Pieces: 430 Minifigures: 5 Retail Price: $59.99 Price I Paid: I think I got a pretty good deal.
December Special! The final Hobbit movie comes out in the middle of the month. Unless Peter Jackson has J.R.R. Tolkein’s body dug up and reanimated to write more books, it should be the last we see of Middle Earth on the big screen for quite awhile. I’m a big fan of the Lego LOTR sets and will attempt to review all of them in the next few weeks. As many of these sets are no longer available, I’m going to use a 1-5 rating system where 3 is average and 5 is excellent.
This was a set I was hesitant to buy, it was $60 and had less than 450 pieces but luckily back when Barnes and Noble had deals and you could use coupons on LEGO I got it for a pretty good price – I’m tempted to say it was somewhere below $40. For that price it was definitely worth it.
It comes with five minifigures – two Ringwraiths or Nazgul whichever you prefer. And Aragorn, Merry and of course Mr. Frodo. Lego decided to spread the members of the fellowship over as many sets as possible so you had to collect them all. (It worked.)
As far as frightening minifigures go, the Nazgul are right there at the top of the list. As everyone knows, there were 9 total (“They were once men. Great kings of men.”) So if you wanted to get nine you’d have to buy 5 of this set since it’s the only one they come in. That’d be $250 or so, suffice to say, I don’t have a full set of Ringwraiths.
The base of the set is excellent, because it is completely three dimensional. It is a little tricky build, because it is a circle, everything has to be angled right. When I first built it I ended up with pieces all over the floor halfway through building.
You have to be very gentle when “opening” and “closing” the set.
There is some nice detail in the set – nothing approaching An Unexpected Gathering – but a few little things here and there. I especially like the mini-minifigure statues.
Closed the set looks the best and somewhat resembles the movie.
And when you add the figures, you have quite the playset.
As you can see Frodo and Merry have alternate faces expressing horror. Frodo especially when he gets stabbed by the sword of the Ringwraith. Aragorn also has an alternate expression but it is much more subtle as you can see. The only complaints about this set are that it doesn’t come with more minifigures, either Ringwraiths and Hobbits. Two more Nazgul and the $60 price tag would have felt like a great deal. As it is, I got it for a good price and with all sets after they retire they become more cherished. Something about a bird in the hand. So I will remain true to form and give this set a 4. If you’re scoring at home, we now have one 5, for An Unexpected Gathering and 4s for the remaining sets. We also have 4/9ths of the Fellowship, thanks to the 2 in this set and in Gandalf arrives. This set was retired long ago.
*I forgot to include an image of the basically useless few pieces with a brown bush that goes to the side. It’s so not integral to the set that I forgot to include it. Next time I photograph a set for a review maybe I’ll feature it.