2012: A Year in Review

Last January, I made a year-in-review post and today I'm going to do that again. So here was my 2012:

LEGO Set of the Year:

In 2011 the top set that I acquired was unequivocally Medieval Market Village, and in 2012 I acquired its immediate successor, 10223 Kingdoms Joust, which is an equally impressive set, and taken set-by-set was probably the most impressive or iconic set that I acquired in 2012--but I don't think it was the Set of the Year for my collection. That distinction belongs to 9472 Attack on Weathertop.

As I blogged about when I first got it, Attack on Weathertop was my first Lord of the Rings LEGO set, and I was deeply impressed with it--more impressed than I expected to be before I opened it. It's well-designed, has excellent minifigs, a great parts selection, and best of all (from a Tolkien fan standpoint) it's set in Middle-earth. Although if you told me to pick one set only, I would probably take Kingdoms Joust simply because it is so much larger, it would not be without a longing backwards glance at Attack on Weathertop, and within the context of 2012 being the year the Lord of the Rings LEGO was first released, it is a worthy Set of the Year.  

LEGO Theme of the Year:

Last year the Collectible Minifigs were my Theme of the Year and on the basis of simple volume, they would make a compelling case again this year. The Dino and Monster Fighters themes that came out in 2012 were both excellent original themes on LEGO's part, though I have but a single set, with a single minifig, between them. NinjaGo continued to be a major presence in the LEGO world as well, but was barely a blip on my radar. All that I bought this year in any sort of quantity were Collectible Minifigs and Lord of the Rings LEGO. Part of this was due to financial considerations. What with the expenses of getting married and then waiting unemployed to get my green card, I did not have the disposable income for most of the year to spend on LEGO. A Collectible fig here or there, and a few VIP points-fuelled Lord of the Rings sets were all I could afford. (The Kingdoms Joust, referenced above, was a very early purchase indeed--all the way back in last January.) And with that in mind, the clear champion theme this year was the Lord of the Rings.

When LEGO announced that it had acquired the license and was developing sets, I feared the worst, which is to say sets as forgettable as the entire Pirates of the Caribbean line. What I got--and yes, this may have something to do with my status as a Tolkien fan--was another Star Wars line, and I daresay I said enough good things above when talking about Attack on Weathertop to explain my decision for naming the Lord of the Rings my Theme of the Year.

LEGO Minifig of the Year:

 Last year I declined to name a Collectible Minifig as my Fig of the Year, and I'm going to again this year, but it's worth noting that there was no real stand-out minifig addition to my LEGO-verse this year. It did not change drastically this past year due largely to the fact that "REAL LIFE" things kept a focus on the story side of LEGO to a largely background position. Among those that did get some sort of attention was the Black Falcon knight (redux), who comes with Kingdoms Joust.

MOC of the Year:

This is a new category, and one that I think I may not have included last year due (among other things) to the fact that I haven't made a lot of MOCs over the past few years--and certainly haven't posted many online. But I make a few this year, and even managed to post a couple. The one that says "2012!" more than any other was not a complex MOC; indeed it was quite simple... but I made 75 copies of each half.

Other Thoughts...

In general, 2012 was dominated by becoming an adult. I graduated with my Masters degree, I got married, and my wife and I went through the wranglings of getting my Green Card. All of this kept LEGO to the sidelines--but the sidelines are where LEGO has been in my life for years, and it's a comfortable place. LEGO had a chance to be centre-stage as favours. at my wedding and was there as part of solace during the long wait for my work permit. In general it was a Castle/Lord of the Rings sort of year. I've always been a Castle fan first, but this year there was little room for anything else, and the fantasy angle had the opportunity for a lot of attention with the new Middle-earth lines, attention that I foresee persisting into the next year as more Hobbit sets come out and find their way into my collection. That was my 2012 in LEGO... what was yours?

9469 Gandalf's Cart

It's been about two months now since I cashed in my accumulated LEGO VIP points to add a couple Lord of the Rings sets to my collection, but as that happy day took place in the middle of my computer's convalescence, it has taken until now to post about theme--but we'll only cover the smaller one today. Indeed, 9469 Gandalf's Cart is the smallest set in the Lord of the Rings line, barring polybags. It features Gandalf driving a cart full of fireworks and Frodo Baggins. In reference to the Movies, it belongs to the earliest part of The Fellowship of the Ring, when Gandalf arrives in Hobbiton for Bilbo's 111st party.

Unlike most of the sets in the theme, however, it does not include any "stationary" elements such as landscaping, buildings, walls, or trees, and I kind of like that, since although it does draw on a single scene from the movie, the set does not feel limited to this particular scene. The most limiting elements in the set are the fireworks, but Gandalf is supposed to have a wide reputation for fireworks--though I daresay I don't imagine him going into places like the Necromancer's dungeons with them. Of course, the ever-present problem for me with LEGO's licenced themes are the flesh-toned minifigs. As I've done with previous sets, I've tweaked the minifigs in Gandalf's Cart to be more compatible with my old-school minifig collection.

Gandalf has not only had his flesh-coloured parts removed. He's also had his hat changed to blue and his beard to an old-school Majisto white. The main impetus behind these two changes is to be more faithful to the books. The first description of Gandalf from The Hobbit says:

All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which a white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots.

(J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, "An Unexpected Party") This also brings my new Gandalf more in line with the "traditional" LEGO Gandalf I used to make, as seen in the picture below, though the Iceplanet head I used before has been updated to a "Triton" from the Collectible Minifigs Series 7.

Frodo did not get quite as rigorous a treatment as Gandalf, but the final result is rather nice--I think the face works well as a Pippin. Note, however, that I've switched hairpieces with Merry's from 9472 Attack on Weathertop.

Overall, I am quite happy with Gandalf's Cart. It's not a ground-breaking set, but it is a solid one--though expensive. More so than the other sets I have, the licensing felt noticeable.

9471 Uruk-hai Army

Although my lovely wife declined the suggestion that we spend all the gift money for our wedding on LEGO, in favour of things like cars and rent (which, I suppose, serve the LEGO collection in their own special way), I did get to pick up a little bit of new LEGO once we got back from our honeymoon. My priorities were quite clear: I need to expand my Lord of the Rings collection while they're still available in stores. To that end, while we were at a Target, I picked up 9471 Uruk-hai Army for $30 USD. My alternatives there were Shelob Attacks ($20) or Attack on Weathertop (which I already own). If Gandalf Arrives had been there, I probably would have picked it up too, but, alas, this Target lacked it.

The building centerpiece of the set is a wall-section, presumably a part of the Deeping Wall from Helm's Deep, guarded by Éomer on horseback and an Eorling archer with an (ubiquitous) catapult. (Fun fact: the Rohirrim don't actually call themselves Rohirrim or their land Rohan--those names are given to them by the Elvish-speaking Men of Gondor. The Rohirrim themselves call their land "the Mark" and their people "the Eorlings," people of Eorl--their first king.) The design of the wall is nothing spectacular, but LEGO didn't skimp with it either. Rather than being built with large 1x6x5s or other large panel pieces, it's made up of basic-sized bricks. Also impressive, design-wise, is the fact that it actually has a staircase built into the back; as a general rule, LEGO castles are notorious for leaving to the imagination how one ascends to the battlements. The bricks themselves include a fair number of the new "etched-in brick" 1x2s (all in light new-grey) and a number of sand-green bricks (mostly--but not completely--1x1s). LEGO also took the time to design a very respectable arrow-slit at the centre of the wall, and finer crenelations than any non-licenced LEGO castle I've ever seen.

Besides the wall-section, the building aspect of the set is concentrated on the siege engine for the opposing side. This a "giant crossbow" of sorts, which out-rigs a couple of flick-fire missiles as grappling hooks (presumably we are to imagine ropes behind them for the Uruk-hai to scale the walls with). As a general rule, I am not a fan of LEGO siege engines. I never found them as fun to play with as a kid as cavalry and infantry and I never had enough figs to man them properly anyway. As an adult, I generally find them to be overly "Technicky" and not a good source of great pieces. That caveat aside, I like this one about as well as I like any LEGO siege engine. The flick-fire missiles are well-used (something I would not say about 80% of the sets they come in) here (which also means "well-disguised"). Although it isn't a functional crossbow, it has the appearance of one, and there are few nice pieces here (mostly I'm thinking about the 1x4 printed tiles). Although I don't know that this engine will stay together as long as the wall--and certainly not as long as Weathertop--once I refit it with wider wheels, it should have a long life for a siege engine. Although the 4x4 round brick wheels used by the Knight's Kingdom (both I and II) are not always perfect, they are preferable, in my opinion, to the too-narrow 4x4 round plates used here (even capped with the 2x2 round plates).

And that brings us to the minifigs... Prior to this purchase, I have to admit that the vague sense I had of this set was that it was the "Helm's Deep Expansion" pack with a couple more orks, a couple more good guys, and a bit more wall--a résumé that didn't excite me much. If I thought about it, I would have probably assumed that it was overpriced and unexciting. What I didn't realise, since I don't really pay deep attention to the specs of sets I haven't purchased, was that it comes with six minifigs. That's one more minifig than Attack on Weathertop, and that set is twice the price!

Like the Rohirrim in this set, the Uruk-hai are a faithful and aesthetically pleasing adaptation of the characters from the movies. In neither case do I have any particular beef with these designs (though I don't think they are the only possible interpretations). My only real concern is that the humans are, as always in licensed themes, flesh-toned rather than yellow. Unlike Attack on Weathertop, however, this set makes the conversion easy, since neither of the Rohirrim have exposed skin on their torsos, which means a simple swap of hands and heads, and you have yellow-fig Rohirrim. Here they are pre-conversion. Note the excellent new helms (with printing for Éomer), excellent new shield, and excellent torso/leg printing.

Also note the sword the archer is carrying. In the instructions this belongs on Éomer's saddle (presumably this is his sword, which the books call Gúthwinë). I mentioned before that I like this new sword design--it is, to pun, quite sharp--but I'm not sure I like it for the Riders. LEGO sword design is, in any case, not an exactly replicating science, but this strikes me as more "hero-sword" (think Aragorn or Boromir) and less "Rider-sword." The classic "short sword" (in distinction to the chromed "great sword") is a better fit, but it belongs to a different aesthetic of minifig, and in any case is close to the same size as the new swords anyway. The "gladius" (it first came out with the Gladiator) is the best fit to my taste. That creates problems too, however, because that's the sword that Pippin (I refuse to call him Merry) carries in Attack on Weathertop. In addition to not wanting my Riders to carry mere Hobbit-swords, the gladius is just a touch too short for my taste--and extra 3 millimeters would have been perfect. Still, for the time being anyway, that's probably what I'll make do with--and I'll probably steal Pippin's sword to do it. I might give the Hobbit one of the Heroica swords from the Blacksmith set.

I'm quite pleased with the replacement faces I found. Éomer now sports a "Thresher" face from the Aquasharks line. It gives him a slightly darker hair colour, but I think the effect still works and it's light enough I could still give him blond hair and have it work. The other fig has a "Col. Colt Carson" head from the Wild West line, which ages him a little. That works me, though. He can be Gamling the Old, who, in the Books, was left in charge of the defense of Helm's Deep by Erkenbrand (whose army Gandalf goes to find since, in the Books, Éomer was never banished). You can also see that I've added another Eorling to the wall. Sporting a Bull Knight torso and classic "conical" helm, this new rider has stolen the head, spear, and shield off the Legionnaire and Highlander I recently acquired, making him fit in well with the two pre-existing Rohirrim. Note also the gladii they are carrying. All told, I was immensely impressed with this set--all the more so because I did not expect to be. I expected a decent set--all told, it's a great one.

9472 Attack on Weathertop

As mentioned a couple days ago, I acquired my first Lord of the Rings LEGO set last weekend, set 9472 Attack on Weathertop. I have to say that I'm impressed. Like Bruce, I never really wanted an official Lord of the Rings set line, not least because it would be based off the movies--and I am a diehard favourer of the books. That said, I've been liking what I've been seeing so far, and Attack on Weathertop really blew me away as a well-done set. What's more, in hindsight, I've come to the conclusion that one of the things Peter Jackson's movie did best was the visuals, and this is where the LEGO sets are mostly drawing from--so we'll see how it goes, set by set.

Now, to be perfectly faithful to the Books, it should be pointed out that the attack by the Black Riders does not actually take place in the ruins of Amon Sûl (the Sindarin name of Weathertop, and also the name of the Dúnedain-built tower on top of it), but in a dell or hollow near the base of the hill. That said, the scale of things to minifigs in sets has never been anything approaching accurate, and I like what the set designers have done with the set. In a way, you get it both ways: you have the ruins of the ancient tower as the predominant feature of the set, but the alcove that Pippin is standing in works fairly well as a "dell" for the purposes of a LEGO set, and I have to admit that it makes more sense to go Jackson and build the ruins rather than try to capture the more landscape-only scene of the books.

The way the set is designed from this side ("the back"), it's hard to tell how much of the set is hill or how much is tower--probably more tower than hill, I suppose. The rounded design of the tower's base is well-done, using LEGO's standard 1x4 hinge plates technique to bend the wall. LEGO also makes liberal use of the new brick-relief 2x1 bricks in this set, all of which are in dark tan. I'm not entirely convinced LEGO needed to develop these new bricks, but I have to admit they look sharp, and I can only imagine there are builders out there who intend to amass them by the hundreds.

The interior of the tower/cave is nothing much to look at. I'm not convinced the weapons-rack makes sense in a guard tower that was razed by fire a millennium ago, but perhaps its a nod in the direction of the fact that movie-Aragorn gives the Hobbits their "barrow-blades" here ("barrow-blades" because, in the Books, the swords the Hobbits carry were taken from the also-Dúnedain built barrows on the edge of the Old Forest, just prior to arriving in Bree). More impressive, to my mind, is the black stand-thing on the other side of the room. It has been suggested, and I agree, that this is a nod to fans of the books, who will remember that the chief palantír of the North-kingdom was kept at Amon Sûl until the destruction of that tower.

In addition to the parts of the set already shown, Attack on Weathertop includes a lone outcropping of rock and two Black Riders, who have the distinction of riding the first new-model horses in my collection. The horses work fairly well with the older models, in my opinion, and can be mistaken for them at enough of a distance. I'm glad that LEGO included two in the same set, as it helps the minifig-count match the set's high number of pieces for good value (relative to the size of the set--not the price: prices are always going up and licensed themes are always worse). I'm not really sure the separate outcropping of rock was needed at all, but I'll take the extra pieces.

Speaking of extra pieces, this set came with a plethora! Like a few other sets of 2012 (or so I'm told--I haven't got any), Attack on Weathertop comes with one of the new model Brick Separators--the large orange piece in the above picture. Besides all the usual duplicates (1x1 round plates, 1x1 tiles, etc.), the set also comes with an extra dark pearl spear (the new model with the flat butt), an extra Sting, and TWO extra Rings--or, at least, my copy did. I have no idea what the fate of those extra Rings will be, but I can assure you they're welcome.

And that brings us to the minifigs. I think LEGO did an excellent job, on the whole, with these minifigs--even though I continue to chafe at their skin-tone Licensed Theme policy. The Hobbit and Strider torsos are particularly good in my opinion and the faces match their on-screen counterparts fairly well. The Nazgûl are also very well done, but they don't greatly differ from the Black Riders people have been making since Darth Maul came out in 1999: black hood, black head, black robes. That said, although I plan to keep my copy of Attack on Weathertop together for a long time, the minifigs are going to change. As my preference is for yellow-figs, I've replaced the heads and hands on Strider and the Hobbits (and touched up the necks of their torsos with yellow Sharpie). I've also taken slight umbrage to the swords our heroes carry in this set. In particular, Frodo should not be carrying Sting, since even in the movies he receives it from Bilbo in Rivendell, later in the story. This is easily rectified by giving him the extra sword from inside the tower chamber. Aragorn should also, as a Books fan, not be carrying a sword. He does in the Movies, and I like the use of the new broadsword in pearl silver, so I'm not complaining strenuously, but if to be pedantic, Aragorn on Weathertop should only be carrying the Shards of Narsil. Since I have no shards of any blade, my Strider will have to make do with his torch alone.

As you can see, I've used the head from Anakin in the 2002 Episode II sets to replace Frodo's peach head, and the current yellow-fig smirking face from this guy for Pippin*. Pippin is a particularly good match, I think, Frodo a bit less. The chief problem with Frodo is that his eyebrow colour is a bit lighter than his hair, whereas Pippin's is roughly a perfect match. Frodo shares this problem with the face I picked for Aragorn, but it doesn't bother me too much. In both Frodo and Aragorn's case, I'm also somewhat pleased that they look a bit less like the movies and bit more like my imagination's book versions. Aragorn could be even better if his face came in scruffy and not-scruffy versions, so that I could use this for "King Elessar" and the scruffy version for "Strider," but I'll survive. All told, Attack on Weathertop has already become one of my favourite LEGO sets and I think that LEGO really outdid themselves in general. The few quibbles I have are more with the movies than with LEGO, and as far as Weathertop is concerned, they are minor indeed. *EDIT: So, after reading the review of this set on FBTB, I realise that the minifig I have dubbed Pippin is actually Merry (which comes, I suppose, of not keeping the box handy for doing this review). Well... maybe he's supposed to be, but I just can't see it. Bearing in mind, of course, that I'm a fan far more of the original books than the movies, and that I don't have a visual memory welding the movie versions irrevocably to my mental images of the Hobbits, this little fellow will continue being Pippin for me. It's all about the face--that smirk (which I have managed to replicate in yellow) just doesn't say "good planner/more subdued humour/older cousin" Merry so much as Pippin to me.

New Acquisitions: May, 2012

It's been a long time since I posted about getting any new LEGO, and although my posting frequency has slipped the sad fact is that I haven't acquired much in the past few months. This is due more to financial reasons than anything else, as the simultaneous jobs of "grad student" and "groom to be" are equally wage-deficient. Nonetheless, the two of them in tandem did not fail me completely, for upon the completion of my Master's Degree a couple weeks ago, some of my hippest in-laws-to-be sprung a surprise trip to the LEGO Store on me last weekend and gifted me with 9472 Attack on Weathertop, my first Lord of the Rings LEGO set, and one that I might otherwise have had to wait quite a long time before acquiring, my status as a LEGO and Lord of the Rings fan notwithstanding. However, I will not talk about that amazing set today. It merits its own post, and I shall give it one (hopefully in the next week or so). Meanwhile, let me talk about the other LEGO I acquired this weekend.

The five Collectible Minifigs in the picture all belong to the currently-reigning Series 7, and are the first Collectible Minifigs I've added to my collection since November, when I picked up the last Series 5 minifigs I wanted. Now, I consider it a good thing that I have not been bitten by the collector's bug, with the need to acquire EVERY Collectifig out there, but it is something of a shock to realise that Series 6 has been passed over completely--and there were a few desirable minifigs in there, most notably the Roman Legionnaire and the Scottish Highlander. Even more than monetary stingyness, however, the lack of Series 6 minifigs in my collection no doubt reflects the difficulties of reaching a store where they are sold in my local territory. Even the LEGO Store in Braintree, which reflects an hour and a half, one-way, commute on public transit, didn't have any in stock the two times I visited in January and February. With that in mind, I'm glad to note that I was able to pick out the five Series 7 collectifigs that I most wanted to add to my collection. Not that there is a lot of chance involved, since I am pretty much all/all for correctly identifying the minifigs in the bag by touch (to the amazement of my uncle-in-law-to-be), but it was luck that there was still one of each of them in the box, as that is not always the case. Indeed, I went over every bag, and only found the one bagpiper, and I wouldn't have minded more of him. Of the five minifigs here, my chief disappointment is that LEGO did not give the Viking lady's shield any detailing. After having done it for the male viking in Series 4, and with a decalled shield on two of the other figs I picked up in the same batch, it feels a little plain. That said, I'm not going to protest too much, since I will admit that an unadorned dark brown shield has its uses. On the same day, I also acquired a "collectible minifig" of another sort:

The regular minifigure-sized Hulk has been a promotion of LEGO's the past few weeks at LEGO Stores and online for orders (in the United States) of $50 or more. By happy chance, this meant that my Attack on Weathertop came with a freebie Hulk. I have to admit that, by myself, I would have been unlikely to ever acquire him, since I am not much a comic books person and consequently have not felt the need to expand into LEGO's new offerings in that field--and I'm not knocking comic books or LEGO's new DC and Marvel themes. On the contrary, there are some excellent sets there; I'm just glad that, with all the OTHER awesome LEGO coming out these days (Kingdoms Joust, Lord of the Rings, Monster Hunters, etc, etc) it hasn't become yet another theme I want while having to guard my wallet. That said, The Hulk is a rather attractive collection of minifig parts, not least because he is a little-used colour. Like many "non-regular set" minifigs, he's not the highest quality plastic, but I feel that the difference in my Hulk is less egregious than in some past instances. And, for a freebie, I'm not really entitled to complain.