Icons

Fell Beast

A small, nasty little sculpture that punches way above its piece count.

Brick Rated Score

3.9/5

Set 40693 · 2024

Pieces270

Minifigsn/a

Year2024

Set number40693

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The verdict

The first time I got the wings open on this one, I actually laughed, that hooked beak and the bald, leathery head just sell the whole nightmare-steed thing in a way I did not expect from 270 pieces.

This is a display model, not a play set, and it knows exactly what it is: no minifigures, no scene, just the Nazgul's mount perched and ready to lunge. I love it as a shelf piece next to a bigger Middle-earth build, but I will be honest that it is a strange one to hunt down since LEGO leaned on gift-with-purchase promotions for it rather than a clean retail listing. If you can get it for what it is worth, grab it, if you are chasing it purely to complete a Lord of the Rings shelf, expect to pay above what a 270 piece set should cost.

Best for: Lord of the Rings collectors who want a menacing display piece to pair with the bigger Middle-earth Icons sets

The full review

What it is

This is LEGO's standalone take on the Fell Beast, the winged, featherless mount the Nazgul ride in The Lord of the Rings, built as a display sculpture rather than anything with play features. What got me was the head, the sunken eyes, the hooked beak, the way the neck curves down like it is about to snap at something. For 270 pieces that is a lot of personality packed into a small model, and it photographs beautifully perched on a stand next to the bigger 2024 Middle-earth sets.

The catch

I do want to be upfront about the catch here. This set did not get a clean, always-available retail spot, LEGO used it mostly as a bonus with qualifying Lord of the Rings purchases, which means the price you actually pay for it on the secondary market can run well past what a 270 piece set should cost on its own. There are also no minifigures in the box, so if you were hoping for a Nazgul figure to sit astride it, you will need to look elsewhere. It is a mood piece, not a scene.

Who it's for

Get this one if you already have or plan to get a bigger Lord of the Rings Icons set and want a genuinely creepy little companion piece for the shelf. Skip it if you are shopping by price per piece, or if minifigures and play value matter more to you than sculpture, this set was never built with either in mind.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building it is quick and satisfying rather than deep, most of the piece count goes into the wing membranes and the layered plates that give the body its ribbed, starved look. There is no long stretch of repetitive sub-assemblies here, you move from tail to body to head to wings in a straight line, which makes it a nice one-sitting build if you want something calmer after a bigger set.

The standout part is the head and beak piece, it does the heavy lifting on making this thing look genuinely unsettling, along with the way LEGO layered smaller plates to fake the texture of a starved, leathery creature rather than feathers. The wing sections use overlapping angled plates to get that bat-like membrane look, and the small scale means every piece is doing real visual work instead of just padding the count.

Fun facts

01The Fell Beast is the winged steed ridden by the Nazgul in The Lord of the Rings, described in Tolkien's writing as a featherless, reptilian creature rather than a true dragon.
02This set arrived alongside LEGO's 2024 wave of Lord of the Rings Icons sets, the first significant return to the franchise in LEGO's adult-focused Icons line in years.
03Unlike most Icons sets, 40693 was distributed largely through gift-with-purchase promotions tied to other Lord of the Rings sets rather than as a standard standalone retail item.
04The set includes no minifigures, making it one of the rare Icons releases built purely as a display sculpture with zero figures in the box.