Future Castle Sets?

[Flak Maniak]

9 hours 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. 

Correct. I don't care about Black Falcons per se; I might have had a Black Falcon torso or two as a kid, as hand-me-downs from the neighor's kids. But Black Falcons aren't iconic or important to me. What matters is that they're good medieval/fantasy torsos/legs, available straight from Lego, for less than a king's ransom. So I bought a dozen on B&P. I'll make some sort of castle-ish environment for them. Something from my own imagination. It has to have some kind of knights in it, but what kind isn't so important. Well, maybe the fact that these happen to be blue will mean I'll use blue as a big color. Maybe Lego has inspired me that way. But, again, this is just about powering my own creations, about having something that fits well enough with the theme I want to build in.

The kids these days care about Black Falcons a lot less than I do, I guarantee you. Whatever logos Lego puts on the torsos will do just fine. And for me, I don't really care if it's new or old factions. So long as the minifigure parts have good designs and a cohesive aesthetic, and they're available on B&P, I'll be quite happy. I care more that they fire up the molding and printing machines through the night, to make enough parts to sate demand on B&P, than whether they put a falcon or a lion or a dragon on those torsos.

If the new castle is Black Falcons again, that's fine. If it's some other faction, I suppose that's a little better, because then we've something to contrast with our neo-Black Falcons. If they give us red-and-black knights, well, then I guess I'll build a red-and-black castle to go with them.

But, that's easy for me to say, isn't it? I'm not in quite the same castle-fan boat. If you told me that just any underwater minifigures should do, then I would of course tell you to brick off, and that only proper Aquanauts and Aquasharks and Stingrays will do. Because for my dearest Aquazone I'm blinded by nostalgia, I'm picky, I have a very specific notion in my head of what things should be. And many of you no doubt feel that way about castle, there's an incredibly specific thing you want, and nothing else will do.

[Brick_Rattlehead]

10 hours 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?

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

Its a unisex cloth in my opinion. Kinda like  the Musketeer & Lederhosen guy CMF torso.

[Alexandrina]

2 hours ago, zoth33 said:

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.  

My point is that the original Lion Knights figure is not some powerhouse icon of Lego Castle. The Kingdoms minifigures, beyond being knights with a lion as heraldry, aren't really the same thing. And if I might make an assumption, your son - as the son of an AFOL - is going to have a different experience growing up to the average kid whose parents maybe had some Lego as kids and chucked it out. 

You say yourself that you would welcome an update to any faction. That suggests that it's not the Lion Knights specifically that need to be remade ASAP. 

[MAB]

12 hours ago, Aanchir said:

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.

Some people do army build more ramshackle groups than regular armies with just a single torso design. Using other accessories, turning parts around, covering parts of the print with beards or armour,  different heads, headgear, legs, arms, and so on all help vary the characters. But yes, peasant crowd builders would like more variation than army torso prints.

5 hours ago, Brick_Rattlehead said:

Its a unisex cloth in my opinion. Kinda like  the Musketeer & Lederhosen guy CMF torso.

Those two both have "full fat" bodies. Not slimmed down like this one. Those extra shaded regions make a difference as it is a sign of a female torso. Of course, if you can ignore it then you can use it for a male. However, it looks odd when all other men don't have them. 

[DaleDVM]

Once you start collecting the castle theme, even if on a limited basis, you tend to gather quite a large number of military figures soldiers/knights pretty quickly.  You also tend to collect a decent number of nobles.  I have enough kings to make a small army of them.  However, once you start building MOCs, unless it is strictly a battle scene, most AFOLs note that you need a lot of peasants/merchants/artisans to occupy the scene and draw a better balance between soldiers/knights/royalty, and the commoners which should actually be more "common".  hehe

For kids, I would imagine having a few peasants is actually cool.  You need people for the knights to save from the "bad" guys.  But kids will never want a lot of peasants.  Soldiers and knights are so much cooler to them.  

My only desire as an AFOL is... when they do come out with a new castle theme, it gets fleshed out enough, that they release at least one civilian set.  As long as they do that I can buy in multiples to even out my minifig distribution between the military and civilians. 

I would note, this has always been a problem in all historic type themes from Pirates, Wild West, Castle, etc. from the 1980's until very recently.  None of these themes have historically included many civilian figs or female minifigs either.  Thankfully in 2009 they changed things up and released what many consider one of the greatest sets of all time the Medieval Market Village.  And yet, 2 out of the 7 figures in that set were still soldiers...  Needless to say collecting commoners from historic themes is an expensive proposition.  A smattering of figs from the collectable minifigs series have helped a little as well.  

[SerenityInFire]

There are some decent legs/torsos to use from other themes (namely Star Wars) to use as civilians.

[Alexandrina]

1 hour ago, SerenityInFire said:

There are some decent legs/torsos to use from other themes (namely Star Wars) to use as civilians.

The thing is, licensed themes can only do so much - especially if your medieval scenes are yellow-head. Star Wars had some very good torsos in the early days - Jedi robes, young Anakin, etc. - but those parts are long out of production and only going to go up in price as time goes on, and there's not going to be more any time soon. Early Harry Potter never had any good torsos to my recollection, and I believe every other potentially useful license has been flesh-tones only. There's occasionally some good torsos without the fleshie collar, so a hand-swap is all that's needed, but the confluence of "medieval civilian-appropriate torso" and "no flesh-tone on the torso" is too rare really. There are also no useful parts in the Lego Movie sets (unlike, say, the Western series, which saw a few civilian gaps filled) and CMF representation for the period seems to be either knights or nobility.

Legs are a different issue, though I'd argue that they've never really been a problem. In particular, the dual-moulded legs with reddish brown boots are very helpful indeed - and I'm glad they're being included in more sets, licensed and otherwise, now.

[Poco Lypso]

Just out of curiosity, how many black falcons are you guys planning on getting? I have been thinking about 20 and maybe a few more depending on how many creator castles I buy (if at all!l

[Alexandrina]

6 minutes ago, Poco Lypso said:

Just out of curiosity, how many black falcons are you guys planning on getting?

Lots. I'm planning on using the design for one of the primary factions in my brickfilm project, and there's more than a few large-scale battles in my plan. I doubt I'll buy too many straight away - probably half a dozen or so when they're back in stock, to complement the two from the Blacksmith - but I'll also be picking up the 3-in-1 and any future sets to include the Black Falcons, and I'll probably bolster my forces with a few more towards the end of the year when the line-up for 2022 starts to become more clear. I'm assuming that they're not going to be permanently removed from sale while they're still in sets that are actively on the market.

[Poco Lypso]

24 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Lots. I'm planning on using the design for one of the primary factions in my brickfilm project, and there's more than a few large-scale battles in my plan. I doubt I'll buy too many straight away - probably half a dozen or so when they're back in stock, to complement the two from the Blacksmith - but I'll also be picking up the 3-in-1 and any future sets to include the Black Falcons, and I'll probably bolster my forces with a few more towards the end of the year when the line-up for 2022 starts to become more clear. I'm assuming that they're not going to be permanently removed from sale while they're still in sets that are actively on the market.

Nice! Looking forward to seeing that film!

[Alexandrina]

3 minutes ago, Poco Lypso said:

Nice! Looking forward to seeing that film!

You might have a pretty long wait, to be honest. It's snowballed into a 1600-minute project split over forty episodes, and I'm not going to be in a position to even start filming for a few months yet. And that's assuming I'm able to get hold of enough Black Falcons!

[Shroffy123]

34 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Lots. I'm planning on using the design for one of the primary factions in my brickfilm project, and there's more than a few large-scale battles in my plan. I doubt I'll buy too many straight away - probably half a dozen or so when they're back in stock, to complement the two from the Blacksmith - but I'll also be picking up the 3-in-1 and any future sets to include the Black Falcons, and I'll probably bolster my forces with a few more towards the end of the year when the line-up for 2022 starts to become more clear. I'm assuming that they're not going to be permanently removed from sale while they're still in sets that are actively on the market.

Is it becoming more probable that we will see new castle wave in 2022?

[Alexandrina]

9 minutes ago, Shroffy123 said:

Is it becoming more probable that we will see new castle wave in 2022?

I've not heard anything, but blind optimism is giving me hope - and for that reason, I don't want to be spending £50 or £100 on torsos from Bricks and Pieces only for a full Black Falcons range to be announced for next year. I wouldn't have thought we'd have heard anything either way by now, though - there's still a long way to go until next year.

[Aanchir]

26 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

I've not heard anything, but blind optimism is giving me hope - and for that reason, I don't want to be spending £50 or £100 on torsos from Bricks and Pieces only for a full Black Falcons range to be announced for next year. I wouldn't have thought we'd have heard anything either way by now, though - there's still a long way to go until next year.

For my part, I'm reluctant to make any predictions, since my expectation of a new Castle theme in 2019 or 2020 (after Nexo Knights concluded) didn't end up panning out. Truth be told, I wouldn't be surprised if LEGO has been trying to introduce new "play themes" less frequently since 2017 when their previous decade of growth began visibly stalling out, focusing instead on the stability of reliable ongoing themes like City, Friends, Ninjago, Creator, Technic, and Duplo. They still have introduced new themes since then, like Hidden Side, Monkie Kid, and Dots, but even those seem to be designed to last at least two years — a far cry from the parade of shorter-lived product lines introduced during LEGO's growth years.

On the plus side, the lack of "one-and-done" themes in recent years (aside from licensed ones) suggests that if Castle, Pirates, or Space DO come back as themes of their own in the near future, there's a strong chance that it'll be with plans for a longer run than just one wave. In fact, it's even possible that the longer-than-usual absence of new Castle or Pirates waves could be due to the extra development time it might take to develop a more sustainable incarnation of these themes than the short-lived versions we saw in 2013 or 2015.

Of course, that's pure speculation, and it could just as easily be that LEGO simply doesn't consider these themes a priority at the moment — particularly Pirates, which never really showed as much "staying power" as Castle or Space. But regardless, I would love it if a new Castle theme came out sometime soon, especially if it manages to improve as much on Kingdoms/2013 Castle design standards as other themes have managed to improve in the same span of time.

[Alexandrina]

31 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

particularly Pirates, which never really showed as much "staying power" as Castle or Space. 

I think this sums up why Castle is the most likely of the three to return. Pirates never established itself to the same extent, and Space has had more bones thrown its way through Star Wars, etc. 

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

I think this sums up why Castle is the most likely of the three to return. Pirates never established itself to the same extent, and Space has had more bones thrown its way through Star Wars, etc. 

As an avid space fan, I have to wholeheartedly disagree. Star Wars has virtually zero things of interest for space fans. I happen to also like SW (because of the story and characters), but I have never thought SW ships are aesthetically pleasing. However, I'd concur that Lego has been pleasing space fans somewhat better than castle fans. Honestly, I'd be happy with either space or castle getting chosen.

[Alexandrina]

7 minutes ago, BrickHat said:

As an avid space fan, I have to wholeheartedly disagree. Star Wars has virtually zero things of interest for space fans. I happen to also like SW (because of the story and characters), but I have never thought SW ships are aesthetically pleasing. However, I'd concur that Lego has been pleasing space fans somewhat better than castle fans. Honestly, I'd be happy with either space or castle getting chosen.

I definitely wouldn't like to argue that what Space has had in the past decade has been satisfactory. In my opinion the Core Five themes (Castle, Pirate, Space, Town and Train) should have sets every year. But if Lego would only pick one theme to bring back, they'll probably see Star Wars and the Lego Movie sets as representing Space better than anything has represented Castle in the last few years.

Honestly, though, I think the Ideas vote might be a wake-up call. Castle and Space are both highly popular evergreen themes - they're bound to return eventually, and I think the appetite is there now for both to do well.

[DaleDVM]

How many black falcons do I plan on getting?  Well...

I have about 75 of the old black falcons, and a half dozen of the Kingdoms joust "black falcon" knight. 

The kingdoms joust "Black Falcon" knight is really interesting in the history of Castle minifigs.  The joust fig did not have a unique torso, legs, or head.  It shared a torso and legs with many of the green dragon knights from kingdoms.  However, It had a unique piece of printed armor that was never used again in any minifig, but that armor had no heraldry on it.  The barding for the horse was also unique to that figure, and yet, it also had no identifying heraldry on it.  The barding was black and grey and had tiny fleur de lis symbols across the bottom.  The only identifying feature for the knight was the shield which had a black falcon but didn't have any blue (or yellow) trim like the classic shields did.  That shield was also unique to only that mini-figure.  The new shields in the blacksmith set are pretty similar but are not the same.  His helmet had a dark green plume which obviously was an "oversight" on the part of the designers... which needed to be replaced with standard blue at the earliest convenience. In all honesty, that fig didn't much represent the old "blue" black falcon faction at all.  However, I immediately absorbed those figures as elites in my old black falcon army since the black falcons were the only major castle faction that never got any barding.  So perhaps LEGO has now done them justice with a smattering of love scattered through the years!

So... with that long winded response, I guess I will get around 25-40 of the new black falcons to make an elite unit of soldiers (24 for my units) and some to replace the leaders of the old units as these "new" black falcons look much nicer than the 80s version.  Which will bring this faction to over a hundred figs which they deserve.

[danth]

11 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

But if Lego would only pick one theme to bring back, they'll probably see Star Wars and the Lego Movie sets as representing Space better than anything has represented Castle in the last few years.

I could argue that they'd see Harry Potter, LotR/The Hobbit, and Disney sets as representing Castle as much as other themes represent Space.

[Alexandrina]

12 minutes ago, danth said:

I could argue that they'd see Harry Potter, LotR/The Hobbit, and Disney sets as representing Castle as much as other themes represent Space.

Lord of the Rings is definitely seen as representing Castle, but it also finished seven years ago, so it's kind of moot in the present discussion. Harry Potter might be set in a castle, but it doesn't have period appropriate minifigures or anything.

[DaleDVM]

I like Harry Potter books, LEGO, and movies but am torn because I do think those sets are competing with my beloved castle.  The last movie aimed at kids came out over a decade ago.  I would argue later Harry Potter movies and the fantastic beast movies are aimed at older teens and adults more than kids. 

So I say, enough LEGO HP already!  The hype is done...

Begone Harry Potter sets!  TLG is just rehashing the same stuff over and over at this stage anyway and bring back castle!!!  Long live the king!

No Harry Potter fans were harmed in the making of this post.  But maybe a couple got hurt reading it.  If so, Reparo.  and sorry bout that.

[Alexandrina]

21 minutes ago, DaleDVM said:

I like Harry Potter books, LEGO, and movies but am torn because I do think those sets are competing with my beloved castle.  The last movie aimed at kids came out over a decade ago.  I would argue later Harry Potter movies and the fantastic beast movies are aimed at older teens and adults more than kids. 

So I say, enough LEGO HP already!  The hype is done...

Begone Harry Potter sets!  TLG is just rehashing the same stuff over and over at this stage anyway and bring back castle!!!  Long live the king!

No Harry Potter fans were harmed in the making of this post.  But maybe a couple got hurt reading it.  If so, Reparo.  and sorry bout that.

I don't think they're mutually exclusive. Harry Potter is based on films set in the relative modern-day, with some locations being a castle. There's no reason there can't also be a Castle theme.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

Lord of the Rings is definitely seen as representing Castle, but it also finished seven years ago, so it's kind of moot in the present discussion. Harry Potter might be set in a castle, but it doesn't have period appropriate minifigures or anything.

Nearly Headless Nick is, he looks good alongside CMF Actors and Shakespeares. Similarly Dumbledore is often useful for wizards, McGonagall, Sprout and Flitwick are useful too. Lucious Malfoy in the black coat, and some of the torsos from Diagon Alley. And the executioner.

Edited March 2, 2021 by MAB

[Alexandrina]

1 minute ago, MAB said:

Nearly Headless Nick is, he looks good alongside CMF Actors and Shakespeares. Similarly Dumbledore is often useful for wizards, McGonagall, Sprout and Flitwick are useful too. Malfoy in the black coat, and some of the torsos from Diagon Alley.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that - except for Nearly Headless Nick, who other than the desaturated colour palette does look period appropriate to Shakespeare.

I would argue, though, that Elizabethan England is more modern than the traditional aesthetics of a Castle theme, which to me seem more rooted in the High Middle Ages.

[MAB]

5 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

We'll have to agree to disagree on that - except for Nearly Headless Nick, who other than the desaturated colour palette does look period appropriate to Shakespeare.

I would argue, though, that Elizabethan England is more modern than the traditional aesthetics of a Castle theme, which to me seem more rooted in the High Middle Ages.

I guess everyone sets there Castle themes in different ages. I set mine around English civil war times, and also use Musketeers, Conquistadors, etc. for their clothes and armour. Plus the morion helmet for pikemen and so on.