The enormous 8,278 piece 11377 The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith is the latest set based on Peter Jackson’s epic adaptation of Tolkien’s sprawling story, releasing to coincide with the 25th year anniversary of The Fellowship of the Ring’s cinema debut.
11377 The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith is the largest ever LEGO set inspired by the fantasy franchise. The massive set blends minifigure and micro scale for a set that will definitely be the centrepiece of fans’ collections. The brick depiction of the White City of Minas Tirith marks 25 years since the first film in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy arrived in cinemas.
11377 The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith is made up of 8,278 pieces, including 10 minifigures, is priced at £579.99 / $649.99 / €649.99 and will launch on June 1.
Anyone who buys the set during its first week on sale at LEGO.com will get 40893 The Lord of the Rings: Grond for free.
Upgrade your LEGO hobby! If you take out a subscription to Blocks, the monthly LEGO magazine for fans, you’ll get each issue first and at a discount, plus other perks including a free digital subscription and the chance to win LEGO prizes every month.
Minas Tirith is memorable for its towering architecture, layered walls and iconic citadel, all in white of course, and the set captures all of that in micro scale. When you move the model around and explore its interior areas, most significantly the throne room of the citadel, you find minifigure scale settings for the included LEGO characters.
“We’ve been working on expanding the iconic landmarks of Middle-earth,” says Senior Model Designer François Zapf. “It’s massive, but it was necessary just to capture the massive landmark that Minas Tirith is.
“At first, we were trying a different approach for this model, having something micro-scale or minifig-scale. But in the end, we decided to make a mix of both.”
A lineup of 10 minifigures comes in the set, including all-new characters that have never been The Lord of the Rings minifigures before; Gandalf the White, Faramir, Denethor, Peregrin Took, Aragorn as King Elessar, Arwen and four Soldiers of Gondor, with accessories such as Gondor helmets, shields and Aragorn’s crown.
“Everything is with new prints,” declares Design Manager Ashwin Visser. “We have printed everything that we could this time. That means that, for example, King Aragorn has his shield printed, also his arms are printed. Arm printing for Arwen.
“The armour for the Gondor soldiers is printed, also they have the print underneath. You could remove it, you could expand your army if you want. We have Faramir for the first time.
“We have the printed textile. We have printed elements to decorate the Great Hall. And no stickers.”
There are new elements for the characters too – Aragorn gets a new crown and hair element, while the Gondor soldiers use a new helmet piece.
Fans will be able to get their boxes signed at special LEGO Store events – François will be at Leicester Square, London on June 1 at 10.00am and München Zentrum, Munich on June 4.
Select LEGO Stores will also host ‘launch parties’ on June 1, where they can get the 40893 The Lord of the Rings: Grond set with their purchase of 11377 The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith, take part in costume and trivia contests, poster giveaways and an exclusive build activity (all for people aged 18+).
“It was a real challenge just to capture this gigantic city with all the constraints,” says François. “We chose a kind of 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr approach, with the front being micro-scale and the back minifig-scale. But it was hard to find the right balance.
“We agreed that this mix worked the best. It’s challenging to build a round city out of square bricks, so we came up with some interesting geometry for the outer walls with triangles.
“You have all the layers represented. We are using different angles and Pythagorean triples.”
If you want to learn more about the design of this epic set from François, then be sure to take out a subscription to Blocks, the monthly magazine for LEGO fans, so you can read the secrets behind the build in an upcoming issue.
To get new LEGO set announcements straight to your inbox, sign up to our free newsletter.