I have always wanted to MOC a castle of my own but always have the feeling that the bricks at my hand from the original castle boxsets are far from sufficient.

After seeing all these fabulous MOCs out there, I am recently tempted to make one. But before that, I would like to know what sets you guys bought before starting a project to supplement the bricks needed, especially useful pieces like slopes for rooftops, dark and light bricks for walls and stuff, etc. Is there any recommendation of useful sets (not limited to castle sets) to buy? Or did you already have the piece counts required to make one?

I would also like to know what sort of approach the MOCers should take when buying new sets in the market. Do you always purchase multiple big sets?

Thanks in advance from an amatuer builder.

Bricklink.com is a much easier and cheaper way of getting the bricks you need.

Hey allen,

Here are certain sets that are a must for MOCing

-Drawbridge Defense; great figures and lots of light gray arches

-King's Castle Siege; great for bricks, BURPS and figures. If you can afford it, getting 2 or 3 of these would be a good move

-Medieval Market Village; Good for figures, windows and useful accessories

Bricklink is a great way to add to your light gray collection. You'll want to have plenty of inverted slopes, slopes, arches, 1x1s, 1x2s, 1x3s, 1x4s and 2x2s in light gray. Shopping at a large store close to where you live will help decrease the number of orders you have to make, and thus, shipping costs.

If you are near a LEGO Store this is also a really great way to accumulate some much needed pieces. They usually carry light gray 1x3s and 1x4s. If you stack the bricks right you can fit around 400-500 bricks in a large cup ($14.99 US). Also, be sure to check with one of the employees about checking their extra Pick A Brick stock in the back if you don't see a piece you want on the wall. Most employees will bring out extra pieces from the back if requested.

Good luck! I look forward to seeing your MOCs.

MLB

PaB or Bricklink might be the best way to get the pieces you want and not have left overs/useless parts.

I buy smaller sets for the figs and accessories, and just use what grey I have for the main construction. If anything, I would go to a PaB or do some heavy Bricklinking for bulk basic parts, but small sets are cheaper for the basics than big ones. Currently I'd recommend Tower Raid as the best parts/minifigs/pieces set around, but the Medieval Market Village could be worth a try (although it is more of a long-term investment). Troll Assault Wagon and Crossbow Attack (if you can still find it) are good cheap sets too.

Thanks a lot, you guys! Those are some really informative advises!

I am thinking to stock up another set or 2 of 7094 and the drawbridge defence and medieval market are on the way. Hopefully, I'd have enough pieces by then.

I am really fond of these wall panels from the black falcon sets years ago and would like to add some of these to my castle building. But these are really hard to find, aren't they? Any suggestions on that?

Again thanks a mill!

Allen

If you are referring to the 5 x 6 wall segments w/ window...then you're best bet is on Bricklink.

Otherwise, it sounds like you are on your way to a great start!

I find Tower Raid, the knight and orc impulses, drawbridge defense, medieval market village and Kings castle seige extremely intresting! Even the Dwarves Mine has a great variety of needed bricks

Tower Raid is a pretty cheap set for a great variety of usefull parts, lots of stone, wood, figs and special elemants like doors and windows, the big seige wheels, deffinatly 1 of my favorites. Just like the drawbridge defense, I got 2 already and planning to buy more. The set has usefull basic bricks and lots, lots of arches in many different sizes. There are also very intresting figs in this set, king, queen and jester with 2 faces.

I would recommend the Market Village for special elements to add in dioramas, it also contains an awefull lot of very small but extremely usefull pieces and exclusive figs! The Kings Castle Siege set is a must for burps, basic grey bricks and dark green plates as a base for the natural element. Same with the Dwarves Mine..

Buy a couple of these plus a couple of knights impulses and you're set for creating several castles and historic mocs. Make sure you get yourself some grass pieces and leaves aswell.

Besides those themed sets I buy every other set that has a lot of the needed pieces, mainly Pirates and Indiana Jones. Also SatrWars is good for slopes, tho I bought my slopes at bricklink. Bricklink is highly recommendable because you can buy exactly what you want, whatever or how many you need.

Enjoy!

edit: spelling

Edited July 3, 200915 yr by Perterz

As others have said, tower raid, drawbridge defense, medieval market village are the best parts packs. If you really need a lot of parts, I would buy multiples of each. But, I agree with everyone else in that PAB is your best bet for cheap, basic bricks in common colours like bley, dark bley, etc. If you have a lego store near you this is a great option. I particularly like the medieval market village as a parts pack, as it has lots of ordinary bricks in uncommon colours like tan and light blue. It also has plenty of window pieces and roof slopes. The actual colour of the buildings don't really lend themselves well to castles, but plenty of the black parts like the windows and slopes do. And, it comes with some great figures to populate a castle with. Good luck, and I look forward to seeing your MOCs.

I bought a second hand (good as new) version of King's Castle Siege minus minifigs/dragon very cheaply - good for parts (already had the full set).

I would actually recommend ebay rather than bricklink for getting quantities of brick. *Especially* when your requirements are not very strict - just generally useful brick for castle MOCing. Of course there is a little skill in ebay searching - I do it by a very general search with exclusions for things I'm not interested in (to reduce the clutter), and I skim through hundreds of listings at a time, and usually do this every second day or so for a couple weeks if I want to buy Lego on ebay.

With the current crisis I imagine this is a good time for Lego on ebay though - probably lots of sellers and few buyers!