LOTR in 2013

CCC

One of the problems with LOTR is that I would imagine most people want the whole Fellowship or nothing. That means buying just about every set, and so it is expensive. That puts a strain on the more casual buyer or LOTR fan - why spend £300 or whatever it is just to get a set of minifigs. There is plenty of other fan gear you could buy (with more detailed / realistic figures) for much less. I doubt many people just want an Aragorn or just a Frodo.

Whereas many people would happily just get a Batman and the Joker, or a Batman and Robin, or a Luke in his landspeeder, etc. You can easily display Batman and Robin (or Batman and a villain) and they look right, whereas if you display Frodo and Gandalf, it looks like something is missing.

Then there is the play value. How many people have actually played with their LOTR sets. And I mean played, like a kid. And how many have played with their SW / Batman sets?

I imagine the answer is higher for the latter two than the former one.

dougts

^ you can get the entire fellowship in just 4 of the 7 sets, leaving out the most expensive one to boot. that isn't too bad.

It's Hobbit where you are in trouble - gotta buy all 6 sets to get everyone.

binaryeye

CCC said:

One of the problems with LOTR is that I would imagine most people want the whole Fellowship or nothing. That means buying just about every set, and so it is expensive. That puts a strain on the more casual buyer or LOTR fan - why spend £300 or whatever it is just to get a set of minifigs.

It is expensive to get the entire fellowship by way of sets, but not so expensive as you suggest. My LEGO budget is quite limited, so I waited for sales on some of the sets and it cost me $130 (9470 at $20, 9472 at $43, 9473 at $63, and 30213 at $4), which Google's converter tells me is about £80.

CCC said:

Then there is the play value. How many people have actually played with their LOTR sets. And I mean played, like a kid. And how many have played with their SW / Batman sets?

I can't say I really played with any of the sets beyond initially examining how the various play features worked. I did use Mines of Moria to set up the scene from the movie where the fellowship is anticipating the orcs breaking down the door. However, my two year-old son loved the play features, especially the trap door on Weathertop and the falling columns in Moria.

kylejohnson11

binaryeye said:

I can't say I really played with any of the sets beyond initially examining how the various play features worked. I did use Mines of Moria to set up the scene from the movie where the fellowship is anticipating the orcs breaking down the door. However, my two year-old son loved the play features, especially the trap door on Weathertop and the falling columns in Moria.

I agree with you on this one. My two year-old loved tossing Gimli on Helm's Deep to get the Uruk-Hai and taking our the wall to make it blow up!

StuBoy

Regarding play value - I only have Helms Deep and a couple of Uruk Hai Army sets, and my son is constantly wanting to play with them. There are some pretty cool play features like blowing up the wall and catapulting Gimli, and the balisters have a great shooting mechanism, a lot better than regular flick-missiles.

CCC

I obviously misjudged other people playing with LOTR. My sets have barely a finger mark on them! (Lucky me!) Whereas SW and Batman are in need of constant cleaning. I guess part of that is down to swooshing of ships / pushing of vehicles, which my kids seem to prefer.

kylejohnson11

The Tower of Orthanc 10237

It is a French site so some of us might need to Google Translate, but http://www.lordofthebrick.com/2013/01/10237-the-tower-of-orthanc-cest-presque-confirme/

The image is super fuzzy, but it seems to be legit. I'm guessing it is super fuzzy because the details are not yet finalized. This set is the big one I think we were all hoping for. That leaves hope for a Minas Tirith in 2014 potentially :)

forumreader

Be still, my heart...

hoyatables

Is LEGO still using the "10---" numbering?

binaryeye

I imagine a 28" tall tower of LEGO is out of my price range. But I'm sure it will be a great parts pack for MOCs.

hoyatables said:

Is LEGO still using the "10---" numbering?

Yes. Horizon Express is 10233, for example.

richo

I think that image looks questionable.

kylejohnson11

Everyone thought the Team GB minifigures looked questionable and then they came to fruition! Seems legit in my opinion!

staffmark

I just wet myself after seeing that tower of Orthanc image. You should have warned me!

Vortex

If this is true , this could well be the Lego revelation of the month. Could this be true ?? Summon the experts !

Vortex

" but my lord , there is no such force " Wormtounge-

Vortex

Wormtounge : Even if it is breached it would need a lego brick number beyond reckoning , thousands."
Saruman :" 2000 + "
Wormtounge : " but my lord, there is no such force ".

Redbullgivesuwind

That looks a lot different from the images from the trade magazines that have been circulating. In those it looks much more like a £10-15 set. I don't think it is unfessable (sp?) for lego to create it but then are they hitting the price points that they set themselves. Looking at the pictures it would seem not. Which would make no sense from a business point of view.

binaryeye

Redbullgivesuwind said:

That looks a lot different from the images from the trade magazines that have been circulating. In those it looks much more like a £10-15 set.

This would be a different set, which probably wouldn't have been in a retailer's catalog.

fy222

feel the width/height ratio just wrong, too wide in my opinion!

HELLRAZR_28

Yeah, it would seem that the Wizard Battle and Tower of Orthanc are different sets. Just like with Captain's Cabin and Queen Anne's Revenge.

Redbullgivesuwind

That would be pointless if it was. They are the same thing I would assume. You, would I guess, get gandalf and saurman in both plus if its coming with orthac, some orcs as well. Ill just pick up the wizzards battle instead then.

binaryeye

Redbullgivesuwind said:

That would be pointless if it was. They are the same thing I would assume.

Well, they obviously wouldn't be the same thing. Orthanc would be a giant tower, probably 2000+ pieces, whereas The Wizard Battle appears to be a small ~100 piece set. In fact, that the latter set is so small makes the possibility of a large Orthanc set more likely.

Vortex

Yes this should be quiet similar to the Eiffel tower. Though beefed up in the center with minimum gaps. 2200 pcs

Redbullgivesuwind

If this sounds harsh I appologise. I really dont mean for it to sound so.Im going to assume that it would if released come with figures most obviously gandalf and sauruman. If so here is my main question: why would I buy Orthanc if I can get the figures in a cheaper smaller set? Its then essentially a stack black bricks. Which I could buy cheap online without the figures. To me that seems to be shooting yourself in the foot from a business point of view.

I know i am coming across as really negative. But to me this just looks like its been taken from the picture of the lego work room. The fuzziness is consistent with something tiny being blown up. I am even sure they look exactly the same. I cant imagine lego being that foolish as to leak a massive set that early in a concept photo seeing the lengths they go to too prevent leaks.

pvp3020

^ Not sure - in the workroom picture only the top half of the tower is visible and is a different angle to the fuzzy pic. That doesn't rule out Photoshop of course.

The question I have is, if the image is so fuzzy and evidently a small picture blown up, how are the dimensions so clear?

Brixy

I' m crossing my fingers, it's real. hopefully it would also have wormtounge. I could always use more orcs.

Basta

As posted in the other thread, this is the picture from the work room.


The leaked picture of #10237 has been intentionally blurred, and is not the work room photo unless they did some pretty major photo shopping for some reason, which would be pointless really.

The photo looks as though it's possibly from the side of a box to me.

Who is to say that TLG has not intentionally leaked said photo as it is, gives us all something to talk about with out giving too much of the detail away, at least we get to see the size of this thing. Lots of companies\governments leak photos\documents etc.

Obviously it could still be fake, time will tell.

dougts

Redbullgivesuwind said:

If so here is my main question: why would I buy Orthanc if I can get the figures in a cheaper smaller set? Its then essentially a stack black bricks. Which I could buy cheap online without the figures. To me that seems to be shooting yourself in the foot from a business point of view.

Because there are many people who collect sets and not just minifigures?

dougts

But I agree it still makes little business sense. If the set is real I can only assume we will see other unique figures and/or different versions of those two

Vortex

Above the orthanc ( workshop photo ) , to the right, is a black ship. Any idea what that is , possibly the Corsair pirate ship we getting ? Or just the black pearl ?

Vortex

Upon a second look ,Does not seem to be the corsair to me , the sails don't match with the corsair.

fy222

that is 4184, very obvious.

Redbullgivesuwind

@dougts your right.

I think AFOL will still buy it. Heck if its true I will certainly buy it. But I think that will be the real limit. Non fol arent going to fork out for a massive set unless there is something special in it. wormtounge as an exclusive just wont grab people. They are going to go for the cheaper set. A wiser person is going to buy the tower and wormtounge as seperate things. Presumely saving money.

As far as I remember the dimensions were added on. They could be anything.My extra thoughts are this. Why blur a leaked photo? You've already leaked it go the whole hog. My understanding is that this is the same person who gave us the poly bag pictures. Unblurred. So why blur it?

Dont get me wrong i want this to exist. And im often wrong. Im just being sceptical.

pvp3020

^ Mind you, TLG produced a poster of Star Wars UCS sets, which included the SSD in silhouette. AFAIK this was before the SSD had been announced, but from the silhouette it was quite obvious what it was!

binaryeye

Redbullgivesuwind said:

As far as I remember the dimensions were added on.

They weren't added on. The dimensions are clear because only the portion of the image containing the tower was blurred (or, more accurately, pixelated).

Redbullgivesuwind said:

My understanding is that this is the same person who gave us the poly bag pictures.

No, this image was found on Flickr. Though it was reported on by a sister site of the site that reported on the Star Wars polypags.

kylejohnson11

I'm taking a shot and saying it is true. motayan from Flickr who posted the original picture has since taken it down.

fy222

as if you can buy taj mal cheaper than go straight buying the set.

Redbullgivesuwind

^^^Still look added on to me. It adds credence that the guy who has leaked was the same person who got hold of the polybag and cinema pictures (http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/8610/lego-lord-of-the-ring-new-set-10237-the-tower-of-orthanc#latest look for @Kylejohnson11 post). But then I ask again why blur it? If you have leaked everything else why do that? It can't be that you fear getting in trouble. You have already leaked the other images.

Lego put the poster out to drive up excitment for the SSD. We all knew it was coming but you couldn't see all the details etc. So people started wondering and be excited etc etc. That was lego doing a marketing ploy. I just don't see why someone who has leaked photos would have a moral crisis and blur a photo or try and create excitement.

StuBoy

^Maybe he/she just wants to draw more attention by blurring it. Look at all the discussion generated and we don't even have a clear pic of it yet :)

Redbullgivesuwind

^That is a possibility. But then we would be having this conversation anyway if it was unblured. Even better we could see it :-D

Basta

Redbullgivesuwind said:

^That is a possibility. But then we would be having this conversation anyway if it was unblured. Even better we could see it :-D

More likely this is how the photo was recived, if it is real then I think it may have been realeased by TLG this way. As I mentioned earlier companies leak stuff all the time and they will modify, disguise or cover up parts. This can serve a number of purposes but at the end of the day they want to get people talking about it, which this obviously has.

alexwil

Someone on the eurobricks forum has confirmed the orthanc tower set is real, someone who is very reliable from what people have said.

Redbullgivesuwind

^^true but then why apprently ask for it to be taken down? Lego are really inconsistent with what goes on. For instance with the olympic minifigures they were never asked to be taken down. Nor have any of the other models, which are more importantly unblured and look offical. So why ask this one to be taken down.

I never understand leaks as what companies leak is never the finished thing. So always looks worse than when the product comes out.

Diggydoes

^^that "someone" is GRogall! So it seems the set/picture is real!

Diggydoes

When @GRogall confirms it must be true! So come on people,celebrate!!! Woohooo

stevesnas

Sure someone must have posted this before but,

woops just read I shouldnt have posted link to those - gone

RTO

[removed]

In case the link is removed - search for battle at the black gate on the Sears.ca website.

binaryeye

Yeah, linking to the image is a no-no.

The interesting information is the price, which suggests this set will be $60 USD. That's cheaper than I expected.

HELLRAZR_28

Looks kind of fake to me...why does Aragorn have a hood on? Also, the Ringwraith is in the scene, but not in the banner showing the minifigs. There also appears to be a Mordor orc atop the gate tower, but not that exact one listed on the minifig banner. Very suspicious.

Bumblepants

^prelim images like that often have mocked-up box art where not all the bits are the final color or part. Particularly for minifigs.

Really dimwitted of Sears to post a pic with a DO NOT POST stamped in the middle of it.