I don't see why having a little triangle of flesh on the torsos makes them completely unusable. Beards, certain types of armor, and some other neck accessorieswill allow the torso decoration to remain visible while still concealing that one offending spot of exposed skin, and if there's one thing the LotR/Hobbit themes have done it's offering a bunch of new and useful beard and armor pieces. Certainly it might make these torsos a bit less useful for army building, since if everyone in your army has a beard it might look a bit odd, but otherwise the torsos should still remain usable.

I'm with Damaximus on the fleshies issue. I even have the old Lando head on a custom medieval fig as a nod to the Moorish invasion. The LOTR/Hobbit sets are detailed because the movie sets they represent are detailed, but with that copying of design elements you loose some of the creative play aspect. This theme is about creative play. Who's doing what and why is not already set. Sure, TLG may come up with a story, but it is doubtful that kids are going to truly follow it as faithfully as fans of the LOTR/Hobbit movies and books.

Yeah ofcourse, I mean, in my GoH-mocs both the norsemen as the desert nomads are yellow, so that's not really what I wanted to say

I just wanted to say that mixing fleshies and yellows is, historically seen, not a bad thing thing to do

We can always compromise. Put the Lemonheads on one side, the Pinkies on the other and stage an ABS Race War between the licensed and unlicensed characters? It might be an almost fair fight. The Fleshies get Jedi but the Yellows get Super Ninja's. . Although in a strictly Medieval setting you probably just end up with a bunch of short hairy fleshies fighting a pack of vacant eyed possible stoned smiling lemonheads. Which is kinda creepy.

I use flesh and yellow heads together and I think it works fine :)

Speaking for myself, it bugs me to use yellows and fleshies together, or yellow heads with fleshie torsos. But what irks me even more is that it tends to be the fleshies that have triangles or patches of skin exposed so all-fleshie supporters dont have such a big problem. The current castle theme compared to LotR is a case in point. I guess its because licensed figs are more realistic, while TLGs own themes are more simplistic. Just a random thought.

On the subject of torsos, it seems the dragons all share only one. Shame.

Speaking for myself, it bugs me to use yellows and fleshies together, or yellow heads with fleshie torsos. But what irks me even more is that it tends to be the fleshies that have triangles or patches of skin exposed so all-fleshie supporters dont have such a big problem. The current castle theme compared to LotR is a case in point. I guess its because licensed figs are more realistic, while TLGs own themes are more simplistic. Just a random thought.

On the subject of torsos, it seems the dragons all share only one. Shame.

In historical and fantasy themes, this may be the case, though this may also be because in licenses there is expected to be a certain accuracy to the character's costume. In non-historical themes, there are dozens of yellow-skinned figures with yellow showing on the torso. This is especially the case with female figures, but there are even several male torso designs common in themes like City that have a triangle of yellow under the chin.

I don't know if it's a matter of licensed figs being "more realistic", though. A large number of LEGO Castle figs are always in full armor, or at least full mail. Less so in a lot of the franchises LEGO has acquired licenses for.

Edited April 15, 201311 yr by Aanchir

and stage an ABS Race War between the licensed and unlicensed characters

For some reason this really made me laugh. Probably not what Lego was going for when the fleshies appeared though. I can see some rather risqué mocs with this theme.

I think this castle line looks dissapointing to say the least... apart from Horse barding there is NOTHING I would ever want...

heraldry looks awful!

For some reason this really made me laugh. Probably not what Lego was going for when the fleshies appeared though. I can see some rather risqué mocs with this theme.

On Brikwars (tabletop wargame) forums Fleshies are the evil race that want to change all yellow minifigs into "Peaches" :D

New Video from Atomaii:

Hm, great. Castle is back. But the design of the minifigures and colours are really disapointing.

It's to close to the infamous Knights' Kingdom I series. All those blue, the lion's head crest... They should have continue the last series colours or at least the truely amazing looking crests. I think the golden lion wouln't look that bad at a blue-white flag/ shield. The crest is a step towards old times. Old times, we don't want to come back.

Speaking of old, bad times: The bad guys are really bad again. Now the bad guys are black and red. So everybody sees them at´s the evil guys. The design of the new bad guys looks almost exactly like the antagonists of KK2... They even got those "Look at me, I am the Evil Guy"-helms. Tell me, if i am wrong, but are most helms of the evil guys just black instead of dark pearl? I just don't like the minifigures at all. Even the bad guys crest looks stupid. Sorry.

The sets themself are nothing special. We got a castle, a carriage, some minor buildings and the (of course) smaller hideout of the evil guys. There is no outstanding set. Several sets ( 70402 The Gatehouse Raid; 70403 Dragon Mountain) seem to be a little bit overprized to me.

Edited April 18, 201311 yr by josykay

The sets themself are nothing special. We got a castle, a carriage, some minor buildings and the (of course) smaller hideout of the evil guys. There is no outstanding set. Several sets ( 70402 The Gatehouse Raid; 70403 Dragon Mountain) seem to be a little bit overprized to me.

But there is a king in the Castle set!

I edited it. *sorry*

I must have been blind. I just saw the mounted knight, while the king hides at the top of his castles gatehouse like a coward.

Edited April 18, 201311 yr by josykay

I like the design of the castle but I agree with others comments that the heraldry looks awful as does the armour of the bad guys. The only thing it has going for it in my view is the barding for the new horses. I may still look at getting a couple of the sets for the components and sell off the mini-figures.

ambush set is a must have in quantity. Four soldiers a new style dog, pile of treasure to add to the pile for SMOG of LoTR/Hobbit, weapons, foliage $10.00 this a can't miss

ambush set is a must have in quantity. Four soldiers a new style dog, pile of treasure to add to the pile for SMOG of LoTR/Hobbit, weapons, foliage $10.00 this a can't miss

Agreed, I might pass the rest up but I'll definitely get a few of those.

Hmm... Yeah the smaller set is really great and I hope Lego will always make smaller Castle sets like this in the future. The thing I noticed and I like is how nicely they distributed the minifigure in this sets- Each set have at least one unique "figure"-

1. Dog and Unique (cheap) treasure

2. Horse and frog (They could gave us additional weapon for it >.> )

3. Black Horse with Bardning and evil knight and good knight

4. Dragon, Evil Wizard, Princess, Good knight, rat

5. King, Good Knight,White Horse with Barding, Evil knight

I'm planing to get the Dragon moutain for that georgous dragon, Nice looking Wizard and the cute princess and the gatehouse raid for pieces, black horse and nice evil horse barding.

I'm wondering if the carriage can fit under the Dragon moutain bridge...

Oh and the most cool thing I noticed, the Dragon army will look great with Ninjago Stone army shoulderpads!

Edited April 20, 201311 yr by Lordofdragonss

There is so much more to enjoy. New parts, and newer parts in new colors.

Look past the heraldry and minifigs to the awesome range of pieces. This is an MOCer's dream. I've been waiting for a long time for the 4x4 facet brick. The King's castle has lots of 'brick' bricks. The Crown Lion faction's siege machine in Dragon Mountain has reddish brown 4x4 round bricks w/o side pin holes (new color). The Forest Ambush has a green 4x6 cut corners wedge plate (as yet only available in 5868-1 Ferocious Creatures). It is hard to tell, but the crossbow in Forest Ambush may be black (only seen before in 3342-1 Star Wars #3 - Troopers/Chewie Minifig Pack).

Look closely at the shields and you'll see a new style of 'metal edging' detail. Hopefully this little design feature will continue through future factions.

I keep seeing this being compared to KKI and KKII. The Lion heraldry is more like a blue angular version of Royal Knights.

KKI's big flaws were the over use of large prefab parts, trying to give every fig names, only three Bull characters, and no base for the Bull characters. KKII still suffered the large prefab parts issue (but a little less so), and added some ridiculous play elements. It gave us 'jellybean knights', which would have worked if they had used neutral under colors. They did this later on. Some of my favorite shields come out of KKII.

The only real connections to KKI I can draw are the use of siege machines, and the fact that KKI used the crowned lion face from Royal Knights (but over a field of blue crossed with yellow).

The KKII crowned lion is in profile, and the first king's color is blue-violet. The biggest similarity here is the use of a then new angular helmet. I actually like this as it allows the fig's face to be visible, but is also a logically sound defensive helmet. The only set that comes close to this current design is the 8874 Battle Wagon, but this type of set appears in just about every Castle theme.

This theme uses the name Castle, and given the use of the newer prefab dragon, I still say this should be called Fantasy Era 2. The architecture of this King's Castle is more logically sound than its counterparts in Fantasy Era and Kingdoms. Don't believe me about the Kingdoms one, put images of each of these next to one another and compare closely.

On the whole, I enjoy what I have seen of these, and will likely try to pick up the whole line with multiples of some. Good thing it is an August release, so I can set aside enough money.

Edited April 20, 201311 yr by gedren_y

i'll skip the theme and buy horse barding on Bricklink I guess!

Even if I'm planning to buy at least few sets from this theme,I believe it would have been better if they had a different subject on the theme,like they could bring back the forest men or introduce a robin hood subject not just blue and red soldiers,it's so cliche and doesnt provide something new,if you look closely you'll recognize that this sets are almost a copy of the castle sets released back on 2007 with the only difference is that there is no skeletons just normal bad guys.

From the AFOL-perspective I have to agree, and wish for the return of the forest men, the wolf pack and the falcon knights (even though I always thought of them as eagle knights...).

But is this what children want? When I was a kid, I did not like the wolves or foresters, I wanted the shining knights. And yes, the new baddies are cliché but well done in that respect: dark with red on black, silver linings (black, white, red... remember?), and angular great helms; the good guys do just the opposite: light with silver, blue and gold, and round helms.

I wonder if children really want cliché, but if they do, this line is right on target. But that is problem I guess. Although I wanted shining knights when I was a kid, I made up my own mind about who was good and who was evil. That is what I learned from the old knight movies of the 50ies like Ivanhoe: even the bad guys dress up nice and bright.

I did the castle theme when I was 13 - 17 and I loved the forestman theme. Though I also needed the armored forces and the few civilians to go with them.

At issue though is that most young fans do not become AFOLS. Parents buy the sets that are in stock at the stores for the kids. So it matters not what castle sets were like even four years ago. For the younger fans, they don't know what they were. The City line does the same thing where the same few set ideas seems to always be around.

I understand the disappointment when we go from the Medieval Market Village or even the latest Joust set to these sets. I think even a few more tweaks could have made these sets appeal to AFOL more without lessening their appeal to kids. Alas that is not the case.

I could tell you that I will boycott this wave, but I know that I will be jonesing for brick and buy at least the smaller sets. I really doubt I will ever buy the two largest ones.

Hopefully the day will come that the forestmen or the vikings will return.

When I was a kid I always loved the forest men. Sadly I was never able to get any. So I'd too love a return of the foresters.

Even if I'm planning to buy at least few sets from this theme,I believe it would have been better if they had a different subject on the theme,like they could bring back the forest men or introduce a robin hood subject not just blue and red soldiers,it's so cliche and doesnt provide something new,if you look closely you'll recognize that this sets are almost a copy of the castle sets released back on 2007 with the only difference is that there is no skeletons just normal bad guys.

From the AFOL-perspective I have to agree, and wish for the return of the forest men, the wolf pack and the falcon knights (even though I always thought of them as eagle knights...).

But is this what children want? When I was a kid, I did not like the wolves or foresters, I wanted the shining knights. And yes, the new baddies are cliché but well done in that respect: dark with red on black, silver linings (black, white, red... remember?), and angular great helms; the good guys do just the opposite: light with silver, blue and gold, and round helms.

I wonder if children really want cliché, but if they do, this line is right on target. But that is problem I guess. Although I wanted shining knights when I was a kid, I made up my own mind about who was good and who was evil. That is what I learned from the old knight movies of the 50ies like Ivanhoe: even the bad guys dress up nice and bright.

This is me going off-topic:

If you think this is cliché, you have not seen the Legends of Chima theme with the (very annoyingly) stereotypical depiction of the Crocodiles as rag-tag, under-dressed villains.

This is me going back on-topic:

I personally can't stand many clichés, them including the Legends of Chima one that is mention above here and the Castle one, with the villains in always having to wear dark colours with red as an additional colour, the faces of the villains always have to look evil and/or frowning and/or angry in expression and looks, and the use of non-traditional LEGO Castle helmets. I'm saying this because it is almost impossible for me (or any child for that matter) to have the villains in taking the role of the heros and the heros in taking the role of the villains or have both of them just merely two warring factions with neither of them in being heros or villains, and, at the same time, have them look the role as well as acting the role.

"Fliger", I have to agree with you that LEGO should of brought back the Forestmen and Black Falcon factions. This is especially true with the Black Falcons, since us in only having one modern Black Falcon minifigure in an expensive, LEGO Brand Retail Store and LEGO Shop-At-Home exclusive set that is the Kingdoms Joust set is just not good enough there, as it is very expensive to buy multiple Kingdoms Joust sets just to get multiple modern Black Falcon minifigures (I don't plan on buying more than two copies of the Kingdoms Joust sets) and I don't care for buying anything online other than at shop.lego.com and maybe amazon.com and/or amazon.ca.

Edited April 23, 201311 yr by Good Cragger Fan

From the AFOL-perspective I have to agree, and wish for the return of the forest men, the wolf pack and the falcon knights (even though I always thought of them as eagle knights...).

But is this what children want? When I was a kid, I did not like the wolves or foresters, I wanted the shining knights. And yes, the new baddies are cliché but well done in that respect: dark with red on black, silver linings (black, white, red... remember?), and angular great helms; the good guys do just the opposite: light with silver, blue and gold, and round helms.

I wonder if children really want cliché, but if they do, this line is right on target. But that is problem I guess. Although I wanted shining knights when I was a kid, I made up my own mind about who was good and who was evil. That is what I learned from the old knight movies of the 50ies like Ivanhoe: even the bad guys dress up nice and bright.

I wont lie,I like the "new" colors,especially the bad guys colors,you can make great minifig costumes with their torsos or legs(thats my opinion),but still I would like to see LEGO bring back the forest men,the fright knights or even something new.

Edited April 23, 201311 yr by LOTR343

Can we keep on topic? This is castle not chima and you have bee warned about this.

But for the record: Kids sometimes need cliche (which, due to their limited experience is not cliche to them) and they will still play how they like once they have the toys.