Azaghal wrote:Technically, Cirith Ungol was in the third movie, though it was the climax of the second book.
Hmm, I'll have to go back and watch the movies again ... nah, I'd rather read the book. But, of course, the break between the TT and RotK is at the pass of Cirith Ungol, so we see it in both.
Going back to my previous point, if they instead did three waves, one for FotR, one for TT and one for RotK, they'd have to expand from this offering. This offering has three sets from FotR, three from TT, and one (Orc Forge) that I'm not sure where it is supposed to go, but it sure will make a great army builder, so I'm not complaining.
Anyway, FotR has a few basic settings: Shire, (cough- Old Forest/Barrow Downs -cough), Bree, Eriador wilderness, Rivendell, Moria, Lorien, Amon Hen. They've given us one small Shire set, but surely a Bag End would be an obvious setting. 'Attack on the Prancing Pony' would be a great set - inn, Strider, a hobbit or so, a couple of Nazgul, maybe Butterburr. If they made the inn right it would be a must-have for all castlers. They've already done the wilderness with the Weathertop set (while the flight to the ford is a crucial scene, it would not be much of a build, so other than a nazgul and horse army builder set, there wouldn't be much justification for that). Something from Rivendell is pretty obvious, and would give a chance to put Elrond and Arwen in a set - this, of course, would give us one of three female figs. We already get one Moria set, but if they expanded, one from the western door (with tentacled monster), and another of the Bridge of Khazad Dum (assuming they could come up with a good Balrog solution). I'm not certain what they could do with Lorien. Caras Galadhon would be pretty impossible to do as a set, though maybe something like they did the Dark Forest Fortress would be okay - all gray trees with yellow(!) foliage pieces. Or with smaller sets they could do the mirror of Galadriel, or maybe Galadriel's swan boat. Any of these options would give them their second female fig of note. Finally there's Amon Hen, but as a set I don't think this would give us anything that the attack on Weathertop did not (some ruins, some members of the company, some enemies). So, while I could come up with a million possible sets, a realistic offering that I would see for a FotR-only wave would be:
Gandalf Arrives (the set they already have)
Attack at Bree (inn, Strider, a hobbit or two, a Nazgul or two, Butterburr)
Attack on Weathertop (the set they already have) (perhaps they could make it so if you get the Bree and Weathertop sets you get all four hobbits and a good handful of Nazgul)
Rivendell (some beautiful Elvish structure, Elrond, Arwen, Bilbo)
Moria (the set they have)
Swan boat (Galadriel, unnamed elf (okay, we'll call him Celeborn), a canoe and a couple of members of the company)
That would give the same number of sets, some variation among price points, and all of the key figs (including 2 female figs)
Then comes the TT. In the west we have Meduseld, Helm's Deep, Isengard, Fangorn. In the east we have a lot of wilderness (not a lot of build potential there), okay, the Black Gate, but maybe that's not workable as a set, Ithilien, Cirith Ungol. So, for set ideas I'd say:
Meduseld - you get the king's hall, Theoden, some various Rohirrim and/or some subset of Gandalf (the white), Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli - an obvious place to include Eowyn, for our third and final woman
Uruk Hai Army (existing set)
Battle of Helm's Deep (existing set)
Fangorn - (Ent! hobbits, some foliage)
Isengard - hmm, either a massive set, or maybe a great microscale build along with a Saruman fig (see, for instance, those Star Wars Planets sets that mix a fig with microscale)
Ambush of the Haradrim - (Faramir, Sam, a couple of Haradrim, Oliphant(!))
Shelob attacks (existing set)
Of course wave three would be RotK. In the east you get a bunch of rocks and then the Cracks of Doom. In the west it's all about Minas Tirith. I'm sure we'll set things along these lines from them. I'm guessing it will be something like:
Cracks of Doom - Frodo, Gollum, Sam, Ring, rocks, fire
Minas Tirith gate - big wall, gate, some figs, grond
Battle of the Pellanor Fields - big army builder set with good and bad guys, a wall, some siege weapon
Witch King attack - Witch King, Theoden, Eowyn (!), Merry, Fell Beast
Citadel of Minas Tirith - Citadel, white tree, Denethor, soldiers
I'm not sure what else. Obviously there could be lots more of Minas Tirith, somehow constructed so they all fit together. Houses of Healing are important in the book, but not really the movie. Houses of the Dead as well. Maybe just another army builder set.
Anyway, those are my thoughts.
Bruce