Troll Ship Review (from Dr. Sinister)

[Athos]

Found this on eurobricks:

http://eurobricks.hosting.ipsyn.com/eur ... opic=15722

Steve

[Dr. J]

Great find, looks a heck of a lot better than the original pictures showed.

What's the price?
EDIT: Never mind, I found it; 79.99 USD.

[Heir of Black Falcon]

It does look quite intimidating eh! HAving 6 orcs plus a troll and a dwarf and a knight and a dragon is not bad either!

I never thought of orcs as being very interested in water warfare so was suprised to see their biggest set being a ship! Like the sails

R

[architect]

This set seems like the Viking Ship 2.0. The rear of the ship has many useful arch and slope pieces. I like the new jail door, sails, net, drum beating troll, and figures.

But otherwise this set is very empty. For the sake of making a giant set, much detail is sacrificed. The recent mast system is very juniorized and not superior to the old Pirate mast system. I think the sails are too small to propel a ship of this size (or additional sails are needed). I like that a rowboat was included, but where are the oars and seats for it? The mounted crossbow in the boat looks out of place.

Playability: 9 of 10
Details: 3 of 10

Ben

[Odysseus]

I agree that the set looks a bit empty--especially the "cabin" area. I suppose comfort isn't their first concern, but still, it is looking too sparse and open. The rowboats are a nice idea, but I also agree that the crossbow looks awkward and the method of attaching to the ship is just strange.

Overall, though, I can't help but like this set and I will buy it!

Jonathan

[Count Blacktron]

It reminds me very strongly of the very popular old Mega Bloks Dragons series Vorgan Ice Fang ship. I always felt it seemed rather empty for a building set also, but at least it was designed to house a dragon-beast in the hold:

http://www.megabloks.com/en/kids/dragon ... 9879lv.jpg

This LEGO troll ship does seem like more of a Viking vessel, perhaps it is "empty" because the set reflects what it looks like BEFORE pillaging the village.

It is almost the same design in many respects. Mega Bloks really pulled out some fantastic designs, in spite of them being MB, and managed some pretty stellar sales numbers as a result. Perhaps LEGO took note of this as well. I only wish the LEGO sets had the pricing advantages that the MB sets had, but I prefer LEGO quality.

[Heir of Black Falcon]

Yeah MB has some cool ideas but the fact they use so many huge pieces is a huge turn off for me. I looked at one of their castles and it must have only had 10 pieces excluding men and weapons!

I am sure one could easily modify this ship quite easily. I have not gotten a single large lego ship, viking or pirate, that I have not had to modify somewhat so not biggy for me there. I think the back could do with some bunks for the ors to sleep in. The sails may be somewhat small but you have rowers to make up that difference, think orc, brute strength fixes every problem

R

[DaleDVM]

I think the set looks great. The chocobrown looks great. I love the colors lego is using now all darker and rich... As for the sail size and lack of a captains wheel etc. I figure these guys do most of the work manually and the sails are just a bonus to get them moving a bit faster. I think this period of fantasy matches the medieval time period of the rest of the castle theme. Therefore, the ships should have small sails and look a bit primative as this is not the age of sail yet.

I was planning on buying several of these sets for the dragons and minifigs so I can use the spares to add details. What do I do with all those spare boat sections though?

I thought the same thing about the crossbow on the rowboat? Seems odd to me. I would also like to be able to mount the rowboats out of the water and hang them on either side of the ship. Suppose I have some MOCifications to make.

The details are definately sparse. There seems to be a genuine lack of weapons and no extra shields besides those that decorate the ship. With an $80.00 USD pricetag I would think we would get some extra weapons, shields, and enough oars to row the small craft with. The extra sail if it is in every package is a nice bonus though. I feel that maybe this is a tactic to get us to buy the uber chess set with all of its extra gear for the minifigs?

I will not rate this until it sits on my lego table. Gotta give it a testdrive after all.

[Tower of Iron Will]

It does look quite intimidating eh! HAving 6 orcs plus a troll and a dwarf and a knight and a dragon is not bad either!

I never thought of orcs as being very interested in water warfare so was suprised to see their biggest set being a ship! Like the sails

R

My thoughts exactly. However that being said if the Orcs had a strong enough evil motivator (like Sauron) then I could envision it happening. For me, the middle ages were more about land battles vs sea battles. I withhold sea battles for the Pirates' era in history.
-Tower

[Heir of Black Falcon]

Dale,

two things came to ming regarding what to do with the crossbows on the small boats that perhaps might help. One is get two more and make a crossbow devise like on the mountain fortress or simplify it and just use the old ratchet/wrench/robot arm and attach the crossbow onto that as a crossbow machine.

Tower,

That is true a good (or very very evil more exactly) motivator could get them to use their fellow orcs as boats I suppose.

Thats true, Medieval sea battles were very different usually than the old classic/roman era and then the pirate era. In the classic period you could ram ships and cripple or sink them. Pirate you could do the same with cannon.
Medieval sea battles were usually started by missile weapons, perhaps with a few catapults or springalds then it came down to side to side bloody hand to hand fighting, basically making a sea battle into a land battle with the purpose to to take the other ship(s), but to be fair many classic and modern era sea battles conclude the same way. Still it is interestign to wrap the brain around orc warships but I think it will be a very playable set.

R

[wunztwice]

Not the best set ever, but not bad at all. I am liking the plentiful dark brown parts (esp arches...more different trees, here we come!)

I'll probably be piking this up if I can sometime.

[Azaghal]

Nice pics - I noticed a couple of pieces that I hadn't seen before, the prison door and the orc armor. Have either of these been seen before?

[James is a beast]

9 figures, extra sail, great building parts, awesome set idea. Insane. A set to be remembered.

[The Trojan Rabbit]

I don't think this is that great of a set. Personally I'd rather get some parts on Bricklink for the same price as this set, and build something comparable to the old pirate ships, for Crown Knights.

[Sir Kohran]

The figures look fantastic - perhaps the best reason to buy it - and so does the dragon. Not so fond of the ship design; apart from being something of a rip-off of the Viking longboat in 2005, it seems a bit too basic (a flaw shared by its predecessor). It looks good though; I might buy it (good way to get a crown knight, a dwarf, a couple of trolls and a big troll all in one go).

BTW, is there actually a new brown colour now, alongside the red brown?