LEGO LotR - general discussion

[SandMirror38]

what???

Alcarin's happy with a Minas Tirth set that isn't $2000???

:P

On the other hand I aggre that looks cooool keep the becon though.

[BrickBob Studpants]

@Yooha: Now that's something I would have looked forward to I think it's really well designed overall and incorporates some excellently chosen minifigs although I'd have to agree with Alcarin by suggesting to remove the beacon I especially like the way you designed Grond (ingenious idea for the head and claws ). Too bad TLG can't produce newly molded parts for D2C sets, otherwise they could have released something like this (just bigger) as a big send-off for the theme

[Blazej_Holen]

@Yooha: Now that's something I would have looked forward to I think it's really well designed overall and incorporates some excellently chosen minifigs although I'd have to agree with Alcarin by suggesting to remove the beacon I especially like the way you designed Grond (ingenious idea for the head and claws ). Too bad TLG can't produce newly molded parts for D2C sets, otherwise they could have released something like this (just bigger) as a big send-off for the theme

Sorry but minifigs good, design is really poor. Nice start, but its not IT. I will buy set like this only for minifigs, but 1000pcs set is not army builder, so I will buy max. 3 of them. This is not what I imagine. But I apreciate your try :)

[Trunkbass]

Actually people can express their love for LotR all they want, but if the sales aren't there it doesn't matter. Lego isn't going to continue a line that isn't making them money no matter how much people ask for it. Don't just contact Lego, actually go out and buy those sets you were on the fence about. That speaks volumes more than sending them an e-mail saying you like the line and want to see it continue.

That's pretty much how I feel. I got 2 of every set so far except a few where I got 3-5. The "army builders" Lego releases are a whole nother story (UHA and MEA). I got 7 Mirkwood Elf Army so far (plan to get 11) and 21 Uruk-hai Army. Here's what my purchases look like:

2x Gandalf polybag

2x Frodo polybag

2x Blue coat Bilbo

2x Uruk-hai polybag (not widely available here in the U.S.)

2x Gandalf Arrives

2x Shelob Attacks

2x Attack on Weathertop

2x Mines of Moria

2x Battle at Helm's Deep

2x Riddles for the Ring

2x Escape from Mirkwood Spiders

2x Barrel Escape

2x An Unexpected Gathering

2x Goblin King Battle

2x Wizard Battle

2x Council of Elrond

2x Pirate Ship Ambush

2x Tower of Orthanc

2x Lake-town Chase

2x Dol Guldur Battle

3x Elrond polybag

3x Dol Guldur Ambush

3x Attack of the Wargs

3x Black Gates

6x Orc Forge

11x Mirkwood Elf Army

11x Mirkwood Elf polybag (ended up selling 10 when MEA came out)

21x Uruk-hai Army

68x Lake-town Guard polybag

As you can see if it's a proper army builder the sales are ten fold what I get of the other sets. Oh, and this isn't even mentioning all the minifigures I had to BrickLink because there was no other cheap way to get them in complete sets. I ended up BLing:

2x Cave Troll

4x Gray Warg

7x Nazgul

8x Undead Soldiers

10x Goblins

20x Orc Hunters

20x Rohan Soldier

28x Moria Orcs

40x Mordor Orc

40x Gundabad Orc

60x Uruk-hai

Wow! Where do you guys buy your LEGO?!

Even with an Amazon discount around 25/30% of the European price I only buy one (cheap) set twice max.

Too bad the polybags are nowhere to be found in Europe (on the continent), as far as I know. I would buy A LOT of them

I sent TLG (Belgium) an email yesterday, but no response yet.

[Hepitos]

they're living in USA. Lego is there very cheap and they have polybags :)

[Mr. Cube]

Aah...Austria...greetings from the Czech Republic :)

[Bring More Popcorn]

they're living in USA. Lego is there very cheap and they have polybags :)

That's still a LOAD of money to obtain a massive collection like that, but I guess in countries outside the US it would be astronomical!

Deathleech, I'm super jealous by the way...

[Hepitos]

outside US u can buy for this a ferrari :)

[Mr. Cube]

Deathleech has really nice collection. In comparison, there is mine:

2x Uruk-hai Army

2x The Orc Forge

1x Dol Guldur Ambush

1x Mines of Moria

1x Attack on Weathertop

1x Uruk-hai polybag

2x Gandalf polybag

2x Frodo polybag

1x Elrond polybag

+ Uruk-hai and other minifigures from BL and e-shops

+ I want to buy Helms Deep and Orthanc.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Mr. Cube

[Blakstone]

Here is my reply from LEGO Customer Service

Thanks for getting in touch with us. That is a very good question. Even we don't know if and when they are going to release them. I am hoping that they do. All I can tell you is to keep checking our website for Lord of The Rings and Hobbit sets. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us.

Thanks again for getting in touch. We're always pleased to receive feedback! If you could take a moment to complete a four question survey by going to the link below, it will help us make sure we are providing the best customer service to you.

As to the large collections that some are listing here, I probably come in about middle of the field. I have duplicates of most LotR sets but those were generally found on clearance after buying the initial set full price. I think that LEGO makes less money on clearance sells.

My list is:

Helm's Deep - one regular price and one clearance

Uruk Hai Army - three regular price and one clearance

Mines of Moria - one regular price and one clearance

Gandalf Arrives - bought one and gifted one

Shelob Attacks - one regular price

Orc Forge - one regular price

Weathertop - one regular price and one clearance

Council of Elrond - one regular price

Black Gate - one regular price

Pirate Ship Ambush - one regular price

Wizard Battle - one regular price

Attack of the Wargs - two regular price

Mirkwood Spiders - one regular price and one clearance

Goblin King - one clearance

Unexpected Gathering - one regular price

Barrel Escape - one regular price

Riddles for the Ring - one regular price

Mirkwood Elf Guard - Bought 10, some were buy one get one 50%

Gandalf at Dol Guldar - Bought one clearance

Dol Guldar Ambush - bought one regular price and was gifted one

Mirkwood Elf Army - bought one regular price

Lake-town Chase - bought one regular price

Lake-town Guard - Bought 5, some were buy one get one 50%

Right now I am considering getting another Bagend as Target has one $10 off. But it is not a good army builder but I do like those green curved bricks. Very frequently, I haunt local stores during my lunch hour looking for a good deal on LEGO. It is a fun game for me.

[scottjs]

I'm in Canada so my collection may have been been a tad more :) . I have managed to grab a few clearance deals though which helps a lot.

I'm going to send an email off to TLG as well and see what they say. I imagine I'll get a generic response along the lines of "we can't say anything". Unless an employee wants to risk their job they won't say a word nor would a customer service rep answering emails have a clue as to the future of the line. I'm still voicing my concerns which helps.

[Preuss]

While it's great to hear how rich everyone is was, could we just agree that all the fans of the theme should buy as much as they can... whether that means 17th Uruk-Hai Army or the first. These possessions lists do get a bit tedious after a while, no offence.

No offense taken. Normally I wouldn't be posting my purchase list - even if I wanted to show off, there are lots of people here with way more sets than I have, so there's no point in bragging. I only did it because if TLG does read this forum, I think we should make clear that even though AFOLs may be a small segment of their market, when it comes to LotR there are many of us who spend more than 10 KFOLs combined.

By the way... just bought another Moria and 4 additional Lake-Town guards. :-)

[The Fury]

Funny how the long time lurkers seemed to be getting the non automated responses.

Bricklink? It's highly unlikely TLG is recommending people to buy from resellers. And why

even mention older sets when TLG is obviously still selling TLoR sets. Not to mention the newly released

and future hobbit sets. The question was about a line continuing, not,about retiring/retired sets.

It is precisely because I received an unusual response that I decide to register and post it. If I had received an automated, non-committed, response then I would not have felt compelled to speak up. But I thought that everyone here would be interested in the email I received from TLG, so I thought I'd share.

Now I know you don't have much reason to trust me, so take my post as you will. For me, it is just one more piece in a growing body of evidence that LotR is being retired. I'm not saying my customer service rep has any inside information, but I think it would be odd indeed for a rep to flatly claim the theme ending if she did not know this to be the case. On the other hand, it seems much more likely for reps to provide non-committal answers, even if they knew the theme was finished.

[Robert_88]

I think this sounds like a standard response for retired themes. You would probably get the same response if you ask them about Indiana Jones sets. But the LotR theme isn't retired because the sets are still available!

I'm sure they have more-or-less-standard responses if you ask them about themes and some employees think (because they don't KNOW it) LotR will retire, some think it will continue and some say it's still unsure.

[The Fury]

Perhaps "know" was too strong of a word. But I still think the fact that a TLG customer service rep believes LotR is retired is not a good sign.

[Robert_88]

And some service and store employees think it is not...Who is right? We will find out in the next months.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Robert_88

[Deathleech]

Reps can be totally clueless. Just look at the rep last year in the MTV interview when asked about the second Hobbit wave. She thought there would be 5+ sets for that wave and possibly a Smaug set, but now we know neither was true. She seemed pretty unsure about everything, even the characters in the Lake-town Chase set. If that is a rep doing an interview I can only imagine how knowledgeable the reps answering e-mails are...

[Hammerhand]

The e-mails just seem to be a totally mixed bag. a few people were told the LotR line will continue, a few told it will be ending, and most were not told much of anything at all. Like others have said, I doubt the reps really know anything themselves.

Well, it's worth a try. I sent an email, so I'll let y'all know what the reply is.

You have an awesome LOTR/Hobbit collection by the way.

Mine's small, and I've been kicking myself that I didn't get more Uruk Hai army sets and at least one Helm's Deep while the prices where still reasonable.

To the topic of future LOTR sets, I think we've all come to the definite conclusion that we know for sure that TLG is going to......

....either continue the LOTR line or end it.

[BrickBob Studpants]

I for one am sure one of the three kinds of answers is wrong... The ones stating that TLG is not sure whether to continue the theme or not Given how long set production usually takes (about a year), TLG surely knows now whether they intend to release new sets in 2015, so yeah... Personally, I have no clue about the future of LOTR, but I'll say this: the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

Edited January 15, 2014 by Lego-Freak

[naf]

Like most of you, I'm waiting for a Minas Tirith set. How about this?

It is just a concept art, but would you like to see something like this as a set?

This is actually a pretty good start, but what makes Minas Tirith distinctive are it's tiered walls. I don't know how you'd represent this in Lego scale, but I would hope that there would be a 2nd tier behind this wall.

Maybe release this set, as well as the main keep with the Tree of Gondor as a seperate set that can be combined?

I like the idea of keeping the beacon. Put a light brick in it!

[scottjs]

No offense taken. Normally I wouldn't be posting my purchase list - even if I wanted to show off, there are lots of people here with way more sets than I have, so there's no point in bragging. I only did it because if TLG does read this forum, I think we should make clear that even though AFOLs may be a small segment of their market, when it comes to LotR there are many of us who spend more than 10 KFOLs combined.

Ditto.

Until I have 1600 Uruk-hai (which will be never) I don't consider my posts to be bragging. My collection pales in comparison to what many of you have.

[naf]

I sent Lego an email regarding LotR, and received a response within 20 minutes:

Dear XXXX,

Thanks for getting in touch with us.

It is great to hear that you are a long time LEGO® fan and that you enjoy our Lord of the Rings™ sets so much! I agree that there is a lot more that can be done in LEGO form. Unfortunately, I have not heard anything about our coming out with more Lord of the Rings sets. While it is certainly possible that our designers intend to come out with more sets, usually our sets would come out with a movie release. Keep an eye on our website and on our catalogs! If we have more sets coming out, you can find out more information about them there.

Thanks again for getting in touch, XXXX. We're always pleased to receive feedback! If you could take a moment to complete a four question survey by going to the link below, it will help us make sure we are providing the best customer service to you.

Seems strange that they mentioned the movie tie-in, since the LotR wave came out 10 years after it's movie tie-in

As for sets, I bought one of everything, except for

-Orc Forge - bought 6, but sold 4 without the figs

-Uruk-hai army - 6

-laketown guard poly- 5

-mirkwood elf poly- 3

I might buy another barrel escape since it has a lot of neat parts for making a tavern or inn.

Edited January 15, 2014 by naf

[Hammerhand]

Here's that part of the reply I got from Lego that has to do with the future of the LOTR line (I asked some questions about other stuff as well that I cut out) -

As for whether the line is retiring or not, I can't tell for sure. A theme tends to stay for about a year or two, and then we retire it for more, but the ones I mentioned are out there and available, so scoop those up while you can! Otherwise, just keep looking and you may see another line pop up at some point.

We appreciate your comments, so I'll be passing your interest in keeping Tolkein's wonderful world alive on to the design team. You never know, some of the old treasures might make a comeback!

Not much there. Sounds like they really just don't know. Back to waiting, fretting, and speculating I guess... LOL.

[Brickadiergerard]

We appreciate your comments, so I'll be passing your interest in keeping Tolkein's wonderful world alive on to the design team. You never know, some of the old treasures might make a comeback!

I'm going to add my comments too, probably at the weekend. I'll be heartbroken if there's no wave 3. The signs looked so good when news of those 4 sets leaked, and I was sure they were going to be LOTR. If not then, I was convinced there would eventually be a third wave to round things off (because of what there hasn't been yet and because of what there was in wave 2). Now, it really looks uncertain. If it doesn't happen, whichever custom wiz manages to get the mould of a Gondorian helmet sorted out is going to make a fortune.

[Cammo]

I guess since the catalogue has been leaked and there are only sets mentioned concerning the last Hobbit movie that we won't be getting information until those sets are released. The earliest set information of a potential third wave will be coming in the booklets of those October 2014 Hobbit sets (I'm begin optimistic here.) So my guess: no sets until summer 2015. Time to save your money or buy other themes .