The Hobbit -LEGO

[Jesse James]

Thanks to the TRU BOGO50%Off and coupons I am getting 3 of the new hobbit sets for Xmas!

And I am getting the Black Gate tomorrow.

Down to just a couple sets I need again.

[Jesse James]

In WM this weekend, and besides the 45 min wait to check out, I realized why I'm glad I haven't shopped at a Target or WM this season at all...  That said, I did see NEW Hobbit sets, and saw the Laketown set, and really wish I'd asked for this for Xmas now.

It's a dandy.  I kinda like the direction they went with the Laketown characters for the movie, and the minis look great.  I could easily see the Laketown sets combining to make a bigger Laketown too...  just awesome.

[Pete_Fett]

Decided that I would make the plunge into LOTR - Lego and The Hobbit - Lego this weekend. Seems like a fairly small theme line, should be easy enough to catch up on. For the Hobbit line, I grabbed:

Dol Guldur Ambush
Dol Guldur Battle
The Goblin King Battle

I was able to pick up all three sets on sale at Kmart - the two Dol Guldur sets I picked up online - also taking advantage of a $10 off $75 purchase for Shop Your Way Rewards members. The Goblin King set was marked down to $76 and I had some rewards points that redeemed for the purchase as well.

Gonna focus on picking up the rest of the 2012 sets before I purchase either the Lake Town or Mirkwood Elf Army sets just cause they're new and those 2012 sets are probably on borrowed time in stores.... In fact, I had seen the Riddles for the Ring set all over before the holidays and now it is totally cleared out in the stores by my house, so what I thought would end up being an easy set to grab, may prove to be a challenge.

[Pete_Fett]

Over the past couple of days, I've picked up these three sets:

Riddles for the Ring
Attack of the Wargs
Barrel Escape

The Barrel Escape set is currently on sale at TRU.com for $27.99 so I ordered that with store pick-up. I found Riddles for the Ring at a Kmart for $7.99 and I got Attack of the Wargs at a TRU who has it priced at $59.99 but with the current deal of $15 off any Lego purchase of $60, even though I was short the $0.01 they still gave me the $15 off...

Since the other 2012 Hobbit Sets (Mirkwood Spiders & Unexpected Gathering) don't appear to be going anywhere / retiring anytime soon, I'm probably gonna take a break from Hobbit sets and focus purely on getting the rest of the 2012 LOTR sets.

If I do get anything, I might pull the trigger on an auction for all of the three released Polybag Mini-figs if I see a reasonable deal.

The Attack of the Wargs set is great and even if you limit yourself to collecting only Star Wars Lego sets, pick up the Warg set simply for the tree - they did a great job with it's design and it would make a great companion piece to anyone's Ewok Village should they want to add more greenery to their display. I'm sure you could always sell of the mini-figs & Wargs w/o any problem and probably bring the overall cost of the tree down to almost nothing.

[Jesse James]

There are more than 3 polybag sets.  There are Frodo, Gandalf, UrukHai, Mirkwood Elf, Elrond, and I believe that is it but I might be forgetting one.  I wouldn't pay much for any of them as all the figures are in other sets at this point.  Neat to have but not pay an arm and a leg for.

[Pete_Fett]

There are more than 3 polybag sets.  There are Frodo, Gandalf, UrukHai, Mirkwood Elf, Elrond, and I believe that is it but I might be forgetting one.  I wouldn't pay much for any of them as all the figures are in other sets at this point.  Neat to have but not pay an arm and a leg for.

Yes, sorry - I should have been specific - there are three Hobbit Poly Bag sets:
Gandalf at Dol Guldor
Mirkwood Elf
Laketown Guard

For the Lord of the Rings line there are three others:
Frodo w/Cooking Corner
Uruk-Hai w/Ballista
Elrond (from Prologue)

I was referring specifically to those three Hobbit Polybag sets - I saw an auction for all three for less than $30, not sure if that's a good price or not though.

[Jesse James]

I've missed the Laketown Guard all together...  When did that even come out?  Never saw a mention here of it.

[Pete_Fett]

I've missed the Laketown Guard all together...  When did that even come out?  Never saw a mention here of it.

Apparently it started having availability in Toys R Us stores in December. I never saw it myself, I see it on eBay - it is the exact same mini fig as the one that comes with the Lake-town Chase set (according to Brickset.com) - here's details on the set - http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=30216-1 - seems like a neat way to add to the Lake-town Guardsmen.

My guess is that once Toys R Us finishes their annual inventory - we'll start to see it show up a bit more at the stores.

When I ordered the Barrel Escape set I saw that it was in-stock and the website indicated also in-stock at the store I was going to pick up the other set from so I threw it into my shopping cart - shortly after the order, I got notified that they actually DIDN'T have it in stock and it was removed from my order. So my thinking is that in the TRU computer system a box of these is scheduled for delivery to that store and the only thing holding is back is annual inventory.

[Jesse James]

Yeah I'd buy about 10 of those given the chance I think since I dug the northern look to the Laketown characters and that's a first actually for a single army builder human character.

I wish I could've gotten tons of the elf but I missed him too and just managed to get some off here for me and the boys.

Elrond I never got, but he's the same I think as is in the Council set.

I'd like to see Lego dish more army builder sets.  This Mirkwood Elf set is a great starting point and vastly superior to the Rohirim wall set that they did.  You only got a few figures in that set.  The Mirkwood set is far better for that purpose.  Orcs and Elves galore.  Even Thranduil can be parted out to make other elves if you have the parts, or even just random ME characters.

[Pete_Fett]

Well - the printing on the Poly-bagged Elrond looks (to me at least) to be representative of him during the final battle of the 2nd Age when Sauron was defeated...



And then the Elrond that comes with the Council set, is like how he's dressed in Fellowship of the Ring...



So they are technically different.

It's interesting that you mention the Mirkwood Elf set - I was looking at all of the sets for the Hobbit and LOTR on brickset.com and apparently there was a poly-bagged Legolas that was planned but not released. It doesn't look like the minifig was going to be anything other than a re-release of the Mirkwood Spiders set Legolas, but the accessories he came with were kinda neat - like a target practice thing. Anyway, in the instructions for that set, there is a typical Lego picture that shows what you can make if you combine two sets. In this case, it's combining two of set 79012 to make a larger Mirkwood set.

It's not something that I plan to do right away, but I am very tempted to get at least TWO of the Mirkwood Elves set just so I can make a larger "fort" with a tower at each end.

In case you're curious about the cancelled Polybag Legolas the instructions can be found here:

http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/6073659.pdf

[Jesse James]

Wow that elrond is way different.  I had no idea.  Ugh.  Now i want one.

The Mirkwood set, that's what I'm gonna do, and if I see them on clearance I plan to stack a bunch of them.  I got some Uruk Hai sets to extend Helms Deep.

Actually the Black Gate of Mordor is expandable too, to have 2 towers at the ends...  Lego gets ya comin' and goin'!

[Pete_Fett]

Actually the Black Gate of Mordor is expandable too, to have 2 towers at the ends...  Lego gets ya comin' and goin'!

Wow - I built that set and I totally didn't notice it!

The cool thing though about that set is that it has the unique Mouth of Sauron, Gandalf the White and Aragorn mini figures - so selling those off to offset picking up a 2nd Black Gate would help.

[Jesse James]

Yup plus an Eagle if you didn't want it since I imagine those are worth something.

It's not my favorite set, but it is expandable and looks better with towers on the ends I think.

[Pete_Fett]

I would totally want to keep the Eagle to add to the Attack of the Wargs set.

I did pick up 2x of the Mirkwood Elves set at Toy R Us today - I got them to price match Lego Shop and I also got the $15 off from the current Lego sale when I combined them with the Mirkwood Spiders set which I also had them price match. So all three sets were $75 plus tax.

For Hobbit boxed sets I'm down to just Unexpected Gathering and Lake-town Chase.

Edit: Just put together the two Mirkwood Elf Army sets and they look great chained together!

[Pete_Fett]

Hey Jesse - did you know about the variant Bilbo mini-fig that came with the Hobbit Blu Ray? I saw it on eBay when I was looking through auctions for the remaining 2012 LOTR sets I need.

One more item to add to the pile...