Future Castle Sets?

[kuzyabricks]

1 hour ago, TeriXeri said:

With that Ghost lamp shown in Survey, wolf pack showing up in MTS and Fortnite, hopefully it means a Wolfpack Tower is in development (or any of the major others, but that would be Black Knights, a second Lion Knights Castle, or Royal Knights which seem less likely right now) , I doubt they'd do a ghost figure suit in a GWP, and hopefully not via CMF for such a major part of classic castle.

 

Wait what ghost lamp?

[Black Falcon]

6 minutes ago, kuzyabricks said:

Wait what ghost lamp?

From this Survey. 

[Artanis I]

Black Knights are sorely missing from this Castle renaissance

[Aanchir]

Regardless of what faction it focused on, I would definitely be eager to see what a modern, 18+ take on one of the black castles might look like! Back in the 80s, most of the grey castle sets tended to stick to relatively similar architectural cues regardless of faction, so that kids could combine those sets in any combination. And if you wanted to add a Black Falcon castle set onto a Lion Knight castle or vice-versa, all you had to do was change the shields and flags. But when Black Monarch's Castle was introduced, the fact that it didn't need to match with castles that had come before it freed the designers to incorporate new architectural motifs (like the use of 2x2 macaroni bricks to give the parapets on its towers unique scalloped edges, and heavier use of contrasting stone colors for columns, walkways, and arrow loops).

I feel like a modern Black Knight, Wolfpack, or Dragon Knight castle could likewise be a great opportunity to employ very different architectural motifs from the Lion Knights' Castle — perhaps favoring curved or octagonal towers over square/rectangular ones, or battlements of a different form than LKC's wide rectangular merlons capped with smooth semicircular curves.

Also, as I've mentioned before, if LEGO makes new Black Knight minifigures, I'd love if the scale mail were molded rather than printed. The 1988 scale mail torso print, much like the 1984 silver breastplate torso pattern, was used for multiple differently colored torso assemblies across several factions, so having the scale mail as a removable torso accessory like the current molded breastplate would allow you to pair it either with the current Lion Knight or Black Falcon torso patterns or with a newer, less heavily armored Black Knight torso pattern.

On 2/24/2024 at 12:09 PM, TeriXeri said:

With that Ghost lamp shown in Survey, wolf pack showing up in MTS and Fortnite, hopefully it means a Wolfpack Tower is in development (or any of the major others, but that would be Black Knights, a second Lion Knights Castle, or Royal Knights which seem less likely right now) , I doubt they'd do a ghost figure suit in a GWP, and hopefully not via CMF for such a major part of classic castle.

I don't know how much I'd read into that — after all, other example products in the survey included upscaled flowers resembling the "old style" flowers and stems rather than the current version, and T-shirt graphics portraying decades-old Fabuland and Bionicle sets. So I don't think any of that iconic, nostalgic imagery is really predictive of what stuff LEGO has planned for future sets.

That said, White Glow is still on the color palette, so I'd definitely be happy to see ghost shrouds in that color make a comeback (whether the mold itself resembles the 90s Castle version, the Monster Fighters version, or even a brand-new design).

[zoth33]

3 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Regardless of what faction it focused on, I would definitely be eager to see what a modern, 18+ take on one of the black castles might look like! Back in the 80s, most of the grey castle sets tended to stick to relatively similar architectural cues regardless of faction, so that kids could combine those sets in any combination. And if you wanted to add a Black Falcon castle set onto a Lion Knight castle or vice-versa, all you had to do was change the shields and flags. But when Black Monarch's Castle was introduced, the fact that it didn't need to match with castles that had come before it freed the designers to incorporate new architectural motifs (like the use of 2x2 macaroni bricks to give the parapets on its towers unique scalloped edges, and heavier use of contrasting stone colors for columns, walkways, and arrow loops).

I feel like a modern Black Knight, Wolfpack, or Dragon Knight castle could likewise be a great opportunity to employ very different architectural motifs from the Lion Knights' Castle — perhaps favoring curved or octagonal towers over square/rectangular ones, or battlements of a different form than LKC's wide rectangular merlons capped with smooth semicircular curves.

Also, as I've mentioned before, if LEGO makes new Black Knight minifigures, I'd love if the scale mail were molded rather than printed. The 1988 scale mail torso print, much like the 1984 silver breastplate torso pattern, was used for multiple differently colored torso assemblies across several factions, so having the scale mail as a removable torso accessory like the current molded breastplate would allow you to pair it either with the current Lion Knight or Black Falcon torso patterns or with a newer, less heavily armored Black Knight torso pattern.

I don't know how much I'd read into that — after all, other example products in the survey included upscaled flowers resembling the "old style" flowers and stems rather than the current version, and T-shirt graphics portraying decades-old Fabuland and Bionicle sets. So I don't think any of that iconic, nostalgic imagery is really predictive of what stuff LEGO has planned for future sets.

That said, White Glow is still on the color palette, so I'd definitely be happy to see ghost shrouds in that color make a comeback (whether the mold itself resembles the 90s Castle version, the Monster Fighters version, or even a brand-new design).

I would love a Black Knights castle in a darker color like dark grey and black with a different architecture style so it looks like a different realm from the Lion knights or Black Falcon knights.  I think a small Wolfpack set would be nice too especially since we have the new torso and they could easily redo the tower set and people would love and updated version of that set with newer techniques and pieces.  That set would fly off the shelves.  . 

[Lion King]

Black Knights, Wolfgang and Oehm Castle subthemes are welcoming!

[Yperio_Bricks]

On 2/25/2024 at 7:28 PM, Aanchir said:

Regardless of what faction it focused on, I would definitely be eager to see what a modern, 18+ take on one of the black castles might look like! Back in the 80s, most of the grey castle sets tended to stick to relatively similar architectural cues regardless of faction, so that kids could combine those sets in any combination. And if you wanted to add a Black Falcon castle set onto a Lion Knight castle or vice-versa, all you had to do was change the shields and flags.

Makes me wonder: Is the Lion Knight's Castle a 18+ castle by design philosophy or only by size and price tag? The Medieval Blacksmith looks much more like a set for adults than the LKC to me. The LKC looks more like a big playset, like Eldorado or Medieval Town Square.

[Aanchir]

5 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Makes me wonder: Is the Lion Knight's Castle a 18+ castle by design philosophy or only by size and price tag? The Medieval Blacksmith looks much more like a set for adults than the LKC to me. The LKC looks more like a big playset, like Eldorado or Medieval Town Square.

I think all of those are pretty much equally "for adults" — after all, they all include details and building techniques that go beyond the complexity and intricacy you'd expect in their kid-targeted counterparts (like, say, a LEGO Elves castle or Ninjago temple). So while the tastes of adults can certainly vary quite a bit (e.g. how much we want our sets to focus on play vs. display, or on interior detail vs. exterior detail, or on bright colors vs. understated ones, or on sets that resemble those we remember from our childhoods vs. sets unlike any we've seen before), there's still plenty to distinguish all of these sets from standard playsets beyond just their size/price.

Funnily enough, I remember when Medieval Blacksmith came out I remember a lot of AFOLs criticized the big colorful roof shingles and warm Reddish Brown wood as evidence that LEGO had watered it down into a kid-friendly playset, so I'm kind of surprised you consider it "more like a set for adults". Did you get that impression mostly because of the Blacksmith's separating modular floors vs. "dollhouse-style" hinges, or is there another reason all those other sets gave you playset vibes and the blacksmith did not?

Edited February 27 by Aanchir

[Artanis I]

10 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Is the Lion Knight's Castle a 18+ castle by design philosophy or only by size and price tag?

By nostalgia factor - as with other 90th anniversary sets of varying size and difficulty

[Yperio_Bricks]

8 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Funnily enough, I remember when Medieval Blacksmith came out I remember a lot of AFOLs criticized the big colorful roof shingles and warm Reddish Brown wood as evidence that LEGO had watered it down into a kid-friendly playset, so I'm kind of surprised you consider it "more like a set for adults". Did you get that impression mostly because of the Blacksmith's separating modular floors vs. "dollhouse-style" hinges, or is there another reason all those other sets gave you playset vibes and the blacksmith did not?

I get the impression only by looking at the facades and exterior (personaly i am not much interested in any interior because i won't see it anyway). For example the timbering looks much more elaborate in the Blacksmith than in LKC.

[KristinnK]

9 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I think all of those are pretty much equally "for adults" — after all, they all include details and building techniques that go beyond the complexity and intricacy you'd expect in their kid-targeted counterparts (like, say, a LEGO Elves castle or Ninjago temple). So while the tastes of adults can certainly vary quite a bit (e.g. how much we want our sets to focus on play vs. display, or on interior detail vs. exterior detail, or on bright colors vs. understated ones, or on sets that resemble those we remember from our childhoods vs. sets unlike any we've seen before), there's still plenty to distinguish all of these sets from standard playsets beyond just their size/price.

Funnily enough, I remember when Medieval Blacksmith came out I remember a lot of AFOLs criticized the big colorful roof shingles and warm Reddish Brown wood as evidence that LEGO had watered it down into a kid-friendly playset, so I'm kind of surprised you consider it "more like a set for adults". Did you get that impression mostly because of the Blacksmith's separating modular floors vs. "dollhouse-style" hinges, or is there another reason all those other sets gave you playset vibes and the blacksmith did not?

I agree with the other poster that the Medieval Blacksmith has more the air of a adult target audience, while the Lion Knight's Castle has more the air of a large kids' play set. It's not about specifics, but rather about the picture as a whole. The first clue is that while the piece count is comparable (within a factor of two) the Lion Knight's Castle is much more 'expansive' for lack of a better term. The design of the Medieval Blacksmith is that of a much more realistic structure, i.e. an imitation of a building that could actually exist, with integral and coherent structure, at more or less the scale of a minifigure. It has four walls and a roof, doors and stairs to the attic level. This uses up a lot of bricks, and wouldn't be worth it for a kids' audience, but is appreciated by many adult Lego fans.

The Lion Knight's Castle on the other hand is a facade, both in the metaphorical and literal sense. As displayed on the box it's only the gatehouse and a small stretch of wall, with the buildings attached to the wall being completely open on one side. Closed up it looks better, but introduces other problems such as that the main castle building wouldn't in that case be fronted by a large gatehouse. There aren't doors and staircases that connect different spaces and levels (the occasional ladder doesn't count). And the scale is off, towers and parapet niches are the minifig equivalent of a meter in width. There is a dining hall with two seats. There's a horse shoved in a small corner. None of this is naturalistic. It's an abstraction of the idea of a castle rather than the depiction of a specific plausible castle structure.

None of that is to say that there is something wrong with the Lion Knight's Castle as a set. If you'd have to do even just a small castle (like lets say the Guédelon Castle) in a style and scale similar to the Medieval Blacksmith, you'd be looking at north of 20.000 pieces. This just isn't viable as a Lego set. The Lion Knight's Castle is a fantastic compromise that keeps a lot of the scale that a more naturalistic castle would have, without absolutely breaking the bank. But it's definitely more of a kids' oriented playset when compared to the Medieval Blacksmith.

[MAB]

20 minutes ago, KristinnK said:

I agree with the other poster that the Medieval Blacksmith has more the air of a adult target audience, while the Lion Knight's Castle has more the air of a large kids' play set.

I think it is possible to go ever further than that. To me, the Blacksmith set was an adults' set for adults whereas the Lion Knights Castle is a kids' play set for adults. The former is highly detailed and mainly display oriented  whereas the latter is in the style of a kids' set even though it is for adults (or adult budgets), hence the nostalgic link to kids' toys of the past. The Blacksmith is quite far removed from Castle of days gone by,  where LKC is much closer and more recognizable as being from the same line as the originals, just being much larger (and costly). Although the techniques used in LKC are more complex than the originals (although not that dissimilar from kids' sets of today).

 

 

Edited February 27 by MAB

[BrickMatit]

It's so... I would say strange... seeing people debating wheter a 180$ set like the Blacksmith or a 400$ set like the Lion Knight's Castle is aimed at kids...  I was born in 1990 and as a kid I would have never been able to buy anything so high priced with my money and in no way my parents would have bought it... but probably nowadays kids has better syndicates and higher pocketmoneys .

Seriously, I think the Lion Knight's Castle is more a playset, while the Blacksmith is more a display set.

I will say that the castle is aimed to adult wallets with kids style while the blacksmith to adult wallets with adult style .

And don't forget the black box!

[MAB]

1 hour ago, BrickMatit said:

It's so... I would say strange... seeing people debating wheter a 180$ set like the Blacksmith or a 400$ set like the Lion Knight's Castle is aimed at kids...  I was born in 1990 and as a kid I would have never been able to buy anything so high priced with my money and in no way my parents would have bought it... but probably nowadays kids has better syndicates and higher pocketmoneys .

 

Some kids have rich relatives and get what they want. I know one family with two boys, each of them had the original UCS Death Star 10188. In a LEGO store once, a grandmother on the phone to presumably the parents of the grandkid. They couldn't decide whether the kid would want Hogwarts 71043 or Cloud City 75222. The grandad looked like he was impatient and bought both. It wouldn't surprise me if there are kids with the LKC and the Blacksmith. It might not be aimed at kids, but kids will still want and have it.

[TeriXeri]

7 hours ago, Artanis I said:

By nostalgia factor - as with other 90th anniversary sets of varying size and difficulty

Exception would be Majisto's , or the last Classic space GWP's, sure they aren't part of 90th anniversary, but majisto's was 12+, and Micro Rocket Launchpad 9+, and both using still quite nostalgia remake box arts.
 

Edited February 27 by TeriXeri

[Shroffy123]

16 minutes ago, MAB said:

Some kids have rich relatives and get what they want. I know one family with two boys, each of them had the original UCS Death Star 10188. In a LEGO store once, a grandmother on the phone to presumably the parents of the grandkid. They couldn't decide whether the kid would want Hogwarts 71043 or Cloud City 75222. The grandad looked like he was impatient and bought both. It wouldn't surprise me if there are kids with the LKC and the Blacksmith. It might not be aimed at kids, but kids will still want and have it.

Haha, that's great. Growing up there was always that rich kid in the neighborhood that we all went over to his house to play with his toys. 

 

A few years back,I took my kids to the lego store. The set on display was the carousel (a $200 or so set) It immediately caught my kids' eye. I still remember the lego store employee talking the set up to my kids, in the hopes that I'd buy it. Just looked at the employee and told him not going to happen. 

[Yperio_Bricks]

1 hour ago, BrickMatit said:

It's so... I would say strange... seeing people debating wheter a 180$ set like the Blacksmith or a 400$ set like the Lion Knight's Castle is aimed at kids...

You got me wrong. I think both sets are first and foremost aimed at adults! But my impression is that the Blacksmith looks much more mature than the Lion Knight's Castle. So when judging the overall look, the LKC looks like a big playet, impressive in size, yes, but it's not something i personaly would like to see from a set marketed for adults.

2 hours ago, BrickMatit said:

  I was born in 1990 and as a kid I would have never been able to buy anything so high priced with my money and in no way my parents would have bought it...

I feel ya! I was born 1983 and also never got the sets my parents deemed as beeing too expensive. The first thing i did when my dark ages ended in ~2019 was to buy a Lego train, which i never got as a kid.

[Aanchir]

2 hours ago, BrickMatit said:

It's so... I would say strange... seeing people debating wheter a 180$ set like the Blacksmith or a 400$ set like the Lion Knight's Castle is aimed at kids...  I was born in 1990 and as a kid I would have never been able to buy anything so high priced with my money and in no way my parents would have bought it... but probably nowadays kids has better syndicates and higher pocketmoneys .

I mean, even several kid-targeted playsets back in the day were pretty dang expensive! Like, 6285 cost $110 back in 1989 — the equivalent of over $270 today when you adjust for inflation! And 6990 cost $140 in 1987, equivalent to around $380 in 2024 US dollars (though of course, the bespoke electronic elements and all-new track system were surely a big part of that)! Even 6195 from my own childhood cost $89 in 1995, the equivalent of around $180 today! LEGO was never a particularly inexpensive toy, even before big exclusives targeted at adult builders/collectors started to emerge in the 2000s.

And in any case, @Yperio_Bricks was questioning was whether these sets really felt "for adults" aside from their size/price, which I feel is a fair question to ask — after all, LEGO could hypothetically bundle a bunch of kid-targeted City sets together in one box for a $400 price point, and that wouldn't mean the designs themselves are any less kid-targeted than if they were sold separately.

4 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

I get the impression only by looking at the facades and exterior (personaly i am not much interested in any interior because i won't see it anyway). For example the timbering looks much more elaborate in the Blacksmith than in LKC.

You know, that's a valid perspective. However, I think the flat, narrow, perpendicular half-timbering in Lion Knights' Castle and Medieval Town Square is that way for reasons of scale rather than for the sake of simplicity. After all, the half-timbered structures in those two sets are individually a lot smaller than the Medieval Blacksmith, and having several sections of the walls themselves built sideways is arguably a more advanced building technique than building standard studs-up walls with occasional SNOT bricks to attach tiles, even if the end result looks more simplistic.
 

For my part, interior is a HUGE factor in how "mature" a set feels to me, and certainly a big part of why I was drawn to Medieval Blacksmith, Lion Knights' Castle, and Medieval Town Square despite not having previously sought out castle sets as an AFOL. One of my frustrations with the LEGO castles from my own childhood was how empty their interiors often felt. Details I was familiar with from medieval fiction and non-fiction books I'd grown up with — lavish dining halls, luxurious royal bedchambers, long winding staircases, a busy kitchen with a blazing hearth, a stable, etc. — were basically nowhere to be found.

Frankly, we were fortunate if a kid-targeted LEGO castle had much interior detail at all beyond a throne room, dungeon, and occasional clips for storing weapons! By contrast, even the otherwise lackluster Mega Bloks castle I received once as a gift (built inside a solid plastic shell/storage case) boasted at least a few of the sort of lifestyle-focused interior details that I could only dream of seeing in a LEGO castle — at least until the LEGO Elves theme came out in the 2010s.

So to me, the best teen- and adult-targeted sets are those that present more well-rounded details than their kid-targeted playset equivalents. Sets that focus not just on exciting action play, but on everyday life. Not just on flashy-looking exteriors, but on realistically and attractively furnished interiors. The sort of sets that fulfill the sort of wishes that the sets of my childhood could never quite meet, but that I continued to dream of well into adulthood, and that I would always strive to address in my own MOCs.

Not judging you at all for having different preferences… but I do think this provides a good anecdotal example of just how much adult tastes (and consequently, the sort of features we expect in adult-targeted sets) can vary!

3 hours ago, MAB said:

I think it is possible to go ever further than that. To me, the Blacksmith set was an adults' set for adults whereas the Lion Knights Castle is a kids' play set for adults. The former is highly detailed and mainly display oriented  whereas the latter is in the style of a kids' set even though it is for adults (or adult budgets), hence the nostalgic link to kids' toys of the past. The Blacksmith is quite far removed from Castle of days gone by,  where LKC is much closer and more recognizable as being from the same line as the originals, just being much larger (and costly). Although the techniques used in LKC are more complex than the originals (although not that dissimilar from kids' sets of today). 

I wouldn't phrase it exactly this way, but this is also a pretty good point: Medieval Blacksmith is Castle-inspired in terms of setting, but doesn't draw considerable inspiration from traditional Castle playsets beyond that. By contrast, Lion Knights' Castle was specifically meant as a 90th anniversary tribute to classic Castle sets, and so the designers consciously went out of their way to include features reminiscent of ones adults might remember fondly from their childhood Castle playsets:

• a hinged construction which can be displayed either as a closed structure or a wider curtain wall
• play features such as a working drawbridge and portcullis
• a hinged rock wall which conceals a secret passage for the forest people
• both a towering, twisty brick-built tree with black bark, and a few small molded spruce trees.
• a mountainous raised foundation meant to echo the old-school raised baseplates
• …and so forth.

Even the narrow timbers may be partly intended to echo the classic wall panels with printed half-timbering. Certainly that seems to be the case for the red back room of the inn in Medieval Town Square, since both its colors and proximity to a guard tower suggest it's likely intended as a specific callback to 6067 Guarded Inn/The Town Wall Tavern!

[kuzyabricks]

I hope we get a proper black falcon castle in the next few years. 31120 is far too small and mountain fortress was hard to get. Regret not getting it a bit but hope we get a proper falcon castle eventually

[Lion King]

22 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Makes me wonder: Is the Lion Knight's Castle a 18+ castle by design philosophy or only by size and price tag? The Medieval Blacksmith looks much more like a set for adults than the LKC to me. The LKC looks more like a big playset, like Eldorado or Medieval Town Square.

Don’t you realize that they used to be playsets in the past? Now they are the 18+ sets with amazing building techniques, new parts, and cool details. 

But I got your point about Blacksmith tho. 

 

[Yperio_Bricks]

10 minutes ago, Lion King said:

Don’t you realize that they used to be playsets in the past? Now they are the 18+ sets with amazing building techniques, new parts, and cool details. 

But I got your point about Blacksmith tho. 

 

Yes, they were playsets marketed towards children in the past and now they are big 18+ playsets marketed for adults. But i - as an adult - would prefer something (LKC; Eldorado; Town Square) that looks more mature and not like a big playset. Just my personal opinion

But i guess there's a hugh bias on my side because i looked at a thousand fantastic mocs and a LEGO set can never match them for various reasons and limitations.

[Lion King]

5 minutes ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Yes, they were playsets marketed towards children in the past and now they are big 18+ playsets marketed for adults. But i - as an adult - would prefer something (LKC; Eldorado; Town Square) that looks more mature and not like a big playset. Just my personal opinion

But i guess there's a hugh bias on my side because i looked at a thousand fantastic mocs and a LEGO set can never match them for various reasons and limitations.

I atoll understand your point there!

I do have Galaxy Explorerer set but i haven’t built it yet. To be honest, I really don’t know if I would like that set as a “adult” playset. 

[kuzyabricks]

You guys are boring. The more play features the better!! I don’t want a boring 4500+ piece set without any fun or charm in it

[Aanchir]

1 hour ago, kuzyabricks said:

You guys are boring. The more play features the better!! I don’t want a boring 4500+ piece set without any fun or charm in it

Hey now, I think that's a little harsh. I definitely agree with you when it comes to enjoying play features in sets! But at the same time, I get that as an adult a lot of us don't get a whole lot of time to actually play with those features (especially those of us who also have other hobbies and/or spend a lot of our dedicated LEGO time trying to build new stuff, as opposed to playing with the stuff we've built previously).

In that respect, I understand why other AFOLs might prefer if their money goes towards a more impressive shelf presence than towards hidden or interactive features they won't have as many opportunities to appreciate. I don't agree with it, but I understand it.

[Follows Closely]

4 hours ago, kuzyabricks said:

I hope we get a proper black falcon castle in the next few years. 31120 is far too small and mountain fortress was hard to get. Regret not getting it a bit but hope we get a proper falcon castle eventually

I do not expect another black falcon castle for a long, long time. I mean, come on: we just had the second largest castle ever in the mountain fortress, and we still have the 3 in 1 falcon castle. I reccomend bricklink'n the pieces you are lacking for the mountain fortress, it is a good build and looks fantastic.