Amazon is putting up for sale a couple of Hobbit sets with discounts ranging from 22-33%
79007 Battle at The Black Gate is discounted 22%, down to $46.99, from $59.99 MSRP. 79007 Battle at The Black Gate comes with a Great Eagle, Aragorn, Gandalf the White, Mouth of Sauron and 2 Mordor Orcs.
79008 Pirate Ship Ambush is discounted 24%, down to $75.99, from $99.99 MSRP. 79008 Pirate Ship Ambush comes with Aragorn, Legolas Greenleaf, Gimli, 2 Mordor Orcs, the King of the Dead, 2 Soldiers of the Dead and a Pirate of Umbar.
Though not as good as the gold box price from a few days ago, 79010 The Goblin King Battle is being offered with a 33% discount nonetheless, dropping the price down to $67.19 from $99.99 MSRP.
LEGO was kind enough to send us a copy of 79007 The Battle at the Black Gate for review, the middle-tier set in the second big wave of Lord of the Rings sets. I genuinely liked the Weathertop set that occupies the same price point, even with its absurd flick-fires. Of course, battle is a bit of a misnomer, since I think they normally involve more people than a pickup game of basketball.
There actually was a battle at the Black Gate, in Return of the King, which was a distraction so that a couple of Hobbits could throw a ring in some lava. The Black Gate itself was also featured in The Two Towers, in one of the cooler little tricks of cinematography where we Rudy and the kid that thought a video game was a baby toy in Back to the Future II hid under a cloak in a different part of the screen than you were looking.
In truth, the vast majority of the detail for the gate was in that little scene, since it showed trolls pulling chains and people going through them. In Return, it was just a whole bunch of evil humans and orcs were waiting to come out and do some more killing after failing to defeat the armies of men at any point in the movie. The big features in the set are obviously around the minifigs and the Eagle. Everyone wants some Eagles!
At $60, this set certainly isn’t cheap, and falls into the same range as Weathertop did. After a couple of nice smaller sets in the LotR line, and a recognizable ship (if only shortly scene) at the top-end, this one stands alone in the middle range for the second wave of sets. The jury is out, so will it be worth the money?
If you haven’t fallen for Toys’R'Us’s insane markup for new Lord of the Rings sets yet, then fret no more as Amazon and LEGO Shop@Home has you covered.
Erik Varszegi’s demonstration videos for the four new Lord Of The Rings sets are ready to view on the FBTB Youtube channel, so take a look and let us know what you think. This may be the last of the video posts tonight, but Lone Ranger and a few strays will be forthcoming.
Getting back into the swing of things after some technically difficulties here in New York, the four new Lord of the Rings set photos are now ready for your perusal.
Up next we’ll have the new board games, this set should be up a little quicker.
