Uruk-hai Army 9471 - Review

Thanks to the short window where TRU actually had this available for regular price during the recent buy two get one free event, I managed to pick up a copy of the Uruk-Hai Army set to go with my Helm's Deep. I actually picked up three, but I will talk about that a little later.

Uruk-hai Army is a 257 piece set with a US RRP of $29.99. It includes a whopping SIX minifigures, which makes it an excellent army builder for the LEGO Lord of the Rings line.

What's in the box?

The box contains the instruction manual and two bags. Bag one is for the "armored hook shooter" and Uruk-hai figures. Bag two is for the section of castle wall and Rohan figures. The manual does not have any cardboard support, so it will likely come out of the box a little folded up.

The parts are pretty much identical to most of what you get for Helm's Deep. Plenty of light bluish gray bricks, along with the 1x2 patterned bricks, and some dark bley for accents. A little bit of sand green and dark green mixed in as well to break up the monotony of the what would otherwise be a solid gray slab. Since there are six figures, you get tons of weapons. So your guys should be armed to the teeth when it all comes together.

How is the build?
Build time on this is fairly short. I can't really see it taking anyone longer than an hour to put together. You build the hook shooter and Uruk-hai figs first. The siege weapon has some cool parts, including three of the 1x4 tiles with printed wood pattern to give it some detail. The two hooks attach to the normal flick fire post and there's a push mechanism that is used to fire them.

The wall comes together very similar to the construction for the rest of Helm's Deep. The walls are entirely brick built, using a few panels to create openings for the window. There's not really much of an interior, other than a staircase leading up to the top of the wall. You also get a small catapult for shooting 1x1 round bricks, similar to the one on the larger towers of the fortress wall on Helm's Deep.

How are the minifigures?
The figures are great. You get a total of four Uruk-hai, consisting of three regular soldiers and one captain. Two have armor, three have helmets, and the captain has a long black hairpiece. Printing on all of them looks great and they look pretty fierce.

The Rohan figures look great as well. You get Eomer as an actual story character and then a generic Rohan archer. You also get a brown horse for Eomer to ride on. Much like King Theoden, Eomer has great details on his helmet and shield. He also has a nice green cloak for those chilly rides.

The one complaint I have about this set is the balance towards the Uruk-hai. I would have much preferred to have a three and three split on figures here, since the battlements are pretty bare on Helm's Deep. An extra Rohan soldier would have helped improve this balance a little.

The final product
On it's own, this set would be a pretty pitiful fortress to defend. It's all of five inches long, so your attacking army does not have to walk very far to get around. However, if your intent with this set is to connect it to Helm's Deep and mingle your armies, then it will excel in that task. It makes an excellent expansion pack for the overall fortress and helps boost up the army count on both sides for a more impressive battle scene.

Everything comes together.

My original plan with getting extras of this was to beef up the front walls and have a nice horde of Uruk-hai, along with some extra defenders on the walls. I'm holding off on that for now and will keep the other two sealed for the time being, since the addition of just one seemed to satisfy my need for a more action packed battle field for the time being.

I guess the bottom line here is that this set is worth picking up if you have Helm's Deep and want to expand a little. I probably would not bother if you don't have the bigger set to join this on to. If you have some space, get a few an build yourself one heck of a battle scene