Hello everyone, I am interested to hear what people's thoughts on Vladek's Dark Fortress are, now that the blind fury at anything and everything KKII has somewhat dissipated. We're now several subthemes down the track, so what do people think of this set?

http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/8877-1

It is ENORMOUS. Had the pleasure/displeasure of building it. I can certainly understand all the hate about KKII. Juniorization? This takes the cake. Large pre fab pieces. Wall section upon wall sections of it. But I have to say, play feature's great. It's also an amazing parts pack.

I actually intend to get this set off of Bricklink soon. I was beginning to enter my Dark Age (ie, Middle School) when KKII started, so I actually have very little KKII, Vladek encounter and the Jayko adventure book are all I've got. I intend to get this set because as far as big evil lairs go, it's got the best look for it. I see this set as the rose in the mud of KKII.

I like the set and have it, it is my favourite kk2 set and I have a few. I got mine in 2008 from TRU when it was randomly there. The set itself is good for parts, playability is and the figures are good if you don't mind them.

It's huge. I personally like that the raised base is built from BURP's. The structure above, however, is too open. If I owned it, I would build something slightly smaller but more closed. It is certainly great for parts though. Too much machinery, but you can just take those off.

Number of scorpion figures is low, and I still don't care about the colorful knights.

Color scheme is great, and they weren't skimpy about flags, banners and other accessories either.

Overall, as a set it has certain weaknesses, but if you look at it as a source of inspiration, look at all the possibilities, it looks good.

After looking through the parts it looks like a good set for parts if you want to make a moc after you have built it.

I would say get it if you want it.

I like the set personally. I never really had a problem with the use of larger pieces. Especially in castle sets where they want the set to have some size to it but to do it with regular bricks would likely cause a massive price increase (assuming they were aiming for the same size set). I have one of these assembled and another in pieces. When I get around to it (and get more dark red parts to help use as accents with the black) I plan on reworking the one that's already built and adding to it with the other to make a nice sized 'evil" castle. I also like the fact the entrance is different than most other castles out there. I think the set is definately one of the gems (or the only gem, depending on who you ask) of the KKII sets.

I think it was a nice set, just like all the other ones from this theme, it was the figs that hurt it, Anyway, I have a lot of happy memories as a result of the KK theme's so I really don't want to criticize it.

Maybe in the next couple of years I'll purchase this set as I envied it so much as a youngster

Edited March 16, 201014 yr by Ratshot

I ever wanted it since i saw it first, and still want it. Overall i hate KK2, but i always think this would look great as a fortress for the skeleton faction of the fantasy castle line, if you change some details and put on different figs. That's actually why i want it, cause the skeletons don't have a proper base.

I have this set MISB sitting in my parents basement. I intend to open it once I move into my new house this fall and build a MOC out of its pieces. My friend also has this set, open and built.

I ever wanted it since i saw it first, and still want it. Overall i hate KK2, but i always think this would look great as a fortress for the skeleton faction of the fantasy castle line, if you change some details and put on different figs. That's actually why i want it, cause the skeletons don't have a proper base.

Thats exactly my thinking too

Just 4 words........Most......AWESOME....castle.............EVER!!!!!!!!!! It was great-love the figs, catapults,(fire blades) opens+closes..............dang-now I wish I didn't break it down for (excellent) parts .........grrrrr.....now I have to rebuild it.

Vladek's Dark Fortress is a massive and imposing looking set - rightfully so given it's 'Fortress' status. The main model may be a facade made up of a lot of large pieces, but there is still a huge amount of smaller bricks and useful pieces. Out of nearly 1000 pieces, there is only around 2 dozen very large pieces, so it's not like your sacrificing piece counts here.

As I mentioned, the main model is just a wall, but this is great for playability. Want to add walls to more sides? Simply fold the side wings in on their hinges so that you have three guarded sides. Want even more protection? Disconnect the side wings and re-arrange the castle to a layout that satisfies. It's easy to get a four sided castle out of the set, and thanks to the very high walls it always looks well protected.

The set features a ton of play features - a drawbridge to raise/lower, hot flames to be dumped on those below, walls to be smashed through, and a whole whack of catapults and launching devices. Eight minifigures and a load of accessories means that having decent sized battles is quite possible too.

Though it may not have the elegance of many of the more well liked castles, Vladek's Dark Fortress is still a very satisfying and most definitely underrated set.

Edited March 17, 201014 yr by ZO6

Vladek's Dark Fortress was a definite step in the right direction, and a break from the 'castle on raised baseplate with mini sub-models' that had made the big Castle sets suck so much in previous years

It had a plethora of great parts - dark red, dark tan (when that was fairly uncommon) and lots of useful black Castle pieces. I think it is the only set where those extra-wide castle wall pieces which were only used in KK2 looked good and not out of proportion.

It was massive and intimidating, and the overall design was very strong and imposing, although not strictly modular in the most popular sense. The play features were OK and the giant Vladek mask had a design purpose as that would be exactly the kind of thing an evil egomaniac dark lord would stick on their castle facade.

Even the alternate models on the box art were pretty cool from what I remember.

Where it really fell down was the stupid Knights components - the horse with side cannon always fell over because it was weighted on one side, and the catapult on wheels was an ungodly mess of Bionicle, brown and violet blue.

It could have used more interior, but that's hardly changed even with today's sets

Definitely an underrated set.

This set was the best evil castle ever When I bought it I got about double the parts I was supposed to have which was a giant plus

The archuteture was amazing especially the parrapets and colmens holding them up. Also the cracked wall and the spin wall.

Another plus was the palintir ball but I agree with Svelte the seige equipment was lacking

I bought 63 copies of this set on clearance. I remember how giddy happy I was. It had been a LONG time since I found a clearance sale that good. I remember of much of a pain it was to drive them home and the weeks it took to sort. I remember people did not much care for the set due to the brightly colored knights. Man, it's been 5 years since then. I feel older now.

I bought 63 copies of this set on clearance. I remember how giddy happy I was. It had been a LONG time since I found a clearance sale that good. I remember of much of a pain it was to drive them home and the weeks it took to sort. I remember people did not much care for the set due to the brightly colored knights. Man, it's been 5 years since then. I feel older now.

63 copies! You must have needed a trailer to haul them all back home.

I bought 63 copies of this set on clearance.

63? I'm just trying to picture how this would physically happen. A fleet of shopping carts to bring them all to the checkout, possibly needing store employees to push some of them, a call to the bank to let them know that no, your credit card has not been stolen and that you are the actual card holder, then needing to call up UPS to ship them to your house since you don't have room in your vehicle for all of them. Out of curiosity, how good was this sale?

I bought 63 copies of this set on clearance. I remember how giddy happy I was. It had been a LONG time since I found a clearance sale that good. I remember of much of a pain it was to drive them home and the weeks it took to sort. I remember people did not much care for the set due to the brightly colored knights. Man, it's been 5 years since then. I feel older now.

63 copies seems a bit much to me Sorry, but I would have to see pics to believe you.

63 copies seems a bit much to me Sorry, but I would have to see pics to believe you.

Same. It's hard to believe they would have a clearance item if there were 63 copies of it. If you actually did get 63, I want one

Let's keep on track, thanks.

No more discussion of madoka's collection habits.

As a collector of castle, (and as painful as this may sound) I have to admit to owning the entire KK line of sets. Less painful is talking about Vladek's Dark Fortress. IMHO the best large set of the Knights Kingdom era and that is including KKI and KKII. In fact this set and its expansion sets are the shining jewels in several years of sets made of coal.

Set:

The set is definately imposing as a wall. I was not quite able to make a great castle out of it. However, if you purchase a couple of the Dark Fortress Landing sets and the Scorpion Prison Cave they all went together very well making for one very large and highly defensive fortress. The construction of the base of all 3 of these sets is the same so they fit together rather seemlessly. A trend I hope LEGO starts again in the castle theme.

Parts:

Although made up of a lot of poop pieces this set came with some more interesting large parts. The BURP and mountaintop pieces are in brown and those are hard to find. The large sloping brick pieces are definately more aesthetically pleasing than most prefab pieces. The rest of the bricks with a lot of dark tan, dark red, and black are very useful. I also like the accessories, windows, lots of flags, this set has a lot of nice touches. Not including the ugly colored swords that came with the Jellies, the set comes with a large aray of weaponry and a lot of Pikes. Not the best castle parts set but overall not too bad either.

Figs:

As for figures the shadow knights and Vladek are some of my favorite figures in the castle line! The Jelly Beans... well... not so much. If you had a classic castle faction or the Crownies attacking this fortress with better designed siege weapons, this set would be one of the best of all time.

I ever wanted it since i saw it first, and still want it. Overall i hate KK2, but i always think this would look great as a fortress for the skeleton faction of the fantasy castle line, if you change some details and put on different figs. That's actually why i want it, cause the skeletons don't have a proper base.

By far the best "evil" castle to date. I use it for the skelletons which never had a REAL one. If you can, get it, you won't regret it!!!