On 1/22/2014 at 6:19 PM, SonofTheShire said:

Maybe not, but I think he knows what a structure is.

My,point is he is less interested in the line. It is at the end and time is very limited. Someone who is familiar and interested in a line is going to pay more attention.and ask very different questions. Yes he saw a structure yet didn't give any details.

  On 1/22/2014 at 6:21 PM, deskp said:

The fact that he calls it a "nondescript structure" seems a bit suspicious though.. If it was the entrance /mountain wouldn't he have been able to say that?!

Well, that's just been us speculating, hasn't it? That it is part of the mountain thing, I mean.

Still, I do wonder if Huw was mistaken about Smaug being part of the largest set. Given that the medium set is some sort of Laketown tower, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume that's that's the tower with the windlass crossbow thing that Bard pointed out. That's almost definitely the device they'll use to kill Smaug, so it would make sense for him to be a part of that set.

Like I kinda said before, it sounds like whoever organized the display at the toy fair did a terrible job. It just sounds like the display wasn't very clear, still included some prelim aspects of the sets. And as someone stated before, it was the the last display in the tour, meaning that they may have rushed past it due to timing.

When is the Nuremberg fair? The 29th?

  On 1/22/2014 at 6:43 PM, Fives said:

When is the Nuremberg fair? The 29th?

yep, http://www.toyfair.de/

Hopefully some hobbit fans and forum members will go then x]

Oh yes this is awesome news, a Galadriel mini figure will be awesome and the glow in the dark witch king would be great, I wonder what set he will appear in

  On 1/22/2014 at 6:51 PM, Kez said:

Oh yes this is awesome news, a Galadriel mini figure will be awesome and the glow in the dark witch king would be great, I wonder what set he will appear in

together with elrond and galadriel in a small rock from dol guldur..

  On 1/22/2014 at 6:53 PM, deskp said:

together with elrond and galadriel in a small rock from dol guldur..

That was a quick reply, thanks

Wanted to go to Nuremberg to get you guys some good pictures... but my Father wont drive :( sorry guys, wanted to see it with my own eyes! and i would explain everything to you guys and i would take a thousand pictures :D

  On 1/22/2014 at 6:59 PM, kevkipo said:

Wanted to go to Nuremberg to get you guys some good pictures... but my Father wont drive :( sorry guys, wanted to see it with my own eyes! and i would explain everything to you guys and i would take a thousand pictures :D

Don't feel bad. There'll be plenty of people there taking photos, and the Nuremberg fair sometimes likes to release little videos showcasing certain themes (the did it last year for the new Castle theme). If the displays are set up the same as the past few years, they'll likely have the sets set up on a cool, detailed table made to look like the terrain the sets are based on, and then have the figs standing in a circle on a spinning turntable.

Plus, FBTB and The Brick Show will give us plenty of coverage from the NY fair in February. FBTB always gets tons of pictures, and The Brick Show does a good job with video coverage.

  On 1/22/2014 at 10:25 AM, Proximo said:

Well, a person who can't remember a single minifig which is included.... I'm not sure how reliable such a person might be.

The retailer catalogue clearly shows 4 sets... don't see any reason why then it should be only 3 sets.

Ya, it would be great if we could get a report from an actual Tolkien/Hobbit fan

Right now everyone who has reported on the Hobbit line seems completely in the dark. A "dwarf" could easily be a number of things. It could be Dain, Bain, or an Iron Hill dwarf soldier. An armored elf might be a soldier or Elrond. The Witch King might not even be the Witch King, it could be Sauron. It's really hard to gather much info when the people reporting have no idea on the source material

Also I think it's likely Lego would use a new mold for Smaug since he has a pretty unique shape and it's also the big sending off wave for the Hobbit. Lego should want to go all out with their biggest set and make a proper Smaug mold considering he is such a main antagonist. They make unique molds for other sets all the time that only use the mold once like the triceratops in the Dino line and the Cave Troll and Goblin King who are arguably much less important so why not do one for Smaug?

  On 1/22/2014 at 3:59 PM, Albus said:

Not to say I don't think there IS a pattern - I do, the sets were obviously made to be bought in multiples (that's why they connect together). What I'm instead saying is that it can be flexible; the set based on the Bo5A does not necessarily have to follow these same "rules".

People shouldn't assume it will be restricted by the same constraints which appear in the two aforementioned sets, and as a result dismiss the idea of getting more than one unique, named character, simply because those two sets only had one. THAT would be incredibly silly. All I was saying is that the set does not have to follow any pre-established rules, simply because it depicts the Battle of the Five Armies.

Right, but I absolutely hate this argument. Just because anything is possible doesn't mean it's likely. I mean which seems more likely, Lego sticking to the same set structure they have already used for several past waves or coming up with some totally random one last minute? By this logic Lego might giving us "real" army builder last minute and we will get a bunch of $15 sets with 4 soldiers like Star Wars in the last Hobbit wave. Or heck, Lego might go crazy and just give us a set with 2 Gondor Soldiers, Faramir, Eowyn, the Witch King, Gothmog, and a Fel Beast with a brick built Balrog all for $60. I mean sure ANYTHING is possible, but what reason would Lego have to change their model in the last Hobbit wave where an army builder is arguably most pertinent?

Edited January 22, 201411 yr by Deathleech

  On 1/22/2014 at 7:08 PM, Deathleech said:

Lego might go crazy and just give us a set with 2 Gondor Soldiers, Faramir, Eowyn, the Witch King, Gothmog, and a Fel Beast with a brick built Balrog all for $60.

Now you've made me want that set :D

Another comment by Huw:

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 22 Jan 2014 20:07

I've just listened to the voice recording I made while going round the stand so can shed some more light on the Hobbit sets. I'm also hoping that the other attendees can pitch in and fill some gaps and I suspect Pete will do so in his report at FBTB.

So, there are 4 sets:

The small one with Galadriel and the witch king

Lake town bell tower has some important character something like bain? in it

Battle of the five armies, I don't recall much about that

The Lonely Mountain, the one with Smaug in it.

Sorry it's so vague, there's so much to take in and not much time to do so!

So Laketown is the second-to-smallest set?! Weird Maybe Bain is included and specifically mentioned because he loads the arrow into the ballista?

  On 1/22/2014 at 8:50 AM, Alcarin said:

Yeah but thats minor.... As long as I would have helm Ill sign even that... I mean Elves had colorful war equipment just remember sons of Elrond from book and description of Tolkien about his equipment which was colorful and beautiful.

helm is a much more important part for me.... I am tired of the same hair!

Yes it does not.... But that is little to say its prelim.... I would be really surprised if LEGO makes a new mold for that.... not sure why but thats just my feeling.... I mean they launched the brand NEW Dragon Mold in 2013 and used it in 1 set..... Why would they make another Dragon just a good year after.... makes little sense to me...

The finances of the molds can get a little esoteric I think. They made the new dragon mold for the Castle line, which is a long running evergreen theme. That mold is planned as a long term return. They will probably use it for 10+ years in Castle sets. It's like swords crowns and horses. They know it will be used in the continuing theme.

Whereas a new Smaug mold falls into an entirely different set of equations. It's a shorter term mold more askin to the SW Rancor. It will be priced as the core element of the set and financed with an assumption of one or two uses. So the Castle Dragon and Smaug is really an apples and oranges discussion to TLG.

And weirdly the costs of the molds vs the returns may not be quite the same for the larger maxi figs as it is for a typical piece or even a hairpiece or helmet. Something like a dragon require a lot less precision than a brick, having very limited connection options. Plus I think the larger maxi figs typically use plastics other than straight up ABS. They often feel a bit more like a styrene to me. The main issue there is probably less tooling costs than it is production costs per figure.

  On 1/22/2014 at 7:28 PM, Lego-Freak said:

So Laketown is the second-to-smallest set?! Weird Maybe Bain is included and specifically mentioned because he loads the arrow into the ballista?

He mentions no size, the orde is propably just random or follows how they were displayed in some way.

  On 1/22/2014 at 7:28 PM, Lego-Freak said:

Another comment by Huw:

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 22 Jan 2014 20:07

I've just listened to the voice recording I made while going round the stand so can shed some more light on the Hobbit sets. I'm also hoping that the other attendees can pitch in and fill some gaps and I suspect Pete will do so in his report at FBTB.

So, there are 4 sets:

The small one with Galadriel and the witch king

Lake town bell tower has some important character something like bain? in it

Battle of the five armies, I don't recall much about that

The Lonely Mountain, the one with Smaug in it.

Sorry it's so vague, there's so much to take in and not much time to do so!

So Laketown is the second-to-smallest set?! Weird Maybe Bain is included and specifically mentioned because he loads the arrow into the ballista?

Interesting. So it sounds like we're only getting one more Laketown building. That's kind of a shame, but at the same time, it'll mean getting Smaug won't be too expensive.

I really wish there was more info on the BO5A set. I have a strong feeling it will be the ruins of Dale, but that's just my guess. I also fear that it may be too big to be a reasonable army builder.

Perhaps the order in which he listed them isn't necessarily in order of smallest to biggest? Let's hope that's the case.

  On 1/22/2014 at 7:28 PM, Lego-Freak said:

Another comment by Huw:

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 22 Jan 2014 20:07

I've just listened to the voice recording I made while going round the stand so can shed some more light on the Hobbit sets. I'm also hoping that the other attendees can pitch in and fill some gaps and I suspect Pete will do so in his report at FBTB.

So, there are 4 sets:

The small one with Galadriel and the witch king

Lake town bell tower has some important character something like bain? in it

Battle of the five armies, I don't recall much about that

The Lonely Mountain, the one with Smaug in it.

Sorry it's so vague, there's so much to take in and not much time to do so!

So Laketown is the second-to-smallest set?! Weird Maybe Bain is included and specifically mentioned because he loads the arrow into the ballista?

Too funny. Lake town started yesterday as being the largest set with 3 buildings including a town hall. Now all there is left is a bell tower. Apparently Smaug has been busy.

  On 1/22/2014 at 7:41 PM, Darth Punk said:

Too funny. Lake town started yesterday as being the largest set with 3 buildings including a town hall. Now all there is left is a bell tower. Apparently Smaug has been busy.

Hilarious I'm somewhat glad Laketown gets a smaller set this time around mainly because of the minifig selection which is now a little more reasonable than previous suggestions If it's really 79016, it probably includes 4-5 minifigs, which is much more sensible than the 8-9 figs 79018 requires

4 pages in a day. wow. I think we should just wait and see. i cant even keep up with this babbling.

Psh.

  On 1/22/2014 at 8:01 PM, Durins Bane said:

4 pages in a day. wow. I think we should just wait and see. i cant even keep up with this babbling.

I agree, but this news is just too darn exciting to not discuss.

One thing I'm surprised more people haven't talked about: the Arkenstone. Am I the only one who's really put off by the fact that it's just a light trans-blue jewel? LEGO missed an opportunity to make a really cool printed piece. No new molds needed. All they'd need to do is take one if the 1x1 circular tiles (used for cookies and such), in trans-clear. Print some light blue and copper coloured tendrils coming off a darker blue circle in the centre to represent the unique colour that the Arkestone gives off. It would be really cool!

Also, knowing how the designers like to place as many little details as they can into these sets, does anyone wonder if Thranduil's necklace of pure starlight might be hidden somewhere in the Erebor set? That would be a cool little reference to include.

I was really hoping for a bigger expansion onto Laketown. I was hoping that we would get Bard's house, the town hall and the bell tower.

  On 1/22/2014 at 5:56 PM, Fives said:

Sometimes I wish I could be a fly on the wall of the design room, just so I could see and hear the process through which these sets are made. Learning what sort of freedom and restraints the designers are given by both LEGO and the film studios might give me more understanding for the choices made.

I wish Lego would just give us more info on their design process in general. I absolutely love the videos where the designers give us some insight to what they were thinking. For instance why they made the Pirate Ship Ambush set when it wasn't a major scene, or why they used the bald caps with ears on the Goblin Town goblins.

I suspect that the small set will be based on the dol guldur battle scene,I bet the "Necromancer" will unleash the ringwraiths against the White Council.

  On 1/22/2014 at 8:18 PM, Legoman123 said:

I was really hoping for a bigger expansion onto Laketown. I was hoping that we would get Bard's house, the town hall and the bell tower.

Same. But I'm kinda glad it's not too big a set. If the build itself isn't too huge, but the price sits at $50 or something, that means that the Smaug mold won't be too small. But we don't have price points yet, only general ideas based on previous patterns.

I'm excited and fearful for how the Windlance will be made. A flick-fire would be lame, and it seems that this year LEGO is making use of the new spring-shooting missiles in many of the new SW sets. Perhaps they'll make a spring-shooting missile with the tip shaped like an arrow? That'd be cool, and it seems like the spring-shooting mechanism works way better than the flick-fires ever did.

So we haven't heard anything about the medium sized set which is most likely an army builder and $30, right? We also haven't heard anything about Beorn in bear form which Lego would surely want to make (I bet kids kids will love the character, especially when they see him in the film fighting in bear form). Maybe the army builder will have the molded creature be Beorn? It would be kind of lame for multiple purchases (who wants an army of bears?), but might make sense. Then Lego could keep the 6 minifigure slots open to soldiers to satisfy army builders and MOCers would get a number of bears to use for whatever reason (zoo, forest MOCs). It kind of makes sense since I doubt Lego will give us another warg in another army builder and horses aren't really used at the Bo5A in the book. The only other options would be an eagle, new bat mold, or a stag/boar.

Edited January 22, 201411 yr by Deathleech