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Hey all,

Join the Classic Castle set review discussion. Please post your opinions on the set play ability, piece selection, design, etc. Which sets stand up to our catapult of critique and which ones crumble in shame!

This week’s set is 9471, Uruk-Hai Army.



This set connects to our previous CC Set Review, 9474, The Battle of Helm's Deep, and it serves both to extend the fortress wall and as an army builder. On the side of Rohan the set has Eomer on horseback and a standard foot soldier on a piece of wall. The side of Orthanc is represented by four Uruk-Hai (in three different variations) and a siege weapon.

Bruce

Just simple awesome. Not only is it a great minifig pack as no one fig is useless but the build is really well done. To ad onto that it can attach to Helm's Deep which is really nice (good to see modular sets making a come back) and then it also comes with a horse which are usually included in larger sets, even the balista is pretty well made.

Purple Wolf

Pretty nice set. A bit expensive for what it is (not the amount of bricks, as an Helms Deep army/wall builder) but still a good set. If one can afford and wants to buy multiples, then one should! It'd go great with the Helms Deep set.

Great army builder and parts set, I got 3 of these when they were on half price in Tesco. Between these and the helms deep set it's a good collection of figs, armour, weapons, horses etc as well as a great selection of pieces for making your own castles. Like the helms deep set I was impressed with some of the techniques used, in fact I would say that this wave of LOTR sets have been some of Lego's best ever, certainly outdoing the recent castle efforts. My favourite set is probably still MMV but Helms deep would be 2nd and 9471 is a must have add on. One thing I would add or change if I was going to keep them on display, I would have created an end piece for the wall so that you had the keep at one end, and a closed off wall section at the other, just curving around slightly so that it didn't look open ended and like the Uruk Hai can just sneak around the side! The other thing we were perhaps missing from these sets was a generic Elf archer, maybe including one in place of Gimli or Aragorn who appeared in several other sets (I have 4 Aragorns and 2 Gimlis). While I think about it, a dedicated figures pack would have been great for this theme, 2 Uruks, 1 Elf, 1 Rohan Archer, 1 Rohan rider, and where's the men of Gondor and Haradrim on Mumakil? Some missed opportunities I think. One thing I could have done without is the mini catapult, is it just me or are they a few too many sets lately? I have about 12 of them now and I'm still trying to think of something I can make out of them!

The wall piece is nice. The figures are great. The siege machine is kind of dumb. I wish they'd split it into two sets: Uruk-Hai machine and Rohan Wall. I'd have picked up several of the wall part, if I could get away from the machine.

Steve

I didn't get it while it was out but BL'd it for $35 later. I regret not getting more while it was out. Anyway, awesome awesome awesome set. Fantastic number of fantastic and useful figs, awesome pieces.

My one and only LOTR set so far. I'm really happy with it, but agree with Athos that the siege engine (as per usual with modern Lego castle) is the weakest part of the set.

I picked up 3 of these minus minifigs. Very good set, but the seige engine is its week point. Also the mini figs were lacking elfs in all sets. For the price it was a bit high, but for the figs wall and horse, worth it in the end

Hey,

Just to add my own thoughts to the discussion, IMO this along with the Helm's Deep set was the perfect pairing. The "problem" with the HD set was that it had all unique characters on the Rohan side (and the unique Beserker on the Orthanc side), but no Rohirrim generic soldiers. That wasn't really a problem at all, though, once you include this set. You only want one Theoden, and you're only going to buy one HD set (sure, Aragorn and Gimli are repeats, and I just pretend Haldir is Legolas in new armor anyway), but you can't premise a line based on everyone buying every set, so there will be unavoidable repeats of key characters. The generic soldiers all come in this set, which is cheap enough to buy multiples of. Yes, Eomer is a named character, but the fig is generic enough that you could just call it a generic Rohirrim cavalry member. My first thought was that this would be improved if it had 3 Rohirrim and 3 Uruk Hai for better balance, but on second thought part of the point of that battle was the massive imbalance in the sizes of the armies, so if you buy a few of these you'll quickly bulk up the size of your hoardes of Uruk Hai (minor quibble that I'd like to have a wild hillman of Dunland as part of the Orthanc force, but I know these are movie-based rather than book based, so I'll deal with it).

IMO this set should be the model for "army builders". Rather than have just clamshell packaging with five figs and some random piece like a treasure chest, make a set based on a small piece of modular wall with a handful of figs. Then people could buy multiples and put the walls together. Then additional small sets for corner tower and gatehouse, and you've got do-it-yourself castles, just based on varying up the number of towers and wall segments you purchase (this is essentially what I proposed here).

Bruce

Bruce N H wrote: My first thought was that this would be improved if it had 3 Rohirrim and 3 Uruk Hai for better balance, but on second thought part of the point of that battle was the massive imbalance in the sizes of the armies, so if you buy a few of these you'll quickly bulk up the size of your hoardes of Uruk Hai

This is a very interesting point you have. Heck, I would even call it fridge brilliance.

As for my thoughts on the set, I wish I had picked up more than one. I'm not to fond of fleshie figs, but love the Urak hai figs. The wall is full of useful parts, and is a pretty nice build, too. Oddly enough, even though I own both this and Helm's deep, I never had the two together at the same time.

I give it an 8.2

EKnight

This set is a great army builder and a great way to expand your Helm's Deep set. Everything about it is great. Figures, parts, the wall section, ballista, etc. Even the flick-missiles are utilized well.

I only wish they would release an entire series of sets like this in a non-licensed Castle theme.

I really wish that Lego would realize that it would make their castle lines SO MUCH MORE successful if they would just add in cool sets like these. Honestly, I think any 7-year old would say, "hey, a super cool looking castle (no panels, lots of sand green and greebling, more complex minifigs, intricate storyline) and not tell the difference, maybe even think it cooler than, basic, light bley, paneled castles. Something like Nuju Metrus Dragon lands. So if they started doing stuff like this in unlicensed, I would be very happy.

I hope they do. The current castle-line isnt more than a sad ruin of what it used to be. Generic ideas, and not terribly refined builds. I guess its an attempt to make the Lord of the Rings stuff more distinguished from it. But it really devalues castle and sets it quite low in the age-range.

Perhaps once they when they discontinue their the license they put their effords and their best designers back into castle. I really wish it. But then: the reason for discontinuing would been caused by a loss of demand...

For starters, as it's my first post here (though not first visit ) I shall say: hello to all!

I do really like this set, bought few multiples at the time it's prices were decent, and probably should've bought even more. It's an example of nearly perfect army builder, as it was mentioned - even if minifigures are main reason of buying most people probably wouldn't mine these useful parts like this war either, it's really easy to make good use of it, in it's original form from this set or other. I don't mind this siege engine too, it's not the best one, but I rather keep one and others become just additional source of parts for other constructions.
On the other hand, though I am happy this set came with the only nameless Rohan soldier, it's not enough for me. I agree that minifigs in this set and Helms Deep reflect book/films orc hordes and weak human defence pretty well, but I would very much prefer to get 3-3 human - Uruk-Hai army proportions (or even 4-2 for that matter). There is also Orc Forge and a polybag with single Uruk-Hai so making Orc Horde ain't that hard or costly anyway (and BL prices reflect that). If there were some Rohirrim polybags available to buy in bigger amounts it wouldn't be such a problem here, but as it is the one and only source it not so perfect that you get only one soldier plus one officer per every set. But that's the only major shortcoming of this set for me, and that's why I've got several of them after all.
All in all, it's just a good set and I also wish generic Castle sets were more like this one (and others from first LOTR wave) than like last Castle series.