Tuesday, January 1, 2013

LEGO The Hobbit #79010 The Goblin King Battle Review

Theme: The Hobbit
Name: The Goblin King Battle
S/N: #79010
Year: 2012
Pieces: 841
Minifig:8
Price: RM-, USD99.99, GBP79.99
Box
Feel is like ages I have not reviewed something that large anymore and I found this one quite challenging to review. Thanks to my friend who lend me this set to review it, I finally review something big again. Moving to the box, we have the cast introduction, serial number and the set name at the front of it while the top side are introducing seven of the character in their 1:1 scale. At the back we have the playability and weapons shown also the other way of arranging the four separated parts.
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Content
There are five bags of parts included in this set, whereby the first bag assemble the three dwarf, and the two small platform on the right, while bag two and three assemble the throne for the king and Gandalf,  the last two bags, four and five completed the bridge part and the three goblin. Goblin king are pack separately, so do the instruction book and sticker sheet.
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Brick Separator
This set comes with one brick separator and the instruction book actually teaches you how to use it at the very first page of book one if I recall right.
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Accessories
He have quite a good number of accessories from this set and below are not all of the accessories that are provided to us in this set as some of them are attached onto the platform or even the throne. A lot of spears given and a lot of skulls given too.
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Minifigs
We have eight minifigs in this set and to align them all and take a group photo seems troublesome and too small to be view, so I separate them in different pictures. The good guy first, Gandalf is no longer rare since there are too much of him and there is no difference with the other Gandalf from the previous LOTR playset.Nori and Dori seems to have a new hairpiece which looks very good, while Ori hairpiece are just some recycle parts from Harry Potter. All four of them have both side of their torso printed and the three dwarves have two expression printed on their head.
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The Goblin soldier and Scribe all have a new hairpiece too and they are actually a little soft and nicely printed. Each of them have different design of torso that are printed on both side (which is cool) and the soldier shares the same printed leg. They all shares the same head and there are two different design printed on the head. They are slightly different and is quite hard to differentiate them at first.
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The Goblin King have his own unique size, very well crafted and printed with details, and I cannot tell how accurate he was because I still have not watched it. It looks good to me and his hand are able to grab the minifigs by the leg just like the castle troll. That's what makes it unique and size does matter now.
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Goblin Cave
This is something unusual, maybe the first I've seen so far that these four compartment are not snap together through pins and it is quite inconvenience for me to move it around since we have to move it piece by piece. the box shows us two different ways of arranging the compartment but I just goes with one and snap an overall picture of it.
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Moving to bag one,  we have this two platform and a torch made and they are not connected by pins, you just need to arranged them closely side by side to each other. Not much of a details here, and a little playability like rotating and working small catapult being install on one of the platform. What I do not like about it? Is that the skull and the small bone are not or cannot be attached on the platform, they are just scatter and drop when you move them.
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The Goblin King throne, which I think most parts are wasted here, are rather big and comes with two playability. Other than that there are a number of accessories being place on this throne. Looks like some kind of diecast statue too when you put it alone with the king attached on it.
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Moving to the details of the of the throne, there are a number of sticker needed especially the background of the seat. Other than that there are bone and a book scatter on the floor of the throne, and again they are not attached. On the left there is a torch and a skull being place which I think is a good detail.
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While on the left are some pail, goblet, barrel loaded with glaive (?) and pitchfork. Spear and long bone are attached on the side of the cave wall as well. While at the top of both side, we have torch clipped to the wall of the throne. The back of the throne is a bit empty, but there is a skull placed there. The throne does looks solid and live up the solidity despite being in empty at the bottom.
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The playability, which is exposing the treasure that are hidden at the bottom of the throne. There is one long black plate stretching out at the back, there is where you pull and push to hide and expose the treasures, gems and gold beneath the throne. The black plate are easily accessible you can easily push and pull it.
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At the left side of the throne, we have a cage made to trap something, maybe the dwarf, and there is a bar for you to make the cage fall off from the located area. You might accidentally drop it off from the the throne if you mistakenly hit on the bar at the rear left part of the throne.
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Here's a picture of the Goblin King and the his big throne:
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Now the last compartment which I somehow quite like it, maybe there are some reason to it. There are three playability installed in this compartment over here and I like the two of them as they are interesting, at least not that flick-fire missiles thing.
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The bucket crane one of the playability which I like is nice to play with. We can lift it up and down by turning the bar at the side of it and the grip is very strong, it can withstand a minifigs weight when is placed in the bucket. But I'm a bit worried about the chain, afraid that it might break off one day. It is rotatable too but at time the torch on the throne is in the way, otherwise you can make a 360 degree turn.
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Next the collapsing bridge with just a push of a button. If you push it hard enough, there is like a force that the bridge is fly off. The bridge is pretty strong stable although it was made by string with a small plank attached on it. The clippers on the both side of the plank works pretty well. Like it very much.
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What's under the bridge or at the side of it? Just to add some details bones are scatter below the bridge. There are even anchor, all not attached below it. Seems like the anchor is made of gold and worth the loot from the goblin. Other than that there are skull and a pot with some translucent round brick in it.
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Here's some platform to this all the technic axle from front view and also to attached the bridge. They decorated the platform with some spears and skull on it too to make looks more representable.
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Now the tipping ladder. Nothing fancy about this as the ladder are not attached to anything and with a push of the button, it will fall off. But there are things worth learning which is the hidden axle that looks like the cave wall. It is view as normal cave wall if you do not push the button at the back of it.
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Extra pieces
I'm not sure if i missed out anything during the assembling process but this is what left with me after I'm done assembling and deducting the bones that are used in the instruction book.
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Completed model
There are like and dislike about this set. The instruction is quite hard to read as there are too many different tone of brown parts which they look a little alike in the instruction. More to dislike are the platform that are not connected to each other and the scattering accessories which are not attached to the platform. What's to like are the playability and design of it, it seriously looks great! The minifigs and the number of extra pieces are something to like too. It is nice for photo shooting too.
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Playability: 8/10 Very good playability, there is no irritating flick-fire here and some of them are very nice to play with.
Building experience: 8/10 took me quite a long time to done with it, can I said I enjoy it throughout the whole process though reading the instruction do hurt my eyes.
Parts: 8/10 Nice parts like cave wall, lot of accessories too.
Value for money: -/10 I cannot tell yet since not officially release here.
Overall: 8/10 A nice set to own, to play and to display especially the throne. Nice minifigs too.

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