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Future Castle Sets?

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1 hour ago, leafan said:

I'm sure most fans would take an updated Lion Knight over a new civilian.

Is that necessarily true? Knights - not lion knights necessarily, but knights of some faction or another - are everywhere in Castle sets, going back all the way to 1978. I think the only 'Castle' sets without knights in a large quantity have been the Forestmen/Wolfpack (outlaws instead of knights as the main cast) and Ninja (ninja instead of knights). Civilians have never been commonplace, and are few and far between. The average person buying Lego (but not enough of a collector to go onto Bricklink or whatnot and buy what they need, just the sort who will get what's available on the Lego store or in shops) is going to have more knights than civilians. Female peasants, especially, are hard to come by - and the few decent torsos of recent years tend to be hard to find and/or very expensive. I'd assume that the portion who want more civilians is greater than the portion who specifically want Lion Knights.

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2 hours ago, leafan said:

I will never understand how a new printed torso can take something over budget.

I would imagine the printing itself is not any more expensive than for a long-produced torso, but every new torso has to be designed, tested, possibly focus-grouped to death, etc. etc. so I guess it could extend the timeline. The longer something takes, the more it costs, beyond the inherent costs of creating and validating a new design.

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On 2/27/2021 at 4:56 AM, Alexandrina said:

We all understand that. You gave your opinion, others gave theirs. However, when you say stuff like:

It's natural that people want to know more. I can't speak for others, but I personally haven't ever heard what you're saying, and I spend a lot of time in AFOL communities. But rather than corroborating what you're saying - which on the face of it is a rather strong indictment of Lego - you've chosen to take a break from the forum. You'll forgive me, therefore, if I'm not left convinced by your claims. 

But then, that's just my opinion. 

Alexandrina, I am certainly not going to give names from what is a pretty small community.  However, I know of 2 friends who designed sets for TLG who at separate times told me stories of how corporate sacked them.  (One of these literally started an entire theme.)  They were let go because of their salaries, which were still less than 6 figures, but were considered too high for TLG. This was not because of the quality of their work or at least that is what TLG told them.  They are great builders.  TLG replaced them with young talented AFOLs who were willing to work for LEGO for less than $35,000 a year.  For a company making profits like TLG is currently, they should be paying their content creators well and not cutting costs and talented builders.  Just my opinion.  This was done a few years ago when LEGO sales were still climbing.  When I hear stories like that, and some others, from different people, at different times, who I know worked for TLG, I believe them.  It also jives with a casual offer that TLG made to me a decade ago when they put out feelers about employment.  I know TLG can hire at lower compensation because people want to work for them.  Employees think it is an honor.  I feel a company honors its employees by sharing profits and paying them well.  I also know that TLG used to have rules in company that anyone working there had to be LEGO fans and had to build with LEGO.  Now I know, they have a lot of people in the financial end of the company that literally have never touched the product and have no connection with it at all.  For those business types, the bottom line is all that matters.  That is not the company I grew to love over the last 35 years.  Lets put this discussion behind us...  I find it depressing. 

Now on to happier talk.  The 3 in 1 set.  I do not mind that they are using the black falcons.  It is not surprising at all and I didn't expect anything more for a 3 in 1 set.  However, unless these black falcon figs show up in a cheaper set or on bricks and pieces, they are still going to be expensive to obtain in any numbers for army builders.  Luckily for me, I already have a ton of the old black falcons and these figs can just be an elite unit or leaders with updated/fancier heraldry.  

I am not a fan of brick built animals, even when done well.  Why?  Minifigs are molded and creating animals that are smaller than minifigs out of bricks results in something that doesn't IMHO look good standing next to the minifigs.  They end up looking kind of minecrafty and too blocky.  

I was never excited about the printed panels from the old black falcon castles.  I have a bunch of them and they are boxed up away from my collection I use to MOC with.  In fact all of those wall panels from old castles never get used in my MOCing unless they are used as filler under large pieces of landscaping.  I hope the yellow tudor section is tastefully done just for the sake of sales of this set.  

The peasant figure is what I am really looking forward to.  Please do not let it be the blacksmith from the blacksmith set.  I am hoping it is a more generic peasant print.  However, unless I am able to order the torso/figure directly it will likely also be too expensive to collect a lot of these.  Figs from $100 sets rarely can be found on the cheap.  For people making small civilian MOCs this is good news.  And since the rest of the set is brick and older molds there really is not much to offer castle collectors with large collections.  I hope it at least has a good percentage of newer parts or new colors.  For those who have wanted to collect castle over the last 8 years and don't have a lot of castle molds this 3in1 set, plus the blacksmith set, is truly a godsend!  So enjoy everyone!  I will be buying a bunch of both sets.  

Going forward, I will still be hoping for a real castle release.  But in reality, with this year getting a slight nod to castle, unless this sells like gangbusters, I don't think we will be getting anything for a while.  I hope I am wrong!



 

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1 hour ago, LettuceBrick said:

I would imagine the printing itself is not any more expensive than for a long-produced torso, but every new torso has to be designed, tested, possibly focus-grouped to death, etc. etc. so I guess it could extend the timeline. The longer something takes, the more it costs, beyond the inherent costs of creating and validating a new design.

It is also yet another element to take care of that needs to be located and stored and that of course means associated costs. If they already have a similar design, then they might well use it. Although sometimes we see new prints in Creator 3-in-1s, they tend to use generic or already produced parts. It still wouldn't surprise me if it is the Robin Loot / hunter from the latest IDEAS sets although I hope for a gender neutral peasant torso, so it can be used to create both male and female peasants. No buxom cleavage, and no hairy chest.

Edited by MAB

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2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

Is that necessarily true? Knights - not lion knights necessarily, but knights of some faction or another - are everywhere in Castle sets, going back all the way to 1978. I think the only 'Castle' sets without knights in a large quantity have been the Forestmen/Wolfpack (outlaws instead of knights as the main cast) and Ninja (ninja instead of knights). Civilians have never been commonplace, and are few and far between. The average person buying Lego (but not enough of a collector to go onto Bricklink or whatnot and buy what they need, just the sort who will get what's available on the Lego store or in shops) is going to have more knights than civilians. Female peasants, especially, are hard to come by - and the few decent torsos of recent years tend to be hard to find and/or very expensive. I'd assume that the portion who want more civilians is greater than the portion who specifically want Lion Knights.

I would take the lion knight atm.  The fact knights were available is true but doesnt have any bearing on present sets. In fact, lion knights would be so cool right now and if somebody just starts out with castle they have only 1 faction to go with atm.

 

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1 hour ago, DaleDVM said:

However, I know of 2 friends who designed sets for TLG who at separate times told me stories of how corporate sacked them.  (One of these literally started an entire theme.)  They were let go because of their salaries, which were still less than 6 figures, but were considered too high for TLG. This was not because of the quality of their work or at least that is what TLG told them.  They are great builders.  TLG replaced them with young talented AFOLs who were willing to work for LEGO for less than $35,000 a year.  For a company making profits like TLG is currently, they should be paying their content creators well and not cutting costs and talented builders.  Just my opinion.  This was done a few years ago when LEGO sales were still climbing.  When I hear stories like that, and some others, from different people, at different times, who I know worked for TLG, I believe them.  It also jives with a casual offer that TLG made to me a decade ago when they put out feelers about employment.  I know TLG can hire at lower compensation because people want to work for them.  Employees think it is an honor.  I feel a company honors its employees by sharing profits and paying them well.  I also know that TLG used to have rules in company that anyone working there had to be LEGO fans and had to build with LEGO.  Now I know, they have a lot of people in the financial end of the company that literally have never touched the product and have no connection with it at all.  For those business types, the bottom line is all that matters.  That is not the company I grew to love over the last 35 years.  Lets put this discussion behind us...  I find it depressing. 

Ouch.  That's an unsettling tale.  This thread isn't the place to continue on this topic, but I just wanted to acknowledge reading your post.  I'll keep an eye out for other information like this, but I'm not going to go looking for it because I have work and school to pay attention to.

On the subject of future Castle sets, the rumor of this summer's Creator set being similar to the old Black Falcon's Fortress make a lot of sense.  I don't think it would be possible to do a brick-built $100 Creator castle as large as the panel-built $100 King's Castles from 2010 and 2013, but the old Black Falcon's Fortress has a substantially smaller footprint than those, so I can see it being brick-built at $100.  It accords with the precedent of the brick-built $100 Creator pirate ship being substantially smaller than the $100 2009, 2011, and 2015 pirate ships made with prefab hulls, masts, and sails.

Edited by icm

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2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

Is that necessarily true? Knights - not lion knights necessarily, but knights of some faction or another - are everywhere in Castle sets, going back all the way to 1978. I think the only 'Castle' sets without knights in a large quantity have been the Forestmen/Wolfpack (outlaws instead of knights as the main cast) and Ninja (ninja instead of knights). Civilians have never been commonplace, and are few and far between. The average person buying Lego (but not enough of a collector to go onto Bricklink or whatnot and buy what they need, just the sort who will get what's available on the Lego store or in shops) is going to have more knights than civilians. Female peasants, especially, are hard to come by - and the few decent torsos of recent years tend to be hard to find and/or very expensive. I'd assume that the portion who want more civilians is greater than the portion who specifically want Lion Knights.

I think it is true, yes.

I'm not talking about a random Knight here, I'm talking about an updated Lion Knight/Crusader - one of the most iconic factions in Lego Castle ever.

Also, you can see how popular the Black Falcon update was by it's instant sell-out on Bricks and Pieces and the constant request for more in this very topic. Furthermore, the 2nd instance of the green torso from the Barracuda Bay and Medieval Blacksmith sets is still available, so probably not as popular.

It may be slightly different on these forums, but every ounce of what I know about Lego Castle tells me that a new Crusader/LK would be more popular than a new civilian.

2 hours ago, LettuceBrick said:

I would imagine the printing itself is not any more expensive than for a long-produced torso, but every new torso has to be designed, tested, possibly focus-grouped to death, etc. etc. so I guess it could extend the timeline. The longer something takes, the more it costs, beyond the inherent costs of creating and validating a new design.

I think that's over-thinking it to be honest. I seriously doubt that there are focus groups etc specifically for a new torso. It would be for the set overall if anything.

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3 minutes ago, leafan said:

I think it is true, yes.

I'm not talking about a random Knight here, I'm talking about an updated Lion Knight/Crusader - one of the most iconic factions in Lego Castle ever.

Also, you can see how popular the Black Falcon update was by it's instant sell-out on Bricks and Pieces and the constant request for more in this very topic. Furthermore, the 2nd instance of the green torso from the Barracuda Bay and Medieval Blacksmith sets is still available, so probably not as popular.

It may be slightly different on these forums, but every ounce of what I know about Lego Castle tells me that a new Crusader/LK would be more popular than a new civilian.

The green torso is not really an army builder plus it has female curves at the waist which limits the use. If they had done a revamped forestman torso, like in CMF S1, whether it had a female head or not in the sets then I imagine it would also be selling out at B+P.

col014.png

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1 minute ago, MAB said:

The green torso is not really an army builder plus it has female curves at the waist which limits the use. If they had done a revamped forestman torso, like in CMF S1, whether it had a female head or not in the sets then I imagine it would also be selling out at B+P.

I don't see anything inherantly female about this torso, but maybe that's just me? The curves to me could signal a slim man. Besides, why would you build an army of civilians anyway?

973pb3967c01.jpg

Regardless, it's just my opinion of course, but I stand by it.

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1 hour ago, DaleDVM said:

TLG replaced them with young talented AFOLs who were willing to work for LEGO for less than $35,000 a year. 

That's how it works in any "fan's dream job". Animators, video games, comic artists, etc. They aren't going to pay you much, because there is an army of nerds ready to replace you in an instant, and for less pay.

So for what it's worth, I believe you.

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37 minutes ago, leafan said:

I'm not talking about a random Knight here, I'm talking about an updated Lion Knight/Crusader - one of the most iconic factions in Lego Castle ever.

At the end of the day, though, Lion Knights might be iconic within Lego circles, but they have zero penetration amongst the wider customer base (I'm talking parents, casual buyers, people who will buy what they see in a shop because that's what they know exists). To them, a Lion Knight is no more special than a Knights Kingdom Knight or a Kingdoms Knight.

Nor is it accurate to look at how hard it is to get Black Knight torsos and assume that all iconic factions will be the same. Right now it's the only knightly torso available on B&P. That's going to give it a wider range of buyers than the iconic status of the Black Falcons specifically. 

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11 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

At the end of the day, though, Lion Knights might be iconic within Lego circles, but they have zero penetration amongst the wider customer base (I'm talking parents, casual buyers, people who will buy what they see in a shop because that's what they know exists). To them, a Lion Knight is no more special than a Knights Kingdom Knight or a Kingdoms Knight.

Nor is it accurate to look at how hard it is to get Black Knight torsos and assume that all iconic factions will be the same. Right now it's the only knightly torso available on B&P. That's going to give it a wider range of buyers than the iconic status of the Black Falcons specifically. 

Alright well this is verging on the old tired 'what would sell' argument, but even then I'd say that most Knights would sell better to the kids than civilians.

Like, I've never heard a kid say that they want that cool peasant minifigure.

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14 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

At the end of the day, though, Lion Knights might be iconic within Lego circles, but they have zero penetration amongst the wider customer base (I'm talking parents, casual buyers, people who will buy what they see in a shop because that's what they know exists). To them, a Lion Knight is no more special than a Knights Kingdom Knight or a Kingdoms Knight.

Nor is it accurate to look at how hard it is to get Black Knight torsos and assume that all iconic factions will be the same. Right now it's the only knightly torso available on B&P. That's going to give it a wider range of buyers than the iconic status of the Black Falcons specifically. 

Could u post me a link to that torso or product id?

Edited by Poco Lypso

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9 minutes ago, leafan said:

even then I'd say that most Knights would sell better to the kids than civilians.

Like, I've never heard a kid say that they want that cool peasant minifigure.

That may well be the case. I concede that I'm probably a bit blinded by my own desire for more peasant figs. But that's a different argument to the Lion Knights as a specific faction being iconic to the world at large. It's been about thirty years since they were widely available - that's a lot of generations that have grown up and had their entire Lego-collecting years since then, many of whom now have kids who've also never known the Lion Knights.

9 minutes ago, Poco Lypso said:

Could u post me a link to that torso or product id?

I don't believe there's a way to direct-link to individual parts on Lego's website, but the Black Falcon torso is element 6335192, the legs are element 6335666, the helmet is element 6327809 and the shield is element 6335631 (the tan horse, incidentally, is element 6343565)

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1 hour ago, leafan said:

I don't see anything inherantly female about this torso, but maybe that's just me? The curves to me could signal a slim man. Besides, why would you build an army of civilians anyway?

973pb3967c01.jpg

Regardless, it's just my opinion of course, but I stand by it.

The indents at the sides are for female torsos.

Why would you build an army of civilians? Because often people want many peasants working in fields or similar. Plain old style rag clothes are therefore useful, hence why they are so expensive on the secondary market.

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53 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

That may well be the case. I concede that I'm probably a bit blinded by my own desire for more peasant figs. But that's a different argument to the Lion Knights as a specific faction being iconic to the world at large. It's been about thirty years since they were widely available - that's a lot of generations that have grown up and had their entire Lego-collecting years since then, many of whom now have kids who've also never known the Lion Knights.

I don't believe there's a way to direct-link to individual parts on Lego's website, but the Black Falcon torso is element 6335192, the legs are element 6335666, the helmet is element 6327809 and the shield is element 6335631 (the tan horse, incidentally, is element 6343565)

Thx - for a sec i thought u meant black knights torsos are available :)

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1 minute ago, Poco Lypso said:

Thx - for a sec i thought u meant black knights torsos are available :)

I wish! I've been checking five or six times a day since last Friday, but so far the only thing which seems to have come back in stock is the blacksmith's legs.

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7 hours ago, leafan said:

I'm sure most fans would take an updated Lion Knight over a new civilian.

I'd rather have a new civilian, there are lots of Lion knight minifigures available on the market for reasonable prices, with a vast variety. It's also likely we will get Lion knights as a new theme faction again in the near future since we seem to get one to two Lion factions for every span of a decade since the '80s.

Also, for me personally, I like to have shields, barding, and a variety of torso prints for a faction. Just one new torso print isn't /that/ useful, especially without a shield. Not to say I won't end up buying a dozen or two new BFs. Lol

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2 hours ago, leafan said:

Alright well this is verging on the old tired 'what would sell' argument, but even then I'd say that most Knights would sell better to the kids than civilians.

Like, I've never heard a kid say that they want that cool peasant minifigure.

Yeah, this is probably accurate — not to mention a big part of why peasant-focused sets like Medieval Market Village and Mill Village Raid have been so few and far between. In turn, that scarcity helps drive demand for civilian characters among AFOLs. These trends aren't strictly specific to the Castle theme, either — there's also a lot less emphasis on civilian characters and "everyday", non-conflict-driven scenarios in typical Ninjago sets than in more adult-targeted sets like the Ninjago City collection.

Another factor in the desirability of civilian characters among AFOLs is specifically the fact that you CAN'T army build them in the same sense that you can with knights. That's not to say there's no incentive for stockpiling civilian figures in large numbers, but when dealing with an actual army, it's generally no big deal if those characters wear similar outfits, and in fact that uniformity helps to more clearly define their allegiance with one another. For a large group of peasants to feel believable, it's usually preferable for them to wear more varied outfits, so builders of civilian-focused medieval scenes are likely to need a wider variety of torso designs than builders of medieval battle scenes, who might be able to make do with just one or two torso designs per faction.

For this 3-in-1 castle, though, I suspect the decision about what minifigures to include were more about the needs of the three builds than which figures would be most desirable on a more general level. According to the description on Promobricks, the B-model depicts a castle town/market scene, so it makes sense to include a civilian in that model. In this respect, it's not unlike old-school sets like 6040 Blacksmith Shop, 6041 Armor Shop, or 6067 Guarded Inn, which each included one civilian minifig along with the knight minifigures more typical of the Castle theme. Moreover, at least one of the other models repurposes the civilian minifigure as a robber for the knights to apprehend.

Edited by Aanchir

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18 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

Moreover, at least one of the other models repurposes the civilian minifigure as a robber for the knights to apprehend.

I think this puts paid to my hopes of a new hennin piece. Lego are more likely to go for a pauper for their criminal civilian than a noble woman. 

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22 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

I love little historical quirks like that. It's probably the only downside to the standardised names of the modern day. I'll certainly be Stealing some inspiration from those names - some thanks for sharing your research with us! 

Out of interest, are there any other similar named characters you've come across? 

Almost forgot to respond to this question! There are a few other Castle character names I've found in this manner. Some are just straightforward references to public domain characters or historical figures, while others are wholly original character names:

  • UK and German catalogs directly identify the main character of the Forestmen sets as "Robin Hood". They are most likely referring to this minifigure         and others with the same torso and hat, since he is entirely clad in Robin Hood's trademark "Lincoln green" without any additional secondary color, appears in all four sets with UK names that refer specifically to Robin Hood, and perhaps most importantly, only appears ONCE in each of these sets — whereas 6077 Forestmen's River Fortress/Robin's Lake Stronghold includes two each of the red-clad and blue-clad Forestmen.
     
  • Similarly, the wizard from the Dragon Masters/Dragon Knights sets is specifically named as Merlin in UK catalogs, and his dragon is named Ogwen. In German catalogs, he is named Cerlin and his dragon is named Dragomil, and in Dutch catalogs he is named Pokus, (none of the Dutch catalogs I've seen have referred to his dragon by name). In the US, of course, he is named Majisto, which is well documented since so many online LEGO databases like BrickLink and Brickset refer to these sets by their US names.
     
  • The king from the Royal Knights sets is named King Richard the Lion Heart in the UK, König Richard (King Richard) in Germany, and Koning Leeuwenhart (King Lionheart) in the Netherlands — although notably, the summer 1995 issue of the UK Bricks & Pieces magazine went out of its way to clarify that he WASN'T the same person as the historical King Richard the Lionheart.
     
  • The main characters of the Fright Knights sets are named Basil the Bat Lord and Willa the Witch in US catalogs and magazines, but in the UK, they were named Count Batlord and Hubble Bubble. In Germany, the Bat Lord was named Graf Fledermaus (Count Bat), and in the Netherlands, he is the Vleermuisridder (Bat Knight) — however, set names from those countries do not refer to the witch by name.

Anyway, here's a link to the spreadsheet where I've been tracking this stuff if you're curious to know more!

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6 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

That's a very comprehensive spreadsheet. I didn't realise there were so many different named characters released over the years - interesting that in some cases the UK name seems to have emerged as the "standardised" name in modern parlance, where in some cases it's the US name.

7 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

The king from the Royal Knights sets is named King Richard the Lion Heart in the UK, König Richard (King Richard) in Germany, and Koning Leeuwenhart (King Lionheart) in the Netherlands — although notably, the summer 1995 issue of the UK Bricks & Pieces magazine went out of its way to clarify that he WASN'T the same person as the historical King Richard the Lionheart.

In that case, my headcanon is that he's a descendant of Queen Matilda, cast out of time (and thus forced to seek home in a reality made of plastic bricks) by the events which led people to call the pretender Stephen 'King'.

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I think that the green hunter torso is asexual enough to be used for both male and female characters.  The legs/boots on the female hunter are a nice color combination that will mix and match with other peasant figs also so you can create a little variety.  

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9 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

That may well be the case. I concede that I'm probably a bit blinded by my own desire for more peasant figs. But that's a different argument to the Lion Knights as a specific faction being iconic to the world at large. It's been about thirty years since they were widely available - that's a lot of generations that have grown up and had their entire Lego-collecting years since then, many of whom now have kids who've also never known the Lion Knights.

I don't believe there's a way to direct-link to individual parts on Lego's website, but the Black Falcon torso is element 6335192, the legs are element 6335666, the helmet is element 6327809 and the shield is element 6335631 (the tan horse, incidentally, is element 6343565)

Lion knights were in kingdoms and also the 2013 line so I don't get your point and there have been other iterations in the last 30 years.  My son loves Lion knights and he was to small when kingdoms was around.  I would welcome any update on any of Lego's previous factions to be honest, the more variety for my armies.  

Edited by zoth33

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