10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[mrcp6d]

On 6/27/2022 at 6:47 PM, Triceron said:

a modern tensegrity Majisto's Floating Fortress.

Oh, this idea sounds AMAZING!  There were some really cool tensegrity MOCs with castle/fantasy themes that came out of that COVID building fad, but a much larger scale build like this idea definitely has my brain wondering about what that could turn into--especially since Dragon Masters are my favorite castle theme...

[Roebuck]

8 hours ago, Aanchir said:

By comparison, sets like Medieval Market Village or Mill Village Raid scale better to a typical LEGO castle, but their level of detail per floor is simpler even than some Friends or Creator 3-in-1 sets, and certainly far simpler than the Modular Buildings, Old Fishing Store, or other 16+/18+ buildings along those lines.

If you mean the interior, the first modulars made at the same time did not have a lot if anything either, so if those sets would be made today I am sure they would have a interior at the same level as the castle.
If you mean exterior, the buildings is a lot smaller than modulars etc maybe max 700 parts per building so no wonder the details are fewer. Regarding Friends and Creator 3-in 1 sets, I will not say they are any less detailed then sets from those themes 10-15 year ago. Maybe today, but that is not so strange with Lego sets getting more details every year 

My main point is that I think MVR and MMV will fit

With the castle and looking forward to seeing the displays with them together

[Triceron]

While I think the Village sets would work nicely, I think even they would be slightly large compared to the Castle.  The issue I have is how low the castle walls seem to be.  The walls are supposed to prevent any attackers from seeing any buildings inside.  The high walls offer the best protection from any siege weapons.  If regular buildings can be seen peeking above the walls, then they would be easy targets for catapults and siege weapons.

I think either the Castle walls would need to be raised, or the village buildings will need to be reduced in size to fit with the rest of the Castle.

Edited June 29, 2022 by Triceron

[MAB]

44 minutes ago, Triceron said:

While I think the Village sets would work nicely, I think even they would be slightly large compared to the Castle.  The issue I have is how low the castle walls seem to be.  The walls are supposed to prevent any attackers from seeing any buildings inside.  The high walls offer the best protection from any siege weapons.  If regular buildings can be seen peeking above the walls, then they would be easy targets for catapults and siege weapons.

I think either the Castle walls would need to be raised, or the village buildings will need to be reduced in size to fit with the rest of the Castle.

With anything like this, with official sets you have to give a little when it comes to scale. The size of the courtyard type area inside the curtain wall will nearly always appear much smaller than it should be in a lego set, unless you have endless wall sets to make your own as large as you want. Otherwise, the keep would be very small to be in scale with the wall perimeter. There are downsized MOCs of the blacksmith that look great but probably still large compared to the castle. I imagine any solution (aside from MOCing at the correct scale) will always have an undersized castle and keep with the other village buildings being oversized.

[Sir Dano]

I'm not too concerned about scale, it's not like 10193 was perfectly in scale with 7094.

[natesroom]

WHAT SET IS 7094?

Got it kings castle siege

Edited June 29, 2022 by natesroom

[Follows Closely]

I have built most of the exterior of 10305 Lion Knights Castle with digital help from @Aanchir. I wanted to give you all an update with a few comparison shots. I very much enjoyed the build. I think it may be in my top 10 when I build the real thing.

Spoiler

Next to 21325: Medieval Blacksmith

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Next to 71043: Hogwarts Castle

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Next to 10193: Medieval Market Village

Spoiler

 

Next to 7189: Mill Village Raid

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Next to 6074: Black Falcon's Fortress

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A few more shots posted on Reddit.

[SirBlake]

Super cool! I especially like seeing the pic with the castle partially open with the MMV tucked in there. 

[Rjbricks]

Poor BF and their ickle fortress!

 

i decided to change the narrative in my head so the blacksmiths house is now a palace. With a forge underneath where 40 blacksmiths slave away for the Lord Blacksmith who swims in money Scrouge McDuck style.

[TeriXeri]

The height of MMV looks great next to those Castle walls.

Ideas blacksmith almost reaching the tower's height looks weird to me when it's right next to it, and I was planning to MOD it anyway to fit more with 31120.

And I'm a bit biased by fantasy games like World of Warcraft's Stormwind City, which has buildings that look quite like the IDEAS blacksmith with blue roofs and the woodwork and white walls, but the regular buildings don't giganticly tower over the rest of the City's Towers, even while the city has some very tall landmarks like the Wizard's Sanctum tower, the Cathedral and the Main Keep.

To me the Blacksmith really has the style of the Inns in WoW, in particular the garrison version, except the blacksmith set has another floor of brick below it, which makes it that much taller (the in-game buildings have a basement floor below it instead)

31120 when folded up reminds me a lot of the garrison barracks as well : 

Still really cool to see all those comparisons 

Edited June 29, 2022 by TeriXeri

[Triceron]

Great progress!  I really appreciate all the comparison shots as well!

The Mill Village buildings are pretty decently sized.  Still a little big for my taste, but I think it's acceptable after seeing them placed.  I think if it could be shrunk down by 20% to better fit.  This is still a good jumping point for sizing up any peasant cottage mocs.

1 hour ago, TeriXeri said:

And I'm a bit biased by fantasy games like World of Warcraft's Stormwind City, which has buildings that look quite like the IDEAS blacksmith with blue roofs and the woodwork and white walls, but the regular buildings don't giganticly tower over the rest of the City's Towers, even while the city has some very tall landmarks like the Wizard's Sanctum tower, the Cathedral and the Main Keep.

I'm a sucker for Warcraft's building styles as well.  I'm thinking of peppering some small farmhouses inside the castle walls when opened up to give it a grander sense of scale.

[Hive]

Here I was thinking that I should mod MMV to fit with the Blacksmith - whereas from the looks of it, it may be a better overall fit to change the Blacksmith to the scale of MMV instead...

[SirBlake]

14 minutes ago, Hive said:

Here I was thinking that I should mod MMV to fit with the Blacksmith - whereas from the looks of it, it may be a better overall fit to change the Blacksmith to the scale of MMV instead...

I think it would break my heart to neuter the blacksmith for that. Better to just build a more appropriately sized MOC that borrows inspiration from it. For me anyway.

[MAB]

It does look great next to MMV and MVR.

15 minutes ago, Hive said:

Here I was thinking that I should mod MMV to fit with the Blacksmith - whereas from the looks of it, it may be a better overall fit to change the Blacksmith to the scale of MMV instead...

I think that is the best line of action. Unless you have the display space for a huge castle!

 

[woodford86]

I've always treated the castle theme as a playscale theme just because a minifig scale castle would cost a fortune and take up all my spare space. Plus while they're super impressive, those giant castles you see at Brickworld etc are, to me, just....big. I think it loses some of the magic after a certain point.

I'm thinking I'll ditch the Blacksmith set altogether and try to modernize and incorporate 6040 into two or three 10305's for a larger, beefier castle. Seems like the blacksmith would be inside the walls anyway?

Edited June 29, 2022 by woodford86

[Aanchir]

10 hours ago, Roebuck said:

My main point is that I think MVR and MMV will fit
"Like a Glove"
With the castle and looking forward to seeing the displays with them together

Oh yeah, I have no doubt about that. I was just pointing out that a set like MMV would probably fall short of a lot of adult fans' expectations if it came out today, simply because it doesn't have the complexity people have come to expect from other adult-targeted exclusives these days. Compared to the Modular Buildings, Old Fishing Store, Barracuda Bay, Medieval Blacksmith, Temple of Airjitzu, etc, it had very few SNOT details or other advanced techniques. Rather, the main features that set it apart "ordinary" KFOL-targeted Castle sets were its lack of large panels or conflict scenarios.

I suspect this is mainly because with MMV, LEGO was trying to split the difference between older buyers who wanted something more realistic/detailed than the Fantasy Era sets that preceded it, AND to "tweens" and early teens who were towards the upper end of the other Fantasy Era sets' target age range (as evidenced by its 12+ age marking). By comparison, these newer exclusives are geared more strictly towards the same audience of adults and older teens as stuff like the Modular Buildings Collection, Botanical Collection, Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series, etc. So the designers have a lot more leeway to really push their level of detail and complexity.

9 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

I'm not too concerned about scale, it's not like 10193 was perfectly in scale with 7094.

Yeah, that a point I made earlier about the scale of the Blacksmith. MMV's eaves sat around 13–14 bricks high, well above the 9–10 brick tall curtain walls of any Fantasy Era or Kingdoms castles. By comparison, the Medieval Blacksmith's eaves sit 15 bricks and 1 plate high, just one brick higher than the lowest walls of the Lion Knights' Castle.

The peak of Medieval Blacksmith's roof certainly rises much higher than just about any LEGO castle's walls, but having the eaves sit above the walls bothers me more than having the roof peak rise higher than the walls.

[natesroom]

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

I suspect this is mainly because with MMV, LEGO was trying to split the difference between older buyers who wanted something more realistic/detailed than the Fantasy Era sets that preceded it, AND to "tweens" and early teens who were towards the upper end of the other Fantasy Era sets' target age range (as evidenced by its 12+ age marking).

I disagree. While im sure its probably true for some people, i think its a smaller percentage i estimate maybe 5-10% of people this matters. I will use my own story as an example.

Born '77 - Collected legos in 80s & 90's graduated in '95. Joined military, discovered girls, party, alcohol etc. Moved back to hometown in 2007 (single) started buying legos off ebay to what i think was to have a piece of my childhood that maybe when touching the pieces would remind me of the creativity and magic and almost unlimited potential and coolness of legos and the hope to have a collection. The designs of castle sets from '07 to '12 were very much compatible in looks to 80s castle, though i will admit they updated building techniques, eliminated big castle wall pieces and Burps. (im being very simple with my description, i know cause i got two kingdoms joust sets)

However if they re-released 6074 Black Falcons Fortress (again - I wasnt collecting from 95 to 2007) then or today exactly as it was 435 Interlocking pieces and was $35 dollars (like it was in 86) heck even $49.99 i would buy 5 of them, maybe even 10 over a 2 year period. Not because of hording and hoping it will go up in value in 20 years (with a reprint putting more into the wild would make a secondary market on those OG ones drop), but i would build like three of them and combine them. I would open one later with my grandson and probably give one away as a gift. It doesn't have to be "so cool and the latest SNOT or new pieces" If they re released every set from the 80s as it was with no update in 2022 i would purchase every single set, My lego budget this year would be about $3000 (if thats what it cost to buy them all) instead of about $800.

Edited June 29, 2022 by natesroom

[dimc]

2 hours ago, natesroom said:

However if they re-released 6074 Black Falcons Fortress (again - I wasnt collecting from 95 to 2007) then or today exactly as it was 435 Interlocking pieces and was $35 dollars (like it was in 86) heck even $49.99

For the USA, that $35 would be $93 now. I think it's hard because we compare prices we remember, but as kids we didn't have income to speak of, so if a castle costs more than $100, let alone $400, it feels crazy. Of course, the $400 would have been ~$180 in 1990, so there's a lot of mental adjustment to do.

[Lion King]

What is MMV?

Are we going to get new Black Falcon set?

[Sir Dano]

13 minutes ago, DBlegonerd7 said:

What is MMV?

10193 Medieval Market Village

Edited June 29, 2022 by Sir Dano

[natesroom]

1 hour ago, dimc said:

For the USA, that $35 would be $93 now. I think it's hard because we compare prices we remember, but as kids we didn't have income to speak of, so if a castle costs more than $100, let alone $400, it feels crazy. Of course, the $400 would have been ~$180 in 1990, so there's a lot of mental adjustment to do.

The same set was re released in 2003-2004 almost 18 years later and it was $40 dollars then. Todays value for inflation would be $60. However with 430 pieces at a non licensed IP lego price per piece of .11 cents would still be about $40.

Edited June 29, 2022 by natesroom

[TeriXeri]

Easiest mod to the Blacksmith to put it more in line with MMV would be to put the wooden section (middle and roof) on a ground level base that would save about 6-7 bricks of height 

The floors are already modular / removable that way. 

It's not perfect solution but it's one that can keep the set intact.

Edited June 29, 2022 by TeriXeri

[Triceron]

52 minutes ago, dimc said:

For the USA, that $35 would be $93 now. I think it's hard because we compare prices we remember, but as kids we didn't have income to speak of, so if a castle costs more than $100, let alone $400, it feels crazy. Of course, the $400 would have been ~$180 in 1990, so there's a lot of mental adjustment to do.

This is me.

I've never had a true Castle as a kid, only small box sets, anything from a bonus pack, or at most, a medium sized set.  Inflation is understandable, but I feel like things really jumped up in the last few years more than anything.  I only started back up a couple years ago, and it seems like you got way more bang for your buck in 2011 and earlier than you do now, prices adjusted for inflation and all.  Like a Fantasy Chess sets with all the detailed minifigures for like $50...  you'd never see that today, even for $200.

1 minute ago, TeriXeri said:

Easiest mod to the Blacksmith to put it more in line with MMV would be to put the wooden section (middle and roof) on a ground level base that woul save about 6-7 bricks of height.

That's actually a pretty good idea.  With an improvise a roof or covering, you could could probably make the bottom half into a new building .

[natesroom]

minifigs havent become more expensive to produce in the last ten years. However they have a "Coolness" or "Elitist" or some other word to describe their external secondary market value. So they "know" they can markup perceived value of minifigs to raise the price.

[iragm]

1 minute ago, natesroom said:

minifigs havent become more expensive to produce in the last ten years

I suspect they have - there's a new design of the torso that is less likely to crack under the arms.  There's also front and back printing on most torsos, as well as leg printing and dual-molded legs.  All of these things cost money, even if it's only in the initial design process.

But you're right, Lego is probably looking at the secondary market prices for a lot of figures and trying to get a slice of that.