How 6073/Knight's Castle is BETTER than 6074/Black Falcon's Fortress (at least in some ways)

[Spiny Norman]

Generally, people rate the Black Falcon's Fortress much higher than the somewhat simpler Knight's Castle, its alleged "cheaper knockoff". While the former undeniably has a much more impressive gate and an attractive properly roofed building, I want to make a few points here in defense of the underdog, the 6073 with the red gate & drawbridge.

First, it's by itself a fine castle, with a red gate, and working drawbridge and a prison. Now, most pictures tend to be the "main" picture. But let me borrow here a picture from a review to show how incredibly well it works "when it opens its wings":

It works perfect! The towers are now at the corners, it grows into the facade of a much larger castle or perhaps part of a city wall, if some of the smaller sets are attached.

In contrast, the Black Falcon's castle doesn't do quite as well.

• The walls just trail off, and end.
• You lose a stretch of wall because they close in on the towers if you open them 180 degrees. (At 90 degrees, second picture left side, it's slightly better.)
• The gate looks less impressive because the second storey is higher.
• The second storey doesn't look quite as well from this side. Here is when the castle is closed, from the back:

It's OK, but it's not as colourful as the other side, is it?

Also, even when I was a young boy, I had my doubts if castles HAD half-timbered walls the way that civilian buildings did. I must have visited many dozens of medieval castles in my life, but I can't recall (m)any. (One shot from the 6030 or 6039 and it's rubble, right?)

No mistake - when I was younger than I am now, I surely would have chosen the Black Falcon set, I'm not going to lie about that. In fact I wanted two, to put them back to back.
However, I hope I managed to show here that the Knight's Castle has its advantages too, especially when you start to unfold the sets and join them up.

Maybe the best would be a combination. For some reason I could not find a picture of both sets (plus the smaller ones) forming one medieval city, although there are examples of other formations such as a double line of defence with a forecourt. I'll have to make a photo later myself then, if I get them all together.

[DonQuixote]

6074 was also a set that introduced the diagonal corner walls . It was really impressive for its time