First off, I love the Lord of the Rings movies, and the same goes for the Hobbit. When the final wave of Hobbit sets came out, I was both pleased, and disappointed (because the line was ending). But, I managed to pick up most of these new sets and can share my thoughts with you.

The minifigures do not disappoint in the magnificent set, and even current minifigures underwent amazing changes. Azog's body and legs are the same pieces and print as before, but his head, while the same mould, has a new printed mouth. It features an open mouth roaring this time instead of snarling or grinning like last time. Bard looks great and his torso and legs have a new print. Legolas has the same body and legs as before, but his head looks great and features detail unsurpassed by previous incarnations of this figure. Dain Ironfoot looks great (especially the axe), just don't take the helmet off as the head looks horrible without the helmet and beard. The orcs are about the same head piece as in the new Lake Town set, only a different color and their torso and legs are the same as the previous minifigures. Thorin has a new hair piece that comes with a crown attached. Even a new torso with gold printing, in this set Thorin Oakenshield really does look like a king.

The age for this product is 8 - 14, and though a few parts are a bit challenging (making sure the bridge pieces are lined up after every explosion), it isn't near as challenging as some of the other Hobbit models. So I would maybe suggest an age of 6 - 14.

This model is actually pretty large, being 18 x 11 inches you would think it would have more playability, but other than great minifigures to play with there isn't much left, so for a display piece, absolutely awesome, for a toy to play with, not so great.

I would give this model four stars.

Set #79017 The Battle of Five Armies: From the last year of The Hobbit Theme we get very few sets, the key set in my opinion was The Lonely Mountain, which gave us a Brick-Built Smaug, but here in this set you got a decent number of characters and an interesting choice for model. The price was not too bad also and the inclusion of a LEGO Eagle is always nice. If you can still find this in stores I hope the following review will help make your mind up on whether or not this will be worth the money.

Box/Instructions

Box: The third series of Hobbit sets featured a nice green coloured box which as usual showcases the set quite nicely. You see everything on the front in a great action scene and the back shows off the play features and key features of the set wonderfully. Erebor is visible on the front upper centre of the box with the ruins of Dale in the corner showing the Battle in a small visual cue. Overall great box design and as is usually the case really stands out on the shelf.

Instructions: Once again you have two numbered manuals for this set. LEGO seems to prefer doing this rather than printing one full manual in more recent days. This set is broken up into three numbered bags, manual one handles bags one and two while manual two finishes the build with bag three. Everything is straightforward and easy to follow, as is customary in LEGO instructions.

There are no stickers this time which is a great thing, too often sets of this size rely on stickers for details, but in this case the set has no printed elements and it doesn’t need them, the design looks perfect the way it is.

Parts

This set features a lot of tan pieces from bricks to bridges to arched window parts commonly seen in LEGO Friends for decorative details. Overall a good parts pack if you’re looking for tan bricks, the inclusion of an Eagle is also a welcome sight as this piece has only been seen in two other sets previously. Like with most larger sets you’ll also find a brick separator.

Minifigures

Thorin Oakenshield: Sharing the same head as every other version of Thorin, with the same facial expressions, this Minifigure represents Thorin after he’s claimed the raiments of King Under the Mountain. His hair piece has a newly sculpted throne added to the piece, with a great gold colour and wonderful printing for details. The legs are short black and his torso is a nice matching black with excellent golden armour printing, and a blue belt. He has pearl gold arms with black gloves and a matching pearl gold short sword. Overall a very nice looking Minifigure.

Azog: This version is unique to this set based solely on the alternate facial print he has, other than that everything else about him is the same as Dol Guldur Battle, he has the same legs and torso, the same weapon, just a different facial print. Overall a great looking figure and it’s nice to see him included here again.

Legolas Greenleaf: Found in three sets from The Hobbit with this exact printing, Legolas shares everything with the previously reviewed Escape from Mirkwood Spiders. The same leg and torso printing, same head with dual sided face prints and same accessory of the large elven bow. Not much more to say here.

Bard the Bowman: This version of Bard is available in three methods as well, the exclusive SDCC release, a pack-in with the Blu-Ray of Battle of the Five Armies and here. This means this is the best method of getting this figure, he features a great double-sided torso print with the long coat coming down onto the leg printing. He also includes a double-sided facial print and he has Qui-Gon’s hair in black. His accessory is the large elven bow, all-in-all a good Minifigure to find here.

Gundabad Orc: Brickset says that this Minifigure is only found in this set, and I’m not sure that’s right as the printing on both Orcs is fairly close to the print, if not identical torso and leg print wise to other Orcs in other sets. It’s possible the facial print is slightly different. Both of them carry the large scimitar weapon and that’s pretty much all to say here, if you’ve seen one Orc you’ve seen them all.

Dain Ironfoot: The king of the iron hills, Dain Ironfoot is a great looking Dwarf Minifigure only found in this one set. He has standard grey short legs, a double-sided armour print torso and a red beard piece, plus a double-sided head with two standard dwarf facial expressions, normal and angry/berserker battle rage expressions. His axe weapon is a long handled battle axe with two clear red blades and he gets a unique helmet piece to represent his station in the Dwarf ranks. I really like the look of the helmet sculpted for Dain, it’s pretty impressive and I hope we might have opportunity to see it again some day.

Gwaihir: One of the main eagles to join forces against the evils of Middle-Earth this is an excellent looking piece. Listed here as it is a character, even if it is an animal piece instead of a Minifigure. With a very nicely sculpted piece for the main torso and two clip-on wings which is definitely nicely done to include such detailed work on the individual feathers. Overall this is a very nice figure and a great addition I do hope that LEGO will find a re-use for it in some future Theme.

The build

Bag 1: In this bag you’ll find a fair number of the Minifigures, four of them to be exact, the eagle and the Orc assault weapon, I want to say catapult, but I think it might actually be a trebuchet or something along those lines. The build for the model is fairly straight forward and easy to follow, some of it is repetitive, the biggest issue I found with it was building the pillar launching mechanism, as until you secure it properly it did tend to slip a bit.

Bag 2: You’ll find the remaining three Minifigures in this bag and a section of the ruined city of Dale, specifically a walkway/bridge that appears to have been meant to go over the main road through the city. It’s a fairly decent build and works quite well, even with the play features of breakaway pathways. There aren’t too many pieces in this bag either, I’d have to say it’s roughly 100 pieces or so considering all of the small pieces. Noting too tricky here.

Bag 3: No more Minifigures to build and now you’ve moved on the booklet number two. Here you build a small tower section which will attach to the walkway. This is a fairly ingenious design and I enjoyed building this section of Dale the most. There are some clever uses of parts to make a breakaway wall and balcony and the use of white elements to simulate the snow on the roof and windowsill are a nice touch. The build is fairly straight forward and there are no difficult steps for younger builders from what I saw.

The completed model

Orc Weapon: This is a very nicely designed weapon, it looks suitably impressive if a bit large for laying siege to the section of Dale that is built with the rest of the pieces. Mostly because when you launch the pillars at the enemy you’re bound to miss nine times out of ten due to the angle of the launcher.

I like the use of silver teeth pieces for spikey design elements and the circular plates for wheels are really fun. Launching the projectiles is fairly easy and works well. Also the two long poles sticking out allow you to have the Orcs push the weapon forward in order to aim at the enemy. Overall a great medieval weapon for your Orc army.

Section of Dale: This is a very nice model and works well as a set piece from the final film. This model looks very impressive with great detail work including several white elements to simulate fallen snow covering the ruined remains of Dale. This model features a few play features as well, one section of the bridge/walkway is designed to explode by pushing on a tile and sending the attacking Orcs flying.

Another area includes a breakaway wall and balcony which once again requires you to push on the tile. Both play features work well and are non-intrusive to the overall design of the model. Overall I find this model to be very solid and equally fun as far as designs go, it’s a much better model than the more limited Dol Guldur Battle set, even though it uses much fewer pieces we have a lot more opportunities for a good display and play for the younger crowd.

Overall opinion

This is an overall decent package, with great selection of Minifigures for depicting the Battle of Five Armies, you have dwarves, elves, orcs, men and eagles represented. It might have been nicer to include a few extra warriors, perhaps Bard’s daughters to defend from the Orcs and a rideable giant warthog for Dain, however what is here is still fairly decent. The model is much better designed compared to Dol Guldur Battle and is a much better priced set. I’d definitely recommend picking this up if you can.

First off, I thought I had seen everything about this set on the preliminary pictures and someone's early review and was not very thrilled. However, now, that I have it on the table I am really satisfied with it.

The set consists of a variety of different parts in various colours, ranging from tan over dark red to dark grey. I especially like the 3x3 double convex dark red slopes and the two tan ornamented arch bricks 3x6x5. I did have some part quality issues in my set as some of the small plates were nearly translucent.

As in many castle-related sets, the minifigures are of two factions: the evil orc horde on the one hand and a corps of what is meant to be the five armies on the other. Unfortunately, the Legolas figure is the same as the one in the Mirkwood Spiders set but the two dwarf figures more than make up for that. Both have beautiful torso prints and the Iron Hill figure wears a plume on its helmet that looks like a Mohawk haircut.

As we know from the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings lines, all the sets are made with many small parts and that is the case in this set, too. I found the build really enjoyable. It was not too long of a build but in the end the set feels like it belongs to the upper end of the mid-sized set category. There is a small number of sand green 1x1 bricks and cheese slopes in the foundations of the bridge and tower. This almost seemed to me like a reference to the bigger set 79018 (The Lonely Mountain) which consists of many sand green bricks in order to give the impression it was built aeons ago . There is a high probability this was just coincidence and not intended by the designer and just my pure imagination. However, I still enjoyed thinking of it that way.

There are many wings in the set that are used cleverly as either stairs or connecting parts giving the set an unusual look. It is sleek and elegant. The built window sill is a favourite of mine. I do not know the purpose of that building but there are two brown grille tiles on the top floor of the tower that might represent firewood. If that is true this might be one of those watchtowers in which fires are lit to give warning of danger. The ballista is much better than the one in the Uruk-hai Army set (9471). It really is bigger and more detailled and the latter comes off rather plain in comparison. There are two "exploding features" but these are not too loose that the pieces could fall off unintentionally. The bridge design is a bit random, but overall I think this is a wonderful, well-rounded set with a bit of everything.

This was a set that had some really great minifigures in it including Azog, Thorn with his crown, Dain Ironfoot, Bard, and Legolas Greenleaf. The Eagle that is included is very cool as well and 2 cannon fodder Orcs are nice throw in figures. The build can have parts of it taken off as it becomes destroyed and the giant crossbow can shoot decently enough, but these are most likely not the reasons you wanna buy this set. I wouldn't recommend buying this set for the build but rather for the exclusive Minifigures that come with it. I would only suggest buying this for someone who wants to collect all the versions of characters from The Hobbit Trilogy.

When the Lord of the Rings theme started out back in 2012 I have to admit I was massively excited, this was a great license for fans of fantasy builds and with the first part of the Hobbit film series looming it looked to be set for a good couple of years, well here we are now at the end of the line, was the initial enthusiasm justified?

Box/Instructions

The box comes with the Battle of the Five Armies branding, which does look nice enough, the dark green works quite well for middle earth, but still looks distinctly different from previous Hobbit lines. The images show a lot of action, Legolas leaping from a crumbling bridge, Bard ready to snipe down enemies, Dain fighting with a random orc, Thorin locked in combat with Azog, an orc firing the massive crossbow weapon and even Gwaihir, the leader of the Giant Eagles swooping in to join the battle. All very exciting, and I can see some nice referencing to the source material, but none of the builds look particularly exciting from the box.

Parts

In all honesty I think that this set will quickly be demolished to add to my parts pool, there are a lot of tans, browns and greys which are always massively useful when building scenery. I was especially pleased to see two 6X3X5 Pavilion parts (Part Number 6100579) which I really like got castle type building. The new dark reds used on the roofing are quite nice as well, the colour is definitely well chosen and there are some nice weapon pieces included.

Minifigures

To my eye the minifigures are the big selling point on this set. All but Bard and Legolas are exclusive to this set, this version of Bard is otherwise available with promotional items and this version of Legolas had appeared in the first wave of Hobbit sets and a promo polybag for The Desolation of Smaug.

The orcs while fairly generic being exclusive to the set helps, definitely the biggest criticism with LEGO's handling of the Middle Earth franchise has been the lack of 'army builder' type sets.

Dain Ironfoot comes with a brand new helmet mould, which matches the film pretty well to my eye. It's a little bit of a shame that the beard piece for him doesn't have the boar like tusk styling, but given that he's got an exclusive helmet piece that can be forgiven.

Finally we have Thorin Oakenshield in his kingly golden armour and crown. I really like the crown and hair piece, I can see it being really useful for any castle builds, it's great to have some variation from the traditional crown piece and will be great for having two different kings on oposing sides, however I can't imagine this piece ever showing up again, so if you want it best to buy this set to be sure.

-As a side note I think it's worth mentioning that the box distincly names Gwaihir the Eagle and imcludes him in the list of minifigures, so you might argure that he could be counted as a minifigure as well. With the terrible way that Perter Jackson misused the eagles in the films compared to the books it's easy to skip any of them as characters, but I will be counting them as minifigures - in the books they actually speak.

The build

The build starts with the giant crossbow, which does look pretty effective as a large scale orc weapon, and uses a few nice techniques to give it a pretty convincing finish. The 'arrows' that it fires are made of two parts, and to be honest are not the most convincing of projectiles.

Bag two takes us onto the crumbling bridge which has a couple of sections than are designed to breakaway. There are a couple of steps that seem a little strange when you start building it, but make sense once the seperate builds are combined

The final element of the build is the tower, this is a relative quick construction, the pavillion parts and a couple of other larger parts make for a fair height constucted relatively quickly. There are a few smaller parts and a couple of studs not on top bricks used to add a bit more detail, but there's nothing really massively notworthy in this section.

The completed model

My impression of the overall model can be summed up in one word; unrecognisable. There is nothing here to really identify this as a part of middle earth except the minifigures (and eagle) to the point that if displayed without them this could easily be a generic castle/kingdoms set. The idea of building a set around a battle like this is hard to build much of a concept around. I heard that this was to be a set before the images were released and I couldn't imagine what it would be, and the result of the finished thing shows that pretty clearly.

Overall opinion

In conclusion I have to say that this is an unfortunate end to a line that could have been something fantastic. I don't really blame LEGO for this as much as the production team of the film trilogy, the way the films were handled I think has had knock on effects for the merchandising which have given us a rather disappointing line for two out of the three Hobbit films. The set feels very poor value for the price, the builds just feel like hardly any setting, the crossbow while interesting and featuring an unusual firing mechanism takes up a large chunk of the part count. The set could have been saved a little more by having additional figures to really get the feel of a massive battle, or having some of the quirkier elements from the films, e.g Dain's Battle Boar and ountain goats for the dwarves to ride - seriously Peter Jackson gave LEGO an easy excuse to reuse that Goat mould that we've only seen used once and they ignored it!

Ultimately I feel like LEGO ignored their own great formula for recreating battle (in the way of Star Wars Battle Packs or Chima Tribe Packs) in favour of a one shot set that fails to do anything to capture the true scale of the scene it's trying to depict. The smarter approach would have been to release Dwarf, Human, Elf and Orc battle packs with three or four minifigures, a mount (Boar, horse, goat, warg, deer) and a little piece of scenery or small war machine weapon and I (as I suspect most Middle Earth fans) would have bought multiples to create my own five armies. Poor end to an overall mishandled theme.