Review: 9469 Gandalf Arrives

'A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.' Remember this? Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring was a movie dated back in 2001. Can you imagine its already 2017 now? I own this set a little bit after I've came out of my dark ages of LEGO, and I was very lucky to have it before it retires.

Overview
Name: Gandalf Arrives.
Theme: LEGO Lord of the Rings
Year: 2012
Pieces: 83 pieces
Minifigures: 2
Price: £11.99 / $12.99 / RM69.90

Introduction
In Fellowship of the Ring, the movie started with the peaceful life of the Hobbits in Shire. Nobody knows Bilbo is having the one Ring for so long, making him immortal. This year, Gandalf arrives at his doorstep for his 111th birthday. And his arrival started stirring their peaceful life into bringing the ring to Mount Doom. I love that movie.

Lets get started.



This is the box art of the set. You can see very fine weather of Shire scenery as the background with the nice wagon. And you get a carrot to feed the horse! At the side with the 1:1 picture, the background was actually the map of middle earth. I like the green so much.




Inside of the box we get one instruction booklet. This set is quite small and as you can see in the picture, you get a wagon, a horse, Gandalf, Frodo and a book. It was a random book without any stickers on it. Should be the one Frodo reading before he sees Gandalf.


The Build

It really looks exactly the same as in the movie, isn't it?

The building technique was easy, it only took around half an hour to finish it but as in the picture, some modification needed to be done to save the smoothness of the cape.

As you can see in the picture, the 1x1 round plate added detail to the back part of the wagon and the wood planks covers the inside of the wagon nicely. The overall build was very simple and complete.

The Minifigures.

As for minifigures of this set, we got Gandalf the Grey with his pointy hat and Frodo Baggins in his green shirt. Both of them are very detailed but not exclusive to this set.

Gandalf's beard actually damaged the cape a little bit but its insignificant. I suppose the sling bag was carrying weeds.

This set is very nice to add into collection as it makes a very nice display. Now its time to get the Hobbit house.

This is how it looks like in front of the house.

Summary review
Playability: 6/10 (This is kind of a display set. Nothing to play with actually.)

Design: 9/10 (The design of the wagon was very nice and movie accurate.)

Price: 8/10 (The price was considered low when I got it before it retires.)

Overall: 8/10 (The designer had done a good job designing it to be added to your Shire scenery for the wizard's appearance and cute home looking Frodo.)