15 replies to this topic

[KimT]

And another set enters the scene:

Set# 7009
Set title: The Final Joust
Price: 8.29 Euro / 7.99 USD
Pieces: 62
Release: 2007

The Box:

And yet again TLG has put the bricks in a box, that somehow corresponds with the amount of bricks in it. The Castle theme has got well designed boxes :)

The whole set (build):

2 knights, jousting fence and weapon rack.

The Weapons Rack:

Another great addition of weapons. Flail, halberd and skeleton scimitar. Super weapons for those close encounter melee battles fought when tipped off the horse : :grin:P  

The Jousting Fence:

Not much to say. It's a fence. Simple, yet it serves it's purpose very well.

The Crown Knight:

Gotta love that guy. He looks like nothing can hurt him. He even got a selfsufficient smile on his face. I'm sure he's convinced that no skeleton can defeat him. Also the horse, it's barding and the headcover looks awesome. A great old school sword and the ever cool normannic shield. What could possibly go wrong for this knight? The helmet I really love. IMO it's a lot better than the old knight helmets (see review of 5615 The Knight for a pic of one of those).

The Skeleton Knight:

The black skeleton horse ROCKS! I love that design and in black it's even badder than than the white version. The shield reeks of dread and the knight is one bad skeleton on the rampage. I do find that the helmet is a little off! I'd rather have a black knights helmet instead. The KK helmet doesn't really do it for me.

The All in All verdict:
This is another great army builder set. It holds a lot of great weapons, some cool minifigs and great pieces. The only thing that puzzles me is; why would a Crown Knight joust a Skeleton? Doesn't really make sense.

KimT

[The Cobra]

I've been waiting to hold this set in my hands for about a year and a half. Thanks to a silly TLC decision, 7009 was not available in Italian stores. I finally decided to buy it on the net (2x , plus some other sets) and those morons at the Custom charged me quite a lot. After I bought it, while waiting for it to arrive, I found out it was available in a store in Switzerland, not far away from home...

That's for the storytelling. As for the set, I thought it was great, and still think so. A good army builder (as quite a few sets in the 2007/2008 castle line), and a time traveller (6021 being my first Lego Castle set ever).

Rating? 5/5!

Edited by The Cobra, 13 August 2008 - 09:04 PM.

[Mr Spielbrick]

Lovely set. Nice collection of weapons. Cool horse-accesoires for the white knight, cool black skeletal horse on the dark knight's side. Loving the printed armours of both knights! And, as opposed to KimT apparently, I really dig the black helmet. I feel there's a Lord of the Rings-flavour to it with those curves. Well designed!

[Manta]

Another small set my local Target doesn't have. They don't have the best castle selection, they only really have dwarven mines and Castle Seiges. I'll buy this if I see it there though, because it looks like a great little set. I could use the awesome knight, and a skeleton that has a regular body so he looks like he is in armor!!!!!

[Tenorikuma]

I should really get one more of these for the figures, shields, and weapons. This set is the only one with the scythe in pearl-grey, by the way.

"The only thing that puzzles me is; why would a Crown Knight joust a Skeleton?"

Good question.   For a joust to make sense, this set should contain two human knights instead -- which would be fine with me so long as they had differing armour and colours.

Edited by Tenorikuma, 13 August 2008 - 03:51 AM.

[blueandwhite]

I'm not a huge fan of this set but it is a great way to nab a fully mounted knight complete with a very attractive barding.  Given that in prior years it wasn't possible to get a barded horse in such a small set, this set is actually a decent way to build a mounted cavalry for your kingdom.  Looking at bricklink, it would probably cost as much to buy the Knight, horse and weapons separately, and that doesn't take into account the skeleton or the extra bricks.

Despite my indifference to this set, I actually have purchased four of them in the past year simply because there isn't a cheaper way to acquire a mounted knight.


(A quick question about the poll:  are we voting on the quality of the set, or the quality of the review?)


Later.

Edited by blueandwhite, 13 August 2008 - 05:50 AM.

[KimT]

blueandwhite, on Aug 13 2008, 05:49 AM, said:

(A quick question about the poll:  are we voting on the quality of the set, or the quality of the review?)

Later.

The quality of the set.
Feel free to comment on the review and/or set also.

[brickzone]

This set is a great little bundle, the kitted out knight, skellie knight, weapons, and the few bricks for the fence and weapon rack. The Castle 07 barding here is very nice, indeed the colour scheme of the new Castle guys is great IMO, the light blue and blue work nicely together and against the grey background.

I don't really like the pearl grey helmet - it would be nicer in metallic silver like the visor I think. Interesting comment re: the skellie helmet - I guess black normal knight's helmet with visor would be quite nice for him.

I got this set as part of the Complete Castle Collection from S@H. However, I have extras of all the smaller sets and Skeleton Tower, except I don't have another one of this set. It's on my list of sets to buy. Unfortunately it wasn't on S@H for Ireland when I was making later orders - quite an odd omission. Also last year Castle '07 was exclusive to Argos (UK catalogue retailer) who only had three sets (not the joust). I should see if the local toy store has it now though, as they did stock some '07 Castle in addition to '08 at the start of the year. I think small sets like this should be well stocked in shops for a year or two - it surely doesn't do their sales much good to be so sporadically available?

Sorry, turned into a bit of a ramble. Anyways, the point is that this set is good enough I'd pick up another.

The Cobra: that sucks about customs. I try to keep my orders to within the €23 duty-free limit for here in Ireland. If your imports are waylaid you pay 20% import duty, 21% sales tax, and a postage fee for the diversion to customs. NASTY!

Edited by brickzone, 13 August 2008 - 11:15 AM.

[blueandwhite]

KimT, on Aug 13 2008, 05:00 AM, said:

The quality of the set.
Feel free to comment on the review and/or set also.

Thanks .


The set is average.  It's useful for picking up a few knights, but I'm not really partial to the skeleton.  The idea of a knight and a skeleton tilting just strikes me as being odd.  My biggest issue with the current castle line is that most sets force you to purchase a mixture of skeletons/knights orcs/knights orcs/dwarves etc..  This is fine for those of you who love your fantasy, however it makes the line a bit underwhelming for the rest of us.  Still, as mentioned earlier the set does have an upside so it is worth a purchase.

The review on the other hand is aces with great photos and a detailed description of the set and its contents.  Nice work.

[Freddie]

You know what I think this set has? Charm. Lots of it. I'm not a big fan of castle, having very few sets, all of them spanning different nations/armies, but I couldn't resist this set. And while not obvious at first, it really is backwards compatible with every castle set with a horse in it.

Nonetheless, I think this set is great. It's simple, cheap and has charm. That's good enough for me. Plus it has that fantastic grinning knight and the black skeleton horse. Those just made it better.

[KimT]

Tenorikuma, on Aug 13 2008, 03:48 AM, said:

I should really get one more of these for the figures, shields, and weapons. This set is the only one with the scythe in pearl-grey, by the way.

Except, it's just plain dark-grey,
You must have gotten this set mixed with another.
Though I've never heard of a pearl-grey scythe

[brickzone]

Perhaps he meant the pearl light grey lance, which is not that common.

[KimT]

brickzone, on Aug 14 2008, 07:42 PM, said:

Perhaps he meant the pearl light grey lance, which is not that common.

Could be, it's not that uncommon.
It's in several sets. Now red is uncommon.

[dj2005]

Good review KimT. Pictures are clear and show each of the pieces in great detail. I agree with your comments as well. I'm a bit curious, does the knight's helm have a hole for plume?

I've been debating whether to purchase this set or not. I'm not a big fan of horses so I'll likely barely use them, but I do like the unique minifigs, weapon rack/weapons, and the fact that the divider has a few useful pieces that can be added to other sets. However, I just don't feel the set is worth $8 when compared to Crossbow attack and the Knight's Catapult unless the buyer is really wanting some mounted minifigs. Luckily, Amazon just lowered their price of this set from $8 to $6 (along with another 20% if using Bill Me Later... just in case anyone was also in the same situation I was in). At that price, it's damn well worth it.

[WhiteFang]

dj2005, on Aug 29 2008, 11:26 AM, said:

I'm a bit curious, does the knight's helm have a hole for plume?

I can answer on behalf for KimT, if memories served me right. Yes, there is a hole for placing the knight's plume. Do correct me wrong, if I had answered wrongly. It's been awhile since I last touched my castle sets.

Thanks KimT for this fine review. This is one of the castle sets which I had bought high volume, mainly for its horses, barding and the weapons. A great army builder and accessories for your castle armies. This is an instant "5".  

[Fatespuppet]

First things first.  The knight's helm does have a spot for a plume.

Now, I really like this set and it was the first one I dug into when I got my collection in the mail.  It has a great selection of equipment for good or evil figures and the barding for the horse is outstanding.  My only wish was for one of the long chrome swords for the knights.  I think the new knights with the tall shield and chrome sword look excellent on foot and on horseback.

It would definitely be neat to revisit this set with another human knight instead of the skeleton.  Make that change and add a lady to joust for and it'd be bang on.