Lego Lord of the Rings: The Black Gate

With the close of the Hobbit movies in 2014, the Lego Lord of the Rings line has also runs its course.  Lots of great stuff never got done but that is the way of things.  Today we look at the Black Gate set from Return of the King which was a middle priced set in the 60 dollar range if I remember correctly.  You get a wall and single tower along with 5 figures, eagle, and horse.

Lego LOTR: Council of Elrond

More Lego Lord of the Ring to look at today.  This is a smaller set, the Council of Elrond which I think was about 30 dollars.  For that you got 4 minifigures and a small set piece for the meeting to decide the fate of the one ring.

Lego Lord of the Rings: Wizard Battle

Today for your viewing pleasure, I have some images of a small Lego Lord of the Rings set, Wizard Battle. This is a small set and is really all about the Gandolf and Sarumon minifigures.  

Lego Lord of the Rings Uruk-Hai Army

Today we are taking a look at the Lego Lord of the Rings set, Uruk-Hai Army.  This is a small 30 dollar set that came out in 2012 if I remember correctly.  It is really more of a battle pack with minifigures for use with the larger Helm's Deep castle set but I do not have that set so I look at it as a stand alone.  You get 6 minifigures, 1 horse, 1 siege ballista, and one small wall segement to add to the Helm's Deep Wall.

Lets start with a look at the 4 Uruk-Hai minifigures. The torso's, legs, and heads are all the same.  The head is two sided as seen on the middle two guys, one side baring the white hand.  You get enough accessories to make each one look marginally different.

Next we have the riders of Rohan. You get Eomer. nephew of Theodin, and a generic warrior with 1 of the new horses that have the joint in the back legs allowing for the rearing pose seeen in the background. Eomer has a printed shield, printed helm, and customer printed body and looks excellent.  The generic rider has printing on the front and back of the torso.

The heads are also two sided in the standard one side with teeth showing one side without.

The small wall section has some light green to make it seem old and some of the brick edge blocks to add a little more character.  Nothing really to get excited about.  As a stand alone piece it will not survive and will probably be broken down for bricks for standard play or to expand other LOTR/Hobbit sets.

Back side shows stairs and a small catapult for the defenders.

The attackers get a pretty nice looking siege ballista which is push fire.  The wood pattern on the lower part is printed not a sticker which is a nice addition.

Front side has another printed piece and embellishments to make it look like you could just ram a defensive line with it and cause damage.

This set is pricey as all the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are but it does give you Uruk-Hai to be villians.  I have the whole fellowship but had very few villians before so it is a good addition for that if you can find it at about 20 dollars as it ends it production run. I am not sure if the LOTR/Hobbit sets lived up to Lego's expectations as they have already brought back the generic Castle line giving them 2 medival/fantasy series.  I would really like to see a Brick built Balrog set.  That would be really great.

Lego Lord of the Rings Mines of Moria

So I got a Lego Lord of the Rings Mines of Moria set.  This set like all the Lotr sets is pretty pricey.  It is probably better called Balin's Tomb since that is the part of the Mines which all these parts are from.

Here are the fellowship members for the set.  Pippin, Boromir, Gimli, and Legolas are found here.  With the currently available Lotr/Hobbit sets Pippin and Boromir are still only found in this set.  The picture did not really capture the printed details but here is a close up of Gimli.

You can see that the helm has some nice printing on it.

One of the main construction features is the barracaded door.  Pretty interesting construction but like the rest of the set uses to many stickers as opposed to printed parts.

Here is a Moria Orc leading the Cave Troll through the door.  The troll has adjustable arms and turning wrists.  You also get 2 Orcs to fight with the fellowship members.

This is the other main piece.

It can separate into parts and has levers for crashing down the columns along with revealing the treasure chest in the center part.

The set also includes the well and skeleton for Pippin and Balin's coffin which has lever action to knock the top off.  You get two skeletons but they could have used helmets or beards or even armor to make them more interesting.

This set along with a Gandolf Hobbit Polybag completed my fellowship of the Ring so they can defend the tomb as a team.   Ofcourse I am very short of enemies with just the 2 Orcs and Troll though.  The scale of the set is actually pretty good.  The battle was in a pretty tight space.

Lego Lord of the Rings: Shelob Attacks

I got the Lego Lord of the Rings Shelob Attacks set last weekend.  I have been wanting this set since it has both Gollum, and Samwise who are not in any of the other Lord of the Rings Sets (Gollum also shows up in one of the new Hobbit sets).  This is a 20 dollar set that is mainly Shelob.

 Here are the mini figures.  The hobbits have short fixed legs like kids in the city sets.  Gollum is a custom figure with 2 adjustable arms.  He has a single stud in the center of his back which is sort of weird.  

Frodo and Sam have 2 faces.

 

You also get this tiny cave opening which has a Gollum flick launcher.  Pretty minimal.  Hardly even worth putting together.

Here is Shelob who is most of the pieces in the set.  I was originally afraid that the legs would have problems holding it up but they work well.  In additional to the articulated legs, the back is also flexible allowing for good positioning.

The back also hides a hook and string which you can use to wrap up Frodo or even better:

The mechanism is sturdy enough to hold the weight of the model at different lengths allowing for Shelob to hang from things.

I really liked this set.  I think Shelob is about as good of a lego spider toy as I have seen them make.  It looks far better than the Aragog in the Hagrid's Hut set or the smaller spiders in the Mirkwood Forest Hobbit set.  My daughter also really like the spider model.  The one issue is that this set makes Shelob, and that is really all.  The parts are pretty specialized and are not going to be very useful in general.  But if you have in interest in a giant spider, it is great.

Lego Lord of the Rings: Attack at Weathertop

Here we have the first of the Lego Lord of the Rings sets that I have picked up, Attack at Weathertop.  It is one of the middle sized sets priced at about 60 dollars.  Lego has priced these sets very high, similar to Star Wars sets so you pretty much have to be getting them on sale to even get close to what the unlicensed set would be.   I have been waiting for a good sale on some of the smaller sets at some local stores.  Weathertop is really a huge ruin so this is really just a tiny representation.

 

 

 You get 3 members of the fellowship, Frodo with sting and the one ring (my set had 3 of these in it), Merry (only set he is in), and Aragorn.

You also get 2 Ring Wraiths with 2 of the new horses in black which will go nicely with any evil knights is your collection.  The horses have a new pose shown in the picture.  The wraiths are almost all black with a worn clock and no faces.   Put a normal cape on them and a face and you have a nice Return of the Jedi Luke figure.

One of the scenes you have set up is the hobbits cooking with fire on the side of the old fortress while Frodo sleeps.

This ofcourse draws the ring wraiths to them.  Stabbed Frodo has a different face while he waits to be rescued by Aragon on the upper level.

 There is a trap door which sort of drops minifigures down.

Here is the other side bottom.  The set has some nice details.  I like the microfigures as statues but where does that door lead.

These stairs are also pretty cool from the lower to upper level.

Here is the inside that the door leads to.  You have a weapon rack on the left which the model going down the trap door hits.  I have no idea what the back hooks on the right side are supposed to be that think that the inclusion of flick fires on the right is just stupid.  The torch mounts and again microfigures statues are cool.

The set has cool figures and tons of weapons but the size is just a small.  It is a set for are very important set of scenes but it is just to small for such a large place.  You cannot really fit the figures properly on top for battles.  The curved structure makes it pretty hard to expand out of your existing collections.