Exclusive: The Goblin King Battle review
Posted by Huw,
We have the largest of the yet-to-be-released The Hobbit sets, 79010 The Goblin King Battle to hand and we're pleased to bring you an exclusive review of it!
Read our in-depth pictorial review to find out if the set is as ugly as the Goblin King, pictured, or whether you need to spend yet more money on LEGO this year.
When you've done so, let us know what you think about it in the comments.
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32 comments on this article
Love the goblin kings club!!!
wow, its so gorgeaus!!
Looks great! Too bad gandalf wasn't different though, I would have liked a new one...
Thanks Huw for a great review, I'm hoping that my children add this to their Xmas list asap. I'm not terribly sure that reading the book would offer much insight as this appears to be a scene extended for the film rather than being terribly faithful, although my memory might be failing me.
I agree that the higgledy piggledy look has been carried off expertly and the 'playability' would seem to have been high on the agenda. The casually scattered bones and skulls really add to the atmosphere.
I can sense this will sit perfectly alongside some of the LoTR sets, and can definitely imagine the goblins being drafted into to scale the walls of Helms Deep!!
This looks like a fantastic set. I'm Definately adding this to the wish list.
when this sets will be avalible in Europe?
where did you buy it excelent set
^^ December.
^ I was provided with a copy for review.
I don't know. I don't think the Goblin King looks good.
Thanks for the great review, The goblin king looks somewhat odd, but he is extremely acuratehttp://starseeker.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/hobbit-goblin-king-sept-27-150x150.jpg
Could you take some pictures for the minifigure gallery?
Great review Huw! The set looks great! I want to get it and somehow combine it with my Trolls' Mountain Fortress (7079).
Better review of the set than the Lego video by the developer. I definitely like the wargs...to bad their aren't more than two.
The set is one of my favorites from the December Hobbit lineup, second only to Unexpected Gathering.
Nice review, Huh.
I am just slightly curious about the distinction between "drarfs" and dwarves, though.
:p
^ 3 Small URPs and 1 BURP
^^ They are their dyslexic cousins :-)
This set looks great. They really need to hurry up and come out before my wife finishes the Christmas shopping. She likes to get the shopping done early and I can only hold her off for so long!
^^ Yes, there's a peaked BURP behind the throne.
This looks like a great play-set and is not bad for display either by the looks of it. I love the new format of homepage reviews as well.
I'm among the predicted people who are "bothered" by the goblin faces showing in the back of their heads under the head piece. I understand it with the cases like Ori when the hair piece is an old one, but I just find no excuse with the goblins when the head piece is brand new and used nowhere else. It could have been designed a bit differently, and the whole problem could have been averted. Thus, it's just unfortunately sloppy design.
Any word of a US release date? Because it's time to go broke all over again.
I'm loving this LOTR sets. I hope we get at least a couple of waves out of them.
Great review as well - very detailed and informative.
December 1st is the official release date as far as I know
great early review! another reason why this is easily the best lego site on the net!
The scene itself is really a bit none descript to be honest, and is something any reasonable builder could knock up quickly, but the figures are fantastic, so its a mixed bag in some ways for me, but I will certainly purchase it for the figs.
I was hoping that they would make all 13 of the dwarves from the story, and I see 12 plus Thorin in the minifig images at the end.
It is too hard to read the names to tell if they are all different though.
Been at least 10 years since I've read the book, so honestly don't remember this part of the story. Time to dig my copy back out I guess.
So far I've passed on any of the LotR stuff as I prefer a real castle theme, but I do like the goblin minifigs shown in this set.
Is it possible to rearrange the different sections into other configurations that don't look too bad? (Since they are not fixed together.)
WOW. That looks far better than I assumed after seeing those tiny pics a few weeks back. Nice review!
It looks like a nice set, but the Ori minifigure is just awful.
Sets are in fred meyer at 20% off in olympia wa right now.
Whoa, how much money was it??????
^as huw said he got a copy to review
I got my Holiday catalog in the mail today. It lists the release date in the US as November 27th and the price of this set as $99.99.
@Last comment: Same here.
Prices and pieces for the sets:
79003: 652 piieces, $69.99
79004: 334 pieces, $39.99
79002: 400 pieces, $49.99
79010: 841 pieces, $99.99
79001: 298 pieces, $29.99
79000: 105 pieces, $9.99
Value grade: B+ (very good)
Picked up warg attack at Tumwater Fred Meyers for forty bucks today. They are out in the wild now.
I'm with Haltiamieli, LEGO is a premium brand where supposedly "only the best is good enough". To me, headpieces that don't cover back head printing falls short of this and shows a problem with either design or QA.
Having said that, as a huge fan of the LOTR books none of the sets so far have convinced me to buy them. Maybe Bag End when it comes out.