Future Castle Sets?

[Artifex]

I like this new castle.

Sorry for my ignorance, but is Lego going to release more Castle sets?

I hope they do, especially army builder ones.

But the best thing so far is to have the Black Falcons back.

With some luck, the blacksmith and the castle will be the first two sets in a long line.

*crosses fingers*

[BrickJagger]

After seeing the pictures I'm impressed with the build. It's in the sweet spot between a bunch of wall panels and a sprawling behemoth covered in grebling. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect with how some people have reacted to this set. There's a group that is disappointed by the lack of wall panels or Castle-specific parts in favor of smaller and more generic bricks, which I understand. It's Creator, though, so I already expected that. On the other hand you've got the people who are saying that it looks like something out of a theme park because of how colorful it is. I don't get that perspective at all. In the Middle Ages, bright colors were a status symbol. These Black Falcons seem to be pretty well off, so why wouldn't they have a garish castle?

The Tudor style bits sprinkled around the castle give it a completely different atmosphere than sets like 70404, and in a good way. I would have preferred dark tan instead of yellow for accuracy's sake but since it fits well with the original Black Falcon's Fortress it's fine by me. The feature that allows it the close up and connect with the alternate builds is clever and will assuredly convince some people to buy multiples if they weren't going to already.

I think we're mostly in agreement that the minifigure selection is lacking. I appreciate the consistency of using the Black Falcons again because I'm not personally into bulk-buying torsos and such to create whole factions. Introducing yet another heraldry with this set would have made for more of a headache for me than anything else as I like to group my factions together. That being said, the current makeup of current Black Falcons are two old men and two women, with not a single fighting-age man which is a bit odd. I guess you could just switch a few heads out though. You can't do that with the "civilian", who is definitely an escapee from Barracuda Bay. Not cool, Lego. 

Overall, I'm glad that they made this set but I hope that they don't think they'll be set for the next few years with the Castle crowd. Now that they've shown us they're capable of producing $100 castles, just months after releasing an enormous civilian building, there's no reason for them not to either continue to make castle-themed Creator sets or just bite the bullet and revive the theme itself.

Two of their most common arguments are now out the window: "Castle doesn't test well with kids" and "Harry Potter is taking Castle's shelf space". I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're ramping up to introduce Castle again in the meantime. 

21 minutes ago, Artifex said:

Sorry for my ignorance, but is Lego going to release more Castle sets?

I hope they do, especially army builder ones.

But the best thing so far is to have the Black Falcons back.

Welcome back Artifex! The answer is currently no, but I'd love to get a Black Falcons blister pack or something. 

[Shroffy123]

36 minutes ago, Artifex said:

I like this new castle.

Sorry for my ignorance, but is Lego going to release more Castle sets?

I hope they do, especially army builder ones.

But the best thing so far is to have the Black Falcons back.

With some luck, the blacksmith and the castle will be the first two sets in a long line.

*crosses fingers*

I continue to stay cautiously optimistic 

[Grover]

7 hours ago, jtooker said:

I think the old brown and old greys worked very well for castle... and nothing else.  Bley is a much better color for space and modern looking buildings - you could say the same for reddish brown too.  So I completely understand TLG's decision.

Since I typically only build medieval stuff, I miss the old brown!

[1974]

10 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Would timber framing on buildings like this have actually appeared black when it was new? I always figured that it would have had a more "natural" wood look when first installed, and that surviving examples from the medieval era only look as dark as they do due to age-related weathering.

That said, I do think Dark Brown might have looked nicer than Reddish Brown in these timber-frame sections of the build, simply by virtue of having stronger contrast with the Bright Yellow infill. Alternatively, a lighter and less saturated infill color like Cool Yellow could have improved contrast in a similarly appealing way, though it might feel less like a nostalgic callback to Black Falcon's Fortress that way.

In general, when thinking about "modernized" versions of traditional sets or factions, I tend to carefully consider how many color choices back then might have been informed by the limitations of the time. For example, if LEGO were to bring back the Forestmen, I would expect the trees to be in shades of brown, as opposed to black.

Likewise, there are a lot of Castle, Pirates, Ninja, and Adventurers sets even during my childhood that used Bright Yellow for "golden" objects like goblets, decorative sword holders, statues, mummy headdresses, stands for precious gems… even locks on jail cell doors. In a modern context, I'd expect these sorts of features to be in colors like Warm Gold that more clearly communicate the material they're intended to represent, as they are in this particular set.

So from that perspective, it doesn't seem any stranger to me for a "modernized" Black Falcon faction's castle to have Dark Blue roofs than to have Dark Stone Grey walls or a Dark Azure moat.

Well, even in the early 90s when I was first getting into LEGO, basic bricks and plates in colors like green, brown, and tan were still very rare compared to other colors, even in instances where those colors would seem like an obvious choice. Case in point: the first tiles I ever owned with a printed wood grain pattern were the Bright Yellow ones from the Extreme Team Challenge set in 1998.

I remember the Aquaraiders sets being the first theme/subtheme I ever encountered that included large quantities of green parts besides plant pieces or baseplates. Likewise, the sheer number of brown and tan parts in late 90s themes like Wild West, Adventurers, and Star Wars felt pretty groundbreaking to me for that time!

The timber in timber framing was, and is, always painted to protect the wood. Black being a common colour, but you'll see others as well. That building style was still common in the 20th century

In my city we have a living museum with old buildings from all over Denmark that been taken apart and rebuild, it's called "The Old Town" (Den Gamle By)

https://www.dengamleby.dk/en/den-gamle-by/about/

There are many timber framed buildings allthough I do not recall any with reddissh brown timber. Dark red and black seem to be the choice. Fascinating place!

If you ever come to Denmark this place is only a hundred kilometers from Billund and coffee is on me

3 hours ago, Grover said:

Since I typically only build medieval stuff, I miss the old brown!

I've scaled down a lot, but I still have a quarter of a million light/dark grey, brown, red, blue, white, yellow, black and green parts. NO new colours, thank you very much. They look cheap and the mismatch within the same colours are horrid

[Artifex]

9 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

Welcome back Artifex! The answer is currently no, but I'd love to get a Black Falcons blister pack or something. 

Thanks. It's been a (rather looong) while

[INTENSS]

13 hours ago, DaleDVM said:

I welcome the new photos, thanks for posting.  The set is better built/designed than I thought it would be.  For me it is mostly about the parts, so...

I welcome all of the castley stuff.  BFs, swords, shields, armor, helmets, etc.  Most of the parts I have in my collection have come from past castle sets.  So... some interesting parts included in this set that will add more variety my collection...  The olive and dark green slopes are very useful for landscaping and not very common.  I do not think I have any targets like the one in the set.  Not sure if that is a new print or not.  The Nexo knight shields in light bley will be useful.  The dark blue roofs are nice for crownie mocs.  The pyramid shaped 1x1s in reddish brown.  I could use tons of these.  

The set actually does have a decent number of wall panels.  They are just the smaller solid ones not the large ones with windows.  I like this better than past castle sets, since window openings at ground level kind of defeat the purpose of castle walls completely.  These are also more useful to me since I only use the windowed panels as filler inside of landscaping.  I do not like how I can see through the corners of the towers to the gatehouse where the 1x1 rounds meet the dark bley panels.

The best part in my humble opinion... The rounded windows for the water wheel, and used as windows on top of the tall tower in model 2.  These are brand new in reddish brown, only being available in white up until now.  These will be very very valuable if not used in other/cheaper sets.  I have not had the chance to use this part yet.  I notice lattice pieces put into these windows on the tower, but I can't see it clearly.  I am also old...  I assume the flat lattice pieces from the gatehouse windows fit into the curved window?  Does anyone know?

The final new part, that I noticed, is the civilian minifig.  If you go back a bunch of pages, you will note the civilian was the only part of this entire set I was really looking forward to.  Well, it is official.  This is unlikely to ever get used by me.  I am sad.  It just screams pirate.  My nephew has the complete collection of all pirate sets... so it looks like he will be getting a few of these guys to add to his collection.  At least they won't sit in a box...

All in all, I would give this set 4.5 stars out of 5 for design but sadly 2.5 stars for parts.  Too few castle figs, no new castle molds, no new heraldry, no animals.  I guess this is what I should expect from a 3in1.  But, as a castle collector in the historic forum, I am judging 31120 as a castle set.  As a parts set for non-castle builders, I am sure it is much better.  

That rounded window caught my eye as well.  Is that a new part?  Can we get those in grey?! Great possibilities.

[VTsquatts]

I know a couple people (maybe not in the USA) mentioned creator 3 in 1 sets going on sale at some point.  obviously this one wont go on sale anytime soon but I don't usually follow 3 in 1 sets.  Does anyone know where these might go on sale in the USA at some point.  of course I will save a search on Google for deals but anyone know a retailer consistently does this for me to keep an eye on?  I know I get stuff from Target from time to time but coupons never apply to Lego lol.  

[TheLegoDr]

20 minutes ago, VTsquatts said:

I know a couple people (maybe not in the USA) mentioned creator 3 in 1 sets going on sale at some point.  obviously this one wont go on sale anytime soon but I don't usually follow 3 in 1 sets.  Does anyone know where these might go on sale in the USA at some point.  of course I will save a search on Google for deals but anyone know a retailer consistently does this for me to keep an eye on?  I know I get stuff from Target from time to time but coupons never apply to Lego lol.  

I've only seen these larger Creator sets get "clearanced" at Walmart, and even then it was a fluke thing. I recall buying the Pirate roller coaster set for 20% off while Target still had it full price. YMMV

[1974]

1 hour ago, INTENSS said:

That rounded window caught my eye as well.  Is that a new part?  Can we get those in grey?! Great possibilities.

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=73878#T=C&C=1

Cool thing is that it uses the same panes and lattice parts as the common square windows

[Aanchir]

3 hours ago, 1974 said:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=73878#T=C&C=1

Cool thing is that it uses the same panes and lattice parts as the common square windows

Yeah! It’s a very exciting piece, and it’s great to see it being used in so many different ways even in its debut year. It seems like it could be very useful for not only bay windows, but also railings, countertops, skylights, windows on a ship’s bridge or observation deck… and apparently, water wheels!

10 hours ago, 1974 said:

The timber in timber framing was, and is, always painted to protect the wood. Black being a common colour, but you'll see others as well. That building style was still common in the 20th century

In my city we have a living museum with old buildings from all over Denmark that been taken apart and rebuild, it's called "The Old Town" (Den Gamle By)

https://www.dengamleby.dk/en/den-gamle-by/about/

Thank you for educating me! Needless to say, we don’t have any authentic medieval architecture here in the USA, so most of my knowledge about this stuff tends to come from stuff I’ve read rather than firsthand observations. And sometimes even detailed articles about this stuff gloss over these sorts of important details. 

15 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

Two of their most common arguments are now out the window: "Castle doesn't test well with kids" and "Harry Potter is taking Castle's shelf space". I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're ramping up to introduce Castle again in the meantime. 

Agreed. Honestly, neither of these arguments ever felt convincing to me. The first is contradicted by the sheer number of non-Castle-themed castles we’ve seen over the past decade — if kids didn’t like castles in general, why include so many of them in themes like Legends of Chima, Elves, Nexo Knights, and Hidden Side that could just as easily focus on other types of builds that don’t bear any resemblance to castles?

And as for the latter argument, even if licensed themes like Harry Potter DO factor into LEGO’s decisions about the Castle theme, it clearly didn’t stand in the way of the Castle theme revivals in 2004, 2007, or 2010. And the Harry Potter brand was a much stronger “craze” back then than it is now, with Google Trends showing stronger search interest in Harry Potter than even Star Wars during those years!

All in all, I honestly feel that the main reason for the Castle theme’s current hiatus is just that LEGO has decided to focus on other themes for the time being, not that they have any sort of objection to the Castle theme specifically.

16 hours ago, Lord Insanity said:

The saving grace is the inclusion of the classic armor and grille helmet.  Those were conspicuously absent from the Idea's Blacksmith Shop.  If the pirate torso was the trade off to getting those back in production in this set I am happy with that decision.  I have several extra police officers that can easily be converted to blue sleeved knights with the armor and helmet.

The classic armor and grille helmet were actually already in production, having recently appeared in sets like Spider-Man and the Museum Break-In, Gamer’s Market, and Skull Sorceror’s Dungeons, and the Disney Castle.

Of course, I’m sure this set is much more relevant to traditional Castle fans’ interests than most of those were (although the armor stand in the Skull Sorceror’s Dungeons is certainly a great technique to keep in mind for castle MOCs)!

The Medieval Blacksmith set likely opted for newer shoulder armor pieces instead of the classic breastplate not because the latter wasn’t available, but rather because shoulder armor can more easily be mounted on a wall (conserving the interior floor space) and does not cover up the printed Black Falcon tabards on the knights’ torsos.

18 hours ago, DaleDVM said:

I do not think I have any targets like the one in the set.  Not sure if that is a new print or not. 

Not new, no. It was introduced back in 2016 for the LEGO Friends Adventure Camp Archery set, and has since shown up mostly in Friends and Disney sets. But it’s definitely nice to see it in both this set and the Medieval Blacksmith, since it’s a natural fit for medieval settings, not to mention a great throwback to the printed archery targets in the old-school Forestmen sets!

[INTENSS]

4 hours ago, 1974 said:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=73878#T=C&C=1

Cool thing is that it uses the same panes and lattice parts as the common square windows

Awesome - thanks for the info.  Based on the sets that introduced it, it’s no wonder I haven’t  seen it until now. 😂

[gedren_y]

Those Reddish Brown rounded windows everyone is so keen on can also be found in the new Harry Potter sets. Friends has them in white.

This set is another one that I'll be downloading the instructions for. I wonder how much I can do of this with my existing parts.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

The classic armor and grille helmet were actually already in production, having recently appeared in sets like Spider-Man and the Museum Break-In, Gamer’s Market, and Skull Sorceror’s Dungeons, and the Disney Castle.

And, for army builders, in CMF series 19.

[Lord Insanity]

 

5 hours ago, Aanchir said:

The classic armor and grille helmet were actually already in production, having recently appeared in sets like Spider-Man and the Museum Break-In, Gamer’s Market, and Skull Sorceror’s Dungeons, and the Disney Castle.

There is a high probability that all of those sets are at "End Of Life" and not actually in production anymore.

3 hours ago, MAB said:

And, for army builders, in CMF series 19.

Definitely not still in production.

5 hours ago, Aanchir said:

The Medieval Blacksmith set likely opted for newer shoulder armor pieces instead of the classic breastplate not because the latter wasn’t available, but rather because shoulder armor can more easily be mounted on a wall (conserving the interior floor space) and does not cover up the printed Black Falcon tabards on the knights’ torsos.

All true but also suggested those parts were not going to be in production anymore given the other sets that contained them are all likely at EOL.  I am happy to see them still in production.

[Grover]

17 hours ago, 1974 said:

I've scaled down a lot, but I still have a quarter of a million light/dark grey, brown, red, blue, white, yellow, black and green parts. NO new colours, thank you very much. They look cheap and the mismatch within the same colours are horrid 

I have an insane amount of light grey since I used to collect it for castle building as a kid, but not much of the brown.  On mixing the colors, I would agree, it usually looks terrible, especially with the browns.  However, I have found that LG and LBG can be mixed to make a more interesting stone pattern, if done carefully.  It's much easier if you use plates.  Using LBG/LG bricks can work if you have a large enough surface, but if it's small, can look blocky.  All that being said, I still prefer the old LG over LBG.  The LBG looks too bright to me and not as much like stone to my eye.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Grover

[MAB]

4 hours ago, Lord Insanity said:

Definitely not still in production.

The point is that that helmet has been around for quite a while already and nothing new.

[1974]

The mould was recently used and most likely not worn out. Could be in production again. And/or TLG could have a bunch in stock, we do't know why they choose the other helmet really

6 hours ago, Grover said:

I have an insane amount of light grey since I used to collect it for castle building as a kid, but not much of the brown.  On mixing the colors, I would agree, it usually looks terrible, especially with the browns.  However, I have found that LG and LBG can be mixed to make a more interesting stone pattern, if done carefully.  It's much easier if you use plates.  Using LBG/LG bricks can work if you have a large enough surface, but if it's small, can look blocky.  All that being said, I still prefer the old LG over LBG.  The LBG looks too bright to me and not as much like stone to my eye.

I can see that but it's not for me. When I need a stone pattern I use 4444p01/2. I use a lot of those panels

[Alexandrina]

7 hours ago, 1974 said:

I can see that but it's not for me. When I need a stone pattern I use 4444p01/2. I use a lot of those panels

At risk of straying off-topic, you bringing up those old panels has just brought on a wave of nostalgia in me! 

When I was a wee girl, my Lego consisted of a couple of small basic tubs from between 1997 and 2011, and for reasons I have never worked out half a dozen grey castle wall panels. They were always my favourite parts to build with - though at the time I didn't actually own any other grey bricks, so the castles I made were rather sparse.   It mightn't be the most popular opinion in certain corners, but I do prefer those panels - a couple of them locked in by 1x2s feels so much more secure as a build than the modern equivalent. It's probably too much to hope that the old design ever makes a comeback.

[jtooker]

13 hours ago, Grover said:

I have found that LG and LBG can be mixed to make a more interesting stone pattern, if done carefully

This is how I feel (emphasis mine).  I don't attempt it since most of the times I've seen it done, it doesn't look better to me than using just one or the other.  But everyone once and a while I see a MOC that uses it to great effect.  This is me being picky/judgmental.

[1974]

14 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

At risk of straying off-topic, you bringing up those old panels has just brought on a wave of nostalgia in me! 

When I was a wee girl, my Lego consisted of a couple of small basic tubs from between 1997 and 2011, and for reasons I have never worked out half a dozen grey castle wall panels. They were always my favourite parts to build with - though at the time I didn't actually own any other grey bricks, so the castles I made were rather sparse.   It mightn't be the most popular opinion in certain corners, but I do prefer those panels - a couple of them locked in by 1x2s feels so much more secure as a build than the modern equivalent. It's probably too much to hope that the old design ever makes a comeback.

The 4444 series was the hottest stuff when I was a kid, never in a million years did I want common bricks instead. Made 375 obsolete in a second. And when the Tudor panels came in 1986 with 6067 that was all I wanted. A twelve year old boy wanting a civilian set with a fancy lady, imagine that. TLG must have done something right

Too bad we never saw them in other colours but they do exist as prototype parts in white and orange (of all colours!). There was also another prototype that was six bricks wide instead of five. Not sure how I feel about that

I was lucky enough to get 6080 when it was released. I remember being slightly sad that only a couple had stone prints. Those two panels were among my favourite parts

Today I have hundreds of those panels and it's integral to my MOCing. I like to carry on where I feel TLG stopped in the late 80's/early 90's

Cheers,

Ole

[Grover]

1 hour ago, jtooker said:

This is how I feel (emphasis mine).  I don't attempt it since most of the times I've seen it done, it doesn't look better to me than using just one or the other.  But everyone once and a while I see a MOC that uses it to great effect.  This is me being picky/judgmental.

I agree, hence why I put in the caveat.  I think it works better on larger builds, too, where it's less distracting.  If you have a 300 stud long wall that's 20 bricks high, it tends to add texture, as opposed to a 12x12 vignette where it kind of sticks out.

[elfprince13]

On 5/3/2021 at 3:18 PM, Aanchir said:

"Gentle dwarfs?" Are you referring to the goblins from the 2017 sets? 'Cuz I'd hardly describe them as "gentle"!

Anyway, you can relax — regardless of my own nostalgia for LEGO Elves, there's no reason to think it couldn't coexist with a minifig-based fantasy theme. And I'd probably be able to enjoy a new medieval fantasy theme whether it uses minifigs or mini-dolls, even if one with minifigs didn't appeal to me on ALL the same levels that LEGO Elves did.

After all, my favorite current theme is LEGO Ninjago, and its use of minifigs certainly doesn't detract from my enjoyment one bit!

I love the Elves aesthetic, but I do really prefer minifigs to mini-dolls, for posability if nothing else.

[Aanchir]

17 hours ago, Lord Insanity said:

There is a high probability that all of those sets are at "End Of Life" and not actually in production anymore.

Perhaps that might be true for some of them, but many of them certainly wouldn't have been out of production yet when this set was in development. I mean, the Gamer's Market is still available from LEGO.com in North America, and only recently sold out in Europe. And both the Skull Sorcerer's Dungeons and the Disney Castle are still available on LEGO.com in both America and Europe. So it likely wouldn't have been much trouble for the Creator 3-in-1 team to keep those parts in production a little while longer, knowing they'd be needed again very soon.

[TeriXeri]

I think the addition of the armor and helmet really helps bring a similar style to this part of the alternate build vs the 6041 set, it's not 100% but it's close enough in terms of weapon/armor available (there's also a sword on a clip on the left side of the armor)

 

I really do hope that Creator 3in1 at some point does include horses however if they make more Castle-theme sets. 

Or Battle Packs for Castle knights.

Edited May 5, 2021 by TeriXeri