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The Lord of the Rings: Balrog Book Nook

The Balrog is a genuine thrill. The book nook wrapped around it is the argument.

Brick Rated Score

3.6/5

Set 10367 · 2025

Pieces1,202

Minifigs1

Year2025

Set number10367

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The verdict

The Balrog is the whole reason to want this LEGO® set, and honestly, it earns it.

The brick-built figure has real articulation, a fierce printed face, and a fiery menace that stands up to the scene it's from. What I keep bumping into is the price and the book nook shell around it, which adds cost without adding much magic. If you love Moria and you want that creature on your shelf, you'll be happy. If you're value-counting, you'll notice what $130 usually buys you.

Best for: Lord of the Rings fans who want the Balrog itself on display

The full review

What it is

This set drops you at the bridge of Khazad-dum, the moment Gandalf plants his feet and the Balrog of Moria comes roaring up the deep. It's built as a book nook, meaning it's designed to slot between real books on a shelf, with the four great Dwarven pillars framing the confrontation and the creature looming in the middle. And the creature really is the star here. The Balrog is entirely brick-built, standing at the center of the scene with poseable wings, a fierce printed face, colored teeth, and a whip made from a recolored orange zip line. It's the kind of figure you keep picking up and re-posing, which is the highest compliment I can pay a LEGO monster.

The catch

Now I'll be straight with you about the money, because every reviewer who touched this set landed in the same place. It's $129.99 for 1,202 pieces and a single minifigure, and that stings when the Sherlock Holmes set launched the same day at the same price with 1,359 pieces and four extra figures. The book nook format is where a lot of that cost goes, and it doesn't fully pay off. There's no clip or clutch power holding the enclosure shut, so the weight of the Balrog tends to spring it open, and you end up nudging it back into place. Jay's Brick Blog went as low as 2 out of 5 largely on the pricing, while the wider Brickset community settled around 4.1, so opinions genuinely split down the middle on whether the model justifies the sticker. The build itself has a fair bit of repetition too, since the symmetrical pillars mean you're doing the same steps twice before you ever get to the fun part.

Who it's for

So here's my honest read. If you're a Lord of the Rings person and that Balrog is what you came for, buy it and enjoy it, because the finished creature and the Moria backdrop are the most accessible way to get that scene onto a shelf right now. If you're the kind of builder who tallies up pieces and minifigs against the price, or you were hoping the book nook gimmick would add something special, you'll feel the value gap and you might wait for a discount. Nine bags, a great monster, a shell that costs more than it gives back. Go in loving the Balrog and you won't be disappointed.

The parts story

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

The build splits cleanly in two. The first six of the nine bags construct the enclosure: the four towering Moria pillars, the connecting beams, and the little bridge span between the figures. The pillars are the clever bit, built from overlapping plates and shield-type elements that genuinely read as Dwarven stonework, with silver 1x1 studs scattered through them to suggest veins of Mithril. Because the whole thing is symmetrical, expect to repeat a lot of the same sequence, which is where the pacing sags a little. Then bags seven through nine hand you the Balrog, and the mood shifts completely. That section builds like a mech, with satisfying articulation in the wings and limbs, and it's easily the most enjoyable stretch of the box.

On pieces, there's real interest for parts hunters. Three printed elements debut here for the Balrog's face, two curved 2x2 slopes with stud notches carrying half the face pattern each, plus a printed 2x6 tile. The set brings fresh recolors in dark orange, light bluish grey, and dark tan across tiles, wedges, and handle plates, all feeding that firelit gradient. The whip is a newly recolored orange flexible zip line, and there are orange Wolverine-style claws making an appearance too. At 1,202 pieces for $129.99 the per-part math is only okay for a licensed set, but the printed and recolored parts are where the value quietly lives if you're a collector.

Fun facts

01The scene recreates the bridge of Khazad-dum, where Gandalf faces the Balrog of Moria and delivers his famous line before falling into the deep.
02Every part of the Balrog is brick-built rather than a single molded figure, with wings that fold flat so the book nook can close for storage.
03The pillars are dotted with silver 1x1 studs meant to represent the veins of Mithril that made Moria's Dwarves so wealthy.
04The set launched June 1, 2025 alongside the Sherlock Holmes book nook at the same $129.99 price, which fueled a lot of the value debate among reviewers.