The old Lego castles had 1, 2 or more baseplates - I'm talking the big castles, not fortress as Black Falcons' as impressive as they may be.

But it seems those days are gone. Castles are now built over simple plates, however big or small they may be.

But what do you prefer?

I was always in love with big baseplates, but I got to admit the simple plates are more dynamic, to say the least. And modular (although structures from different Kingdom sets are not made to be grouped in one single structure as the old Crusaders/Lion Knights were).

I think both are great in their own respect and which is better suited largely depends on what the purpose and overall design of the castle is.

A lot of the old castles (namely 6081, 6082, 6086 and 6090) were designed to sit on top of small mountains or hills, so it made sense to give them baseplates which achieve this effect without having to spend vast numbers of pieces only for the rock the castle is situated on. This is one of the reasons why I like the raised baseplates despite their really limited modularity.

Almost all of the remaining old castles were build so that you could fold them open for easy access to the insides. To me it wouldn't have made much sense to use normal plates as the foundation, because baseplates are specifically designed to form the foundation of large structures while normal plates don't exist in the needed size. And if they did, they probably would feel too blocky, whereas a baseplate looks comparatively sleek. The first castles also were designed in respect to castles of the early middleages, which were designed after their purpose and not vice versa. This might also explain why almost all of them have a nearly quadratic shape with next to no round or edged corners - they simply weren't used in the beginnings of european castles.

Finally, modern castles aren't ment to fold out in the way the old ones did. Their usually smaller compartments would need a lot of different sized baseplates, which probably is uneconomic for TLC to create when normal plates in corresponding sizes already exist. I also agree that, thanks to their smaller size, normal plates are better for modularity, so it makes sense for castles that heavily rely on this aspect use them instead of the less variable baseplates.

The gist out of this might be that baseplates are better when the castle is one solid structure (that may or may not fold out) while normal plates are much better if increased modularity is to be achieved.

I prefer the old Castle sets, the castles from the 80's and early 90's are the best.

Castles such as 6080 King's Castle or 6073 Knight's Castle do look great and offer tons of fun and playability.

On the other hand, there are some great castles with raised baseplates, such as the 6086: Black Knight's Castle, sadly I don't own this one, but it looks fantastic and I would love to have it one day.

I love the old raised baseplates and wish I had one.

I like the idea of versatility in using the smaller plates with hinged or pinned sections to allow customization, but in the long run I build for displaying and they end up on large baseplates anyway.

I'm good either way, I don't mind using extra baseplates (except for the $$), and it allows me to put it together a way I like.

I just mounted my daughter's prison tower set onto one of my old green thin large baseplate so that there was some battle space for the minifigures infront of the tower. It you look at the new Mummy pyramid it has a very interesting looking baseplate to cut the brick count down to get the shape they wanted.

I'm just going to put this out there, with all the interest in modular design and details from smaller pieces and what not I don't see it unreasonable to have the Hillside that the older sets have but just build it with great detail. With that said, Baseplate gets my vote. All the castles that I love have either a molded baseplate or a standard baseplate and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Base plates are a great asset in the presentation of a castle. On a formidable hillside even the most drab building looks intimidating. The only down side is the constrain of the building space and the clash of the art style (older castles had stones, hills and other cartoony features all over their babes, which made them look a little out of place. Especially with the level of detail and realism of say the Kingdoms line, I can't imagine the King's castle looking great on one of these:

Just doesn't fit right. Perhaps a redesigned and improved plate will be the answer; one that's more dynamic and not quite so angular. (And with better printing/stickers)

I think it depends on the castle , because some castles are built to look like there on a hill (raised Base plate) like castle of Morcia and Black Knights or others on flat lands like Kings Castle and Kings Castle Siege and than theres others built on Burps like Trolls Castle and Vladeks Dark Fortress.

Interesting Discussion

I never liked raised base plates, I have the old Crusaders Mountain Fortress and thats on a baseplate, its ok for what it is but not great, Whereas my forestmens river fortress on a basic flat board looks great. I think TLC makes more exciting designs if it starts from the ground up, but a raised plate does half the work for them. so my vote is one flat plates.

Modular designs are also interesting but some feel really weak and flimsy so if it can be made strong then that would be my favorite but simply too many modular sets fall apart when picked up. (at least with me, I might just be heavy handed)

Interesting Discussion

I never liked raised base plates, I have the old Crusaders Mountain Fortress and thats on a baseplate, its ok for what it is but not great, Whereas my forestmens river fortress on a basic flat board looks great. I think TLC makes more exciting designs if it starts from the ground up, but a raised plate does half the work for them. so my vote is one flat plates.

Modular designs are also interesting but some feel really weak and flimsy so if it can be made strong then that would be my favorite but simply too many modular sets fall apart when picked up. (at least with me, I might just be heavy handed)

I have to disagree. I think raised baseplates give a lot more variety to the battle field if, say, the builder does not have enough pieces to make completely brick-built mountains or hills. I would like to have more raised baseplates because of how much variety they can give to the field.

Of the four castles I own, half are on molded baseplates while the other half are on smaller plates. Personally, I have no preference either way. Each style has its own advantage. The molded baseplates add much to the value of a castle in terms of my aethetics, but castles such as the current Kingdoms one has the advantage of being modular in design, allowing me to expand it with new sections at a later time.

I have to disagree. I think raised baseplates give a lot more variety to the battle field if, say, the builder does not have enough pieces to make completely brick-built mountains or hills. I would like to have more raised baseplates because of how much variety they can give to the field.

I see your point when it comes to breaking up a wide space with limited bricks , but when it come's to comparing castles with and without raised plates, I prefer the ones without , although I do apreciate the raised plates i have, i just never seem to be able to incorporate them well into any Moc i try and make

could just be my poor talent

I miss the days when castles were built on flat baseplates like 6080 and 6085. The baseplates themselves where incredibly useful and allowed you to build a diverse set of structures. I don't miss the raised baseplates that became popular in the early 90s. They were cumbersome and generally did very little to enhance the structures built on top of them. As far as I see things, raised baseplates were simply introduced to make castles and other structures appear larger than they actually are. I haven't seen many MOCs that make good use of these baseplates either. They simply don't lend themselves well to MOCing.

Hopefully we never see another castle built on another raised baseplate.

I miss the days when castles were built on flat baseplates like 6080 and 6085. The baseplates themselves where incredibly useful and allowed you to build a diverse set of structures. I don't miss the raised baseplates that became popular in the early 90s. They were cumbersome and generally did very little to enhance the structures built on top of them. As far as I see things, raised baseplates were simply introduced to make castles and other structures appear larger than they actually are. I haven't seen many MOCs that make good use of these baseplates either. They simply don't lend themselves well to MOCing.

Hopefully we never see another castle built on another raised baseplate.

This is the point i was trying to make, you said it far better than i could

i agree completly

I have all of the castles past and present.

The old raised baseplates are certainly interesting and definately work to enlarge castles for little added cost to TLG. What I really liked about them was the techniques they used to attach supports on the outside edges. It made for interesting builds when doing one of these sets by the instructions. That being said I have a storage crate full of just raised baseplates that sits totally unused. I build at a very large scale and am lucky enough to have brick for making my own terrain. Therefore I have little use for raised baseplates after I am done with the original model.

I certainly agree that the castles made on plates or baseplates are better designed in general than those on the raised baseplates. Although a couple of the castles on raised baseplates were pretty good.

Baseplate vs Plates... What do I prefer? I guess plates are the most useful to me. I like the modularity aspect of the King's Castle this year. I also buy baseplates by the case and they are always available if you want more of them. It is most useful for me to get plates of different sizes for use in MOCs. So I would have to vote for plates in the end.

I like baseplates very much, but you are right smaller ones are more dynamic! If Lego would put again those baseplates to the sets, they would be much more expensive (I think Lego is already way too expensive)