Future Castle Sets?

[Lion King]

Wait, are we talking about Castle theme or castle-related IDEA sets? I’m bit confsued.

EDIT: Ok, never mind - I get it now.

Edited October 29, 2020 by DBlegonerd7

[zoth33]

18 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

Yes, it's a summer theme for next year. 

The good news is that there's clearly a dragon in the trailer, and given Lego's current slate of themes, I think there's a pretty low chance that it's going to be similar to Nexo Knights. The bad news is that after reading the description I highly doubt that it's a Castle theme, or at least a traditional one. Like you, I think the whole "parallel universe" bit is a huge red flag.

If I had to guess I think we're dealing with some sort of high fantasy theme, maybe with some magic thrown in. The minifigures are the biggest wild card here.

Let's hope it's something good and at least relatable to castle as that would help if it's not a castle theme.  If it is high fantasy I could deal with that if the figs are great.  We just have to play the waiting game now.  

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

On 10/26/2020 at 7:11 PM, Robert8 said:

Or when a kid makes a crappy build putting a couple of pieces together, and the proud father/mother goes and post it with the tag for everyone to see

Like why the hell I'm supposed to care? 

LOL sadly that also happens on r/lego.

[Lego David]

On 10/28/2020 at 6:47 AM, BrickJagger said:

Yes, it's a summer theme for next year. 

What makes you so confident about that, if you don't mind me asking? Other than some vague rumors, no reliable leakers have gotten any info regarding a new upcoming theme. 

[Roebuck]

It is a long way from this:

https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-mythica-to-open-at-legoland-windsor-resort-in-2021/

To a Castle summer wave

[Pulp Detective]

Hell will freeze before we ever get a new Castle theme. 

[Fuppylodders]

On 10/27/2020 at 12:03 PM, MAB said:

 But then they can do that now if they want. Just create battle packs of elves, dwarves, knights, archers, orcs, trolls, Vikings, Romans, Spartans, etc ... that is just historical and historical fantasy, then there are the people that would want space fantasy, space marines, and so on. But LEGO is in the business of making and selling lots of plastic parts, not games or parts for games. If they make loads of battle packs, then figure sales might go up but brick sales might go down.

The amount of things they release giving a vast array of choices, I can't honestly see how figure sales of battle packs could go up but brick sales would go down, when there isn't any (in company) competition with regards to historical fantasy battle packs. 
Completely understand what you're saying, while it'd be awesome to see a Lego style Warhammer/40k, I think leave the game style stuff to companies like GW. But they could easily release even just one battle pack a year would be an amazing boost for historical fans. They literally already have a ton of parts to use, throw some updated prints and bobs your uncle, army building potential in the style of star wars incoming. 

Regardless, I seriously hope this rumour is true, and is actually a fantasy castle theme, not intertwined with some random crossover making it a scificastle like theme. Nexo Knights was nice in its own merit, but not as any form of castle related theme

[Gorilla94]

To be honest I think a few certain battle packs would sell like sliced bread and increase brick sales. 

Let's imagine two Battlepacks like the koruit Erebor dwarfs and Uruks. Let's add a mountain mining adventure brick box. It should contain tons of good dark bluish gray and/or dark gray bricks and a bunch of yewel pieces from the 90s till the quite new moon Exploration ones. You could build castles with it. You could build a mountain kingdom for dwarfes. Even Star Wars Fans could buy bunkers, or spaceships with it and i am sure most would love to get crystals and stuff for a lightsaber crystal have. Children love having a big treasure cave anyways. Brick Plates like from the Hogwards Castle with minifigures using yellow heads would even be a very successfull brick box in their own.

That's just one example. I could come up with many more. I think the brick sales would only break down, if Lego keeps releasing brick boxes with mostly strange moulds in colours of limited use. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Gorilla94

[MAB]

36 minutes ago, Gorilla94 said:

To be honest I think a few certain battle packs would sell like sliced bread and increase brick sales. 

Let's imagine two Battlepacks like the koruit Erebor dwarfs and Uruks. Let's add a mountain mining adventure brick box. It should contain tons of good dark bluish gray and/or dark gray bricks and a bunch of yewel pieces from the 90s till the quite new moon Exploration ones. You could build castles with it. You could build a mountain kingdom for dwarfes. Even Star Wars Fans could buy bunkers, or spaceships with it and i am sure most would love to get crystals and stuff for a lightsaber crystal have. Children love having a big treasure cave anyways. Brick Plates like from the Hogwards Castle with minifigures using yellow heads would even be a very successfull brick box in their own.

That's just one example. I could come up with many more. I think the brick sales would only break down, if Lego keeps releasing brick boxes with mostly strange moulds in colours of limited use. 

 

Back in the day, they did sell (unlicensed) dwarf battle packs ...

Similarly for different knights, skeletons, trolls etc.

If adding to a theme, they are a good idea.

While a box of single colour DBG pieces might sound attractive to adults, I doubt it would sell that well to kids and families, especially if there are no instructions with what to build with it. Even multi-coloured Classic boxes have instructions.

 

Concerning Uruk-hai, they did a type of battle pack:

Four Uruk-Hai, Eomer and a generic Rohan Warrior and a horse. Plus a selection of mainly grey parts. Yet people complained about it being "just a bit of wall".

[Fuppylodders]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

 

Back in the day, they did sell (unlicensed) dwarf battle packs ...

Similarly for different knights, skeletons, trolls etc.

If adding to a theme, they are a good idea.

While a box of single colour DBG pieces might sound attractive to adults, I doubt it would sell that well to kids and families, especially if there are no instructions with what to build with it. Even multi-coloured Classic boxes have instructions.

 

Concerning Uruk-hai, they did a type of battle pack:

Four Uruk-Hai, Eomer and a generic Rohan Warrior and a horse. Plus a selection of mainly grey parts. Yet people complained about it being "just a bit of wall".

Jesus... some people don't know how lucky they were... That is a great little set, literally perfect for being an army builder/playset that can be bulked up with a couple of multiples, then you got yourself a full scale mini battle. Some people... 

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

Not to mention the figures. Those are highly sought-after nowadays.

[Gorilla94]

I know and love most of them (but espcially the dwarfs) :D I am sure they would still sell well as a 1:1 rerelease today and even outstanding if they make an updated version with the new roundshield (or even an octagonal one), more beard colours (a white or blond dwarven beard would nice to get at all as well as the brown beard in a orange or black version) and maybe one new helmet.

Of course I can´t speak for the international market, but when I was a child I would have done everything to get a box with standard tan bricks or at least yellow ones to build a pyramide and other things to expand my adventurer-sets. Today´s children might be less interested in building things without instructions than I was, but from what I can see there is still quite a demand. I get asked often by relatives with kids, where to get big amounts of certain colours for a reasonable price... and have no answer except flea markets or chinese fake bricks. I also hear toy shop owners ranting about the new brick boxes and how they could sell the old ones with a few basic colours while the new ones completely fail. If there are for example wall texture bricks, some plates and arches there could be some instructions for Wall designs and stuff like this, too. I don´t say every set should be like that, but if we take one terrible filler set every year and replace it with such a brick-box it would surely not be the worst Idea.

To be honest I think Lotr and the Hobbit are just something completely different than a generic original lego fantasy theme: They have lots of named characters with very specific and detailed outfits and settings that are not ideal for Lego playsets. The Dwarfs need their individual beard moulds. The Rohirim are no SW-clonetrooper army. It hurts, that for example Eowyn is missing - a problem original Lego themes just don´t have, if there are just the characters they release. Helm´s deep is supposed to be ugly and while I really love the Minifigures (except for the poorly excuted berserker) the lego set is ugly bacause of that, too. So is the orc forge. Moria´s atmosphere lives 99% from the light and how big the place is. You can´t really reproduce this in a Lego set... A generic castle theme that is planned from scratch to look good as a toy does not suffer from these problems. Perfection is pretty much impossible this way, but it could still have been handeled much better. For example the Erebor set could have had a paper background like the old Studio sets to show the big cave full of gold. The box art looks awesome. The final product like a bad joke (except for the perfect Smaug). There were so many bad choices done by Lego in terms of which sceenes were made into sets, where the effort for example in terms of moulds was put in (Master of Laketown got an exclusive mould. No Thror, no Orcrist, No Sauron, No Witchking, no Narsil...)... and the worst was the price politics. Today the Uruk Hai attack looks nice next to the 501 battle pack, but back then the price of many sets the line had (Weathertop without any new moulds for 80€) were just ridiculous. So was the distribtion of minifigures. You need the whole first hobbit wave to get all 13 dwarfs and nearly all lotr-sets wave 1 to get the fellowship. To get that gorgeous Smaug you had to spend 130€ for pretty much nothing besides him. Especially Dwalins green Torso and Trans green axe were insultingly ugly (and comletely inaccurate). Azog was in 2 expensive sets... I say expensive instead of big on purpose thinking about the battle of five minifigures with Dain even reusing Gloins face print. These are the basics most people want before thinking about getting more orcs. Who has money left to start the generic bad guys army building after that even if that set then had a reasonable price point?

A pack of 4 Dwarfs with toros and legs designed from the scratch to be switched with each other and still look good, different beards and helmets would give people an insane amount of good looking combinations - something you can´t do with the 2 Rohirim of which one screams "This is Eomers helmet and torso" right at your eyes.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Gorilla94

[MAB]

3 hours ago, BrickHat said:

Not to mention the figures. Those are highly sought-after nowadays.

Yes but sold badly at the time. I bought a couple of dozen sets at £12 (~$15) each.

 

1 hour ago, Gorilla94 said:

 Moria´s atmosphere lives 99% from the light and how big the place is. You can´t really reproduce this in a Lego set....... For example the Erebor set could have had a paper background like the old Studio sets to show the big cave full of gold. The box art looks awesome. The final product like a bad joke (except for the perfect Smaug). There were so many bad choices done by Lego in terms of which sceenes were made into sets, 

Pretty much the same language at the time. Complaints that the Mines of Moria was just walls and not a complete mine, Lonely Mountain should have been enclosed, Weathertop too small, etc.

 

1 hour ago, Gorilla94 said:

 

A pack of 4 Dwarfs with toros and legs designed from the scratch to be switched with each other and still look good, different beards and helmets would give people an insane amount of good looking combinations - something you can´t do with the 2 Rohirim of which one screams "This is Eomers helmet and torso" right at your eyes.

There have been plenty of torsos for Rohirrim (and dwarves and elves) over the years. From Castle, CMFs, etc. 

1 hour ago, Gorilla94 said:

These are the basics most people want before thinking about getting more orcs. Who has money left to start the generic bad guys army building after that even if that set then had a reasonable price point?

 

This is an argument against battle packs. If people aren't going to army build (and what is the point of a good army of you don't have the bad) until they have the key figures then battle packs would not sell. 

1 hour ago, Gorilla94 said:

 (Weathertop without any new moulds for 80€) were just ridiculous. 

Here it was £50, but regularly 1/3 off. I think the only one I had to pay full price for was Orthanc, that was d2c, but got it for double points so roughly 10%.

 

1 hour ago, Gorilla94 said:

So was the distribtion of minifigures. You need the whole first hobbit wave to get all 13 dwarfs and nearly all lotr-sets wave 1 to get the fellowship. 

But then if they do all the important minifigures in cheap sets, or just a couple of sets, the other sets will not sell as well. They know (licensed) minifigs sell sets.

[gedren_y]

Those blister packs sold like crazy. I actually bought the Fantasy Era Dwarves' Mine, and I could have used at least two of them to fill it out. Restoring those kinds of sets would be great hit, and if they were able to include a fold-out cardboard backdrop for display that would be ideal.

I think the best way to go about it, though, would be to market them as add-ons to 3-in-1 Creator sets. Right now there is a Pirates 3-in-1 (and an Ideas set) that could benefit from something like this. There are enough existing molds to do this for four years without having to rely on another theme's budget to create a part they might need. There are even some molds from Nexo Knights that, if in the right color, could be used. (Okay, now I'm inspired.)

[TeriXeri]

I'd also love to see another minifigure based Chess set, they can work as themed army sets as well.

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by TeriXeri

[MAB]

On 11/3/2020 at 7:49 PM, gedren_y said:

 

I think the best way to go about it, though, would be to market them as add-ons to 3-in-1 Creator sets. Right now there is a Pirates 3-in-1 (and an Ideas set) that could benefit from something like this. There are enough existing molds to do this for four years without having to rely on another theme's budget to create a part they might need. There are even some molds from Nexo Knights that, if in the right color, could be used. (Okay, now I'm inspired.)

That would mean that 3in1 sets -at least the ones linked to minifigs packs- would need to be designed at minifig scale. While some are, some are not. I don't see the need to link them to any theme. For example, if it makes sense to do a Ninjago or Monkie Kid pack, then do it. Linking them just to Creator would limit the number of them.

Of course a big difference now to then is the number of ways minifigs are sold. We now have CMFs, BAM and seasonal blister packs in store.

[Lion King]

3 hours ago, MAB said:

 

Of course a big difference now to then is the number of ways minifigs are sold. We now have CMFs, BAM and seasonal blister packs in store.

What does BAM stand for?

[LettuceBrick]

1 hour ago, DBlegonerd7 said:

What does BAM stand for?

Build-A-Minifig at Lego stores.

[Lion King]

3 hours ago, LettuceBrick said:

Build-A-Minifig at Lego stores.

Ah, ok. Thanks! :) 

[Gorilla94]

On 11/3/2020 at 8:02 PM, MAB said:

Pretty much the same language at the time. Complaints that the Mines of Moria was just walls and not a complete mine, Lonely Mountain should have been enclosed, Weathertop too small, etc.

 

There have been plenty of torsos for Rohirrim (and dwarves and elves) over the years. From Castle, CMFs, etc. 

This is an argument against battle packs. If people aren't going to army build (and what is the point of a good army of you don't have the bad) until they have the key figures then battle packs would not sell. 

Here it was £50, but regularly 1/3 off. I think the only one I had to pay full price for was Orthanc, that was d2c, but got it for double points so roughly 10%.

 

But then if they do all the important minifigures in cheap sets, or just a couple of sets, the other sets will not sell as well. They know (licensed) minifigs sell sets.

Oh, I don´t say we must have a complete mine. I just say that this set wasn´t that great and I ask myself why something that can´t become an A+ set no matter how well it would be executed (which the mines of moria set was not) is chosen to be release, while there are better options that stay ignored. There are people that would buy a big amount of cave troll and Moria Orc battlepacks and build Moria with there own bricks. Those won´t buy 50 80€-Sets. Children as the main target group had so many cool sets to choose from... why should they buy a gray wall? Because they are such hardcore fans of a very mature 3h 48 (the mouth of Sauron makes it seem Lego expects them to know the extended version) movie that has a very slow pacing few kids could stand even if it was much much, much shorter? If we want to do a Moria set it could be done with a smaller Balrog-Set including two fellowship members... that would sell to hardcorefans as well as children who don´t know the movies at all. A 40/50€ set is also in a price range that is less limited to christmas or birthday presents. My critisism about Weathertop isn´t exactly that it is too small. While I don´t like the SW microfighters, I completely understand why many children like them as a fun little toy or at least as a quite cheap way to get certain figures. Personally I´d think that a microfighter Ringwraith on a little brickbuild dragon would have been a good little set because of those reasons. Weathertop has much in common with a microfighter in terms of scaling down and simplification. My critisism is that Weathertop is just not working that way. I would honestly not be able to recognise it as Weathertop at the first moment, children who don´t know the movies don´t really care much about a little pile of bricks with stairs and it is much to expensive for a "there are some nice figures and a bunch of random bricks"-set. Again: A Nazgul or even the Witchking with a new helmet mould on a brickbuild fellbeast would have sold like sliced bread to all kinds of target groups.

That´s quite true depending on how good the result should look and how much money you want to invest (is it ok, if Rohan soldiers have dragons on their armor? Should they have printed legs that fit with the torso? The really good ones are in my opinion 3 ones from vikings, one from prince of persia, the hun warrior´s from cmf series 12 and the ghost kight´s torso from series 19. Getting printed legs for the vikings and the Ghost are a pain.). But if we argue that you can use bricklink to compensate the insufficiencies of sets, we also can´t critisize missing pieces or smeared prints anymore.

Depends strongly on the licence in my opinion to be honest. Middle Earth has "a problem" in that regard because there are so many important named characters and the narrative of lotr and the hobbit is in both cases basically a long connected journey of a fellowship. Star Wars the clone wars on the other hand was mostly about combats between clones and droids with a small amount of named non-clone characters in pretty much each episode. With one set including one of the separatist leaders and a Jedi you were ready to go army building clones and droids, which all looked the same. There was pretty much no set multibles of would not have been usefull to 95%. This way the Rohan soldier and Eomer suffer from quite the same problem like the 2 Jedi knights in the clone trooper battlepack about two years ago. Like I said: I see Middle Earth as a challanging theme to make really good sets of compared to a original Lego theme created with sets in mind and some choices done by Lego in trying to do so were pretty bad on top of that.

I am happy for you to get them for a reasonable price at your place. I really am. But that doesn´t change that the original prices were especially for that time very high. And having to look for big sales to even start with collecting the theme is a really bad thing if you want to get people into it. That is why the literally "great" hall from Harry Potter was the right way to start the theme while giving no way of at least getting Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas in one set was pure greed and/or stupidity.

Well... Again I´d say that is a question of the theme. Super hero sets sell pretty much just because of the figures and not because of a strange vehicle nobody knows. For the Harry Potter sets the hogwards castle builds play a much bigger role. For Star Wars it depends strongly on the ship or building if it is disirable. For Middle Earth it is a bit like this, too. Baggins end is an adorable set with a beloved location. It would also have even sold with less awesome Minifigures. On the other hand pretty much nobody asked for the Battle of the five minifigures ruins.

 

 

[gedren_y]

@Gorilla94, a lot of your issues with the LOTR/Hobbit sets are valid from an FOL point of view. They were specifically targeted at LOTR fans (non-FOLs), though, which is why the first theme based on the movies was accompanied by a Castle theme targeted at kids too young to see the movies. Many sets were designed for collectors, with shelf display in mind. Existing FOLs who were also Middle Earth fans had long been making MOCs that surpassed even the movies' depiction of what was in the books. As with most licensed sets, these were intended to get non-FOLs into buying LEGO. I agree that LEGO got greedy in how they distributed the characters, because serious collectors are often willing to spend far more than the average FOL.

If you aren't a serious Middle Earth fan, however, you can completely ignore the character association with the prints. For army builders, Mirkwood Elf Army was probably the best of the whole line.

Edited November 8, 2020 by gedren_y

[MAB]

8 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

There are people that would buy a big amount of cave troll and Moria Orc battlepacks and build Moria with there own bricks. Those won´t buy 50 80€-Sets. Children as the main target group had so many cool sets to choose from... why should they buy a gray wall? Because they are such hardcore fans of a very mature 3h 48 (the mouth of Sauron makes it seem Lego expects them to know the extended version) movie that has a very slow pacing few kids could stand even if it was much much, much shorter? If we want to do a Moria set it could be done with a smaller Balrog-Set including two fellowship members... that would sell to hardcorefans as well as children who don´t know the movies at all. A 40/50€ set is also in a price range that is less limited to christmas or birthday presents. 

 

I don't really get your argument. If children that don't know the movies don't want the existing Mines of Moria set based on a very mature, slow paced almost four hour movie, then why would they want a smaller set based on the same movie with two characters they don't know and a monster called a Balrog that they have never heard of? Sure, they could have made all the LOTR sets as smaller sets, but remember LEGO ranges tend to have sets at different price points. There were already small sets at lower price points such as a grey wizard with a small person in a horse drawn cart that can sell to children that don't know the movies.

[DaleDVM]

This year the usual toy expo conventions where we find out about next years sets have been cancelled.  So I wonder what type of schedule we will see for the release of official LEGO information.

[MAB]

21 minutes ago, DaleDVM said:

This year the usual toy expo conventions where we find out about next years sets have been cancelled.  So I wonder what type of schedule we will see for the release of official LEGO information.

I imagine that the company buyer representatives that usually attend will get the information somehow, but whether the independent LEGO press get access to these is another matter. It will certainly be interesting concerning leaks of information.

[Gorilla94]

On 11/8/2020 at 11:58 PM, MAB said:

I don't really get your argument. If children that don't know the movies don't want the existing Mines of Moria set based on a very mature, slow paced almost four hour movie, then why would they want a smaller set based on the same movie with two characters they don't know and a monster called a Balrog that they have never heard of? Sure, they could have made all the LOTR sets as smaller sets, but remember LEGO ranges tend to have sets at different price points. There were already small sets at lower price points such as a grey wizard with a small person in a horse drawn cart that can sell to children that don't know the movies.

Well... a Balrog or Fellbeast without knowlege of the movies is still a cool demon/dragonlike monster...while boring gray wall is a boring gray wall. Gandalf for example is a nice Wizard minifig no matter if you see him as the Gandalf the Grey or a generic Wizard. Size does not matter in that scenario. If there have to be big sets, there would have been opportunities to do sets that feel like "ok, everything about this set is at least nice to have and worth the money the set could have been cheaper without it". That's what I mean with that there were bad choice made. The Witchking in his rotk design is just cool. Saurons mouth is well made as a figure but he is supposed to be disgusting. Without fandom love there are less people that would like to have hin than the Witchking. A Thror minifig would still have been a golden dwarfen king. The master of laketown on the other Hand is a strange guy with an even stranger hat and an ugly face. All I say is when planing the sets they should have had that in mind what could still be desirable if these are vieved as generic sets.