KristofBD

Very nice how you blend the old look and feel with newer pieces. Good job

All my shields have it as well to some degree - I did not notice it before. It seems the shields in the battle packs are a bit more off than the ones in the original sets, but it seems fair to withdraw that point of critique on the battle packs. I now replaced all legs and arms with replacement parts from my older LEGO sets, which makes the battlepack minifigs blend into my army. The torsos are spot on by the way - I even have the idea that they are printed in a better way than the torsos in my original sets. Nevertheless, I would not recommend buying huge quantities of BP's. This would leave you with too many "crippled" minifigs. Best, K.

I just bought the dragon's battle pack and am disappointed about the quality: * the printing on the shields is bad on all three shields (the colours overlap - creating a somewhat orangy line); * the hands don't have grip, * some legs are loose and * the helmets fall off easily as well. The printing is good, but that's about it. Very disappointing. Best, K.

While not as good as some of the other sets (dark tower, castle and prison carriage); this is not definitively a nice set. What I like most are actually the stickers - I find these good stickers as opposed to most other stickers - and the window piece. The grill on the window piece is different from the other window pieces as in for instance the MMV or the black tower and the castle. I think this gives the tower a more castle-ish look. Best, K.

@Svelte: I also bought this set in Europe. I guess you were just unlucky: I got the three extra plumes and have none of your errors except for the pink horse barding (that seems to be a common printing error). Regarding the lip printing: isn't that just the normal lip printing? (All my female heads with this print look exactly the same)

And don't forget the troll ship. Personally, I don't think ships are necessary, but I certainly liked the little harbour that came with the skeletons ship.

The Kingdoms sets have started pouring all over the Netherlands, so I was finally able to buy this set. I must say I like it: printed tile looks very detailed (the prined text is really tiny), the dragon welp is a very nice piece and the table and the green wizzard themselves are excellent to upgrade the Black Tower. All in all this set was better than I expected and a perfect addition to the Black Tower! Best, K.

The Black tower and the Knight's showdown have some spare dark pearl weapons (in total three, if I count them well), so I'll probably use these weapons on the battle pack dragons. It's also a shame that the crossbow is brown, though I do find the brown crossbow more realistic.

Most online stores seem to start selling and shipping from the first of June onwards. Here in the Netherlands the online stores are incredably cheap. Found one that sells the castle for 79 euro instead of the advised 99 euros.

Thanks for the pics! The battlepacks somewhat leave me in dubio. Pro: They are a good way to increase the dragons' numbers, The diverse selection of parts and torsos is definitively good. Con: On the other hand, the dragons' weapons don't fit (and it's difficult to collect spare weapons from other sets to arm an army). The faces of the minifigs display too little variety If the quality of the figs is bad, this is obviously a con. In sum, if the quality of the figs is good, I will probably buy them, but it isn't, I'll skip them... Best, K.

The advent calender is great: three (so far) exclusive minifigs and lots of interesting useful minimodels. I hope the pigs is the prelude of an exclusive medieval farm or something. My only frustration is the dragon knight: there is so much attention and detail in the lion fraction, compared to that one dragon knight who doesn't even have a shield. Hopefully future sets will balance the factions more. Nevertheless, the advent calender is great and a must-buy!

Indeed the text on the scroll seems different. Also, the legs and hat aren't printed, so may be this is a preliminary pic? Regarrding the scroll itself, may be there are different versions of it? Now that would be interesting (though unlikely). Best, K

Great helmet - great armour!

Any picture of the backside of the jester? Does it have back printing? Best, K.

Adventurer sets were unfortunately released in my dark ages, but looking at them right now, they look great. This one is especially nice: lots of printed pieces, a high number of minifigs, nice colours, and great playability. This set is truly awesome. Best, K.

I bought the dragons set online (and love it), but is the lions-set available anywhere?

The wizzard really seems to be something for the AFOL's given his retro look. I like the figure, though I must say I liked the wands of other recent wizzards more. But then again, that is obviously easily fixed. It seems that the Kingdoms calender will be loaded with many unique or rare minifigs!

The Fantasy Era brought waked me from my dark ages because its return to the classic style was revolutionary. Though it is clearly no radical innovative line, I think the new Kingdoms line is promising and shows that Castle can be a good blend of old and new. My guess is that this first year of Kingdoms only consists of the "setting the stage" sets, while the more revolutionary sets will be released in the second/third year - similar to the FE-timeline. The FE was clearly a line where continuity and innovativeness were blended. The Kingdoms line resembles the FE a lot. I'm optimistic. The Kingdoms Advent calender includes some villagers and shows a more mixed setting including both civilian and war buildings. This hints at more civilian sets - although we obviously cannot be sure about that for now. Regarding the Bley Brick Syndrome, I agree that the main castle of Kingdoms is more of the same. However, the second castle (the black tower) is not bley at all, and is excellent for MOCing. If you don't like the bley, don't buy the main castle. Lastly, it seems that castle is turning a bit into the licensed sets when it comes to the minifigs. The last wave of the FE included great detailed minifigs such as the king, the queen, the golden knight, the troll witch and the jester; and it seems that the kingdoms advent calender will present more of such figures (e.g. the queen and the prince). The figs alone are a good reason to buy the new sets, and it seems to only get better when it comes to minifigs. Again, I think it shows that indeed Castle will always both be partially unsurprising and yet at the same time partially creative, just like all the other traditional lines. Hence, I vote timeless.

I just bought the set and loved it. Some minor negative points though: * the symmetry: everything is perfectly symmetric (e.g. the plants and rocky pieces), but that makes the set a little artificial. * the first/second floor where the queen is, is quite small due to the drawbridge mechanism. Additionally, the mechanism didn't really work well - so I took it out. * the ground floor where the golden knight is, is built with just a few very large pieces, and is a little shaky. However, some parts are even better than I expected when I saw the review here: *the minifigs (queen and golden knight) are even better designed than I thought. The golden knight is that well designed that I don't use the armour - he looks even better without it! * When you remove the technic mechanism part, the first/second floor is wide and can be used to transform into a genuine 'queen's room'. * I love the front of the tower. I ordered my set along with an extra tower raid set. The tower pieces were well suited to 'pimp' the drawbridge. So all in all: it's a great set, with some room for improvement, but that can easily be fixed! K.

I second Klaus-Dieter's call for a civilians' battle pack. ...and I would love some more civilian buildings as well! K.

Very nice second review. Can't say that you changed my mind, but I love how you added an accesoire and design section. To a certain degree they even reinforce my thoughts about this set. I also want my sets to be 'realistic', so I like the arguments about the chest, the lack of stairs and the blocked side view. I agree with you though that the minifigures are certainly an important plus! Additionally, you did convince me that the set has a lot of weapons and extras. Sure, the set only includes few pieces, but the pieces that it includes are nice and mostly large. KBD