Future Castle Sets?

[1974]

Well, there seem to be a metric ton of LEGO sites/blogs etc these days (not to meantion SoME in general, sigh) and I only follow, BL, EB, BS and NE as they're (thankfully) different enough. I've read your reviews and comments and it's easy to spot your love for NE

I'd love to wite some Old Elementary articles but taking pictures is just too damn boring

Looking at modern LEGO instructions online is very painfull so I get why you like detailed pics

OT is my middle name

Anyway, when are the reviews out for this set? That grainy pic on the tube is not very exciting

And if really only is a hundred dollars the best the modern Castle builders can do is to buy a LOT of them. That should send a clear message to Billund!

[Alexandrina]

Wow...

I have to say, I am enamoured with this set already, and (stock willing) it's gonna be a Day One purchase for me. It feels different to the usual casuals we get, and I much prefer that style of helmet to the one used in the Blacksmith (even if I did order half a dozen of the closed style from B&P!) It's too early imo to really judge the civilian minifigure, since I can't make out what any of the parts are - but no hennin, once again. Guess I'm gonna have to keep on hoping for a full theme with a nice range of civilian minifigures.

[eldiano]

I’m not taking chances on this set, after missing out on the Classic TV Series Batmobile in the lego store this morning by minutes this is not happening on June 1st! 

[Lord Insanity]

That Creator 3 in 1 Castle is fantastic.  I expected it to be colorful but I didn't think it would work nearly as well as it does.  I can't wait to see better pictures to decide just how many of these are worth buying.  At least one for sure based on just the blurry preliminary picture.

At first the red on the banners seems mismatched but we can just assume there is a festival or they are hosting games with a neighboring kingdom or something.  Of course being LEGO we can always switch that to blue ourselves.  After all even 6081 King's Mountain Fortress had the wrong color flags for that faction.  (Blue when it should have been yellow.  As a kid I it annoyed me but I had extra yellow flags so I could swap them out.  It did really bug me that LEGO would make such an obvious mistake so I don't buy the whole "kids don't care" argument.)

6 hours ago, BrickHat said:

Of course, I understand the desire to build an army of these little guys! However, given that Lego seems to be having trouble keeping stock available, it would seem they shouldn't allow customers to order hundreds in a single order, at least until they can provide a larger supply (saw a Castle fan on Instagram that keeps ordering batches of 200 ).

No no no.  The problem is LEGO grossly underestimated demand and needs to make more to sell.  Never place limits, make more of them! 

The fact that Black Falcon parts are constantly selling out is by far and away the best way for LEGO to get the message that there is money to be made on the Castle line.  Vote with your wallet and order as many as you can use when ever they become available.  The longer those parts constantly sell out the "louder" the message gets that Castle is profitable.

[DaleDVM]

Finally some pictures...

I think the set is good for a 3in1.  I also like the more civilian nature of the build and this makes it unique in my eyes.  It is even less militaristic looking than the BF's original castle with its yellow tudor pieces.  I agree with others that the incoherent color scheme for the heraldry is less attractive, but I do understand how they like to include a lot of different colors in 3in1 sets.

This set is not nearly as useful for parts to me personally as "normal" castle sets due to the lack unique/new castle parts or prints we typically get with a castle theme. Obviously there are not a lot of details yet but from my cursory examination I can't see a single element that compels me to buy in multiples.  Yet, I will buy a half dozen anyway because there has been zero castle for so very long.  The BF soldiers in this set may make army collecting on B&P easier, but 2 black falcons in this $100 set in no way helps any army collector directly.  

Very disappointed in the pirate looking striped shirt on the civilian.  That is literally the most important part in this set in my eyes.  A new civilian would have been something for me to collect in large numbers.  Now there is literally no element in this set (aside from the BFs) that excites me.  

Sorry to the earlier poster (about the civilian figure), but I don't think you get it.  We are not deciding whether to buy a $100 set or not because of that one minifig. But...  Buying an existing peasant on Bricklink to replace that fig does not help anyone out.  I have tons of civilian figs to replace that fig with. (and to be completely honest I will likely never even build this set)  This is not about one minifig to occupy my 3in1 set.  LEGO sets are how I collect pieces for MOCing with.  Currently, there is a drastic shortage of period appropriate civilians, they can be quite expensive, and most importantly they lack variety.  Most of us castle collectors were hoping for a new civilian to populate our MOCs and take the buying pressure off of minifigs that haven't been available from TLG for over a decade now.  

In conclusion, I am glad they made this 3in1.  It is certainly better than no castle at all.  However, like the more beautiful blacksmith set, it doesn't offer enough of the medieval parts I so desire.  I am still in need of the elements that come along with a fully fleshed out castle theme like Kingdoms was.  And so... my watch on this forum continues.  I know, I am in for a long wait...  I hope everyone enjoys the castle and there is more to be excited about when we get more detailed pictures.  

[Niku]

Where are the pics??
Could you give a link, please.

 

 

Just saw it on instagram.
Not bad, but really not impressed.
I will get it, I guess.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Niku

[1974]

7 hours ago, eldiano said:

I’m not taking chances on this set, after missing out on the Classic TV Series Batmobile in the lego store this morning by minutes this is not happening on June 1st! 

This is a Creator set. It will be produced in the hundreds of thousands, if not not millions of copies. It will be available worldwide for a long time. Also scalpers will pick this up so it will be possible to buy this MISB in five years just slightly over retial

[1974]

3 hours ago, Lord Insanity said:

That Creator 3 in 1 Castle is fantastic.  I expected it to be colorful but I didn't think it would work nearly as well as it does.  I can't wait to see better pictures to decide just how many of these are worth buying.  At least one for sure based on just the blurry preliminary picture.

At first the red on the banners seems mismatched but we can just assume there is a festival or they are hosting games with a neighboring kingdom or something.  Of course being LEGO we can always switch that to blue ourselves.  After all even 6081 King's Mountain Fortress had the wrong color flags for that faction.  (Blue when it should have been yellow.  As a kid I it annoyed me but I had extra yellow flags so I could swap them out.  It did really bug me that LEGO would make such an obvious mistake so I don't buy the whole "kids don't care" argument.)

Eh? Black Falcon flags are GREEN and WHITE. As a kid I surely noticed that. And yellow/red for the Lion Knights. That is the the way

But TLG never could keep it straight

Single BF knight in 6021 (1984) - blue flag

Single BF knight in 6067 (1986) - green flag

The 6074 BF castle (1986), knights with blue flags, gate with yellow flags, tower with blue flag (but with the cool cool silver eagle)

The 6062 wall section (1987), blue AND white flags

The actual Black Falcon knight in 6035 .. a single white flag (and a blue flag on a post)

Cheers,

Ole

[Stuartn]

I really like the look of this castle set. As for the civilian figure shirt I have a feeling it may not be a pirate shirt, as the belt looks to be the same colour as the black legs. The current blue pirate shirt has a clearly light brown belt. Also the collar looks more rounded, and while the image is very blurry, the arms do not look yellow. Considering blue is the black falcon's colour for torsos it might not be an impossibility for new print.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Stuartn

[Classic_Spaceman]

1 hour ago, Stuartn said:

As for the civilian figure shirt I have a feeling it may not be a pirate shirt, as the belt looks to be the same colour as the black legs. The current blue pirate shirt has a clearly light brown belt. Also the collar looks more rounded, and while the image is very blurry, the arms do not look yellow. 

You may actually be right -  Zooming in on the image, I cannot see any yellow on the shoulders, and the belt appears to be thinner than the one that is on the pirate torso. I certainly hope that you are right! 
 

[Flak Maniak]

I am about to talk about Vidiyo, but I promise this post makes sense in a castle thread.

See... Whenever they show new Vidiyo figures... I understand how the no-fantasy-allowed castle fans feel, when they see fantasy-oriented castle-ish sets. Because here I am, looking for fantasy minifigures, and... Then I see all these Vidiyo ones that are kind of close, but so, so far. "Too outlandish!", I say to myself. The exact same thing a no-fantasy castle fan would say upon seeing fantasy-oriented castle sets. Just, I'm one step removed from them. And then the next person after me loves how wacky the Vidiyo figures are, but thinks that the hypothetical semi-abstract modern art minifigures go too far... It's all a matter of perspective.

Though, I will justify myself, in that minifigures are irreducible, unlike sets-in-general. If they made some fantasy-ish castle line right now (no not Nexo Knights), that had fairly normal human knights, alongside orcs and elves and whatnot, I would feel fine telling the no-fantasy-allowed crowd that they should be satisfied, because they can just buy the non-fantasy figures (on B&P probably), and that should be good enough. Having "some reasonable new figures" is the important thing.

Actual set designs don't matter; parts are what matter. You build your own castle! If we get cheap access to useful parts in high quantities, and the few unique things (minifigure prints, sometimes minifigure accessories) that can't be made from really common parts... Then that's fine, and Lego has done right by us.

(Hmm, point of comparison, whenever Ninjago does some really fancy thing, like the movie Destiny's Bounty, remember all the people asking, well, how do we make it more boring/historical, remove the fantastical elements?)

At any rate, it's great that they saw fit to have a dragon in the castle, but, as I said in the other post... It's very small! Again, not asking for some Castle of the Forsaken Emperor situation here, but... The dragon needs to be imposing! It needs to look like it should pose a threat to this castle! (And no I obviously won't ask for a molded dragon, let alone in a Creator set; I won't even ask for printed eyes like on a Ninjago dragon. Only for it to be larger. I don't even mind the green; I think it's a nice callback to the old green dragons. Dragons don't always have to be red-and-black.)

[TheLegoDr]

12 hours ago, Lord Insanity said:

At first the red on the banners seems mismatched but we can just assume there is a festival or they are hosting games with a neighboring kingdom or something.  Of course being LEGO we can always switch that to blue ourselves.  After all even 6081 King's Mountain Fortress had the wrong color flags for that faction.  (Blue when it should have been yellow.  As a kid I it annoyed me but I had extra yellow flags so I could swap them out.  It did really bug me that LEGO would make such an obvious mistake so I don't buy the whole "kids don't care" argument.)

I will be in the camp of "kids don't care" because I am a grown up looking at the pictures and realizing they have different flags. Red/blue made sense for Crusaders castle considering their torsos were red/blue. I wouldn't want yellow anywhere near there. But sure enough per Brickset, I can see they had single yellow flags on some sets. White on others. Even the Forestmen River Fortress (one of my favorites as a kid) has red/white flags for them even though they are a more green/brown faction. And to me, it worked. so . It looks like everyone has their own preference either way.

[Modal]

Hey Lego, take all the money you’re putting into Vidiyo that is going down the drain, and put it into a Creator Expert Castle. Just made you a huge profit, you’re welcome 

[Aanchir]

2 hours ago, Modal said:

Hey Lego, take all the money you’re putting into Vidiyo that is going down the drain, and put it into a Creator Expert Castle. Just made you a huge profit, you’re welcome 

I think if expert-level castle sets were guaranteed money-makers, LEGO would've figured that out after the Medieval Market Village and Kingdoms Joust. Certainly, their 12+ age marking was several steps below today's 18+ sets, but they were on par with the Winter Village sets of their time — and unlike MMV and KJ, those were successful enough to become an annual series.

I do think that there'd likely be a market for an 18+ castle with an optimal design, but I also think that even today, it would be less of a surefire hit than stuff like the Modular Buildings or Winter Village Collection which have a well established track record of reliably strong sales.

I would certainly love to see LEGO create more sets along those lines in the future, though, especially after seeing the amazing work some of their designers have done with the Medieval Blacksmith or with castles in themes like Elves, Disney, and Harry Potter!

Edited April 27, 2021 by Aanchir

[doomguy]

The new castle set is striking and beautiful but I feel like the minifig selection is rather lacking, I would of expected a King character of some sorts, but from the pictures we've seen it looks like some pedestrian figure with that same green stripe torso from almost a decade ago. Maybe LEGO will put out some in store promo or a polybag or something.

[zoth33]

3 hours ago, doomguy said:

The new castle set is striking and beautiful but I feel like the minifig selection is rather lacking, I would of expected a King character of some sorts, but from the pictures we've seen it looks like some pedestrian figure with that same green stripe torso from almost a decade ago. Maybe LEGO will put out some in store promo or a polybag or something.

It's a 3in1 set the figs aren't the focal point.  We were hoping for a king but we didn't get one.  The other fig is just a civilian.  They won't put out a polybag for this.  We will just have to hope for more ideas sets at this point.  

 

 

[INTENSS]

6 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I think if expert-level castle sets were guaranteed money-makers, LEGO would've figured that out after the Medieval Market Village and Kingdoms Joust. Certainly, their 12+ age marking was several steps below today's 18+ sets, but they were on par with the Winter Village sets of their time — and unlike MMV and KJ, those were successful enough to become an annual series.

I do think that there'd likely be a market for an 18+ castle with an optimal design, but I also think that even today, it would be less of a surefire hit than stuff like the Modular Buildings or Winter Village Collection which have a well established track record of reliably strong sales.

I would certainly love to see LEGO create more sets along those lines in the future, though, especially after seeing the amazing work some of their designers have done with the Medieval Blacksmith or with castles in themes like Elves, Disney, and Harry Potter!

I think the Medieval Blacksmith has given a pretty good indication that an expert level castle can sell well.  The MMV and Joust sets were created over 10 years ago - that is an eternity ago when considering the current Lego market and offerings.  After all, they’re now making 18+ sets consisting of flowers, character heads, and art.

As much as I’d love a full Castle theme, I know we’re not getting one without some kind of media connection ala Nexo Knights - which means for me at least, it won’t be what I’m looking for.  Best chance is a license like LoTR to come back and give us some useful parts and inspiring sets.  In the meantime, I’ll keep grabbing my 2-3 copies of Medieval Blacksmiths and 3 in 1 Creator sets and hitting up Bricks & Pieces to expand my armies/parts.

Let’s hope they keep this ball rolling with a castle inspired set here and there going forward...

 

[Lord Insanity]

 

18 hours ago, 1974 said:

Eh? Black Falcon flags are GREEN and WHITE. As a kid I surely noticed that. And yellow/red for the Lion Knights. That is the the way

But TLG never could keep it straight

Single BF knight in 6021 (1984) - blue flag

Single BF knight in 6067 (1986) - green flag

The 6074 BF castle (1986), knights with blue flags, gate with yellow flags, tower with blue flag (but with the cool cool silver eagle)

The 6062 wall section (1987), blue AND white flags

The actual Black Falcon knight in 6035 .. a single white flag (and a blue flag on a post)

Cheers,

Ole

Weird.  Looking at the six (seven counting the legend re-release of 6074) Black Falcon sets on Brickset.  I never realized 6073 from 1984 used green.  I always saw 6062, 6035, and 6074 from the 1987 product book as being the main Black Falcon faction.  Those three all use blue.  6030 was in the '87 book but I always just thought that was a screw up as all the inspiration images in that book used white and blue for the Falcons.  The only actual Falcon figures I had as a kid were from 6103 which didn't have flags all and 6059 which used blue for the Falcon knight.  I did snap up the legend re-release of 6074 (10039) when that came out in 2002 of course that still used blue.  All the Lion Knights used yellow and red.  A few years later the Black Knights all used red and blue.  The '87 - '92 range were pretty consistent with flag colors except for 6081 containing Lion Knights but using Black Knights flags.  Oddly Brickset has 6081 listed under Crusaders but they just look like Lion Knights to me.

Well the beauty of the banners on the new Creator castle being brick built, we can make them what ever color we want.  I guess the actual flag parts being blue is a bummer if you wanted green though.  I suspect the main homage (if any) was meant to invoke 6074 with the blue flags and yellow Tudor walls.

 

1 hour ago, zoth33 said:

We were hoping for a king but we didn't get one.  The other fig is just a civilian.

Well I am glad there is no king.  A civilian is far more useful to get multiples of if you wind up getting more than one set.  Kings are really cheap on bricklink compared to civilians.

[Rockstaremcee]

On 4/14/2021 at 11:44 AM, Shroffy123 said:

To end the suffering I think ill give up on castle, and start collecting city sets. Skyscrapers are easier to build anyways. (With my luck Lego will probably stop making city sets once I've amassed a significant amount of lego city)

Thanks for that, I just (seemingly out of nowhere) started laughing out loud at work.  Luckily, people won't think I'm crazy, they already know I am.

[zoth33]

15 minutes ago, Lord Insanity said:

 

Weird.  Looking at the six (seven counting the legend re-release of 6074) Black Falcon sets on Brickset.  I never realized 6073 from 1984 used green.  I always saw 6062, 6035, and 6074 from the 1987 product book as being the main Black Falcon faction.  Those three all use blue.  6030 was in the '87 book but I always just thought that was a screw up as all the inspiration images in that book used white and blue for the Falcons.  The only actual Falcon figures I had as a kid were from 6103 which didn't have flags all and 6059 which used blue for the Falcon knight.  I did snap up the legend re-release of 6074 (10039) when that came out in 2002 of course that still used blue.  All the Lion Knights used yellow and red.  A few years later the Black Knights all used red and blue.  The '87 - '92 range were pretty consistent with flag colors except for 6081 containing Lion Knights but using Black Knights flags.  Oddly Brickset has 6081 listed under Crusaders but they just look like Lion Knights to me.

Well the beauty of the banners on the new Creator castle being brick built, we can make them what ever color we want.  I guess the actual flag parts being blue is a bummer if you wanted green though.  I suspect the main homage (if any) was meant to invoke 6074 with the blue flags and yellow Tudor walls.

 

Well I am glad there is no king.  A civilian is far more useful to get multiples of if you wind up getting more than one set.  Kings are really cheap on bricklink compared to civilians.

I was hoping for a king without the crown just in some regal attire and a civilian.  I'm good with civilians.  I will take any castle figs we can get at this point.  

[RichardGoring]

1 minute ago, zoth33 said:

I was hoping for a king without the crown just in some regal attire and a civilian.  I'm good with civilians.  I will take any castle figs we can get at this point.  

If you're near a LEGO Store, the Build A Minifigure selection is pretty good at the moment, with several elements related to castle-type figures. I've had two wizards, several knights (all in green though), and what could be a mayor, or maybe king torso.

[Lord Insanity]

 

14 minutes ago, zoth33 said:

I was hoping for a king without the crown just in some regal attire and a civilian.  I'm good with civilians.  I will take any castle figs we can get at this point.  

So more like a noble civilian.  Those are even more rare than peasant civilians in LEGO sets.  That would have been nice.

[Csc167]

43 minutes ago, RichardGoring said:

If you're near a LEGO Store, the Build A Minifigure selection is pretty good at the moment, with several elements related to castle-type figures. I've had two wizards, several knights (all in green though), and what could be a mayor, or maybe king torso.

Is there a photo of the green knights you are referring to?

[1974]

4 hours ago, Lord Insanity said:

Oddly Brickset has 6081 listed under Crusaders but they just look like Lion Knights to me.

The Crusaders ARE the Lion Knights. Never like that word "crusader" myself, too much baggage

Btw, I never called the BF "Black Falcons" when I was a kid, they were always Ørneridderne (Eagle Knights)

The 200 IDEA Book is also very consistent with the red/yellow flags for the Lions and green/white ones for the Falcons

Edited April 28, 2021 by 1974

[TeriXeri]

I actually don't mind the colors, as it'll work well with other Creator 3-in-1 sets parts.