Hobbit Lego - The Goblin King Battle 79010

We were incredibly lucky just before Christmas to get the opportunity through Izziwizzi Kids to review the brand new Lego Hobbit set - The Goblin King Battle.

When you open the box the bricks are in 5 separate bags, with 3 instruction booklets and a sheet of stickers for special bricks. The instructions are clear, the stickers go on easily, and the bags are not split by type or size of brick, but by area of the build, so each bag builds one aspect. We really liked that, not least because it meant each of our teenagers could choose a part to build, get the correct bag and start.

The set has 7 minifigures - including Gandalf, dwarves, goblins and the fantastic goblin king himself. There are loads of loose items including a host of weapons, plus several moving parts with interesting functions. The build is very much a puzzle, and then what you have is a different toy more suited to the younger people within the age range for re-enactment and make believe.

This is a HUGE Lego set and all of the children (and adults) were delighted to get a chance to play with it. The suggested age range for this set is 9-14years, and with a build time of several hours and 841 pieces, many of which are non-standard, you can see why. The design is fascinating and really intricate, there is barely a straight line in the entire build. It has so much more going on than we had expected, went together and stayed together well. There are also lots of intricate moving parts and functions including a bucket crane which turns and lifts/lowers, a rope bridge which collapses and a firing catapult.

 This set has an RRP of £79.99, which we feel is a fair and standard price for a set of this size. I actually think that compared to most very large themed Lego sets, this set is more in line with some of the more modern sets like the Monster Hunters and Ninjago, and is better value, as it provides a huge amount of play opportunities rather than being more of a static model once completed.

 We were very impressed with the Lego The Goblin King Battle. A side effect we hadn't forseen was that after spending half the afternoon building together, our 3 teenagers actually chose to all watch a movie together and didn't stop talking for the rest of the day - it was a real team-building exercise! A definite thumbs up!


We were lucky enough to be sent this set to review, but the opinions and reviews are our own genuine thoughts.