10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[Yoggington]

Interesting reasoning. I think there is elements of what MAB theorises happening.

I mean you can hardly blame the team who looked at these results that concluded Lion Knights & Forestmen are the favoured factions, so built the castle to cater to those. Can't really account for strategic voters in a question like that.

Would make you wonder if this could have been a Black Falcon castle, only enough strategic voters went elsewhere since we had some Falcon items in production..

1. Bionicle – 24799
2. Classic Space – 18171
3. Pirates – 15884
4. Trains – 14855
5. Adventurers – 13988
6. Classic Castle -12603
7. Forestmen – 8056
8. Lion Knights – 7117
9. Imperials – 7012
10. Town – 6610
11. Black Knights – 6427
12. Model Team – 6397
13. Dragon Knights – 6334
14. Space Police – 5738
15. Rock Raiders – 5298
16. Studios – 5179
17. Blacktron – 5088
18. Ice Planet – 4503
19. Black Falcons – 4244
20. Aquazone – 4051
21. M-Tron – 3555
22. Alpha Team – 2807
23. Paradisa – 2584
24. Time Cruisers – 2234
25. Wolfpack – 2111

Edited June 23, 2022 by Yoggington

[Sir Dano]

I'm just thankful Castle won instead of something dumb like Bionicle or Time Cruisers.

[MAB]

29 minutes ago, Yoggington said:

Classic Castle -12603

You didn't highlight this one.

To me, that was a bit of a waste of a vote, since I didn't want a yellow castle to be produced. Although it gained more votes than any faction but does raise the issue of what does Classic Castle even mean? Is it just the yellow castles, or grey too? So I went for factions I wanted.

[Yoggington]

Yeah I figured it's not really a faction, just a catch-all category, so not really relevant. But who knows what TLG meant it to be.

I went back and checked my own votes, I went for Forestmen - Imperials - Wolfpack. Faction-specific votes.

[Roebuck]

1 hour ago, leafan said:

Just reading it now, very interesting. Although I'm not sure that I agree with their thinking on this part:

I'm not sure about most others, but I voted strategically and not necessarily what sub-themes I like the most.

I voted even strategically in the second round  My favorite theme is Pirates, however with the fantastic B-bay just released the Pirate fans I assumed was not so hungry as the 3 other finalists. I wanted a set for the imperials, but since Pirates (unlike Castle that merged the subthemes) managed to get to the final without the imperial votes on 9th place is was unsure if a imperial set was still an option. So I ended up voting for my second favorite theme in the poll; Castle since I never had any interest in Bonkle or Space

16 minutes ago, MAB said:

You didn't highlight this one.

To me, that was a bit of a waste of a vote, since I didn't want a yellow castle to be produced. Although it gained more votes than any faction but does raise the issue of what does Classic Castle even mean? Is it just the yellow castles, or grey too? So I went for factions I wanted.

People assumed it was a general vote for Castle and voted for it, I am sure max 10% of the voters actually wanted a yellow castle

"We did have an opportunity to include a new knight's helmet or something similar for a minifigure, but developing a more versatile building element was preferable."

So a goat was a option

[iragm]

The poll had a couple issues -

If you said "classic castle", I would think you meant a combination of crusaders, black knights, forestmen, black falcons and wolfpack.  But the picture was of the yellow castle, implying that in the poll, voting for that meant a yellow castle.  This split the vote for sure.

Additionally, the poll is heavily skewed towards late 90's nostalgia - does anyone actually want more rock raiders, studios, or time cruisers?  Black falcons were the earliest faction, and by the early 90s (maybe 91 or so?) they were completely gone (except for a guest appearance on the black knights ship).

People also thought lion knights very likely included other lion factions (of which there have been like 10...) which probably skewed the poll towards those.

The forestmen are universally loved, even people who aren't Lego fans are impressed by my "little Robin Hood guys" when they come over.  I hope we get a forestmen set as a follow-up to this one in a couple years.

[GeoBrick]

11 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

"We did have an opportunity to include a new knight's helmet or something similar for a minifigure, but developing a more versatile building element was preferable."

So a goat was a option

Nope. A goat helmet !

[jodawill]

I've never understood everyone's obsession with goats. Is there more to it than the fact people want what they can't have? There's a lot of parts I'd be more interested in seeing coming back, like the bullet helmets, the original gold coins, and the trumpet from Wild West. And, of course, more colors of forestmen torsos and hats. (We need brown hats!)

[PacificDuck]

In regards to the obsession with goats I think it is just a rarity thing (unless there is some unknown correlation between being a goat rancher and an AFOL).  This the only time I’ve wished a goat was in a set:

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/t-rex-breakout-76956

I might be in the minority here, but I would much rather see the castle budget go toward shields, barding, weapons, mini-figs, etc.

Edit: added barding

Edited June 23, 2022 by PacificDuck

[TeriXeri]

49 minutes ago, PacificDuck said:

I might be in the minority here, but I would much rather see the castle budget go toward shields, weapons, mini-figs, etc.

I agree, a Horse is the only essential animal to a Castle set imo.

Of course if something is a strict remake (like Forestmen hideout style), there could be grey parrot or a bat from the dragon master majisto / fright knight era.

 

 

I wonder with the parts of this set, how wide you could build if you kept to "classic" 80s scale, since this set has 3 factions included.

Could probably easily build like 2-3 castle "sets" from this and have parts leftover for something like a guarded inn or forestmen tree/build (even moreso if you add Forest hideout parts)t 

Edited June 23, 2022 by TeriXeri

[natesroom]

well kings castle only had 664 blocks.

[RichardGoring]

1 hour ago, Roebuck said:

People assumed it was a general vote for Castle and voted for it, I am sure max 10% of the voters actually wanted a yellow castle

"We did have an opportunity to include a new knight's helmet or something similar for a minifigure, but developing a more versatile building element was preferable."

So a goat was a option

But there is a yellow castle within the new set, so both sets of fans should be happy! 

1 hour ago, jodawill said:

I've never understood everyone's obsession with goats. Is there more to it than the fact people want what they can't have? There's a lot of parts I'd be more interested in seeing coming back, like the bullet helmets, the original gold coins, and the trumpet from Wild West. And, of course, more colors of forestmen torsos and hats. (We need brown hats!)

To me it's a meme at this point. I agree, many more things I'd prefer them to bring back over a goat. Or new things they've not done before.

[Triceron]

2 hours ago, Yoggington said:

Yeah I figured it's not really a faction, just a catch-all category, so not really relevant. But who knows what TLG meant it to be.

I went back and checked my own votes, I went for Forestmen - Imperials - Wolfpack. Faction-specific votes.

I had a similar vote.  Forestmen, Black Knights, Wolfpack.  Forestmen and Black Knights are what I own most of, and I still think Black Knights have the best castles in the line.  Wolfpack was definitely not one I favoured above others like Dragon Knights, Royal Knights or even Fright Knights, but I wanted to boost them up because they deserve more content.

[leafan]

On 6/19/2022 at 4:18 AM, SirBlake said:

Has anyone noticed how well the CMF king and queen would work with this? They keep calling the minifig in this set “the lady” of the castle. These two will probably end up being her parents on my shelf.

That is true, and I also think that this old BaM shield goes quite well (maybe as a replacement if the Queen's shield ends up being a sticker):

Edited June 23, 2022 by leafan

[Black Feather]

I assumed classic castle meant the yellow castle as well as the smaller sets and figure packs that followed prior to BF and LK as organized in bricklinks.  Would like for remakes of some of those figures.  So voted as one of my three.  But even I didn’t want a bright yellow castle and didn’t think they would do that if it was picked.  If they built a modern version they would probably update the colors as well.  But actually at the time I assumed this would be some small tribute set like the one from 2016.  So I was just hoping for some torsos, shields, etc.  Never imagined a $400 castle.  I also voted for FM (my favorite) and LK.

[Triceron]

14 minutes ago, leafan said:

That is true, and I also think that this old BaM shield goes quite well (maybe as a replacement if the Queen's shield ends up being a sticker):

That's the shield I'm using for my Lion Knight Prince right now.

I'm wondering since they have the new logos for BF and LK if they'll ever go back to the old ones for prints like these in the future, or if they're just gonna stick to the new logos.  We already have new Falcon prints on torsos, so it really makes me wonder what they may plan moving forward.  I have a soft spot for that specific lion emblem.

[SirBlake]

1 hour ago, RichardGoring said:

To me it's a meme at this point. I agree, many more things I'd prefer them to bring back over a goat.

It certainly is. I get it though. Appearing in one set a decade ago with a “broken mold” urban legend… it’s the perfect storm for memage. I just feel fortunate that I scored the MVR when it first came out. 

[Alexandrina]

22 hours ago, Triceron said:

I think it's still reasonable to believe a Queen could have an elite, all-female "Queensguard" protecting her

I can't help but be reminded of Birgitte and the Queensguard she cobbles together for Elayne in "The Wheel of Time". So that idea's not without precedent, really.

[Black Feather]

I don’t really care at all about goats, but I was surprised they didn’t take the opportunity to throw one in with all the farm sets this year.  Could have sold more of those sets to adult collectors obsessed with goats.  They were making new molds of animals anyway.  And I think all the talk about the mold being lost is nonsense anyway.  If all these Chinese copycats can reverse engineer plastic toys so well, surely LEGO can reverse engineer its own product pretty easily.  Possibly cheaper than designing something new.  So who knows.

[Follows Closely]

2 minutes ago, Black Feather said:

...Could have sold more of those sets to adult collectors obsessed with goats...

If they did re-introduces the goat, it would no longer be the GOAT of lego animals, and we would no longer care. We are finicky fans.

[MAB]

3 hours ago, iragm said:

If you said "classic castle", I would think you meant a combination of crusaders, black knights, forestmen, black falcons and wolfpack.  But the picture was of the yellow castle, implying that in the poll, voting for that meant a yellow castle.  This split the vote for sure.

I assumed it meant just the yellow castle and the original style of figures that are catalogued as Classic Castle (bricklink link)

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?catType=M&catString=9.489

and excluded all the later factions that you could vote for separately.

That different people interpret it in different ways shows what a mess the poll was.

[danth]

20 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

According to Mark Stafford, the reason is actually because it's easier to store a single sticker sheet than a bunch of printed parts.

Thanks for this link! Interesting read. Maybe someone needs to introduce Lego to the concept of "more & smaller boxes". 😁

[R0Sch]

Just now, danth said:

Thanks for this link! Interesting read. Maybe someone needs to introduce Lego to the concept of "more & smaller boxes". 😁

Changing box size is no option in a fully automated system like they use. I'm sure there are other viable concepts as well. Like family packs and storing similar parts in smaller bags inside a box and assigning the same element nr. for that pack, or renting external warehouses, or more efficiently producing only the needed quantity instead of stocking up huge quantities. But what do I know, I'm no expert.

[woodford86]

19 hours ago, Triceron said:

It's probably because they're bringing back Lion Knights and Forestmen at the same time.

If they were rolling out each faction's return individually, I can see them having more resources to diversify prints.  But since they're doing a bunch of different subthemes all at once, they're a bit more limited.  We even see them reusing a lot of the prints, like the Troubadour on the kid or the lack of print on Majisto.

I do have to say I would have liked to see an updated return of the Scale Mail armor; something generic that it could fit for any faction.

The print-less Majisto makes no sense to me. They literally just put out a printed wizard in the BAM tower, and Majisto's OG torso was just a blue forestman. Pretty disappointing.

I'm going to believe BAM was a way to give us a proper wizard using someone else's budget because the castle was already maxed out 

[TeriXeri]

1 minute ago, woodford86 said:

The print-less Majisto makes no sense to me. They literally just put out a printed wizard in the BAM tower, and Majisto's OG torso was just a blue forestman. Pretty disappointing.

I'm going to believe BAM was a way to give us a proper wizard using someone else's budget because the castle was already maxed out 

I agree, compared to many of the other blue wizards, including the original one and the 2010 advent calendar one which was basicly majisto 2.0, this without print looks really bland.

Even the Nexo Knight Merlok figure from a book looks better.