10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[Aanchir]

5 hours ago, DaleDVM said:

Rehashing the set size comparison discussion.  A disclaimer...  Everyone can have their own preference(s) when comparing the size of different sets and MOCs.  There is no wrong answer.

Historically, castle/city walls primarily are not there to protect buildings from siege weapons, even if they may sometimes fill that role.  Due to the firing arc of medieval siege weapons, buildings have to be very close behind a wall to be protected by it.  Buildings even 50-100 feet inside the walls do not get much benefit from the protection they provide.  It is just physics.  Castle walls typically offer more protection to inner structures because they are more compact, where city/curtain walls often have a lot of space inside. 

The walls primary purpose is to prevent an easy assault of the town/city they are protecting.  They are there to give the defenders the advantage in both melee and ranged fighting which multiplies the abilities of defending troops.  The better the fortifications the greater the force multiplier the defenders have.

If you have ever seen real life castles and their walls, they are usually only 2-3 stories tall.  Buildings inside the castle walls, especially the roofs are often readily visible from outside.  Only the most impressive fortified cities in history have walls high enough to hide most of the buildings inside.  A $400 castle set is not going to be representative of a massive walled city/castle/fortress.

Here are a bunch of photos of the most impressive walled cities still standing.  In reality, most walled cities/towns were not even this well defended.
https://www.touropia.com/walled-cities-in-the-world/

Hence why I don't find the blacksmith that out of whack.  If it was a royal smithy, with several blacksmiths working there, the building could very well be that big... or in actuality be much bigger.  

Wow, very neat article! It's cool to see how varied walled cities around the world (or even just in Europe) can be! I hope some of these examples provide some great building inspiration for folks here.

As I've mentioned, I still prefer to have the Medieval Blacksmith outside the castle walls because the huntswoman, hunting dog, and other features give me more of a "town outskirts" vibe. I tend to imagine it near the edge of a deep forest, perhaps near other more rural points of interest such as a sawmill and farmstead nearby. Knights from the surrounding castle towns would venture out to the countryside for major repair work on their weapons and armor, whereas the country folk would travel to the larger towns to promote and sell their various wares.

But of course, that's all just my own preference — I totally get that a lot of other folks might prefer to display a nice three-story house/shop like that as part of a large and bustling castle town! And once this castle comes out I'm VERY excited to see how different builders expand on it or build larger layouts around it!

21 hours ago, Triceron said:

It gets dubious when I look at them shipping out Vidyo products for $24 for one figure.  Granted it has some new molds and parts to them that aren't just a torso and legs, but the price disparity makes very little sense to me.  Even on discount at $17, Vidyo is abnormally overpriced for its parts.

I figure that Vidiyo set prices were probably high in part to subsidize the development/licensing cost of the app, particularly since for a free app it includes a LOT of licensed music. A few years back Hasbro had a DJing-themed game/toy of their own called "DropMix" — essentially, an interactive game board you placed different collectable cards onto to create remixes and mashups of popular music. Much like Vidiyo, the app used to run it was free, but the "booster packs" themselves were priced pretty high to subsidize the cost of licensing so much different music by so many different artists

Also like Vidiyo, its sales performance ended up falling far short of Hasbro's expectations (despite a lot of awards and accolades within the toy and games industry), although not necessarily for the same reasons — in DropMix's case, its sales struggled in part due to retailers having a hard time figuring out whether to display and market it as a board game, a card game, a video game, or an electronic toy, meaning it had a hard time getting many buyers' attention in the first place.

On 6/28/2022 at 9:56 PM, Black Feather said:

Something I noticed on PAB online.  Seems like all the primary color legs that used to always be available cheap are no longer available at all (red, blue, black, green, white).  I guess since the change over though I haven’t checked legs in a long time.  Most plain legs are 73200.  So I searched “lower” and screened for minifigure parts and found blue is available but listed as 88584.  And the price is 1.47, almost triple what it was.  I checked the specific element number (4583501) on bricklinks to confirm it is plain blue legs.  88584 doesn’t show.  So not sure why they would give it a new number and triple the price.  Then I remembered some people wrote on here they used black legs for the BF and wondering if LEGO is anticipating people using blue legs for the LK.  Also wondering why they took all those other colors down.  Not new parts and currently being used in sets. 

For what it's worth, according to Brickset (which pulls their parts data from LEGO's customer service site), 88584 is a design ID that has stopped appearing in set inventories this year — all monochrome legs in inventories for this year's sets are listed under the design ID 73200. Specifically, 88584 is one of the controversial minifigure molds originally produced by an outside Chinese contractor for magnet packs and Collectible Minifigures in the late 2000s/early 2010s.

I suspect the high Pick-A-Brick price for those plain Bright Blue legs is just because LEGO is now using the design ID 73200 for all monochrome leg pieces (now that even their Chinese-made parts are being produced in LEGO's own factories), and in the meantime they've raised the PAB price of the last of their 88584 batches as the supply begins to run low.

In the meantime, Bright Blue 73200s do appear in many of this year's sets, and will presumably replace the 88584s in Pick-A-Brick/Build-A-Mini as that older stock of leg pieces finally runs out.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Aanchir

[Black Feather]

30 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

For what it's worth, according to Brickset (which pulls their parts data from LEGO's customer service site), 88584 is a design ID that has stopped appearing in set inventories this year — all monochrome legs in inventories for this year's sets are listed under the design ID 73200. Specifically, 88584 is one of the controversial minifigure molds originally produced by an outside Chinese contractor for magnet packs and Collectible Minifigures in the late 2000s/early 2010s.

I suspect the high Pick-A-Brick price for those plain Bright Blue legs is just because LEGO is now using the design ID 73200 for all monochrome leg pieces (now that even their Chinese-made parts are being produced in LEGO's own factories), and in the meantime they've raised the PAB price of the last of their 88584 batches as the supply begins to run low.

In the meantime, Bright Blue 73200s do appear in many of this year's sets, and will presumably replace the 88584s in Pick-A-Brick/Build-A-Mini as that older stock of leg pieces finally runs out.

Thanks.  Good information.  Still wondering why all those colors disappeared from PAB but hopefully they reappear at the same price as the others then as 73200.  Wasn’t planning on buying blue.  Will use the printed legs if/when they release the parts for 10305.  But would like plain green in anticipation of the FM torsos.

[SirBlake]

3 hours ago, Lyichir said:

For folks wondering about the castle dimensions in a fully open configuration, this isn't exact (and the exact horizontal dimensions of the castle will vary based on which part of the angled design you face "forward"), but based on the Stud.io file my sister sent me, it's roughly 26.5 inches wide and 15.5 inches deep.

Interesting. Forgive me if I missed it, but what is the depth when it's closed?

I ask because I figure the angle of the walls dictate that it's possibly deeper when open. Just trying to figure out how I'm going to fit this on an 11 inch-deep shelf, lol.

[Lyichir]

1 hour ago, SirBlake said:

Interesting. Forgive me if I missed it, but what is the depth when it's closed?

I ask because I figure the angle of the walls dictate that it's possibly deeper when open. Just trying to figure out how I'm going to fit this on an 11 inch-deep shelf, lol.

About 13.3 inches deep closed at the narrowest, by my calculations. So yeah, you might have to figure out a different place to display it

[DaleDVM]

I will keep watching on the legs as well.  Interesting information you provided about the production for the magnets.

[Follows Closely]

You will have to split it in two and open it up to display it on a shallow shelf.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Follows Closely

[BitByBrick]

2 hours ago, Follows Closely said:

You will have to split it in two and open it up to display it on a shallow shelf.

 

3 hours ago, Lyichir said:

About 13.3 inches deep closed at the narrowest, by my calculations. So yeah, you might have to figure out a different place to display it

Anyone care to guess / calculate the length when opened (or split in two). Thanks! 

[RichardGoring]

6 hours ago, Aanchir said:

As I've mentioned, I still prefer to have the Medieval Blacksmith outside the castle walls because the huntswoman, hunting dog, and other features give me more of a "town outskirts" vibe. I tend to imagine it near the edge of a deep forest, perhaps near other more rural points of interest such as a sawmill and farmstead nearby. Knights from the surrounding castle towns would venture out to the countryside for major repair work on their weapons and armor, whereas the country folk would travel to the larger towns to promote and sell their various wares.

I agree. I'd prefer to display it outside the castle for these reasons, and the fact that it's so nice, and would be a shame to hide most of it away! The old apple tree and landscaping also feels very much 'out of town'.

[SirBlake]

3 hours ago, Lyichir said:

About 13.3 inches deep closed at the narrowest, by my calculations. So yeah, you might have to figure out a different place to display it

Really appreciate you doing the math and sharing the info. 
 

I think the split in two plan is going to work out just fine. I somehow hadn’t considered that approach and the ability to do that allows for a lot of flexibility. 

[Roebuck]

On 6/29/2022 at 2:32 PM, Follows Closely said:

I have built most of the exterior of 10305 Lion Knights Castle with digital help from @Aanchir. I wanted to give you all an update with a few comparison shots. I very much enjoyed the build. I think it may be in my top 10 when I build the real thing.

Next to 71043: Hogwarts Castle

Was smaller then I expected compered to the Hogwarts Castle People say Hogwarts have a lot of small parts, but the 1500 extra part are really showing in my mind, on the other hand we get over 15 figs more an some animals with the Lion knights castle

[MAB]

12 hours ago, woodford86 said:

I view the castle as more of a keep than a walled city, in which case the whole thing should be a large fortress and in that sense would dwarf the blacksmith (or even more accurately, the smith would be part of the keep itself, similar to that instagram post shared by SirBlake). For that reason I might modify the blacksmith into more of a tavern/inn, or just not display it next to the castle at all.

Same here. We have plenty of ruins of medieval castles here. Most follow the pattern of having a keep, stables, sometimes a seperate kitchen (fire!) and store, maybe a separate great hall where visitors would have access (don't want them in main living quarters),  maybe a separate chapel. The town/villages were outside. There were some castle towns, but they were relatively small. Larger walled cities are quite different.

[FlyChicken]

I wonder - the color of those lion knights helmets - is that Flat silver or Metallic silver? 

[SirBlake]

6 minutes ago, FlyChicken said:

I wonder - the color of those lion knights helmets - is that Flat silver or Metallic silver? 

Hard to know for sure, but considering that flat silver is currently in production for the Creator 3-in-1, I'm going to guess flat silver. 

[azog]

1 hour ago, SirBlake said:

Hard to know for sure, but considering that flat silver is currently in production for the Creator 3-in-1, I'm going to guess flat silver. 

The metallic silver is also in production! It appeared in the Bricklink Castle in the Forest set. 

[zoth33]

11 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Was smaller then I expected compered to the Hogwarts Castle People say Hogwarts have a lot of small parts, but the 1500 extra part are really showing in my mind, on the other hand we get over 15 figs more an some animals with the Lion knights castle

Also the fact that the Hogwarts castle isn't minifig scale throws it off for me.  It's nice to see it next to it but it does nothing for scale as they are not built to the same scale.  

[iragm]

3 hours ago, FlyChicken said:

I wonder - the color of those lion knights helmets - is that Flat silver or Metallic silver? 

Silver metalic flat silver, you can see for yourself since some inventory is on PAB.  Nothing new yet, sadly.  I just set up a script to monitor it for changes and I'll post here if anything new turns up.

https://www.lego.com/en-us/pick-and-build/pick-a-brick?query=&page=1&includeOutOfStock=true&filters.i0.key=variants.attributes.appearsIn&filters.i0.ranges.i0.from="10305%3A"&filters.i0.ranges.i0.to="10305%3A9999"&filters.i1.key=variants.attributes.categoryId&filters.i1.values.i0=6

Edited July 1, 2022 by iragm
PAB and bricklink really should use the same color names

[Aanchir]

35 minutes ago, iragm said:

Silver metalic, you can see for yourself since some inventory is on PAB.  Nothing new yet, sadly.  I just set up a script to monitor it for changes and I'll post here if anything new turns up.

https://www.lego.com/en-us/pick-and-build/pick-a-brick?query=&page=1&includeOutOfStock=true&filters.i0.key=variants.attributes.appearsIn&filters.i0.ranges.i0.from="10305%3A"&filters.i0.ranges.i0.to="10305%3A9999"&filters.i1.key=variants.attributes.categoryId&filters.i1.values.i0=6

Good spotting, but to dispel any confusion: "Silver Metallic" (material ID 315) is the official name of the current color that BrickLink calls Flat Silver. In BrickLink terms, it is a "pearl" color — the metallic color is molded into the plastic itself, not applied as a lacquer coating on top of the plastic.

[Sir Dano]

The lack of the blank shield piece in that inventory tells me that all the shields in the set are in fact printed.

[SirBlake]

2 hours ago, azog said:

The metallic silver is also in production! It appeared in the Bricklink Castle in the Forest set. 

Interesting, I didn’t know that. I’m not sure that’s conclusive though since it’s been a minute since CitF came out, and the special circumstances (not a regular production set, very limited number). I can see how they may have used that set to get rid of old metallic silver stock.

Still, I’m glad to know that bit of info. 

[Hive]

On 6/30/2022 at 4:05 PM, DaleDVM said:

Hence why I don't find the blacksmith that out of whack.  If it was a royal smithy, with several blacksmiths working there, the building could very well be that big... or in actuality be much bigger.  

The Blacksmith is a one-man local blacksmith operating out of his own house. Apart from York, which town in your article had walls lower than an ordinary house...?

To each his own, of course - but the blacksmith set doesn't scale well with the castle no matter how you spin it, in my opinion. So either the castle, MMV and MVR needs to be increased in size - or the blacksmit needs to be downsized. The latter seems easier and more practical.

But again, that's just my opinion - and to each his own. :)

[SirBlake]

30 minutes ago, Hive said:

The Blacksmith is a one-man local blacksmith operating out of his own house. Apart from York, which town in your article had walls lower than an ordinary house...?

To each his own, of course - but the blacksmith set doesn't scale well with the castle no matter how you spin it, in my opinion. So either the castle, MMV and MVR needs to be increased in size - or the blacksmit needs to be downsized. The latter seems easier and more practical.

But again, that's just my opinion - and to each his own. :)

Ok, since the scale issue doesn’t seem to be going away, let me ask this question: why must either be scaled up or down? Why can’t they stay their original scales, and one goes on one shelf, appreciated for its own merits, and the other stays on another shelf, appreciated for its merits?

This “issue” exists for all themes, whether it’s modular city buildings or UCS versions of Star Wars ships or whatever. Except it doesn’t have to be an issue. 

I love the MMV for several reasons. It’s earned it’s place as one of the best in the history of castle. I love the blacksmith, it provides detail and techniques never before seen in the theme. 

I tried to get to the bottom of this in the “how do you display your castles” thread, assuming that everybody with this problem (?) had massive tables set up in a grand display of sets where everything was in the same context together. Based on the responses there, a couple of people had some shelves set up and everyone else had their collection packed away in boxes.

Please don’t confuse my little rant here with me being upset, I’m just genuinely confused how this “scale issue” remains part of the discussion.

 

[Hive]

22 minutes ago, SirBlake said:

Ok, since the scale issue doesn’t seem to be going away, let me ask this question: why must either be scaled up or down? Why can’t they stay their original scales, and one goes on one shelf, appreciated for its own merits, and the other stays on another shelf, appreciated for its merits?

 

Well goes without saying that this is, of course, only an issue if you plan on displaying them side by side. I want to do that eventually, but will at first be displaying the blacksmith in a cabinet by itself. And while I do that, it naturally won't be an issue at all.

But part of what I like about LEGO is creating a larger display, instead of only displaying singular pieces (which I also do like). I have setups for both types of display.

I think that is part of the reason the modular buildings are so popular; they invite you to create a larger, unified display in the same scale.

[Doddsino]

Yeah, I mean it goes without saying that both sets can co-exist, but look weird together if you're trying to go for a cohesive city or something. 

It's like the Town modulars, most look good together, but some are just so gaudy that they become an eyesore when displayed next to other more homely buildings. Green Grocer doesn't look good next to the Palace Theater or the Downtown Diner.

If it was up to me, I probably would have designed the Blacksmith to be smaller since I prefer larger modulars to be communal in design. Maybe make it an extension of the Medieval Village, or if anything make it a church...which I know will NEVER happen with Lego.

[Blazej_Holen]

I get both points of view in terms of scale… I plan to have it on shelf and in time make a display. Blacksmith is little bit out of scale compare to the castle but its not a problem for me. i have 2 blacksmiths (one sealed) and I plan to have them both as a base of small village…(second blacksmith will be probably moded to a tavern). This castle set regardless how complex and big it is, is (in my world) just a small keep, so its ok for me :) 

[MAB]

26 minutes ago, Doddsino said:

Yeah, I mean it goes without saying that both sets can co-exist, but look weird together if you're trying to go for a cohesive city or something. 

It's like the Town modulars, most look good together, but some are just so gaudy that they become an eyesore when displayed next to other more homely buildings. Green Grocer doesn't look good next to the Palace Theater or the Downtown Diner.

If it was up to me, I probably would have designed the Blacksmith to be smaller since I prefer larger modulars to be communal in design. Maybe make it an extension of the Medieval Village, or if anything make it a church...which I know will NEVER happen with Lego.

The Modulars look even worse when surrounded by City buildings.