Let’s talk armor

[natesroom]

you have 200 breastplate pieces??

[Peppermint_M]

So, I voted:

Great helm
Shoulder pauldrons (ridged)
Tall pointed (Like CMF bear)

The bullet helmet for the soldiers. 

Personally, I like to build knights in an era before plate armour. Chainmail and Surcoats are my favourite. I love the obvious heraldry from the surcoats and I suppose it is also a reaction to the whole "shiny armour" rubbish popularised by pompous Victorian Men and canonised/vaunted by people forever more. 

The whole army building for castle also gets my goat, it is not exactly historically accurate. Show me your peasants with clubs and spears!

However, if LEGO made Sallet helm, I would always use those! I love the shape and the looks.

[SirBlake]

2 hours ago, DaleDVM said:

Thanks for the poll and discussion SirBlake.  

Absolutely! I figured if this was a fun thought exercise for me, you folks would like it too. 

1 hour ago, Peppermint_M said:

However, if LEGO made Sallet helm, I would always use those! I love the shape and the looks.

Ah, yes! That would be a huge win. 

[jodawill]

I'm surprised so many people like the new shoulder armor. I really don't like it, and it's one of a few things that really turns me off from the blacksmith shop. It doesn't look like Lego to me. It's more like something you'd see from one of those 3rd party dealers, which also don't look like real Lego parts.

 My first set was Black Monarch's Ghost, so that knight is just about ideal Lego to me. I like the pointed visors and breastplates. I always thought it was funny he has armor under his armor. I never understood that.

I do like the grilled helmets a lot in black. I've never had one. That's almost tied with comical for me, but for different reasons.

I'm not a fan of those brimmed helmets, but the conical and bullet helmets are both great and hard to choose between. I never had any of the bullet helmets until I ordered 30 of them several weeks ago. You can't have black falcons without them!

For shields, it's a toss up between the original ones and the longer style used in Dragon Knights. I hope they bring back the long ones. I like both. I think the long Dragon Knights shield is my favorite shield of all time. It's a masterpiece. I never had a lot of castle sets as a kid, but the soldier and shield from 1712 Crossbow Cart were highlights of my collection.

I was never a fan of the great helm until I saw it in black for 10305. It looks really good in that color. I think my real problem is that I just don't metallic colors. Maybe if I saw the brimmed helmet in black, I'd like it too. 

Edited July 31, 2022 by jodawill

[Rjbricks]

8 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

 

The whole army building for castle also gets my goat, it is not exactly historically accurate. Show me your peasants with clubs and spears!

 

 I’m sure if Jeff or Elon get into army building it might be possible. For the rest of us, £10+ for a peasant puts it slight out of reach! 
 

Having said all of that, the biggest unit in my Lion Knights is made of minifigs with very faded torsos, normal hair or broken helmets and armed solely with sticks or pikes.

 

[Frike]

I really like to equip my knights with the pointed visor helmets. The option for accessories in different shapes and colours is great. I also think that it often works well to change the colour of the main helmet instead so that the entire visor is the accent colour instead.

Is the option "Original classic space with flip up visor" referring to those flat visors with a plume/feather on top (Part 3843)? Do those only attach to the old types of classic space helmets, or can they attach to other headgear? I would love to have one of those in the future, but pieces that are almost 45 years old tend to get expensive, even when in poor condition! 

[Weil]

The best helmet for me is the pointed visor.  However, I think it needs the breastplate pairing for the look of it to work.  I think the great helm looks better when relying on torso printing without the breastplate piece.

I think the rarity of the bullet compared to the conical influences the relative love for them to some degree.  I think if the conical was rarer it would get even more recognition for how good the design of that helmet is.  That said, I also think the bullet is great - and would love to see it in modern metallic colours.

In any case, I think it's rather impressive that castle armour pieces from the early 90s still look great alongside modern minifigure designs, some 30 years later.

[natesroom]

19 hours ago, jodawill said:

I'm surprised so many people like the new shoulder armor. I really don't like it, and it's one of a few things that really turns me off from the blacksmith shop. It doesn't look like Lego to me. It's more like something you'd see from one of those 3rd party dealers, which also don't look like real Lego parts.

I agree - I am not a fan of the shoulder pauldrons. Its growing on me but your right i do feel like they are third party looking.

[DaleDVM]

On 7/30/2022 at 4:28 PM, natesroom said:

you have 200 breastplate pieces??

More like 4-5 hundred.  However, I have over ten thousand castle/fantasy army figs.  So the number with breastplates is actually a small percentage.  However, all of them do have printed castle torsos since I have not gone about making customized figs from parts.  So... I should replace them some day since blank torsos and legs are pretty cheap to buy.  I also have about 600 civilian/royalty/merchant/peasant figs.  The civies are my real prized possessions.  

I agree that the pointed visor helm really looks out of place without the breastplate armor.  Although, I have not tried it with the shoulder armor yet.  I think the great helm works both with and without the breastplate.  But I still think it looks better with the breastplate armor.  Even the grill helm looks better with the breastplate.  Another trick that makes the helms look a little better without the breastplate is adding a cape.  It makes the shoulder area look larger so the helmet doesn't make the minifigs look too top heavy.

[natesroom]

Any photos? I would love to see what your working with. I think i only have like a dozen breastplates.

[jodawill]

5 minutes ago, natesroom said:

Any photos? I would love to see what your working with. I think i only have like a dozen breastplates.

I've always loved that piece, but I've only ever owned two. I got one with my first set, Black Monarch's Ghost. Then several years ago I bought another copy of that set that was in like new condition. That's all I have...

Hopefully I'll be able to stock up on them through PAB or LUGBulk. But I definitely prefer the old dark gray ones. I've never been able to get used to those metallic colors. Light bley doesn't really look right either. Old gray armor and helmets (and black) are the best in my opinion.

[natesroom]

What is LUG Bulk? This sounds like something i should be involved with.

[jodawill]

1 minute ago, natesroom said:

What is LUG Bulk? This sounds like something i should be involved with.

If you're in a LUG (Lego User Group), once a year, you get to place an order for discounted parts in bulk. It's a great way to buy rare parts in huge quantities, like say if you wanted to buy 1000 of the cloth flags from 10305. Instead of paying $20 a piece on Bricklink, you might be them at 15 cents a piece instead. (That's just a made up example - but that's the kind of thing LUGBulk is great for.)

[natesroom]

ok but how do i get involved with this. I dont know any LUGs in florida and when i check the EuroBrick forum thread i have gotten very little response. I joined here in 2012 and have never met anyone.

 

EDIT: I typed into google and some website came up for GFLUG im gonna reach out here.

Edited August 3, 2022 by natesroom

[jodawill]

1 minute ago, natesroom said:

ok but how do i get involved with this. I dont know any LUGs in florida and when i check the EuroBrick forum thread i have gotten very little response. I joined here in 2012 and have never met anyone.

Not every AFOL is on Eurobricks. I don't know how far this is from you, but there is a Florida LUG.

[natesroom]

3 minutes ago, jodawill said:

Not every AFOL is on Eurobricks. I don't know how far this is from you, but there is a Florida LUG.

yeah thats the one that came up. I am sure i did this before, but it was very clear.

[Rjbricks]

48 minutes ago, jodawill said:

I've always loved that piece, but I've only ever owned two. I got one with my first set, Black Monarch's Ghost. Then several years ago I bought another copy of that set that was in like new condition. That's all I have...

Hopefully I'll be able to stock up on them through PAB or LUGBulk. But I definitely prefer the old dark gray ones. I've never been able to get used to those metallic colors. Light bley doesn't really look right either. Old gray armor and helmets (and black) are the best in my opinion.

Agreed. Though pearl dark gray looks pretty good. Shame the pearl dark grey visor is so rare. 

[natesroom]

4 hours ago, jodawill said:

Not every AFOL is on Eurobricks. I don't know how far this is from you, but there is a Florida LUG.

Email comes back as undeliverable...lol so much for that LUG! I did do the online form but hopes are low.

[DaleDVM]

Many LUGs have stopped using email and are now using slack and discord to communicate.  email is so 2000s...  hehe...

5 hours ago, natesroom said:

Any photos? I would love to see what your working with. I think i only have like a dozen breastplates.

This is about 25 of my second favorite breastplates on one of my most obscure and smallest factions.  I loved the speckled silver and black of these breastplates.  They weren't offered on a lot of minifigs so they are a bit expensive to obtain in numbers.  

The copper and black speckled breastplates are my absolute favorite.  Those only showed up on one minifig ever...  This guy.  These things are absolutely gorgeous!  I have about 25 of these too...

[SirBlake]

That speckled armor has kind of been in my blind spot for years. Came out during my dark ages on minifigs I didn’t care about, but looking at them on their own, pretty nice. 

[Triceron]

I do like those dark helms, and I bought a bunch in bulk a couple years back.  I mostly use them for my Fright Knight Guards and Skeletons.

But it's hard to pick it above the Conical helm, which just way more iconic.

[eldiano]

On 7/28/2022 at 2:34 PM, SirBlake said:

A comment in another thread got me thinking, thanks to things like CMF and the new sets from the last couple of years, we have more options for how a knight or soldier can be outfitted than ever. 

For instance, if you had asked me a few years ago how a knight should be equipped to look it’s best, my answer would be something like: pointed visor helmet, printed breastplate armor, classic shield. 

But I’m really coming around on the great helm, good torso print, shoulder pauldrons and newer tall CMF bear style shield look. I think because the pauldrons bulk them up and let a nice torso print do the work.

What do you think? If you were designing a faction from scratch, what parts would you use?

 

 

NOTE: this gets really complicated when you add in licensed themes, dwarves/trolls/vikings, CMF one-offs and unique named characters. If you have a write-in candidate, please add it. 

We were talking about this in the lion knights set and now i am curious, I to be honest like to vary it them but at the same time now I thought the shoulder armor was normal all over, since the lion knight castle is ready for a feast I figure all the kingdoms would want in hehe, but at the same time is my Minifigure example overkill? 

[Rjbricks]

Interesting thread this. I’m now debating whether I have the time/money to switch weapons for different torso types. E.g chain mail for 2 handed weapons, more cloth looking for spear men (meat shields), plate for cavalry.

I suspect that’s a rabbit hole that could wind up very expensive…

[SirBlake]

3 hours ago, Rjbricks said:

Interesting thread this. I’m now debating whether I have the time/money to switch weapons for different torso types. E.g chain mail for 2 handed weapons, more cloth looking for spear men (meat shields), plate for cavalry.

I suspect that’s a rabbit hole that could wind up very expensive…

Yeah, it sounds like a lot of us just kind of evolved that direction. The Fantasy Era Crownies were great for this, with more torso options. 

[KristinnK]

I too was first introduced to Lego Castle with the Black Monarch's Ghost, and consequently a knight in breastplate with visor helmet became my golden standard for a Lego castle figure. And seeing as in the 90's the only sets with breastplates were released in 1990-92, and my Castle collection was only added to by the time of the Royal Knights, the breastplate remained as a sort of untouchable accessory I would have given a lot to have more of.

But today I much prefer great prints, usually those featuring some sort of armor with matching leg prints, or something like the CMF 20 Viking. Also, the period I like to build from is the early-to-high medieval period, while the breastplate and plate armor only arrived at the end of the high medieval period.