This is the big unboxing! The four The Hobbit sets expected for mid-October can be found in thea mwheithoff flickr gallery who is not stingy with clichés of boxes, minifigs and parts that are used to fill the boxes.

As expected, the "non-exclusive" minifigure of Bard the bowman distributed during the last San Diego Comic Con is delivered in the set 79017 Battle of the Five Armies.

For the rest, it's business as usual: As soon as you remove the graphic staging of the box, the content loses a bit of its luster, but I'm not even disappointed: I don't collect The Hobbit ranges. and Lord of the Rings only because the minifigs are superb and I made a reason for myself on the rest ...

Special mention all the same for the catapult / cannon of the set 79017 Battle of the Five Armies and for the throne of Thorin in the set 79018 The Lonely Mountain.

The embargo imposed by LEGO and Warner on the novelties of the The Hobbit range will not last until October 15, when the manufacturer probably wanted to unveil with great fanfare the three sets of the range that did not have yet been officially presented: 79015 Witch-king Battle, 79016 Attack on Lake-town et 79017 The Battle of Five Armies.

The fourth set of the range (79018 The Lonely Mountain) was unveiled during the last San Diego Comic Con.

These novelties The Hobbit are obviously already on sale in the stores of the brand Toys R Us in the USA and the reviews are starting to appear.

Therefore, on Eurobricks, a forumer offers many photos of the 79015 Witch-king Battle set delivered with a new version of Elrond, the Witch-king of Angmar and Galadriel.

This is the opportunity to confirm that the Elrond minifig present in this new box is very different from the two versions already available with the minifig of the set in the photo above. 79015 Witch-king Battle (left), that of exclusive polybag 5000202 (in the center) and that of the set 79006 The Council of Elrond from the LEGO The Lord of the Rings range released in 2013 (right).

Pictures of the set 79016 Attack on Lake-town are also available on mwheithoff's flickr gallery.

Now's the time to try your luck and get creative: LEGO is offering 10 minifigs of Bard the bowman in the version distributed during the last San Diego Comic Con which will also be delivered in the set 79017 The Battle of Five Armies expected this fall.

To win, you need to be lucky, but first of all you need to answer the following question: What is the name of the dragon that lives in Lonely Mountain? Not very difficult ...

But that's not all, you also need to be creative and original by answering another question: If you had to move a giant dragon away from a huge pile of gold, what would you do?

You think, and you fill out the participation form that is at this address.

You send everything (your responses and the completed and signed form) by email to the following address: contest.legoclub@LEGO.com before next September 28, indicating "Smaug competition"in the subject line of the email.

The 10 winners will be chosen from the correct answers to the first question and the most original answers to the second question.

It's your turn.

More information on this operation on the LEGO Club website.

I have been inundated with emails asking me to speak here about online petition which asks LEGO to extend the LEGO Lord of the Rings range, which I am therefore doing to meet the expectations of all those who hope to be heard by the manufacturer.

Frankly, I believe that we should not count too much on any reaction from LEGO to this petition which is struggling to gather a significant number of supporters.

I can understand the approach of all those who would like to see Tolkien's universe declined in new sets accompanied by new minifigs, but I doubt that LEGO suddenly decides to extend a range that does not benefit from any direct media support and whose Relative popularity was only sustained by the release of three episodes of The Hobbit trilogy in theaters.

The range in question is obviously missing some emblematic places of the saga and some characters who would have deserved to be interpreted in minifig sauce. but LEGO and Warner had a plan, put in place long months before the first sets even went on sale, and there's a priori no chance that a few hundred fans who come forward through this digital petition would get a review of this. marketing plan come to an end.

The Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit sets released haven't always received the best reception from fans and the regular promotions at many merchants seem to indicate a desire to get rid of their inventory of products based on this universe. After all, if sales had been up to par, LEGO would undoubtedly have benefited from the success of the range for a few more years ...

Remember that some projects or claims presented on the LEGO Ideas platform have received real mass support supported by many media and many personalities and yet have been unceremoniously buried by LEGO.

Anyway, signing this digital petition will only take you a minute of your time, if you feel like it, it's at this address that it happens.

You know if you follow, LEGO has been hunting photos of sets expected for next October and most sites, blogs and forums have had to comply with the manufacturer's requirements to avoid dealing with the brand's legal department.

But that's without counting on the source of these images which still provides some visuals of the sets to come at this address.

We thus discover the part we were missing from the set box 79017 The Battle of Five Armies as well as the (almost) complete list of minifigs from this latest wave of sets in The Hobbit range.

We see that the set 79017 will consist of a catapult, a bridge, but also a structure with a tower that did not appear on the first photo of the set that we were able to discover a few days ago. The eagle present in this box is identified in the list of characters present: Its name is Gwaihir.

Remember: No reference to a possible upcoming The Hobbit polybag in the list of minifigs, no announcement for possible Lord of the Rings sets on the instruction booklets for set 79017. So that's the end of it. announced from the LOTR / The Hobbit range.

Bard's minifig featured in set 79017 is the one offered during San Diego Comic Con last July.

Other interesting photos are online at this address including close-ups of the Galadriel and Witch-King minifigs.