest. And in all of this lets not lose sight of the most basic truth. Lego only opted for the LotR license mainly as padding for and an extension of The Hobbit. That is the priority both for Lego, New Line and Warner Brothers. The plan was always to create some sets that a broad range of fans and customers would like. Not to perfectly recreate the movies in Lego form. I wish we got more. I wish the theme had 5 years to fully flesh out everything. But that does not mean that Lego had a responsibility to make everything. They make what they feel they have a broad market for. Not what the niche fan thinks. Hence we get Pirate Ships and elven princesses. Quote
Deathleech Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 Do you think it is likely that Lego never discussed the possibility of a Minas Tirith set? Or didn't do some preliminary calculations of what would be needed for one, as part of their normal license development, before electing not to include it in one of the released waves? Because that is all it would take to make it pre-existing art under the license. Well it's possible a Minas Tirith set did poorly in the focus testing and that's why Lego nixed the idea. If Lego saw an Ideas Minas Tirith get 10,000 votes in a year though, that might change their mind when they realize there is more interest than they originally thought. Often times we see products do really well or poor with testing groups, but then the exact opposite happens when they are released to the general public. You might not believe this but it would not surprise me to find that the Pirate Ship sold substantially better than Helms Deep (which as I think we pretty well covered, almost everyone here bought at deep discount). This is hard to say. On these forums, Helm's Deep was infinitely more favored than the Pirate Ship. With kids or pirate ship fans it might have done much better than we expect or see on these forums. It really depends on what the majority of people are buying the Lego LotR for. The minifigures? The builds? The parts? As a themed set the Pirate Ship Ambush didn't make a lot of sense to us Lego LotR fans, but it's possible it more than made up for that with it's broader cross appeal to pirate ship fans and kids. Quote
Faefrost Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 I think it was less focus testing with Minas Tirith than simply early design limitations. Early on they probably realized they could do a better representation of Helms Deep within the desired Price point. It was just a better setting for a set. The tighter focus and more limited scale. While still offering the appeal of a big LotR castle battle. But that's where it probably became an issue. TLG likes to keep some separation on the shelves. They don't typically want things that are too much alike out there at the same time or directly back to back. You don't release another "good guy castle" butting up against the first. You split them apart by at least 24 months and stick a bad guy creepy evil castle between them. The same way Lego does not have 2 different Tie ships out in SW, or why we will rarely see something like an Imperial Star Destroyer and republic Venator out adjacent to each other. They would not seem distinct enough on the shelf. Quote
Alcarin Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 You summed up the problem with LotR nicely. It's not a kid friendly line. But as a licensed Lego line it has to be. AFOLs are a nice high margin group. But the shear volume of them is not sufficient to support a licensed line alone. They need the retail big box stores. And Walmart is not stocking Lego to cater to you or me. We are at best happy accidents that fall outside their planning and calculations. The product focus for mainstream retail is kids. So the included figs, subjects and elements are ideally kid friendly. Multiple set purchases by a single customer are not something that is factored into their planning. The basic reason being the number of people that generally do that is small. Even if some individuals buy a lot, it is still not as good as hooking that single purchase regular retail kid market. A full retail production run is in excess of 1 million. There are at most maybe up to 100,000 niche multi set buyers or army builders. (I'm probably grossly overestimating this. We here are one of the larger worldwide AFOL communities with 5k members. I think Brickset has 20k registered users. ) those that would buy more than 2 or 3 are a small fraction of even that. Those that buy like you? Probably less than 1000 worldwide. When they have a product that clicks with these groups it is a wonderful bonus. But they still need to focus on their core, as the niche is a notoriously unpredictable group. Sometimes they throw us something like Uruk Hai army. But they don't design the wave or theme around that. But lets do some calculation here.... lets, for the sake of the argument, say there are 1000 people like me, or even people who buy more..... afterall we all seen that MOC where Helm's Deep had over 1000 uruk hais in display if I am not mistaken (or was it even more?) that guy(s) who made that MOC had to buy 250 UHA alone! You think anyone in the world bought as many Elrond's councils? :P Ok so you say LEGO does not take a factor in multi purchases... but isnt that kinda a bad move? Its a loss of potential revenue, I bet a LEGO LOTR chess would fly of the shelves, and I bet if they've put up a Gondor battle pack with 2 new molds (helmet and shield) and put it on their page as preorder with note: we will produce them if community preorders atleast 10.000 I AM 99% sure it would be preordered atleast 10.000 times....... Now then lets move into the area where LEGO did factor in multiple purchase. Black Gates..... they designed the set with purpose of purchasing it ATLEAST twice (they said that themselves right) and then they make a totally dumb move of putting 3/5 figs named characters...... seriously? Now I did not even buy 1 set of that, because I want two, but I dont want to support their dumb move of selling us named figs...... how can you consider such move of actually advertising multiple purchases and then putting in so many named characters..... even when i was a kid, and my grandfather bought me LEGO I hated it when i got Majistos, was so annoying, i always chose sets that had troops in now majistos, you got 1, thats fine, you did not need anymore, I threw them away.... And in all of this lets not lose sight of the most basic truth. Lego only opted for the LotR license mainly as padding for and an extension of The Hobbit. That is the priority both for Lego, New Line and Warner Brothers. The plan was always to create some sets that a broad range of fans and customers would like. Not to perfectly recreate the movies in Lego form. I wish we got more. I wish the theme had 5 years to fully flesh out everything. But that does not mean that Lego had a responsibility to make everything. They make what they feel they have a broad market for. Not what the niche fan thinks. Hence we get Pirate Ships and elven princesses. We are mostly all awaare of that fact, however noone asked for a perfect or almost perfect recreation of the movies, but we did and still do ask, to complete the line and atleast give us figures we need to recreate the ''perfection'' ourselves....... Licensed themes are (to me) 80% about figures and 20% about display value..... If they end the line now, I will be left with a beautiful display of Helm's Deep with 100+ uruks and Rohan soldiers with Eomer and Gandalf assaulting them and saving Theoden, and a nice display of Bag End and whole fellowship + Saruman and Radagast and Thorin...... So much money will be left in my pocket, that I would want to spend it but LEGO is not delivering the ''correct'' figures in better settings.... But that's where it probably became an issue. TLG likes to keep some separation on the shelves. They don't typically want things that are too much alike out there at the same time or directly back to back. You don't release another "good guy castle" butting up against the first. You split them apart by at least 24 months and stick a bad guy creepy evil castle between them. The same way Lego does not have 2 different Tie ships out in SW, or why we will rarely see something like an Imperial Star Destroyer and republic Venator out adjacent to each other. They would not seem distinct enough on the shelf. But LEGO did have out 2 ''good'' castles at the ''same''(less than 24 months apart) time, King's Castle from Castle line + Helm's Deep Quote
Trunkbass Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 Ok so you say LEGO does not take a factor in multi purchases... but isnt that kinda a bad move? Its a loss of potential revenue, I bet a LEGO LOTR chess would fly of the shelves, and I bet if they've put up a Gondor battle pack with 2 new molds (helmet and shield) and put it on their page as preorder with note: we will produce them if community preorders atleast 10.000 I AM 99% sure it would be preordered atleast 10.000 times....... Although impossible, it would be really nice if LEGO did a Kickstarter type of thing to make the third wave happen. I am absolutely sure they would reach their goal and we will have our third wave.. A pity this will never happen though. Quote
Risgrynsgrot Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 You guys rave on and on about how this set would sell like hot cakes and that set would sell like crazy but you gotta remember - LEGO LOTR isn't that popular. Sure, we got a few incredibly passionate fans of it here, but there's just a bunch. Now compare it to say, Star Wars or Super Heroes. Not only do they have atleast as many fans or many more (see Star Wars) but they also have much more kid fans. In the end LEGO is all about the sales, and that's what gonna decide if they wanna spend time and money on making a third wave. Quote
Darth Caedus Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 You guys rave on and on about how this set would sell like hot cakes and that set would sell like crazy but you gotta remember - LEGO LOTR isn't that popular. Sure, we got a few incredibly passionate fans of it here, but there's just a bunch. Now compare it to say, Star Wars or Super Heroes. Not only do they have atleast as many fans or many more (see Star Wars) but they also have much more kid fans. In the end LEGO is all about the sales, and that's what gonna decide if they wanna spend time and money on making a third wave. It's not about extending the line on after the movies - of course that's going to be a place where sales are weak, with no screen presence for the license. At least what I was posting outlined how Lego messed up royally in every wave after LOTR Wave 1 in terms of armybuilders - the existing sets they released could have been easily adjusted with no more original molds or parts than the actual sets we got, but would have made sets that'd sell equally well with the kiddies and dozens of times more with AFOLs. It's all water under the bridge now, but the sad fact is that Lego's handling of the Tolkien license after 2012 took a sharp left turn into the boneheaded, the lazy, and the half-baked, when literally a couple of hours of planning could have created exponentially better - and exponentially more popular - sets. I love Lego, and I'll keep buying it for the rest of my life. But I will never fully forgive them for fumbling the ball halfway across the field after finally getting their hands on Middle-Earth (which for me, was at the top of my personal 'dream licenses', the absolute epitome of epic storytelling - second only to a Game of Thrones license, which would be even more incredible, but is of course, sadly, a pipe dream). Quote
Blakstone Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 Bachamn, is that a metaphor for the futility of the circular discussions that occur so frequently here? On that note, the minifig designers do consider the impact of multiple set purchases. You only have to see that video they produced for LotR where he explains the high number of unique Uruks you can make from the wave 1 sets. But the minifig designer does not control which sets each one goes into. Quote
Robert_88 Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 Who knows? Maybe we will get another LotR army builder! Oh I hope we will get the set lists from the retailer catalogue asap! Quote
TheLegoDr Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 I actually liked Council of Elrond though. I even bought extra Arwens...odd I know. That was a nice little display piece actually. I think the sets overall have been worthwhile in wave 2 of LOTR, but the figures could have been better with better variety. Hobbit has been hit and miss with me. The sets haven't screamed build me, but the figures have nice prints and whatnot...We all know it's about the minifigures anymore, so why not give us a better variety? If it wasn't, then they wouldn't include exclusive figures with tablecloth x and kleenex a... (poor examples, but it seems everything has an exclusive figure these days). Quote
Borador Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 I actually liked Council of Elrond though. I even bought extra Arwens...odd I know. That was a nice little display piece actually. I think the sets overall have been worthwhile in wave 2 of LOTR, but the figures could have been better with better variety. I liked the Council of Elrond too. I guess people judge it because of what could have been. I don't really think that's fair though. A lovely set. Probably one of the best in the theme. Beautiful colors and designs. I kinda wish I'd gotten it... Quote
Lynx Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 This grasping at straws and hoping against hope is becoming really frustrating and the inevitable disappointment will only hurt more. I'll try to approach this from a worst-case scenario mindset - the lower my expectations, the smaller my disappointment: there will be no more Lord of the Rings sets. And even if there will be a third and final wave, this is what I expect: The Destruction of the Ring (20$) Set: A small rocky outcropping with glowing orange pieces Action feature: catapult function to hurl a character Minifigs: Frodo, Sam (both with new print) and Gollum Galadriel's Treehouse (40$) Set: the Lothlorien set seen in the video game plus Galadriel's mirror Action feature: flick fire missile in the tree house Minifigs: Galadriel, Frodo, Gimli and Legolas Treebeard encounter (25$) Set: brick-build ent and some random bushes Action feature: the ent is highly mobile Minifigs: Merry, Pippin, one orc Battle for Minas Tirith (70$) Set: a white wall structure with green gate and battering ram Action feature: battering ram uses new firing mechanism (similar to Lake-town set) to 'destroy' the gate, flick fire missiles and small catapults on the wall Minifigs: Gandalf the White, Pippin in Gondor armour, Eomer, three orcs (plus one horse) Quote
Jason7189 Posted August 19, 2014 Posted August 19, 2014 70$ seems a bit cheap for Minas Tirith. Quote
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