Castle - Fantasy Era (2007-2009)

[Captain Fortune]

Old sets and themes have an extraordinary power: they never stop surprising me. 

I recently "rediscovered" Castle Fantasy Era. I remember it back on 2007, I was 19 at the time, in my dark ages. It did not interested me at all: I have never liked the fantasy stuff, monsters, etc: I always prefered the realistic and historical Classic Castle. Dragon Masters was my limit of fantasy stuff, and the Fright Knights... too much for me. 

My lack of interest on them just changed a few days ago. I was checking with a friend of mine some Castle sets, and suddently I found myself looking at the Fantasy Era with different eyes. The more sets I saw, the more I liked them. I never thought that I would say that, because I have always found this theme bizarre and unrealistic, but here is my final conclusion: what an AWESOME Castle Wave. It's like a mixture of the Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and the Warcraft movie

Aesthetically speaking, the theme is amazing. I mean, above other Castle waves. The Human faction (Crown Knights) look so powerful and agressive. The skeletons are very original, frightening and funny at the same time. Love them. Trolls and Dwarfs, 100% accurated: couldn't be more stereotypical. Moreover, the theme is so complete. It is full of sets, battlepacks, boats, buildings and towers, siege machines, and all kind of weapons and tools. It is very playable with thousands of possibilites, probably more than any other Castle wave since 1992. Have a look if you don't believe me: https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Castle/page-2

I think that Lego was so daring with this theme. Thay wanted to be original and, in my opinion, they succed. So, what's your opinion? 

 

Edited September 17, 2019 by Captain Fortune

[Shroffy123]

I love this them. It brought me out of my dark age.  

[Eggyslav]

I also adore that theme, even though i only got the Evil Wizard's Tower...

Edited September 18, 2019 by Eggyslav

[leafan]

I'm glad to see this as I recently "accidentally" pulled the trigger on buying 7094 King's Castle Siege from eBay.

I'm hoping it turns out to be as good as it looks, because it looks fantastic, like an updated King's Castle (6080).

[Nom Carver]

It also had awsome minifigure packs.

[The_Cook]

It's a slow burning project but my homage to Fantasty Era castle is Troll Town.

 

[MAB]

I don't think it was particularly daring. Trolls, skeletons, dwarves, etc are not really anything new, they have been part of European folklore for centuries and there have been loads of toys based on them. I don't really see it as any different to them doing Forestmen / Robin Hood, or mythical creatures from Viking sagas.

[Aine]

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Trolls and Dwarfs, 100% accurated: couldn't be more stereotypical. 

This made my day! :-)

 

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It's a slow burning project but my homage to Fantasty Era castle is Troll Town.

And this immediatelly came to my mind! ;-)

 

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I don't think it was particularly daring. Trolls, skeletons, dwarves, etc are not really anything new...

I think that it was daring and new at least in the context of lego, there was nothing like that even few years before this wave. (Except for the ghost minifig...)

[icm]

It seemed pretty daring and new to me at the time.  Fantasy Era Castle came at a time when Lego was experimenting with much more open violence in its play themes, from the 2006 "gritty reset" of Bionicle to Exo Force, Batman, and World Racers.  Fantasy Era was the first time when there were grotesque monsters in open warfare in Castle, among other things.  Compare the scary skeletons and skeleton horses of Fantasy Era to the tame smiling skeletons of Pirates and recall the anecdote where, sometime in the late 70s or early 80s, one of the Kristiansens threatened to fire a set designer for daring to suggest that a castle dungeon should have a skeleton in it.  Ten years later, with the proliferation of bigfigs and alien monsters through the Super Hero and Ninjago themes, Fantasy Era doesn't seem so unusual.  But in 2007 it was a bold new direction.

[Captain Fortune]

6 hours ago, The_Cook said:

It's a slow burning project but my homage to Fantasty Era castle is Troll Town.

 

My god, you did an awesome job there! In addition, that's the kind of MOC that I like: very similar to the TLG design. The different buildings could be official sets. Love it!

2 hours ago, icm said:

It seemed pretty daring and new to me at the time.  Fantasy Era Castle came at a time when Lego was experimenting with much more open violence in its play themes, from the 2006 "gritty reset" of Bionicle to Exo Force, Batman, and World Racers.  Fantasy Era was the first time when there were grotesque monsters in open warfare in Castle, among other things.  Compare the scary skeletons and skeleton horses of Fantasy Era to the tame smiling skeletons of Pirates and recall the anecdote where, sometime in the late 70s or early 80s, one of the Kristiansens threatened to fire a set designer for daring to suggest that a castle dungeon should have a skeleton in it.  Ten years later, with the proliferation of bigfigs and alien monsters through the Super Hero and Ninjago themes, Fantasy Era doesn't seem so unusual.  But in 2007 it was a bold new direction.

Could'nt explain it better. 

Just bought a couple of sets on BrickLink... 

[zoth33]

Yes this was a great theme.  So many great sets and figs.  I have several of the sets.  I love the skeleton heads with the sunken eyes, those are my favorite skeleton heads.  The troll fortress was such a great set.  Love the skeletal horses too.  Really was one of the best ideas LEGO  ever had.  

[meliander]

On 9/18/2019 at 7:39 AM, leafan said:

I'm glad to see this as I recently "accidentally" pulled the trigger on buying 7094 King's Castle Siege from eBay.

I'm hoping it turns out to be as good as it looks, because it looks fantastic, like an updated King's Castle (6080).

You made the right decision. It is even better than it looks in the pictures. It's massive, has a dragon, and overall I think it's the best castle Lego has ever made in the Castle theme.

This theme is awesome. I was lucky enough to come out of my dark ages right about the time it appeared on shelves and I bought 13 sets (I think I got all of them) including the famous 10193 which, along with 7094 I personally think are the best castle sets of all time. That being said, I don't own any of the LotR and Hobbit sets, so I can be wrong.

Kingdoms that followed were kind of meh for me. I didn't like the overly bright colors everywhere and the builds just seemed too simple. Nexo Knights - no comments. It's not a castle theme from my pov.

I still have hopes that Fantasy castle theme will return someday with more sets, factions, and a couple of expert builds. Lego doesn't have any clash with licensed stuff like they have with space/Star Wars, so I'm not sure what's happening there and why we don't have a proper castle theme now.

Edited September 20, 2019 by meliander
Added some thoughts

[MAB]

4 hours ago, meliander said:

...  along with 7094 I personally think are the best castle sets of all time. That being said, I don't own any of the LotR and Hobbit sets, so I can be wrong.

 

LOTR has Helm's Deep, which is fantastic, as is Orthanc. However, these sets are completely different to the regular Castle castles. The in-house ones are much more reminiscent of the old wooden style castles from the 60s and 70s - often just a wall with battlements and a drawbridge or portcullis, frequently missing a keep. Whereas Helm's Deep is essentially a big facade that looks fantastic from the front but doesn't really feel like a Castle set of old.

[leafan]

16 hours ago, meliander said:

You made the right decision. It is even better than it looks in the pictures. It's massive, has a dragon, and overall I think it's the best castle Lego has ever made in the Castle theme.

This theme is awesome. I was lucky enough to come out of my dark ages right about the time it appeared on shelves and I bought 13 sets (I think I got all of them) including the famous 10193 which, along with 7094 I personally think are the best castle sets of all time. That being said, I don't own any of the LotR and Hobbit sets, so I can be wrong.

Kingdoms that followed were kind of meh for me. I didn't like the overly bright colors everywhere and the builds just seemed too simple. Nexo Knights - no comments. It's not a castle theme from my pov.

I still have hopes that Fantasy castle theme will return someday with more sets, factions, and a couple of expert builds. Lego doesn't have any clash with licensed stuff like they have with space/Star Wars, so I'm not sure what's happening there and why we don't have a proper castle theme now.

Thanks. I've now received and built and and I'm quite impressed.

The castle is really beefy and it has excellent play value.

[Captain Fortune]

17 hours ago, leafan said:

Thanks. I've now received and built and and I'm quite impressed.

The castle is really beefy and it has excellent play value.

Again, the first impression that it causes is a bit bizarre if we compare it with the more classic styled 2010 and 2013 castles. But it is REALLY awesome.

On 9/20/2019 at 10:45 AM, MAB said:

LOTR has Helm's Deep, which is fantastic, as is Orthanc. However, these sets are completely different to the regular Castle castles. The in-house ones are much more reminiscent of the old wooden style castles from the 60s and 70s - often just a wall with battlements and a drawbridge or portcullis, frequently missing a keep. Whereas Helm's Deep is essentially a big facade that looks fantastic from the front but doesn't really feel like a Castle set of old.

You hit the nail in the head. 

On 9/20/2019 at 5:43 AM, meliander said:

Kingdoms that followed were kind of meh for me. I didn't like the overly bright colors everywhere and the builds just seemed too simple. Nexo Knights - no comments. It's not a castle theme from my pov.

I still have hopes that Fantasy castle theme will return someday with more sets, factions, and a couple of expert builds. Lego doesn't have any clash with licensed stuff like they have with space/Star Wars, so I'm not sure what's happening there and why we don't have a proper castle theme now.

The 2010 wave was a very classic and serious wave. Very complete and realistc, I have to say that I love it too. But, let's admit it: it's not as daring, exotic and wild as Fantasy Era was.

The 2013 wave is interesting too, mostly the King's Knights, but I don't like the bad guys. 

Edited September 21, 2019 by Captain Fortune

[meliander]

3 hours ago, Captain Fortune said:

The 2010 wave was a very classic and serious wave. Very complete and realistc, I have to say that I love it too.

Yeah, it's just that for my personal taste I didn't like the color scheme. But definitely sets like 7189 with a Mill and10223 Kingdoms Joust were true gems.

[Hive]

Fantasy Castle was great, and Medieval Market Village is probably my all-time favorite LEGO set.

That said, I liked the overall vibe of Kingdoms a bit better. It was a gigantic shame that they cancelled that one only to release a watered down version of the same a couple of years later.

[Aliencat]

It was Fantasy Era 2007 that brought me out of my dark ages!
My dark ages started about when Fright Knights came out (can you blame me?), and I do remember checking in to see what LEGO was doing some time and seeing Knights Kingdom II (the jelly knights), so you can imagine I wasn't too enthusiastic at the time.
But man did they turn it around in 2007! Those sets and figures were super well designed and the complete opposite of Knights Kingdom II that came before it!
And it got even better when they introduced trolls and dwarves :D

[Phyre]

I LOVE fantasy era.  Those were the sets that got me into collecting Castle.  I was a teenager when they came out and my previous interests as a kid had been in cars/trucks/city stuff, BIONICLE, a little bit of Knights Kingdom (primarily the action figures), and Racers Tiny Turbos.  Fantasy Era in 2007, with the skeletons and evil wizard (and later on the trolls/orcs and dwarves) just really grabbed my attention at that time and I've collected Castle themes ever since.  The sets were great - I own every single one - and the minifigures excellent as well.  I loved Medieval Market Village, but my favorite set from the line was probably the gigantic Chess set.  We are in desperate need of a new Castle theme, and I really hope they do a second fantasy era, this time with elves and all sorts of new magical creatures and monsters (and some new human factions as well).

[Darnok]

There was some great stuff going on at the time. I am very sad that these all came out through my Dark Age - I hope for a revival sooner ratehr than later!

[Grover]

I missed most of the Fantasy Era in my dark ages, too, and was sorely disappointed that I did!  The fantasy era of castle is my favorite, even though I grew up in the classic era.  I hope that we get another iteration of the Fantasy Era again!

[TeufelHund]

I cam out of my Dark Ages after my wife gave me a small Kingdoms set in 2010. Luckily I was able to track down most of the Fantasy era sets I wanted after that as they still weren't too expensive. My favourite is probably the Troll's Siege tower which just looks ridiculously awesome. I also liked the King's Castle and Troll Fort. The Market Village is a great set to but more of a straight medieval approach rather than fantasy - I preferred the Kingdoms Joust myself. 

2013 Knights were pretty disappointing. I hated the "good" knights childish emblem although the "evil" knights looked ok. I hope this wasn't the last classic castle wave ever because I'd be pretty disappointed if it was.

[Littleworlds]

Sadly I came too late for the party as well. A lot of those sets look really excellent. Very appropriate fantasy-stuff. At least I got some Kingdoms-sets from the 2010-12 era as well. Their Minifigs have some of the best prints and colour-schemes. Sadly right now there doesn't exactly seems to be demand for fantasy, at least not outside of Star Wars and Harry Potter. 

[KotZ]

I really enjoyed the Fantasy line and have a good amount of them, as does my brother. He mainly stuck with the skeletons while I went with the humans and orcs. The colors for humans were great, and it was just mature enough to fit in with the other themes from around that time. It wasn't silly like the first year of KK2: Jellybean Boogaloo. The next two years of KK2 got a little darker, both in colorscheme and set design. Kingdoms was a bit too bright, as was the 2013 line. That being said, the bad guys for Kingdoms had a great colorscheme. Green and yellow that was muted just right. Swap out some faces and you've got some good guys. I personally kept them with Helm's Deep as they seemed to really fit that set when you remove all of the flesh pieces in that set. MMV is one of my favorite sets of all time, and I would love for more sets like it and the 2013 "town" sets.

2013 Castle, as mentioned before, suffered from being too bright, but at least the Lion knights fit in really well with the Fantasy Crown knights, even if their colors are a bit brighter. The red dragon knights for that line (also first big molded dragon since 2007, something I had never had until 2013 aside from the green one) were a bit too cartoonish for me, but they served my purposes as marauders (I somehow have three of their prison chariots).

I'm hoping the next wave of Castle can take some cues from Fantasy and Ninjago in going for a more muted color palette and some more mature sets.

[Lord Insanity]

Fantasy Era (Castle 2007) and the stylistically compatible Kingdoms (Castle 2010) is my favorite Castle era.  I actually use the Kingdoms factions as vassals to the Crown. I just turned the lion royalty into nobles.  My classic era lions, dragons and, falcons are the main rival kingdom.

Fantasy Era was the last time we got a nice mounted knight with full gear in a "battle pack" style set too.  7009 The Final Joust was by far and away one of the best sets of the line. $8 US for a full gear knight vs a skeleton knight and skeleton horse. I got 9 copies of that set. Switched 8 of the horse helmets to dark blue.  Perfect cavalry knight squad.  It was a total fail that neither Kingdoms nor Castle 2013 had a similar set.  If the big castle sets aren't going to be fully manned anymore like the legendary 6086 Black Knight's Castle at least sell us the "battle packs."  Of course at this point I suppose we would be happy with anything.