LEGO IDEAS - The Medieval Blacksmith

[danth]

I'm surprised that people expected multiple animals in this set. The Village Raid set included a barn as the main building, right? It makes sense for a barn to include animals. I don't know why a blacksmith shop would.

[Seaber]

I love this set, even with some minor reservations that others have posted, namely lack of animals and the pirate torso. In the UK I guess this set will be about £120-£140 if the US price is correct, so won't be a day one purchase but I'll get it for sure eventually. 

[Weil]

1 hour ago, danth said:

I'm surprised that people expected multiple animals in this set. The Village Raid set included a barn as the main building, right? It makes sense for a barn to include animals. I don't know why a blacksmith shop would.

I think the expectation comes from what was included in the fan model submission.

I think you're leaning a bit too far the other way in suggesting it wouldn't make sense.  The fan model had a goat, some chickens and a hare/rabbit. The blacksmith has to eat and seems a reasonable small amount of livestock/wildlife for an individual rural household in a medieval setting.

I think the animals and the green bases in the fan model helped give the model that rural feeling.  I suppose the soldiers turning up in a cart helps with that a bit in the final model.

I don't disagree with you that the inclusion of animals was more important for the Village raid set though - and the animals were a reasonable thing to cut in this to help bring the price down (assuming that was the reason).

I still like the set. The building itself looks very nice to me, the horse looks good and I also like the inclusion of black falcons.

[Ecclesiastes]

Apparently Finn from Snow White and the Huntsman is still alive and fights for the Falcons now!

 

[Mr. Cube]

13 hours ago, Lyichir said:

....minifigures generally have cartoony proportions anyway.
 

This.

5 hours ago, 0tter said:

I love it. ?

I had no reason to expect Black Falcons. 

Is their livery the same as that of the knight in the Joust set from several years back? I can't make it out.

It is not the same so that one from the joust set can be used for a faction on it´s own.

[Vorkosigan]

I think the set and figures look great! Wouldn't mind some farm animals or more figures but I'm ok with what we get. I like the spaulders (shoulder armor). This might be the first set I buy two of in quite a while. 

[Niku]

7 hours ago, danth said:

I'm surprised that people expected multiple animals in this set. The Village Raid set included a barn as the main building, right? It makes sense for a barn to include animals. I don't know why a blacksmith shop would.

As I said earlier, I do like the set. Yes, it difers from the original design and the colours are more vivid, I dont mind the changes. I still think is a nice structure and seemingly a good build.

What I dont like, if the price is indeed $150 , is that this set is lacking , Castle guys had received very few compared to other themes, let remember what space or pirates had received recently.
Saturn V, Lunar Lander, Space Station, and a City Wave.
Pirates of Barracuda Bay and Pirate Ship 3 in 1.

(Are from very good to fabulous sets)

This set is suppossed to be the love letter from Lego to the castle fans, yet on previous Castle sets, (Medieval Market, Kingdoms Joust) you can see more minifigs, more animals and a feeling of getting more for what you paid, even in area occuppied.
I dont want to see a given horse in the mouth but A horse in tan, two falcons torsos and a pretty house for $150 seems cheap from Lego. They could give us more for that quantity.
The current set value imo would suit better a $100-$120, if it would cost $100 Would buy 2 or 3 maybe, but for $150 if you buy 2 blacksmiths, for the same amount of money $300 you can get a Pirates of Barracuda Bay and the Pirate Ship 3 in 1. Or a police station and the Saturn V. 

[JintaiZ]

According to promobricks, the price should be $130 instead of $150.

Edited January 19, 2021 by JintaiZ

[Ecclesiastes]

25 minutes ago, JintaiZ said:

According to promobricks, the price should be $130 instead of $150.

130,- would be more acceptable. With a bit of luck, it could be 100,- on sale. That being said, with IDEAS sets it's often better not to wait for discounts. Voltron for example was discontinued/sold out really fast!

[danth]

7 hours ago, Weil said:

I think the expectation comes from what was included in the fan model submission.

I think you're leaning a bit too far the other way in suggesting it wouldn't make sense.  The fan model had a goat, some chickens and a hare/rabbit. The blacksmith has to eat and seems a reasonable small amount of livestock/wildlife for an individual rural household in a medieval setting.

Ah, that all makes sense. I hadn't really noticed the animals in the original set; I still can't even find the goat or chickens. I'm surprised they didn't at least keep the owl.

[danth]

1 hour ago, Niku said:

What I dont like, if the price is indeed $150 , is that this set is lacking , Castle guys had received very few compared to other themes, let remember what space or pirates had received recently.
Saturn V, Lunar Lander, Space Station, and a City Wave.
Pirates of Barracuda Bay and Pirate Ship 3 in 1.

(Are from very good to fabulous sets)

This set is suppossed to be the love letter from Lego to the castle fans, yet on previous Castle sets, (Medieval Market, Kingdoms Joust) you can see more minifigs, more animals and a feeling of getting more for what you paid, even in area occuppied.

You're right, Medieval Market and Kingdoms Joust were both amazingly priced for their part/minifig count. The main difference I see is that the Blacksmith house is more of a Creator Expert style set -- more ornate, more small parts, sacrificing volume for a more dense, detailed build. I wonder if it's final part count will justify the price?

If it makes you feel better, as a Classic Space fan, I've always felt like a red-headed step-child. I don't care at all about any City/NASA style sets, and all I've gotten in 10 years is the (awesome) Exo Suit and the (amazing) Lego Movie sets (Spaceship Spaceship Spaceship, Benny's Space Squad). And I feel incredibly lucky to get those. I guess you can count Galaxy Squad, although it was a major departure from past themes.

Pirate fans though, yeah, they had an amazing year, didn't they? I'm jealous.

[thekeeperofthereaper]

i keep looking at all the classic lego themes and say to myself boy did i miss out on some cracking themes i

wish they would bring these back instead of doing things like superhero sets 

honestly i really like this blacksmith set as the colours standout 

so last year we had the pirates of barracuda bay which was a homage to the classic pirate sets then in the haunted house it was filled with references to the pharoahs quest

hmm could a large set based on the wild west be on the horizon then

[MAB]

43 minutes ago, danth said:

If it makes you feel better, as a Classic Space fan, I've always felt like a red-headed step-child. I don't care at all about any City/NASA style sets, and all I've gotten in 10 years is the (awesome) Exo Suit and the (amazing) Lego Movie sets (Spaceship Spaceship Spaceship, Benny's Space Squad). And I feel incredibly lucky to get those. I guess you can count Galaxy Squad, although it was a major departure from past themes.

 

Plus an ALL NEW colour minifigure (to match your hair).

[Niku]

59 minutes ago, danth said:

You're right, Medieval Market and Kingdoms Joust were both amazingly priced for their part/minifig count. The main difference I see is that the Blacksmith house is more of a Creator Expert style set -- more ornate, more small parts, sacrificing volume for a more dense, detailed build. I wonder if it's final part count will justify the price?

If it makes you feel better, as a Classic Space fan, I've always felt like a red-headed step-child. I don't care at all about any City/NASA style sets, and all I've gotten in 10 years is the (awesome) Exo Suit and the (amazing) Lego Movie sets (Spaceship Spaceship Spaceship, Benny's Space Squad). And I feel incredibly lucky to get those. I guess you can count Galaxy Squad, although it was a major departure from past themes.

Pirate fans though, yeah, they had an amazing year, didn't they? I'm jealous.

Yes, the piece count will probably be higher given the amount of details, vs the volume feeling of the set. I just hope is more cheaper $130 is better but not great. Not for the wallet at least.
I understand you, I have a friend very similar to your case, I just felt like on graduation day Papa Lego was giving to the other siblings Ferrari and we the Castle brethen received an Audi.
Ok that just sounded like a spoiled brat. But you got the point.
Jealous of pirates too.

[Gorilla94]

To be honest I don't like the set very much.

The work place is cute and a great Inspiration for MOCs. I'll bricklink the printed Tile for sure. The horse is cool. The flat silver version of the SW-Guards' armor is awesome. The female head with golden ornaments on the forehead is great for many kitbashs. And well... that's it. That's all i like about it.

The round Tiles at the fassade are just awefull. There are so many stupid new pieces intruduced. Why didn't we get 2 Tiles until now which have a parallelogram shape? It would improve so many sets so much. 

I never expected the goat in the first place but it is still bad to not get her.

What I indeed expected was a recolour of the tournament knight's sword and the viking helmet. The sword is the same colour and there isn't even a viking helmet in any colour. In fact there is such a ridicilously small amount of tools, weapons and armor, that it is not funny anymore.

Edited January 8, 2021 by Gorilla94

[Aanchir]

On 1/7/2021 at 2:05 PM, Robert8 said:

Also, wouldn't it be easier to use this piece instead?

I suspect that part is likely long-retired, given how long it's been since any set used it (I mean, even without an active Castle theme, other Castle weapons still show up fairly frequently in themes like Ninjago, Legends of Chima, Nexo Knights, etc, whereas the old halberd hasn't).

Plus, even if the details of the old halberd were more realistic, the scale was extremely excessive compared to minifigures — something that I've definitely seen criticized even by Castle fans in the past when compared to the sort of weapon pieces which preceded it. It was decent when used either as decoration (like, say, over an archway), as a swinging-axe trap in a building, or built onto some variety of siege engine, but for actual use as a polearm I think a smaller "custom" equivalent like this feels a lot more suitable.

And in general, this set is already packed with so many complex building techniques that I doubt what would be "easier" was very high on the designers' priority lists. I mean, even some of the aspects they changed like the tree, rafters, archways, and roof timbers in the original project would have been way "easier" than the building techniques that ended up being used for those parts of thee build in the final set.

19 hours ago, Roebuck said:

the chickens/hens can not be so hard to include either since they where in a set not long ago?

 

The chicken (or at least, part of it) is still there, just look on the kitchen table in the interior pics. Maybe some of the other livestock/game animals are cooking in that pot on the stove…

On a more serious level, I think that the designers probably had to make some tough choices about what details they could put their budget towards that would add the most value to the final product. After all, new prints and recolors for the minifigures, shields, and horse create more new and exciting possibilities for builders than putting that same budget towards animals like chickens and pigs which (as you've mentioned) have been a lot more common in recent sets and themes than horses or Castle-patterned minifigs and shields have.

[Grover]

As a castle fan, I had a lot of hope and expectations for this set.  I have been disappointed, and my excitement for the new set has given way to this disappointment, which I found somewhat confusing.  Rather than complain on here, I thought I would be constructive and try to analyze why I feel disappointed.  To do that, I realized I had to look at why I had voted for the set in the first place.  So I would like to ask each of you as well:

1. Did you vote for this set on Ideas?

2. Why did you vote for this set if you did or why didn't you if you didn't?

I will begin with my answers.

1. I did vote for this set.

2. I had several reasons for voting for this set.  They were, in descending order of importance:

  a. Animals!  I really liked the idea of the horse, hare, goat, chickens, and owl.  Something like 2/3 of all livestock in the medieval times was fowl, so chickens were a given.  I am glad to see the horse was included, and it is probably my favorite part of this set.  The husky feels like a cop out to me, as if it were thrown in as an afterthought.  I would much rather have seen a few chickens.

  b. The minifigures.  I liked the idea of two civilian minifigures, and was looking forward to new prints of civilian medieval minis, or at least reprints of old civilian minis, such as those in the Blacksmith Attack or the Mill Village Raid.  I was disappointed in the reuse of two civilian prints that are not even very medieval.  While the nod to the black falcons in the troops was fun, I don't feel that this set needed them.  It doesn't feel like pandering to the classic castle base, but I also feel that one of the reasons I liked the set was because it was civilian and not military, and the inclusion of troops kind of erases that.

  c. The dark color pallette.  Although I am likely in the minority, I liked the dark color palette, particularly the dark blue on the roof, the fall foliage colors, and the olive green grass base.  Of these, only the dark blue roof remains.  Brightening up the overall palette would have been spectacular with fall foliage in my opinion.  I would have loved to have seen all the printed brown, or at least dark brown timbers as the framing, as I was quite excited about it.

  d. I am desperate for castle.  As a castle fan, I am ready to take just about anything at this point.  If you remove the black falcon troops, the only real indication that this is a medieval set are the swords and shields in the forge area.  If they added a small coffee bar or tea shop where the forge is, you could throw a car out front and have a small European coffee shop.  So while I am willing to take just about anything medieval, this set for whatever reasons, does not have a lot of medieval feel to me.

I am curious why others did or did not vote for this set.  I think if you had voted for this set for different reasons than I did, you may be more excited about it.  I think that the set is still a good overall set, but I'm just not sure if I want to shell out that kind of money or just buy an equivalent amount of tan horses and black falcons parts on B&P yet.

[Robert8]

35 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

I suspect that part is likely long-retired, given how long it's been since any set used it (I mean, even without an active Castle theme, other Castle weapons still show up fairly frequently in themes like Ninjago, Legends of Chima, Nexo Knights, etc, whereas the old halberd hasn't).

Plus, even if the details of the old halberd were more realistic, the scale was extremely excessive compared to minifigures — something that I've definitely seen criticized even by Castle fans in the past when compared to the sort of weapon pieces which preceded it. It was decent when used either as decoration (like, say, over an archway), as a swinging-axe trap in a building, or built onto some variety of siege engine, but for actual use as a polearm I think a smaller "custom" equivalent like this feels a lot more suitable.

And in general, this set is already packed with so many complex building techniques that I doubt what would be "easier" was very high on the designers' priority lists. I mean, even some of the aspects they changed like the tree, rafters, archways, and roof timbers in the original project would have been way "easier" than the building techniques that ended up being used for those parts of thee build in the final set.

It doesn't look considering the context of the set

It looks like the blacksmith is just forging pieces of metal together instead of making an actual halberg

[Aanchir]

4 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

To be honest I don't like the set very much.

The work place is cute and a great Inspiration for MOCs. I'll bricklink the printed Tile for sure. The horse is cool. The flat silver version of the SW-Guards' armor is awesome. The female head with golden ornaments on the forehead is great for many kitbashs. And well... that's it. That's all i like about it.

The round Tiles at the fassade are just awefull. There are so many stupid new pieces intruduced. Why didn't we get 2 Tiles until now which have a parallelogram shape? It would improve so many sets so much.  

I never expected the goat in the first place but it is still bad to not get her.

What I indeed expected was a recolour of the tournament knight's sword and the viking helmet. The sword is the same colour and there isn't even a viking helmet in any colour. In fact there is such a ridicilously small amount of tools, weapons and armor, that it is not funny anymore. 

I have no idea what you mean by "round tiles at the facade" or "stupid new pieces". Are you talking about the curved timbers on the walls? Because those aren't new — they were introduced in 2017 and have already been in well over 120 sets (more than 40 of which came out just last year). If they've already been useful enough to show up in that many sets and themes, there's not much sense in calling them "stupid".

I don't know if I've missed out on any new pictures besides the various box pictures that have shown up Instagram recently, but I see no reason to think that all the weapons, armor, and tools in the set would be visible in these pictures. Even the original project didn't include ANY pictures that really clearly showed the blacksmith's full "inventory" — the only interior pic showing the smithy itself was a top view pic in which a lot of the weapons/tools hanging from on the walls were scarcely visible, let alone identifiable.

Would a Viking helmet even be historically/geographically accurate for the setting portrayed here? I thought they were more of an early medieval style and timber-frame houses like this were a later thing. That said, I know my knowledge about this stuff tends to be pretty limited!

And while I get why you might've hoped for a new sword recolor, it doesn't feel very reasonable to have expected one. After all, silver is a pretty standard color for swords, and even in a theme like Ninjago that has had a whole bunch of recolored weapons, I can't say I've ever been bothered by a weapon not getting recolored immediately after its first appearance.

55 minutes ago, Grover said:

As a castle fan, I had a lot of hope and expectations for this set.  I have been disappointed, and my excitement for the new set has given way to this disappointment, which I found somewhat confusing.  Rather than complain on here, I thought I would be constructive and try to analyze why I feel disappointed.  To do that, I realized I had to look at why I had voted for the set in the first place.  So I would like to ask each of you as well:

1. Did you vote for this set on Ideas?

2. Why did you vote for this set if you did or why didn't you if you didn't?

I didn't vote for this set, and I can't remember why, but I suspect that due to the washed-out colors in the renders, it didn't really grab my attention enough to look closely at the alternate pics until after it had already gotten 10,000 supporters. Most of the other Castle projects I've supported are ones that either have eye-catching colors or high-quality photos, and particularly ones that have detailed interiors.

The lack of interior detail has been a big frustration I've had with a lot of "official" Castle sets all the way back to the ones I owned as a kid, since a lot of the books I had about medieval history put just as much emphasis on the practical elements of castle life and the lifestyles of medieval people as they did on the exterior architecture. After all, you can hardly have King Arthur and his court without the Round Table! And most of my favorite Castle MOCs (as well as "Castle-adjacent" sets in themes like Elves, Ninjago, Nexo Knights, or Disney) are ones that have a lot of emphasis on these sorts of interior details that make a castle or medieval house feel "livable".

All in all, Medieval Blacksmith Shop seems like the sort of project I probably would have supported if the main pic and thumbnail had excited me enough to dig a little further and see all the lovely interior details the builder had included. And thankfully, most of those seem to have been maintained or even expanded on in the final version, at least judging from the few angles shown in the box pics. But I think the first time I actually became aware of any of those details from the original project was when LEGO news blogs like The Brick Fan or The Brothers Brick published articles about the set reaching 10,000 supporters.

44 minutes ago, Robert8 said:

It doesn't look considering the context of the set

It looks like the blacksmith is just forging pieces of metal together instead of making an actual halberd

I don't really follow. After all, the bladed portion of pole weapons like axes and halberds would be forged BEFORE attaching them to the shaft, I feel like depicting the blade and shaft as separate components makes MORE sense in a blacksmith shop than in other contexts, not less.

Edited January 9, 2021 by Aanchir

[0tter]

I voted for this, as I vote for lots of Castle-inspired sets, because I too would like more Castle sets.

This definitely feels like a Castle set to me (though I haven't seen detailed images of the minifig prints; but if they are lacking, I will just swap in minifigs from previous sets... as well as chickens, pigs and goats), so I'm very happy with it.

Can't wait to see clearer/more detailed images.

[Aurore]

3 hours ago, Grover said:

So I would like to ask each of you as well:

1. Did you vote for this set on Ideas?

2. Why did you vote for this set if you did or why didn't you if you didn't?

1. Yes

2. I was a late voter, and I voted only because it was a medieval-themed set cruising steadily towards the 10 000 votes. I still vote for any medieval-themed idea with a chance to make it as an actual IDEAS set. I crave for new medieval minifig parts (even better if civilian), more animals, and would enjoy a nice display set.
Why did I not vote for it earlier? Because just like @Aanchir it had not grabbed my attention and I had not seen it. The overly faded colors and overly textured walls and roofs are not an aeshtetics I enjoy.
So I'm really disappointed by the lack of new medieval civilian minifigs in the final set (my GOH sigfig would appreciate a new dress!), slightly disappointed by the animals (I had no hope for a goat or an animal-packed set), but I will enjoy the set on display in my future LEGO room.

[Roebuck]

5 hours ago, Aanchir said:

On a more serious level, I think that the designers probably had to make some tough choices about what details they could put their budget towards that would add the most value to the final product. After all, new prints and recolors for the minifigures, shields, and horse create more new and exciting possibilities for builders than putting that same budget towards animals like chickens and pigs which (as you've mentioned) have been a lot more common in recent sets and themes than horses or Castle-patterned minifigs and shields have.

Yes, but the real question is why it is so hard for Lego to include animals in sets? It is only plastic, just another brick in the wall so if a set has 2000 parts why should it matter if 1 or 10 of those parts are animals? Take a look at Playmobil they have no issues with putting a lot of animals in sets

4 hours ago, Grover said:

As a castle fan, I had a lot of hope and expectations for this set.  I have been disappointed, and my excitement for the new set has given way to this disappointment, which I found somewhat confusing.  Rather than complain on here, I thought I would be constructive and try to analyze why I feel disappointed.  To do that, I realized I had to look at why I had voted for the set in the first place.  So I would like to ask each of you as well:

1. Did you vote for this set on Ideas?

2. Why did you vote for this set if you did or why didn't you if you didn't?

I will begin with my answers.

1. I did vote for this set.

2. I had several reasons for voting for this set.  They were, in descending order of importance:

  a. Animals!  I really liked the idea of the horse, hare, goat, chickens, and owl.  Something like 2/3 of all livestock in the medieval times was fowl, so chickens were a given.  I am glad to see the horse was included, and it is probably my favorite part of this set.  The husky feels like a cop out to me, as if it were thrown in as an afterthought.  I would much rather have seen a few chickens.

  b. The minifigures.  I liked the idea of two civilian minifigures, and was looking forward to new prints of civilian medieval minis, or at least reprints of old civilian minis, such as those in the Blacksmith Attack or the Mill Village Raid.  I was disappointed in the reuse of two civilian prints that are not even very medieval.  While the nod to the black falcons in the troops was fun, I don't feel that this set needed them.  It doesn't feel like pandering to the classic castle base, but I also feel that one of the reasons I liked the set was because it was civilian and not military, and the inclusion of troops kind of erases that.

  c. The dark color pallette.  Although I am likely in the minority, I liked the dark color palette, particularly the dark blue on the roof, the fall foliage colors, and the olive green grass base.  Of these, only the dark blue roof remains.  Brightening up the overall palette would have been spectacular with fall foliage in my opinion.  I would have loved to have seen all the printed brown, or at least dark brown timbers as the framing, as I was quite excited about it.

  d. I am desperate for castle.  As a castle fan, I am ready to take just about anything at this point.  If you remove the black falcon troops, the only real indication that this is a medieval set are the swords and shields in the forge area.  If they added a small coffee bar or tea shop where the forge is, you could throw a car out front and have a small European coffee shop.  So while I am willing to take just about anything medieval, this set for whatever reasons, does not have a lot of medieval feel to me.

I am curious why others did or did not vote for this set.  I think if you had voted for this set for different reasons than I did, you may be more excited about it.  I think that the set is still a good overall set, but I'm just not sure if I want to shell out that kind of money or just buy an equivalent amount of tan horses and black falcons parts on B&P yet.

Yes I voted for it and mostly agree with your excellent points.

1. To me the animals were the most important for the same reasons as you!
2. I long for a civilian castle build set to extend my Mill Village/Medieval Market Village. The original was way to big, but looks like Lego have made it smaller like I hoped they would do so maybe they will fit together now.
3. Minifigs, mostly civilian, but I like that they included falcon soldiers, however 4 figs is not a lot..

[Gorilla94]

6 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I have no idea what you mean by "round tiles at the facade" or "stupid new pieces". Are you talking about the curved timbers on the walls? Because those aren't new — they were introduced in 2017 and have already been in well over 120 sets (more than 40 of which came out just last year). If they've already been useful enough to show up in that many sets and themes, there's not much sense in calling them "stupid".

I don't know if I've missed out on any new pictures besides the various box pictures that have shown up Instagram recently, but I see no reason to think that all the weapons, armor, and tools in the set would be visible in these pictures. Even the original project didn't include ANY pictures that really clearly showed the blacksmith's full "inventory" — the only interior pic showing the smithy itself was a top view pic in which a lot of the weapons/tools hanging from on the walls were scarcely visible, let alone identifiable.

Would a Viking helmet even be historically/geographically accurate for the setting portrayed here? I thought they were more of an early medieval style and timber-frame houses like this were a later thing. That said, I know my knowledge about this stuff tends to be pretty limited!

And while I get why you might've hoped for a new sword recolor, it doesn't feel very reasonable to have expected one. After all, silver is a pretty standard color for swords, and even in a theme like Ninjago that has had a whole bunch of recolored weapons, I can't say I've ever been bothered by a weapon not getting recolored immediately after its first appearance.

I am sorry if I didn't articulate it very well. Yes I mean the curved timbers in the walls. Isn't the outside of a building called "fassade"? In German there is a style of building called "Fachwerkhaus". Google says it is called "half-timbered house" in englisch. It looks like that.

https://www.google.com/search?q=fachwerkhaus&client=ms-android-samsung-ga-rev1&source=android-browser&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwingJHHxI7uAhU3ahUIHdoXBhMQ_AUoAXoECBcQAQ&biw=320&bih=586

This style of architecture can't be represented with round tiles. It goes beyond the historical accuracy problem. A toy Castle set is always a bit fantasy. In fact I am even fine with the roof which most seem to hate, because of that. The thing is: the round tiles are meant to represent wood and serve as  something giving the building stability. You have to bend wood to achieve such a form. And even if there is a tree big enough so a lunatic can waste that much material cutting that shape out of it in one piece that size without  having to bend it, the shape itself still screams desperately "I am a structural weakness and about to collapse soon" when looking at it. I know the round tiles are there for quite a while. Used them in some of my projects where they are really usefull. I like that piece. What I said about stupid new moulds was not meant about the pieces used in the blacksmith specifically but in general. With a new parallelogram tile you could do insanely beautifull stuff for medieval as well as pirate themes or rural City sets... I'd even have a lot of ideas for Friends with such a part. Or let's imagine the Mines of Moria where normal tiles where used in the background with Tiles designed for such an angle. I could also see them as great upgrades on Star Destroyer surfaces if you want so see less studs. Instead of such pieces we get stuff like:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=66956&idColor=86#T=C&C=86

A piece with so little advantages over 2 1x2 modified curved Slopes that would have exactly the same shape like the new mould, that it becomes ridiculous... and the main one is that Lego can put stickers on it better and save money not printing 2 1x2s which is in fact a disadvantage for customers.

I zoomed in on the box pictures. They show the interior quite well. The cooking plage isn't to bad... the Rest is "meh"... if Lego isn't hiding lots of stuff in a secret treasure box not visible on the pictures- which is unlikely from a marketing perspective-, then there is pretty much none when it comes to forging in the inside besides an anvil and another fireplace. 

Well... I think the historical accuracy train left when there was a female knight wearing a crown put into the set, the other female figure got pants and that pirate shirt. Not to mention the roof and a lot of other elements like a knight wearing only one shoulder protection. This is pretty much a castle fantasy set - again I am perfectly fine with that - but then it should be executed better. A reddish brown version of the helmet would have been perfectly fine in such a setting. The blacksmith even has the beard that fits the helmet. We also got a brown version of the series 20 pirate hat in Barracuda bay so it gave many people hope for a recolour. It would also have given Lotr fans a great way to do Eowyn.

Guess it is personal taste. I don't army build clone figures. In my little Orc Horde as well as in the other fractions every figure has a unique face, a unique armour, weapon and so on. The only thing a few characters share are the Rohirim legs that were already used for Theoden and Eomer. A recolour of the sword would have been indeed a cool thing for me as well as for many others and it is pretty easy to do. The awesome thing about a Non-silver sword is that you can paint everything that doesn't need to be grabbed by a minifigure hand. There is a reason why so many people order black Brickwarrior custom weapons. The hilt looks great in black, when you paint the rest of a  sword and it stays completely playable. All my custom figures are made in a way that keeps them fully playable. They just look better. 

 

Edited January 9, 2021 by Gorilla94

[Corydoras]

I've been looking forward to this set, but now that I've seen it, I think it's no big deal. I'm convinced I could build my own version with the bricks I already own. The biggest disappointment for me are the minifigures - sure, the falcon knights are kind of cool, but the civilians look like they were scrambled together from leftovers. The green buttoned vest pirate torso seems especially out of place to me, like it was put there as a placeholder and someone totally forgot to replace it.

[Niku]

11 hours ago, Grover said:

As a castle fan, I had a lot of hope and expectations for this set.  I have been disappointed, and my excitement for the new set has given way to this disappointment, which I found somewhat confusing.  Rather than complain on here, I thought I would be constructive and try to analyze why I feel disappointed.  To do that, I realized I had to look at why I had voted for the set in the first place.  So I would like to ask each of you as well:

1. Did you vote for this set on Ideas?

2. Why did you vote for this set if you did or why didn't you if you didn't?

I concur with your answers, I hate to be repetitive but lets take a look at Pirates of Barracuda Bay $200.
8 minifigs (detailed new print) or 10 minifigs if you count the skellies, 7 animals, pig on new color, lot of weapons, 3 cannons, many accesories, an impressive build either a formidable ship or a great dock/base, in any case the set is well taken care of even the minimum details and using that budget to an exceptional extense, I had known that hull pieces are expensive, as well other ship pieces and accesories, I cant think how short on that regard the blacksmith feels(again for $130-$150). On the PoBB There I see a lot of desire from Lego to please their pirate fanbase and new customers, on the other side the blacksmith is not a bad design or build at the end, but it really feels that is lacking somewhere on the details, more animals(chickens, pig, owl etc), more minifigs, more weapons on colors, more wow factor.
And surprisingly,  fails to please, a quantity of castle fanbase.

I want to buy it, but not sure if I will. Still, and given this is a Castle set, after who knows so many years, it should be a no thinker just like the meme. "Shut up and take my money". Yet I dont feel the urge to do so.