LEGO Icons 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell visual tour and gallery

Take a tour through the home of the elves with our visual guide to the newly-revealed LEGO Icons 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell.

Encompassing 15 minifigures, 6,167 pieces and three separate, buildable sections, 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell looks as triumphant a return to Middle-earth as you could hope for in 2023. You’ll need deep pockets to pick it up – the RRP is £429.99 / $499.99 / €499.99 – but for Tolkien diehards, this should be the LEGO The Lord of the Rings set to rule them all.

To find out just what’s gone into this enormous 18+ model, we’ve pulled apart and scrutinised every facet of the press release unveiled by the LEGO Group today. The result is this: a visual tour through LEGO Rivendell that soaks up every stud, sticker and Sting spread across the latest (and potentially greatest) LEGO The Lord of the Rings set. Dive in below.

10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell build

Three separate sections make up 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell, which hopefully means you’ll be able to share the build between three different people. (Unless you keep the precious for yourself, and nobody could blame you here.) With more than 6,000 pieces in the box, it’s likely to take a good long while to assemble either way.

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Across those three sections you’ll find a swathe of Rivendell icons, from the Council Ring (where the Fellowship of the Ring is established) to the gazebo and bridge from where the crew set out on their journey.

10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell comparisons

From reference material available online, it’s fair to say that the LEGO Group has taken some artistic licence with 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell. Its layout isn’t quite 1:1 with the landscape as seen in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, but instead compresses many of its visual icons into a format that works best for a LEGO model.

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What remains is still the essence of Rivendell, as described by Brian Rosebury in his 2003 book Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon. The author writes that in Jackson’s Rivendell, ‘architecture and ornaments are dominated by natural motifs’, illustrating ‘integration with nature, but at one remove’. Its footprint notwithstanding, that aesthetic is felt very keenly in the beautiful colours, foliage and architectural design of 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell.

10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell techniques

A budget like the one afforded to 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell invites complex techniques to achieve its grand ambitions, facilitated further still by that 18+ tag on the box. And at first glance, this 6,167-piece set looks packed with inventive and ground-breaking part usages and construction methods.

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Take the chairs in the Council Ring, for example, built using a combination of lollipops and sausages. Or the roof, exhaustingly recreated using so many 1×1 tiles – the alignment of which will likely be an exercise in patience, although incredibly rewarding when you finally finish.

And then there’s the gazebo, beautifully constructed from decorative elements, dinosaur tails and life preservers; or the trees, no two of which appear to be designed completely identically. From the ground up, 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell appears to take full advantage of its budget.

10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell details

As you’d expect from such a set, 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell is stacked with finer details too. Some of those are delivered through new elements (which we’ll come to shortly), while others are communicated in stickers: check out the painting of Sauron, moments before defeat, or the decorations for Frodo’s bedding.

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There are plenty of brick-built moments to pick out too, from the blacksmith’s workshop to the elven statues that technically constitute five extra minifigures. In short, there’s no risk of getting bored while poring over every inch of this model…  

10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell minifigures

If you need firmer proof that 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell is instead of – not in addition to – a regular wave of LEGO The Lord of the Rings sets (beyond it falling under the Icons banner), look to its characters. A total of 15 minifigures are included, and between them they cover every major named hero character in the movies.

The entire Fellowship of the Ring is present – Gandalf the Grey, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc ‘Merry’ Brandybuck, Peregrin ‘Pippin’ Took, Aragon, Legolas, Gimli and Boromir – along with Bilbo Baggins, Elrond, Arwen, Gloin and two generic elves. It’s every character you’d hope to see in a Rivendell set all in one go, and with brand new designs to boot.

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Characters with headgear (Gandalf, Gimli) also come with alternative hairpieces, while the Hobbits have dual-moulded legs to represent their bare feet (something not possible in the original LEGO The Lord of the Rings line in 2012). No corners have been cut with these minifigures, which also suggests the LEGO Group isn’t saving better versions for a future set.

10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell new pieces

While the LEGO design team responsible for 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell appears to have brought the iconic Middle-earth kingdom to life with mostly existing bricks, there are a handful of new pieces we can spot in the official images. The press release calls attention to the weaponry, which includes new elven swords, dwarven axes, Boromir’s sword and even the broken shards of Narsil, the sword used by Isildur to remove the One Ring from Sauron’s finger. (See again that sticker.)

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Beyond theme-specific elements, that green fern element scattered around stands out as something new, and likely to find plenty of use across the wider LEGO portfolio in 2023 and beyond.

10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell launches on March 5 for VIP members, and for the first three days on sale includes a free copy of 40630 Frodo & Gollum. It will then be available to everyone at LEGO.com and in LEGO Stores from March 8 (with no free set).

Click here for more details on 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell, and consider supporting the work that Brick Fanatics does by purchasing your copy (when it launches) using our affiliate links. Thank you!