Future Castle Sets?

[TeriXeri]

11 minutes ago, 1974 said:

I'm all for TLG being all inclusive. They have to now they painted themselves up in a corner with the diversity of minifig heads (and bodies)

And that's why I hope LEGO sticks to yellow figs in their non-licensed themes, otherwise it just gets more and more complicated and limited.

Edited May 3, 2021 by TeriXeri

[1974]

Just switch to the generic smiley face like me and it's your imagination that decides the gender

[brimbolet]

The official pictures convinced me to buy the Ideas blacksmith first, after all. It's a great Creator set, but at the same price/piece ratio the blacksmith is much better. 

[TeriXeri]

17 minutes ago, brimbolet said:

The official pictures convinced me to buy the Ideas blacksmith first, after all. It's a great Creator set, but at the same price/piece ratio the blacksmith is much better. 

I got the Blacksmith as well when there was a 15% off, since the set is somehow €170 otherwise in my country, IDEAS are rarely discounted for more here.

I love how close it looks to a Warcraft building.

But Creator has a benefit of reaching over 25+% off regularly, so getting 2 Castles for the price of 1 Blacksmith is certainly possible. (varies per region I suppose)

2 Castles would be ~2800 pieces, vs ~2100 , of course not taking into account the actual pieces themselves, but yes, at full price, Blacksmith has better PPP, especially in countries where the base retail is €150 or so, instead of €170.

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Aanchir]

7 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

In the current day I don't think it's that weird, LEGO formerly pretty much had just smiley faces, and pretty much the only hints of female figs used to be princesses or queens based on outfit, but the smiley face in the end was genderless. 

Since Nexo Knights (and perhaps before that with Nya in Ninjago), LEGO sort of pushed for more female knights with Princess Macy and her mother the Queen appearing in battle armor.

You can arguably trace some of these trends back even further — one of the main characters in the Knights' Kingdom sets from 2000 was "Princess Storm", a princess training to be a knight, who wears full armor in all of her set appearances. Likewise, the Ninja theme introduced the White Ninja Princess in 1998 and a female green ninja in 2000.

And let's not forget the Forestwoman minifigure from all the way back in 1990! Although Forestmen and Ninja, as outlaws, aren't as beholden to the customs of their time as knights would typically be, LEGO clearly recognized even back then that there was an appetite among kids for female characters who could fight alongside their male cohorts.

In the end, details like this can help make medieval-inspired sets slightly less alienating to girls and women, but are minor enough that they're unlikely to drive away prospective male buyers. So if we want medieval-inspired sets to succeed, allowing for the occasional female knight certainly shouldn't hurt their chances!

7 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Of course I fully understand it can be weird when seen from a real-life historic perspective but that's easily fixed by swapping heads.

Yep — and in fact, the heads DO get swapped in the B-model (Market/Castle Town), where the female head is used with the civilian torso for a merchant/shopkeeper.

All in all, female knights were definitely not common historically, but they certainly existed, which can't be said for dragons! And even in less fantasy-heavy sets, LEGO tends to focus not just on whatever sort of medieval subject matter would have been most typical, but also what sort of medieval subject matter will be most exciting and interesting.Female knights certainly seem like they fall into that category — after all, even back in medieval times, tales of various "warrior women" often acquired the same sort of legendary status as tales of heroic outlaws like Robin Hood! Needless to say, if we can accept the entire Robin Hood inspired Forestmen faction as historical enough for LEGO Castle, then I don't think there's any need to quibble over the occasional female knight or soldier minifigure.

15 hours ago, Chiaroscuro said:

Being able to fold it is a plus, but even folded it wouldn´t look properly right, as the towers are still open back and interior visible.

Has there ever been a castle set that WASN'T like that? I certainly can't think of any. Closing off the towers from all sides would render their interiors pretty much useless from a playability standpoint, not to mention make it harder for minifigs to move around the castle walls.

If anything, my own frustration with the towers isn't the open sides, but the lack of ladders! But I suppose including ladders might have required sacrifices in other areas of the set.

By the way, another detail I recently noticed — the outcropping on the side of the front-left tower appears to be a garderobe-style toilet! In the interior pics, you can see what appears to be a roll of toilet paper in the tower next to that outcropping (a historical inaccuracy, of course —  back then, a sponge or rag would've likely been used instead, but presumably LEGO felt like a toilet paper roll would more clearly communicate its purpose more easily to kids). I think this might be a first for LEGO castles, regardless of theme! And it's definitely the sort of "lifestyle" detail I greatly appreciate.

1 hour ago, kabel said:

A real castle set, who would have thought that after all these years. If only it didn't have all that dark blue all over the set ...

What's wrong with dark blue? I feel like it's a fairly believable color for slate roofs. I understand why Bright Red or Bright Blue roofs like in Kingdoms or traditional Castle sets might be too vibrant for many people's tastes, but limiting castle roofs to dull colors like black, grey, and brown would start to get boring really quickly, and would give castles of different factions fewer ways of standing out from one another.

[TeriXeri]

13 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

What's wrong with dark blue? I feel like it's a fairly believable color for slate roofs. I understand why Bright Red or Bright Blue roofs like in Kingdoms or traditional Castle sets might be too vibrant for many people's tastes, but limiting castle roofs to dull colors like black, grey, and brown would start to get boring really quickly, and would give castles of different factions fewer ways of standing out from one another.

I actually think Dark Blue is a perfect color for roof accents on a blue-shirted faction like the Falcons, but that's because I might be used to it from the Warcraft universe, Blue is the main color of the Alliance and their roofs and banners.

Darkblue was also the main color of Clay of Nexo Knights, and he just happens to have the Falcons emblem as his symbol as well.

Black roofs would look way too dark for a Creator set, and red roof just don't go with a Falcons faction, but would fit something like Crusaders or Dragon Knights (or the exception 2010/2012 version of Lion Knights)

Bright blue roofs were in multiple Lion factions (1995/2000/2013 and also is the color of the Knighton Kingdom which also had a Lion)

That said, if LEGO makes something like a darker Castle, Red/Black/Darkgrey main colors could still work, just not for Falcons, but rather some Dragon / Bull / Batlord faction.

 

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Aanchir]

1 minute ago, TeriXeri said:

I actually think Dark Blue is a perfect color for roof accents on a blue-shirted faction like the Falcons, but that's because I might be used to it from the Warcraft universe, Blue is the main color of the Alliance and their roofs and banners. 

True! I've never played Warcraft, but my wife is REALLY into World of Warcraft. Truth be told, pretty much every time I watch her play, it reminds me how much I miss LEGO Elves and all of its colorful, fantastical creatures and settings. I don't mind "traditional" Castle stuff like this 3-in-1 Castle or the Medieval Blacksmith as long as it has enough creative and interesting details, but I suppose that "otherworldly" sort of high fantasy is still a weakness of mine.

[brimbolet]

49 minutes ago, TeriXeri said:

I got the Blacksmith as well when there was a 15% off, since the set is somehow €170 otherwise in my country, IDEAS are rarely discounted for more here.

Yeah, I know that dilemma... that's why I usually wait some months before buying an Ideas or Creator Expert set.

7 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

Truth be told, pretty much every time I watch her play, it reminds me how much I miss LEGO Elves and all of its colorful, fantastical creatures and settings.

Please no! No Minidoll elves and gentle dwarfs before a proper sinister Fantasy wave... unless Lego promises to make a huge LOTR comeback! Then I'll accept even a purple dragon.

[Aanchir]

1 hour ago, brimbolet said:

Please no! No Minidoll elves and gentle dwarfs before a proper sinister Fantasy wave... unless Lego promises to make a huge LOTR comeback! Then I'll accept even a purple dragon.

"Gentle dwarfs?" Are you referring to the goblins from the 2017 sets? 'Cuz I'd hardly describe them as "gentle"!

Anyway, you can relax — regardless of my own nostalgia for LEGO Elves, there's no reason to think it couldn't coexist with a minifig-based fantasy theme. And I'd probably be able to enjoy a new medieval fantasy theme whether it uses minifigs or mini-dolls, even if one with minifigs didn't appeal to me on ALL the same levels that LEGO Elves did.

After all, my favorite current theme is LEGO Ninjago, and its use of minifigs certainly doesn't detract from my enjoyment one bit!

[danth]

Wow, this set is unbelievably good.

I wasn't totally sure on the colors but the new pics show them better. The shades of brown and yellow look good together, better than the old yellow-on-black panels IMO which had almost too much contrast. The dark blue roofs are nice too.

The red and white flags are kinda surprising for Black Falcons but yellow or blue would have been too matchy with the walls/roofs.

There is one glaring flaw: the pirate torso. That's just ludicrous. Surely they had better choices than that.

But other than that, I must kiss my fingertips. The only question is, how many of these do I need?

[1974]

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

Has there ever been a castle set that WASN'T like that? I certainly can't think of any

Yes you can. Castles on raised baseplates

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

back then, a sponge or rag would've likely been used instead

Actually the King had "The Gentleman of the Privy Chamber" aka the Royal big behind Wiper

[Grover]

4 hours ago, kabel said:

A real castle set, who would have thought that after all these years. If only it didn't have all that dark blue all over the set ...

I was a little surprised they didn't use black for the roof pieces since the Black Falcons' Fortress used black and yellow historically.

[1974]

TLG should have used black for the roofs AND the timber work. That would have been both historically correct and have matched the 6074. However, TLG seem to be in love wiht chocolate brown and sure, it pops out more, but I'm not liking it

[Lyichir]

45 minutes ago, 1974 said:

Yes you can. Castles on raised baseplates

Even if those didn't have hinged opening, those still tended to have "open-backed" walls, no? At least for most the '90s castles I grew up with, with the exception of ones like the Fire Breathing Fortress that were so frustratingly enclosed that it could be easy to lose parts or minifigs in the "pit" in the center.. It would be a while before Lego would introduce "modular-style" builds with removable floors for accessing fully-enclosed interiors from above.

[Aanchir]

50 minutes ago, 1974 said:

Yes you can. Castles on raised baseplates

Even in most of those sets (like King's Mountain Fortress, Black Knights' Castle, Royal Knights' Castle, Dark Forest Fortress, etc), a lot of the towers, gatehouses, throne rooms, and other interiors spaces were open on at least one side — otherwise, kids would be have no easy way to reach inside to move the figures around, or to retrieve loose parts that are dropped inside by accident.

The main exception (just as in this set) was for dungeons/jail cells, since in those cases leaving one of the walls open would defeat their purpose. However, I suspect that the "break-away" walls that are often included in recent castles are meant in part to compensate for this lack of access points, in addition to their primary function of allowing for "jailbreak" play scenarios. Incidentally, there's one wall of the dungeon in this set that isn't visible in any of the pictures so far, so I'm curious whether it will have a "break-away" wall function like this.

And in the very least, this castle's A-model certainly feels more securely enclosed than the 2010 King's Castle, in which the "open" side of the throne room, treasury, and the left rear tower all faced the OUTSIDE of the castle! In this set, at least, the openings in the interior chambers all face towards the center, away from any invading armies!

[Grover]

5 minutes ago, 1974 said:

TLG should have used black for the roofs AND the timber work. That would have been both historically correct and have matched the 6074. However, TLG seem to be in love wiht chocolate brown and sure, it pops out more, but I'm not liking it

Out of all the color changes TLG has made, the loss of old brown is really sad to me.  Reddish brown is really red to my eye.  It does not look very brown and in all but the best lighting I have trouble telling it apart from dark red.

I'm happy to have the dark blue slopes, I like the idea of brown, and would have been good with black timbers as well, but the theme doesn't seem to be very consistent.  What is the red and white banners doing with the black and blue falcons and a yellow and dark blue timber/roof?  Great as a parts pack, but it seems a little confused as to what it is trying to throw back to.  Regardless, I like the set and the build and will probably get a couple, then maybe modify a few for fun!

[1974]

Yes, all had open towers etc, I think the only one would be 6077 (but is that really a castle?), but not all castles were hinged like 375, 6080 etc

Just now, Grover said:

Out of all the color changes TLG has made, the loss of old brown is really sad to me.  Reddish brown is really red to my eye.  It does not look very brown and in all but the best lighting I have trouble telling it apart from dark red.

I'm happy to have the dark blue slopes, I like the idea of brown, and would have been good with black timbers as well, but the theme doesn't seem to be very consistent.  What is the red and white banners doing with the black and blue falcons and a yellow and dark blue timber/roof?  Great as a parts pack, but it seems a little confused as to what it is trying to throw back to.  Regardless, I like the set and the build and will probably get a couple, then maybe modify a few for fun!

I'm an old fart. I marvel over all the brown bricks I have now (not sure what to do with them though). Black would have been better, imho

[Grover]

2 minutes ago, 1974 said:

Yes, all had open towers etc, I think the only one would be 6077 (but is that really a castle?), but not all castles were hinged like 375, 6080 etc

I'm an old fart. I marvel over all the brown bricks I have now (not sure what to do with them though). Black would have been better, imho 

Yeah, I'm old too.  I grew up before green and brown entered the color palette.  That being said, I think that green and brown were great additions, and I like the dark red, dark green, and dark brown, as well as sand blue and sand green for MOCcing (and sand red if they ever made it again!).  Of course, for a throwback, I would have thought that black and yellow timbers with a black roof, plus a banners of some combination of black, blue, and silver on the front would have been awesome.  I still prefer light grey and dark grey over their bluish variants, but I guess we have to live with it!

[INTENSS]

This is a great set.  The interior details exceed just about every castle we’ve ever gotten.  The colors are “meh” but we can fix that yellow/brown combo and/or dark blue roof pretty easily if need be.  I’ll be picking up 3, maybe more with sales.  My only real gripe is the civilian pirate.  Can we not get  one new torso?  I would have rather had a plain torso...

[jtooker]

20 minutes ago, Grover said:

Out of all the color changes TLG has made, the loss of old brown is really sad to me

I think the old brown and old greys worked very well for castle... and nothing else.  Bley is a much better color for space and modern looking buildings - you could say the same for reddish brown too.  So I completely understand TLG's decision.

[1974]

Green is rather old, you have to be a living fossil if that's "new" to you. The first regular brown brick was the "horse stomach" in 6066 in 1988 (the 1987 US release is rather odd), green have been around for much longer. Dark grey is also a weird colour for me, I only had one plate from the train tracks back in the 80's

[Aanchir]

1 hour ago, 1974 said:

TLG should have used black for the roofs AND the timber work. That would have been both historically correct and have matched the 6074. However, TLG seem to be in love wiht chocolate brown and sure, it pops out more, but I'm not liking it 

Would timber framing on buildings like this have actually appeared black when it was new? I always figured that it would have had a more "natural" wood look when first installed, and that surviving examples from the medieval era only look as dark as they do due to age-related weathering.

That said, I do think Dark Brown might have looked nicer than Reddish Brown in these timber-frame sections of the build, simply by virtue of having stronger contrast with the Bright Yellow infill. Alternatively, a lighter and less saturated infill color like Cool Yellow could have improved contrast in a similarly appealing way, though it might feel less like a nostalgic callback to Black Falcon's Fortress that way.

In general, when thinking about "modernized" versions of traditional sets or factions, I tend to carefully consider how many color choices back then might have been informed by the limitations of the time. For example, if LEGO were to bring back the Forestmen, I would expect the trees to be in shades of brown, as opposed to black.

Likewise, there are a lot of Castle, Pirates, Ninja, and Adventurers sets even during my childhood that used Bright Yellow for "golden" objects like goblets, decorative sword holders, statues, mummy headdresses, stands for precious gems… even locks on jail cell doors. In a modern context, I'd expect these sorts of features to be in colors like Warm Gold that more clearly communicate the material they're intended to represent, as they are in this particular set.

So from that perspective, it doesn't seem any stranger to me for a "modernized" Black Falcon faction's castle to have Dark Blue roofs than to have Dark Stone Grey walls or a Dark Azure moat.

36 minutes ago, 1974 said:

Green is rather old, you have to be a living fossil if that's "new" to you. The first regular brown brick was the "horse stomach" in 6066 in 1988 (the 1987 US release is rather odd), green have been around for much longer. Dark grey is also a weird colour for me, I only had one plate from the train tracks back in the 80's

Well, even in the early 90s when I was first getting into LEGO, basic bricks and plates in colors like green, brown, and tan were still very rare compared to other colors, even in instances where those colors would seem like an obvious choice. Case in point: the first tiles I ever owned with a printed wood grain pattern were the Bright Yellow ones from the Extreme Team Challenge set in 1998.

I remember the Aquaraiders sets being the first theme/subtheme I ever encountered that included large quantities of green parts besides plant pieces or baseplates. Likewise, the sheer number of brown and tan parts in late 90s themes like Wild West, Adventurers, and Star Wars felt pretty groundbreaking to me for that time!

Edited May 3, 2021 by Aanchir

[Flak Maniak]

I did always find it weird, looking at pictures of old sets, that Forestmen used black for their "tree" parts, and Dark Forest used brown. And, well, brown was already a color when the Forestmen debuted; you can see it in their sets!

I do think that old brown is very charming, though I'm not sure if it goes well with dark brown and, well, that's the criterion for a lightish brown color.

[DaleDVM]

I welcome the new photos, thanks for posting.  The set is better built/designed than I thought it would be.  For me it is mostly about the parts, so...

I welcome all of the castley stuff.  BFs, swords, shields, armor, helmets, etc.  Most of the parts I have in my collection have come from past castle sets.  So... some interesting parts included in this set that will add more variety my collection...  The olive and dark green slopes are very useful for landscaping and not very common.  I do not think I have any targets like the one in the set.  Not sure if that is a new print or not.  The Nexo knight shields in light bley will be useful.  The dark blue roofs are nice for crownie mocs.  The pyramid shaped 1x1s in reddish brown.  I could use tons of these.  

The set actually does have a decent number of wall panels.  They are just the smaller solid ones not the large ones with windows.  I like this better than past castle sets, since window openings at ground level kind of defeat the purpose of castle walls completely.  These are also more useful to me since I only use the windowed panels as filler inside of landscaping.  I do not like how I can see through the corners of the towers to the gatehouse where the 1x1 rounds meet the dark bley panels.

The best part in my humble opinion... The rounded windows for the water wheel, and used as windows on top of the tall tower in model 2.  These are brand new in reddish brown, only being available in white up until now.  These will be very very valuable if not used in other/cheaper sets.  I have not had the chance to use this part yet.  I notice lattice pieces put into these windows on the tower, but I can't see it clearly.  I am also old...  I assume the flat lattice pieces from the gatehouse windows fit into the curved window?  Does anyone know?

The final new part, that I noticed, is the civilian minifig.  If you go back a bunch of pages, you will note the civilian was the only part of this entire set I was really looking forward to.  Well, it is official.  This is unlikely to ever get used by me.  I am sad.  It just screams pirate.  My nephew has the complete collection of all pirate sets... so it looks like he will be getting a few of these guys to add to his collection.  At least they won't sit in a box...

All in all, I would give this set 4.5 stars out of 5 for design but sadly 2.5 stars for parts.  Too few castle figs, no new castle molds, no new heraldry, no animals.  I guess this is what I should expect from a 3in1.  But, as a castle collector in the historic forum, I am judging 31120 as a castle set.  As a parts set for non-castle builders, I am sure it is much better.  

[Lord Insanity]

So the better pictures really show off a lot of good stuff in the Creator Castle.  The olive and dark green slopes used for plant growth on the gatehouse is really nice.  The biggest surprise is the fact that it looks like the B and C models have wall segments built to the same standard as the A model.  Now that is an incentive to buy multiples if I ever saw one.

I am bummed we didn't get a new torso but as I am also a fan of pirates I can definitely use the blue striped shirt.  I have several red and green striped shirts from the 2015 pirates wave so its nice to get the blue in another set besides Barracuda Bay.  Of course being a Castle themed set its inclusion here is a fail. 

The saving grace is the inclusion of the classic armor and grille helmet.  Those were conspicuously absent from the Idea's Blacksmith Shop.  If the pirate torso was the trade off to getting those back in production in this set I am happy with that decision.  I have several extra police officers that can easily be converted to blue sleeved knights with the armor and helmet.