79001 - Escape from Mirkwood Spiders

79001 : Escape from Mirkwood Spiders

 

Year: 2012

Pieces: 292
Retail Price: $29.99 ($14.99)
Theme: Lord of the Rings, Hobbit

 

 

This was another set that Daniel got for Christmas. It isn't a bad set and it comes in two parts. The first part contains the trees of the forest, while the second part consists of the spiders of the forest. Now I have not seen the second hobbit movie still, do once again I cannot comment on the accuracy of the set, but for a kid it does contain some interesting storylines. Myself, I still prefer the classic castle theme over the licensed themes, but I seem to be in the minority. Lately Daniel has been preferring star wars over any other theme due to his new love affair with the LEGO star wars games and the Star Wars Clone Wars TV show that appeared on Netflix during the last month. Of course that's the theme I don't have anything of, but I digress.

 

This set was not too difficult for Daniel to put together. LEGO notoriously has a difficult time with making instructions easy to read when it has black pieces in it and this set is no exception to that rule. He had some problems putting the trees together as well as with the contraption to make the tree fall, but overall he did well on this set.

 

 

In the first part of this set, the spiders were built. We have another LEGO spider that we haven't built yet that is much larger than this one (the spider in the original LOTR trilogy (Shelob)) and these are small in comparison, however they are still fun to play with, and because they are smaller it is easier for them to gang up on unsuspecting minifigs. The legs are very articulate and allows them to be placed in multiple poses.  The first part of the set also contains the elves Legolas Greenleaf as well as Tauriel.

 

 

The second part of the set consists of the trees that the spiders call home. The trees themselves aren't very interesting. They have a few red leaves on them which helps with the spooky atmosphere but I personally would hope for more foliage in my trees.  perhaps they are dying because of the large numbers of spiders living in them?  Anyways, the trees contains spider web bags that the spiders can trap the minifigs in which was pretty cool. One of the trees also contains a mechanism that, when pulled, allows the tree to fall down so that the minifigs can be saved.  In the second part of this set, the dwarves Fili and Kili are created. Lastly, this set also contains some glow in the dark mushrooms and a few smaller glow in the dark spiders.

 

Overall this is not a bad set and it was very playable. There are enough minifigs, bad guys, conflict and action for this set to work as a standalone set for people not very into LEGOs to have a ton. Daniel had fun playing with it after it was built and he wanted to rebuilt the Hobbit house (previously reviewed), but we didn't due to that set taking 3 days to put together for him.  Maybe when we get through putting LEGOs together we can do that - put them together by theme.

 

 







79003 - An Unexpected Gathering

79003 - an Unexpected Gathering

 

 

 

Year: 2012

Pieces: 652

Retail Price: 69.99 (purchased on clearance for 25)

Theme: The Hobbit

 

This set came in 4 substeps (which we pay no attention to - we dump all of the bags together. Its more fun that way right?)

The first substep consisted of building the base and the bottom portion of the walls. I have to admit here though that this base is very loose and comes a part quite easily with not much effort. Instead of using one large piece (which adult fans of LEGOs decry), they used multiple plate pieces but they did not do a very good job of reinforcing them.

Substep 2: Complete the walls, doors, windows. etc...  Other than the base, this set is very nice. The detail is great (ink pen and ink jar for example) and it is very playable, coming complete with 6 minifigures (Gandolph the Grey, Bilbo Baggins, Balin the Dwarf, Dwalin the Dwarf, Bombur the Dwarf, and Bofur the Dwarf). 

Substep 3: Details. The details are fantastic! Many food pieces are contained including a dining table The outside may seem cluttered, but that is the way of the hobbits. If you remember the movies, the outside was cluttered as well. Hobbits apparently are packrats.

Substep 4: The roof. This one seemed slightly awkward honestly. I know that there is no good way to make a roof rounded on all sides with LEGO, however an up close view of it just seems jaggedly. The tree is small and could use some more foliage as it seems like it is dying.

 

And there you have it - the first of the Daniels LEGOs that are posted on this blog. Overall, a nice set but there definitely will be some reinforcing of the base plates if he wants to play with it.