10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[Rjbricks]

50 minutes ago, Blazej_Holen said:

In total 9 civil figs… I think thats more than generous :) Even though their torsos are reused mostly from existing sets… Is it me or Majisto is without any printing? 

Yeah, I was a bit underwhelmed by him. Especially considering the recent BAM wizard.

[Aanchir]

Oh my gosh, I love love love this! So much stuff to talk about but i'm gonna try and break it down into bullet points so my gushing doesn't just turn into a disorganized wall of text

• As I hoped, there are LOADS of great interior details! A stable, armory, kitchen, great hall, royal bedchamber, treasury, dungeon, apartment/study, and a detailed flour mill, and even a cave hideout for the forestmen! Admittedly, the queen's bed falls a little short of my expectations — the bed is small even compared to the one from the Medieval Blacksmith set, whereas I'd hoped for a larger canopy bed. But all the other interior details are brimming with all the detail I could've dreamed of.
   
• The mini-model of the yellow castle was unexpected, but certainly a delight! Fortunately it doesn't break suspension of disbelief for mee, since while plastic toys wouldn't have existed in the medieval era, wooden building blocks certainly could, and the Reddish Brown nanofig that accompanies that build helps suggest that these are in fact meant to be a wooden toy set.
   
• The exterior is also packed with delightful details! The castle architecture boasts some GORGEOUS thatched roofs and half-timbered jetties, window planters, a drawbridge, and two portcullises, along with outstanding masonry details like merlons, arrowslits, decorative windows, and garderobe. I'm also pleased with the other exterior features like the huge brick-built tree (which matches the one from the Forest Hideout quite nicely), moat, hilly foundation, mill wheel, market stall, and the large stone that conceals the cave entrance.
   
• I can't quite tell if the set is 100% navigable by minifigs without floating them into place, but there does seem to have been plenty of care put into providing walkways atop all the castle walls, doorways and arches between many of the chambers, and plenty of ladders for getting up and down between levels.
   
• In terms of minifigures, the new Lion Knights, guards, and soldiers, and queen definitely measure up to last year's Black Falcon designs in terms of detail, but with a much more brightly-colored aesthetic. The maid, chef, bard, peasant, and kids make great supporting characters, and the forestmen and Black Falcons open up opportunities for either peaceful feasts/gatherings or more suspenseful stories of treachery and subterfuge.
  
  I do wish that the mounted Black Falcon knight (perhaps the Black Knight/Ridder Swartegeest himself?) had a cape or some type of shoulder armor to help him look a little more distinguished for what's sure to be an important encounter one way or another, though I did get a chuckle out of his woefully over-encumbered squire! I'm also rather disappointed at the wizard minifig's lack of detail — I had considerably higher expectations for him, considering the wizard Majisto's starring role in many of my own earliest Castle sets.
   
• There are plenty of nice shields to be found here — including two colors of printed Lion Knight shields and at least five decorative stickered shields that echo earlier designs from the late 70s/early 80s. Also some gorgeous printed textile elements for the flag and the queen's cape, which bring back fond memories of the cloth flags from the castle sets I grew up with in the 90s! Also lots of other great accessories like musical instruments (horn, drum, and lute) and an impressive arsenal of unprinted weapons and shields.
   
• The animal selection is quite nice, IMO — while more livestock would have been nice, it might have felt out-of-place without a larger space dedicated to animal enclosures and stables. While none of the animals themselves are unique prints/recolors, the two new caparison prints are quite nice! It's a shame that there are no chanfrons/faceplates for the horses, though, even if that's a more modern sort of detail than printed caparisons are.
   
• The hay wagon also complements the animals nicely, despite being a simple build. I can imagine it being used either for trade/supply transport or for smuggling people into and out of the castle!

My excitement for this set is higher than ever, and I'm sure there are still loads more fun details that aren't totally evident yet either in the LEGO CON video or the official pictures released so far! But I'll avoid rambling any further for right now because even as I type this there have been a flood of other reactions pouring in, and I want to give myself time to read what other folks have to say about the set! One way or another, it's definitely now got a secure spot on my wish list for later this year.

[iragm]

Knocked down archer here:

A clear reference to the archer with a knocked down bow in the top right of 6080's picture

:D

[SerenityInFire]

A great looking castle, but $400 is too rich for my blood.  I'd have to sell Smaug in order to afford it.

[Blazej_Holen]

As a lego and castle fan, i consider this set as the best set by far TLG ever made.

[SirBlake]

5 minutes ago, Blazej_Holen said:

As a lego and castle fan, i consider this set as the best set by far TLG ever made.

I’m right there with you. 

 

Sonare are those rounded corner pieces on the crenellations new elements, or have I just missed that part somehow?

Edited June 18, 2022 by SirBlake

[Sir Dano]

1 hour ago, BitByBrick said:

It looks like the back of the box has dimensions of the castle (when closed) can’t read the centimeter numbers due to them being fuzzy… does it say 17.5in base and 14.5in height? What might that expand to once the set is opened up? Asking for a friend who needs a place to display this. :) 

[Hoth Rebel]

Official page is up on Lego.com

[Blazej_Holen]

Any chance that those decorative shields are prints?

[Roebuck]

The castle looks excellent and the number of minifigs is nice however for that price it should include more animals. 2 more horses is a minimum, and should have brought back the goats and included more farm animals for that price tag.

I will of course buy it, but hope it is not exclusive to Lego so it is possible to get it for some discount later ;)

NB I thought the Lego Con was really good this year, well done Lego :D

1 hour ago, Sir Dano said:

A nice little touch are some of the yellow castle shields as wall decorations

2 minutes ago, Blazej_Holen said:

Any chance that those decorative shields are prints?

Looks like the middle one comes with series 23 CMF so I assume they are prints

[Alexandrina]

This... is... BEAUTIFUL.

I don't know about anyone else, but this set is EVERYTHING I wanted in a castle - all I hoped for and more. Barding for horses, Lion Knights reborn, shields with the old Yellow Castle insignia, dark green trees, presumably a few BURPs hidden away in there - but most of all, the maid's headdress  It's honestly like Lego read my mind with their medieval offerings this year. There were two things I needed for MOCs/films that Lego had never produced - a medieval headdress and a lute - and they've delivered on both.

Day 1 purchase for me, and a contender for the best set ever imo

[Roebuck]

VIP access 3/8 i say on the Lego page..

[R0Sch]

16 minutes ago, Blazej_Holen said:

Any chance that those decorative shields are prints?

Yep, all those shields are printed!!! Maybe they are all part of a printed set with one part nr. like they did with the Daily Bugle newspaper tiles.

7 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

VIP access 3/8 i say on the Lego page..

As can be seen on the front page I edited.

[Blazej_Holen]

7 minutes ago, R0Sch said:

Yep, all those shields are printed!!! Maybe they are all part of a printed set with one part nr. like they did with the Daily Bugle newspaper tiles

Are you sure? If thats true, this set exceed my expectations in every way…

[Mencot]

2 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

A nice little touch are some of the yellow castle shields as wall decorations

This is a really awesome set, can't wait to get it.

It seems there is going to be a female knight in the next CMF series that has that classic Crown with pink background.😄

[TeriXeri]

Just saw this, and it's amazing.

Yes it's expensive, but has a lot.

 

Edited June 18, 2022 by TeriXeri

[unclejeffie]

I just hope its not exclusive on lego available so i can get it with discount

[natesroom]

Holy crap this is what i have been waiting for... I would love to see a whole line spin out from this!

[Triceron]

https://www.lego.com/en-ca/product/lion-knights-castle-10305

Looks like I found the link to the Canadian release.  $499.99 CAD,  a decent price.  Still higher than what I prefer it to be, but better than the $550 conversion that 399.99 euro would be.  I would have preferred this to be $450 CAD.

August 8th release, with August 3rd for VIP.  Hopefully the Forest Hideout returns for this.

[natesroom]

I just watched the promo vid on the Lego Website and it made me think of the 12 year old me opening up the monarch castle and the kings castle and connecting them together.

[General Magma]

Wow. Best set of all time. Gonna require an army of those figures as well... I would like it if the Forest Hideout made a return for this so I can get a second one of those, a solid worldbuilding piece for a modern classic castle landscape, add this to the equation, and you're golden... Quite a price tag but it's not 450 and very acceptable for what you get. Super nice. 

Did anyone else notice that the trees here also have black branches? It fits exactly with the Forest Hideout, I just noticed, and that's super cool.

Edited June 18, 2022 by General Magma

[kalexicon]

I think this is everything I realistically could have hoped for, and certainly much better than the prototype from the BTTF video. Good balance of display value and functions / play value / story elements. It really feels like a toy to bring back childhood nostalgia in addition to a gorgeous display piece. The price, while certainly dear and likely to cut some fans out entirely, still feels like it represents good value in USD relative to the rest of the year's portfolio, and I'm happy to forgo several medium-priced sets in order to save up for this castle. I especially like the thatched roofs (and I love that they appear to line up when the set is folded in) and as someone who received a bulk pack of spruce trees within their first two years of playing with Lego, seeing them newly cast in dark green is a delightful treat. I even like the new lion knight torsos, and that was one of my biggest "eh" points when we only had rumors. I love that the water wheel goes to a millstone instead of yet another automated hammer for an anvil. My true complaints are very negligible - as others have mentioned, more forestmen torsos would have been nice, and Majisto is bland compared to the BAM wizard. I also would have loved a non-combat outfit for the queen, as much I like the battle armor version we got, just to have another civilian outfit for nobility. But all things considered, as an actual manufactured product, it's wonderful, and perhaps most surprisingly, I think it looks equally good collapsed and folded out.

I am VERY curious to see if the queen has a unique torso print under her breastplate or shares it with her knights, since her legs do appear to be different.
 

1 hour ago, SirBlake said:

So are those rounded corner pieces on the crenellations new elements, or have I just missed that part somehow?

It's new this year, first introduced with the Dots message boards and still relatively rare.

[Triceron]

So I just noticed the barding supports them standing up.  Good on Lego for figuring that out.

The return of the Black Falcon open Conic helms is a nice touch.  I really hope those make it their way to Pick a Brick.  Hell, I hope a lot of these new torso prints make it there.

The set is warming up to me the more I look at it.  It does seem to have a lot of hidden play features to it, and the rooms look fairly modular.  I like the look of the castle much more when it's closed up though, much more like Lowenstein Castle.

[kalexicon]

Has anyone figured out what the knob on the side tower is for? I don't think it controls the drawbridge or the portcullis; does it have to with the hidden cave?

[Blazej_Holen]

1 minute ago, kalexicon said:

Has anyone figured out what the knob on the side tower is for? I don't think it controls the drawbridge or the portcullis; does it have to with the hidden cave?

It controls the drawbridge I suppose…