Phyre

This is the best regular series in quite some time. Lots of variety, great figures for all sorts of interests. As a castle/fantasy fan I am especially excited by the orc and falconer minifigs. I love that they're using the Black Falcon heraldry more, and that the orc's shield looks like a variation on the fantasy era orc heraldry. As much as I like new heraldry designs, it's nice to see some of them getting reused because the world-building I feel is necessitated by each new piece of heraldry can get overwhelming lol.

I like the great helm the best, with the pointed visor being a close second. For armor I've always been a fan of detailed breastplates ever since Fantasy Era. I do like detailed torso prints like we've gotten recently, especially in the CMF series. But the actual breastplate piece is just fantastic - as long as it's printed! Not a fan of plain ones like will be unfortunately included in the Lion Knight's Castle (one of my very few complaints about that set). For the guards and archers, my favorite is probably the conical one. Never had any bullet ones as those were before my time, although I would love to see them make a comeback at some point. I tend to prefer the conical helmets for guards/soldiers, the kettle helm for archers, and the open faced/angled cheek for evil soldiers, as that is typically what was used for the different minifigures in sets. As for shields, I think the tall pointed is my favorite, with the ovoid being a close second. I generally prefer the bigger shields, although the smaller pointed (original) and round ones are really cool too. I do not like the bigger round shields for Castle minifigures, and I wouldn't mind if I never saw the one with the stud in the middle ever again.

Very interesting! I wasn't aware of any of this material or backstory. Of course I made up my own adventures, but it's very fascinating to hear some of the "official" LEGO storyline behind the sets.

I appreciate the insight to your tastes. These are all great questions and I think it might be fun to do a video answering these questions for you. If I do end up doing it, I will send you the link. You might be my only viewer but hey, gotta start somewhere, and who knows, maybe it'll take off lol. Just to answer some of your last questions briefly, there wasn't much lore around Fantasy Era and to my knowledge none of the characters, even the king or evil wizard, ever had names. Which I didn't mind because it allowed me more freedom to create my own storylines with the sets.

Since I didn't start collecting Castle until 2007 with the Fantasy Era, I can only really compare the four castles I own, starting with 10176 in 2006. I'm sure some of the older castles might be better but I have yet to own any of them so I can't really judge them. Of the four that I own, the 2007 Fantasy Era and 2010 Kingdoms castles definitely stand out above the other two. Of those two I would have to give the edge to the Kingdoms one; the sections are all really well designed and that tower with the red roof really stands out. So that gets my vote in both categories. But from looks alone, yes, 10305 appears to be the best ever, hands down. That's to be expected just because of the size and all the advanced building techniques present in a set of this scale. I can't wait to get one.

Interesting, I will have to check these guys out. I've just recently started a youtube channel myself (link in my signature). My plan for the time being is to mainly focus on set reviews. I don't have any castle content yet but I will in the future (recently bought the Medieval Blacksmith set and will definitely be doing a review of it as soon as I build it). Since you're interested in this kind of stuff, do you have any thoughts/recommendations for what types of Castle content you'd like to see on a youtube channel that I could potentially film? I've got a fairly large Castle and Castle-related collection that extends back to 2007 Fantasy Era, which is when I first got into Castle. Would collection videos be something you think people would be interested in? What about custom (but purist) minifigure designs? Minifigure armies? Like I said I'm new to this so I'm not super sure what fans would be interested in, especially on the Castle side. Reviews seemed like a safe place to start, but I definitely want to branch out and do more unique content. I'm not a great MOC builder so I probably won't do much stuff related to that yet. Any advice would be very appreciated!

Thank you very much for the tips!

Hello, Eurobricks community! You may have seen me occasionally posting in the historic themes forum or collectible minifigures topics. I am in the process of getting a LEGO-focused youtube channel going, and I was wondering what, if any, rules there were about promoting it on this site. The main questions I have are: 1. Am I allowed to put a link to my youtube channel in my signature? 2. Is posting set review topics where the body of the review just includes a link to a youtube video (with maybe some brief background/overview information of the set, but no pictures or extended descriptions) acceptable or frowned upon? Also, for any already established youtubers or people in the know, do you have any recommendations for other places I can promote my channel (other forums, social media groups, etc.)? Any help or answers are greatly appreciated!

Oh man, I never even really considered how much it might affect minifigs and animals too, but yeah it definitely would. My Uruk-Hai and LOTR horses have been just sitting around for several years now, this makes me afraid to even touch them.

The sets I've had it happen to were 10229 Winter Village Cottage (2012), 10223 Kingdoms Joust (2012), and 7947 Prison Tower Rescue (2010). I disassembled, cleaned, and rebuilt all my winter village sets in 2020 and the cottage was the only one I remember getting broken parts in the process. The two castle sets both have had a few tumbles from where I keep them, and a few pieces got broken in the falls (all brown or dark red). I have also heard of people who have had issues with the 75060 UCS Slave I (2015) and 75059 UCS Sandcrawler (2014). I own the Slave I, but I'm terrified to rebuild it (luckily the dust on it isn't too bad). I own several other sets from this time frame that have also never been rebuilt and could have issues. But from these few examples alone, the issue was definitely present in sets produced between 2010 and 2015, at least.

Mine too. I think this is a great opportunity to kick off an annual D2C Castle series, just like we get the annual modular building, winter village, Ninjago City expansion, UCS Star Wars, etc. Even if it's years before we get a proper full Castle theme, an annual big set would make me incredibly happy. Hopefully the sales of Medieval Blacksmith and this set (not to mention the Creator 3-in-1 set) send LEGO a message that this would be an excellent idea.

Rather than one set featuring a mix of the classic themes, what they should have done is one set for each of those themes (might as well throw in BIONICLE too at that point, I grew up with those sets lol and I know a lot of other people also have nostalgia for them). Although as a castle fan I am very happy about this if the rumor turns out to be true. But I'd take one set from one theme over a kind of legacy set combining themes. Anyway, back to the castle of it all, I hope the success of the Medieval Blacksmith set, the 3-in-1 Creator castle, and this if it turns out to be real will convince LEGO that a full Castle theme would sell really well. Or even if they don't do a full theme, an annual D2C Castle set would be pretty sweet to see.

This might be one of the best microbuilds I've ever seen. It's incredible that such tiny pieces can create this powerful of a scene, full of detail and beauty. I especially like the way you did the clouds.

If they're going to be in the car with you, I wouldn't think you'd need anything too elaborate to transport them. I would recommend putting them in individual small zipped baggies and throwing them in a box with as much bubble wrap/packing material as you feel necessary. Again, since you're driving them yourself I wouldn't imagine you'd need that much, just enough to prevent them moving around too much. Then just make sure the box doesn't get crushed by anything heavy in the rest of your luggage. As far as an MOC, I'm not really sure what you'd be looking for; any MOC as I'm imagining it would be more dangerous since any minifigures could easily fall off whatever they were standing on during transport and get jostled around amongst the other parts of the MOC, potentially incurring damage. Better to package them individually in those baggies, as they wouldn't be moving around much or rubbing against other pieces which might damage them. When I order or ship minifigures through Bricklink, myself and other sellers typically always send them in those zipped bags, usually in a bubble wrap padded envelope. I wouldn't think anything more than that would be necessary to protect your collection.

Both would be really cool, but I think the first option is more likely since it's a LEGO anniversary and not a CMF anniversary (and even when we've had actual CMF anniversaries, they haven't given us redone figures). Either way, I'm just excited we'll have another regular series and more potential for new fantasy/castle/historical figures.