10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[karrit]

I've come up with a back story to explain why a lot of the knights in this set are female.  The name of the set is Lion' Knight's Castle.  So imagine if you will that the knights are all off somewhere with the King possibly defending his castle.  This leaves mostly women holed up in the Knight's castle out of the way of the warring male knights.  So the females have been kept away from the main battle and have decided to defend themselves in the Knight's Castle they are currently residing in. Note that several of the female knights up on the battlements appear to be archers which is more likely to be a way they might have been taught to defend themselves if needed.

[natesroom]

 

3 hours ago, Triceron said:

So taking a more indepth look at the Lion emblems, I do start to have nitpicks.

 

i always hated this artwork... I redrew this in Adobe Illustrator a few years ago using a scan of the flag for best recreation. The shield has a printing feature called "trap" that makes the lines a little thicker in between objects.

Lion Shield by Natesroom, on Flickr

Edited June 21, 2022 by natesroom

[SirBlake]

2 minutes ago, natesroom said:

 

i always hated this artwork... I redrew this in Adobe Illustrator a few years ago using a scan of the shield for best recreation.

Lion Shield by Natesroom, on Flickr

Nice!

[natesroom]

I think i will redraw the new lion shield when i get a good photos of it.

[Roebuck]

10 hours ago, Lyichir said:

There's some real neat geometry in the staircase up from the kitchen—a 3/4/5 triangular area with a finished (gapless) floor.
 

Would not surprise me since Mike Psiaki is one of the designers

9 hours ago, karrit said:

 The same can be said for the early Pirate sets too.  I don't recall any female figures In them either.

From what it is worth there was a female pirate from the first year in 1989


To me the best Castle sets came out between 2009-12, but none of them proper castles so I am looking forward to getting one soon

[Seaber]

Can we get the word 'woke' on the megablocks filter please 

I really hope Castle can continue, and this set seems to have gone down very well so hopefully will sell despite the huge tag. 

A couple of things I'd like to see in the future is more peasants and their animals (of course!) but also more male nobles. Pretty much all past princess and queen figures can become noble women, just removing the crown, but most king figures are not so transferable. 

I think concentrating on the three factions released so far is good for now, so a Camouflaged Outpost for Forestmen or Guarded Inn for Lion Knights. For the Black Falcons, a re-release of their castle is probably too close to the Lion Castle, so perhaps their Catapult, Battering Ram or the Sea Serpent remakes would be good for them. 

 

[Sandbag58]

4 hours ago, karrit said:

I've come up with a back story to explain why a lot of the knights in this set are female.  The name of the set is Lion' Knight's Castle.  So imagine if you will that the knights are all off somewhere with the King possibly defending his castle.  This leaves mostly women holed up in the Knight's castle out of the way of the warring male knights.  So the females have been kept away from the main battle and have decided to defend themselves in the Knight's Castle they are currently residing in. Note that several of the female knights up on the battlements appear to be archers which is more likely to be a way they might have been taught to defend themselves if needed.

'The Guns of Fort Petticoat' (a Western) and 'Monstrous Regiment' (by Terry Pratchett) provide a couple of different back stories and I suspect I may do something similar, aswell as PABing minifig parts (if available) and creating a few more civilians and soldiers of both genders. I've a daughter aged 10 and a son aged 7, so a proper mix of both across all roles is enjoyed by them.

More generally I am really looking forwards to getting and building this set. The anticipation is palpable and reminds me of when I got 6080 for a birthday in the 1980s. That experience was slightly tainted by one of the knights having a manufacturing fault and my dad had to go back to the toy shop to get a replacement. I'm looking forwards to combining the two generations although I'm not sure how well they'll mesh...

[AViewToALego]

Whoa!! The guys back at Classic Castle must be really happy right now. And rightfully so - What a fantastic set!! We also got not only one, but TWO new Vking Ships! And the castle from last year wasn't too shabby either. Off course the price is... Hmppff! But whatever. If you didn't spend all your money on Ninjago and Nexo Knights, you should be able to get it. Just sell your left kidney or whatever.

Looking good, looking good!

[Roebuck]

1 hour ago, Sandbag58 said:

That experience was slightly tainted by one of the knights having a manufacturing fault and my dad had to go back to the toy shop to get a replacement

Depends on what was wrong, but sounds like that would be worth a lot of money today

[MAB]

6 hours ago, karrit said:

I've come up with a back story to explain why a lot of the knights in this set are female.  The name of the set is Lion' Knight's Castle.  So imagine if you will that the knights are all off somewhere with the King possibly defending his castle.  This leaves mostly women holed up in the Knight's castle out of the way of the warring male knights.  So the females have been kept away from the main battle and have decided to defend themselves in the Knight's Castle they are currently residing in. Note that several of the female knights up on the battlements appear to be archers which is more likely to be a way they might have been taught to defend themselves if needed.

Yes, could be. And this is part of the play around LEGO, using imagination to make up stories about what is going on. I always preferred the Black Falcons to Lion Knights (although preferred the Forestmen and Wolfpack over those), so my view is somewhat different, that the aggressive Lion Knights king is off attacking innocents to expand their already big collection of castles ...

[GeoBrick]

9 hours ago, mcbbvb said:

Not sure if this has been noticed already but the LEGO shop website now says it will be available on August 8 instead of August 2. VIPs will have access on August 3. 

I've always seen an August 8 release date at my end. Perhaps you switched the date with the upcoming Galaxy Explorer?

[Shiva]

<3 this castle. Question is, where can I fit it in my apartment?!

[mcbbvb]

1 hour ago, GeoBrick said:

I've always seen an August 8 release date at my end. Perhaps you switched the date with the upcoming Galaxy Explorer?

Maybe! Not interested in the Galaxy Explorer so I haven’t been on that product page but I must have been mistaken then!

[Cynath]

11 hours ago, SirBlake said:

Not that I’ve seen. Lots of hope that it’s unique, but my gut tells me it’s a regular lions torso. 

In those high res pics a few pages back her belt buckle looks to be more intricate and ornate than the one on Lion Knight's tabard. 

[Sandbag58]

2 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Depends on what was wrong, but sounds like that would be worth a lot of money today

I think it was something broken rather than a misprint, maybe a missing arm...

[MAB]

25 minutes ago, Sandbag58 said:

I think it was something broken rather than a misprint, maybe a missing arm...

A knight missing an arm .... it's just a flesh wound!

 

[Yoggington]

A decent article on the set including some snippets of conversation with designer Milan Madge

https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/18/23173256/lego-lion-knights-castle-90th-anniversary-birthday-price-release-date

[Lion King]

7 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Would not surprise me since Mike Psiaki is one of the designers

Sorry if I sound dumb but I’m really behind on the details like…who designed this. Anyways, are you saying Mike is one of these designers worn Lion Knights’ Castle AND Galaxy Explorer, correct? 

[SirBlake]

52 minutes ago, Yoggington said:

A decent article on the set including some snippets of conversation with designer Milan Madge

https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/18/23173256/lego-lion-knights-castle-90th-anniversary-birthday-price-release-date

Great article! It also shows a photo of the trap door in the courtyard that I hadn’t seen before. 

[natesroom]

On 6/18/2022 at 7:05 PM, Triceron said:

I was thinking that but they might be cheating the perspective and tossing the shields from the front into the little armory.  I was thinking about this since one of the horses is shown stabled, and we know there's only 2 horses in the set, so there's some trickery involved with the placement of certain things.  In every shot, you'll only ever see them display 2 yellow shields, 2 blue shields.

I'm hoping it's 3 and 3, but I haven't seen any official shot where we see more than 2-and-2 being used.

Like even this full minifig shot, we see one of the figures holding a banner and it's taken down from the castle.  And we only see 2 yellow shields, 2 Blue shields displayed altogether here.

Here is an image showing all 6 shields in one shot

[UsernameMDM]

Great looking set!  Not a fan of all the female knights/soldiers, but if I wind up getting the set, I'll just PAB some heads.  Just wish the set had a proper King/Queen/Prince/Princess.  

[RichardGoring]

If it helps anyone, I'm going to consider the small baby animal in this set a kid. So the goat has made a return. Hurrah!

The forestmen hideout in the middle is great too. That suggests that the whole model splits in two to be able to access it.

[leafan]

1 hour ago, Yoggington said:

A decent article on the set including some snippets of conversation with designer Milan Madge

https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/18/23173256/lego-lion-knights-castle-90th-anniversary-birthday-price-release-date

Great article, which provides some very close up shots.

The Queen's shield is clearly a sticker, but let's hope that doesn't make it to production.

At least one of the female knights is wearing lipstick for some reason. Lovely colour, but that helmet is gonna mess it up!

And lastly, I guess we know where to guards go to 'relieve' themselves:

Right on the Forestmen's sneaky entrance.

[Lyichir]

4 minutes ago, leafan said:

Great article, which provides some very close up shots.

The Queen's shield is clearly a sticker, but let's hope that doesn't make it to production.

At least one of the female knights is wearing lipstick for some reason. Lovely colour, but that helmet is gonna mess it up!

And lastly, I guess we know where to guards go to 'relieve' themselves:

Right on the Forestmen's sneaky entrance.

You jest, but in the upper right of that same picture you can see the exterior of the garderobe (toilet), including the slot that the waste falls from. That forestwoman had better be careful where she stands!

[MAB]

22 minutes ago, UsernameMDM said:

Great looking set!  Not a fan of all the female knights/soldiers, but if I wind up getting the set, I'll just PAB some heads.  Just wish the set had a proper King/Queen/Prince/Princess.  

 

23 minutes ago, UsernameMDM said:

Great looking set!  Not a fan of all the female knights/soldiers, but if I wind up getting the set, I'll just PAB some heads.  Just wish the set had a proper King/Queen/Prince/Princess.  

You can still get the CMF S13 King and S15 Queen for not too much money. Both are ideal colours for this set.