"And the Gimme LEGO Readers' Choice Award for Best Set of 2012 goes to...."

......Monster Fighters Set 10228 Haunted House !

Not exactly a landslide victory, perhaps, but in contrast to the previous year's poll when Set 10217 Diagon Alley took the title by a single vote, it was certainly pretty comfortable. The battle of the twelve sets became a two-horse race early on, with the Haunted House and its main challenger, Set 79003 An Unexpected Gathering, opening up an early lead over the other contenders. Bilbo and co. fought valiantly, but the Haunted House eventually opened up a healthy lead which it maintained until New Years Eve when the poll closed, finishing up with a little under a third of the vote, and pushing Bag End into second place with just under 20% of the votes.

You can see the final rankings in their entirety below (click to enlarge). Set 9474 The Battle of Helm's Deep performed creditably, finishing in third place and reinforcing how generally well-received the Lord of the Rings theme has been. The relatively unheralded but nonetheless lovely Set 10226 Sopwith Camel also put in a gratifyingly strong showing to finish in fourth place. "None of the above" finished in seventh place, exactly where it did last year, but with a slightly reduced share of the vote this time round; perhaps surprisingly, Ninjago Set 9443 Rattlecopter was the set most frequently mentioned as a reader favourite outside of the twelve that I chose to include in the poll. 

A total of 617 people voted, which is around 10% more than the previous year. Between the 19th and the 31st December, which was the window of opportunity for placing a vote, there were 5,991 unique visitors to the Gimme LEGO blog; those visitors racked up a total of 15,063 page views, and 10.3% of those visitors registered a vote, down on the 12.2% who voted the previous year.

Set 10228 Haunted House is a worthy winner in my opinion, and it walks away with two 2012 awards - the Readers' Choice, and my own award for best non-licensed set. You can remind yourselves of the official LEGO video reveal for the set below, which is presented by set designer Adam Grabowski. Congratulations and thanks to Munsters-fan Adam for designing the winning set - we eagerly await your next creation....!

So that about wraps it up for 2012, then.... I think it's fair to say that 2013 will really have to go some to maintain the level of quality of design evident over the last couple of years, although the likes of Set 10937 Batman : Arkham Asylum Breakout and Set 10233 Horizon Express have certainly kicked the year off in style. I for one can't wait to see what LEGO come up with next !