Building To the King!

Okay granted, officially the name of the Lord of the Rings set 9471 is `Uruk-hai Army` but apart from that being totally not catching, it also features a section of Helm`s Deep and Eomer.  And we all remember the way how he and his eored stormed off the mountain at the end of The Two Towers shouting To the King!

This particular boxed set is perhaps one of the most sought after of the Lord of the Rings series, and definitly the one that so far has made the biggest price jump upwards compared to the rest of the line after being retired.  

This has to do mainly because of the fact it is the Uruk-hai army builder set, containing 4 of the armed warriors in addition to two Rohan figures in the archer and the Eomer, making it a good set for those wanting to field whole armies.

Opening the box, we get an instruction booklet and two bags of parts.  Bag 1 focusses completely on the forces of the White Hand, containing two armoured spearmen uruk-hai, a helmeted warrior and a bareheaded warrior minifig.

The rest of the bag focusses on the building the two barrelled siege hook catapult the Uruk-hai use to besiege the walls of Helm`s Deep.

A nice touch is this element, it has the wooden pattern printed on it instead of being decals to be added.

The catapult itself is build in two main phases, the first consisting of the carriage:

After that, we start building the top works of the catapult

Until a fully completed and mean looking piece of war machine appears.  I like the way they did the wheels, something I`m putting down in my book of techniques to use in the future.

The second bag moves the focus to the forces of Rohan.  The downside of Eomer is that if you put his spear in his hand, you have to attach the sword point UP on the saddle, as the sword is to long otherwise, making it look rather silly.  For my version, he has sword drawn and the spear handy for grabbing and tossing at the enemy.

I love his pattern on the helmet though and his shield design...

The section of the Deep is attachable to the big Helm`s Deep set, like the Dol Guldur Ambush section is on the Dol Guldur set.  We start by lying down it`s foundations:

Next we put up the walls, and a stairway at the back for the soldiers to get to the walkways.

A small catapult is added to the top of the wall section to round out the little section.  Add some defenses, a banner and a torch, and the wall stands.

Both parts of the set combined.  Now, i can`t connect the section to the Deep I build a few weeks ago, as the closets where I keep my Lord of the Rings collection for display are just not wide enough by a minimal margin, bit frustrating as we`re talking between 1 and 2 cms here, so now it stands loose in there ;-)

Oh, one day when I get a fully dedicated Lego room, I am so going to plan and build a full lay out of Middle Earth incorporating all the sets of both lines... but that is a far off dream I fear.

But anyways, next time I`ll be showing the build of that other army builder set, the Mirkwood army from the The Hobbit line that I picked up last week...