10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[GeoBrick]

Well, they are aimed at completely different customer groups.

[SirBlake]

1 hour ago, GeoBrick said:

Well, they are aimed at completely different customer groups.

Yea and no. With the drought of castle over the last decade or so, TLG had to assume that a lot of us into old castles were going to dive head first into the blacksmith, often being our first foray into that sort of thing. I know it was my first and only larger scale Ideas purchase. 

But I really can’t be bothered by the scale thing. The blacksmith is great in its own way, and I would hate to break it apart to downscale it. 

[Roebuck]

13 hours ago, SirBlake said:

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.

We have gotten so few Castle sets the last decade that it is a little frustrating that they are not close enough in scale to be displayed together 
The blacksmith was a MOC made into a Lego set and that is fine, but the scale only works for MOCs where the creators have a huge number of bricks to make other buildings in the same scale. I hope and think the next Lego Castle sets will be in system scale. Something to expand the village of MMV and MVR would be a dream come true, but I guess it depends a lot on how much the castle sells

[eldiano]

On 6/30/2022 at 2:54 AM, MAB said:

That would be great, although they'd obliterate their core business. If you could buy all minifigures without sets, then their brick sales would tank. 

The thing that keeps secondary market prices high is demand vs supply. If there was infinite supply, then demand is easily satisfied. Even popular characters that appear in many sets and have massive supply are not worth much. It is only really variants or characters that appear in one set, often an expensive one, that are worth much.

They didn't say classic sets. Different people read that question in very different ways. My reading of it was unsold old stock rather than reproducing 10 or 20 year old sets at a buyer's request.  LEGO never qualified what it meant.

They were two proposals I remember doing, under the exclusive Lego Product membership there was a bullet that said: “Buy Past sets from the LEGO archive”, Archive wouldn’t mean unsold stock I think.
 

They can get rid of unsold sets quickly with a sale on the Lego Shop if was that bad. I think they meant retired sets but you are right they never specified how far back they would go.  
 

my perception of castles is completely different from everyone here 🤣, I actually grew up in Panama, growing up all I saw were Spanish forts, armories, moats, and legit custom houses from 500 years ago, one of the main reason I got into pirates, those forts are wild same with the castles i around portobelo, 

Nothing as massive like en Europe, but the Spanish built their forts with a lot cannons in mind and chose nature as an advantage point than high walls, truth be told they’re was a mini fort on top of a 300 ft hill that still had a moat around the mini castle that was at least 10ft deep, as if the steep climb was not enough 🤣 

 

Edited July 3, 2022 by eldiano

[Alexandrina]

On 7/3/2022 at 8:37 AM, eldiano said:

my perception of castles is completely different from everyone here 🤣, I actually grew up in Panama, growing up all I saw were Spanish forts, armories, moats, and legit custom houses from 500 years ago, one of the main reason I got into pirates, those forts are wild same with the castles i around portobelo

I mean, I grew up (and indeed still live) in the Welsh Marches, which were one of the most fortified areas in post-Conquest England - and the castles around me are nothing like the standard image of a castle (not helped by the fact that the biggest castle in the area, which apparently was one of the finest in Europe in its day, was sold to private developers and dismantled in the 1700s). If Lego ever put out a set that was based on Longtown Castle in its heyday people would be all over it picking up how it's not a proper castle.

What Lego have always done well is representing the cultural image of a medieval castle - and that's really what most kids care about.

[woodford86]

Castle for me has always been benchmarked against the Robin Hood, King Arthur and Crusaders era. That's why the Anno 1516 sticker in Castle in the Forest drives me nuts, its about 500 years late.

[eldiano]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

I mean, I grew up (and indeed still live) in the Welsh Marches, which were one of the most fortified areas in post-Conquest England - and the castles around me are nothing like the standard image of a castle (not helped by the fact that the biggest castle in the area, which apparently was one of the finest in Europe in its day, was sold to private developers and dismantled in the 1700s). If Lego ever put out a set that was based on Longtown Castle in its heyday people would be all over it picking up how it's not a proper castle.

What Lego have always done well is representing the cultural image of a medieval castle - and that's really what most kids care about.

Agree completely!  Quite frankly some of the most accurate sets I've seen are from the 90's imperial line up, all I remember are the ramps for cannons in castles more than walls to be honest, later on life I was brave enough to enter a dungeon and it was built completely weird(walls that led to nowhere or possibly sealed off) then again the city has done a terrible job of maintaining the ruins but what's mind blowing to me is the fact that the Castle Santiago is still buried under a hill and left untouched since Henry Morgan blew it up, you can walk to the top of the castle but it's full of dirt.   

Interesting we are talking about this because I was reading one of the last interviews from Daniel August Krentz about how they came up with their sets and ideas for Castles was mostly inspired by encyclopedic choices of famous castles, but you never know Longtown Castle definetly feels LOTR in design lol.  

 

[Triceron]

On 7/2/2022 at 8:25 AM, 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?

I think that's fine as a solution.

For me, it's just a matter of discussing on curiosity and principle more than anything.  Ideally, I'd like to see consistency in scales so they would all reasonably look well when displayed together in a massive diorama.  Maybe something like the Lego promotional pamphlets; or the Lego Back to the Future where we see a massive castle displayed alongside the regular castle sets.

I'm always interested in how Lego scales their Star Wars sets, and they don't seem to have any particular consistent standard for scales.  Like there's been a number of different AT-ATs over the years and they're all different sizes to each other, with the latest UCS one being the biggest and towering over everything else.  The newest one is probably the best scale so far, and the old Snowspeeders are much better scale for display underneath their legs.  I just think it's interesting to see size differences and seeing how they compare, and seeing how well they fit displayed together.  

Edited July 5, 2022 by Triceron

[MAB]

On 7/3/2022 at 8:37 AM, eldiano said:

They were two proposals I remember doing, under the exclusive Lego Product membership there was a bullet that said: “Buy Past sets from the LEGO archive”, Archive wouldn’t mean unsold stock I think.
 

They can get rid of unsold sets quickly with a sale on the Lego Shop if was that bad. I think they meant retired sets but you are right they never specified how far back they would go.  
 

 

Bricklink designer sets have a lead time of about a year and they have a run of 10000 in batches of just 5 sets. I really doubt they'd be able to handle requests for any sets from their archive, making just a few (hundred) copies of 100s of different sets especiallywhere parts are no longer produced. They possibly mean they (LEGO) will pick a very small number of sets and let VIPs exchange VIP points for them, but that is very different to customers being able to choose any set from the past as some were making out.

[GeoBrick]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

Bricklink designer sets have a lead time of about a year and they have a run of 10000 in batches of just 5 sets. I really doubt they'd be able to handle requests for any sets from their archive, making just a few (hundred) copies of 100s of different sets especiallywhere parts are no longer produced. They possibly mean they (LEGO) will pick a very small number of sets and let VIPs exchange VIP points for them, but that is very different to customers being able to choose any set from the past as some were making out.

Why did you have to post that? Now I'm torn between saving VIP points for such an eventuality or cashing them in to have the castle a bit cheaper?!!!

Edited July 5, 2022 by GeoBrick
Grammar correction

[MAB]

24 minutes ago, GeoBrick said:

Why did you have to post that? Now I'm torn between saving VIP points for such an eventuality or cashing them in to have the castle a bit cheaper?!!!

Feel free to keep saving them if you believe they will open up their entire archive for completely free choice. On other forums, some people were expecting to get the early Modulars, some were going to get Space Police and Adventurers, Lord of the Rings and Batman I, and of course others were expecting to get Classic Castle, Space and Pirates sets. I think the best we can hope for vintage sets is that they might make new "old" sets, like what they did with the Forest Hideout. That way, they can make a planned reasonable sized run of say 25000 sets using in-stock parts and have them available when advertised. Although just as likely given it is LEGO VIP, it would be old but recent promotions, polybags or regular sets that they didn't shift.

 

[The_Cook]

13 hours ago, eldiano said:

Interesting we are talking about this because I was reading one of the last interviews from Daniel August Krentz about how they came up with their sets and ideas for Castles was mostly inspired by encyclopedic choices of famous castles, but you never know Longtown Castle definetly feels LOTR in design lol.  

 

That's interesting...

I can see a lot of something like Bodiam Castle and other late medieval castles before the arrival of gunpowder in 6080.
6074 and 6086 remind me of some of the German hilltop castles along the Rhine Valley.

They're obviously not exactly replicas of actual castles, but there are definite influences in them.

Edited July 5, 2022 by The_Cook
grammar

[jodawill]

Has anyone else found the name of this set kind of confusing? It's my understanding that "[Something] Knight's Castle" always referred to a castle owned by a lord, and "[Something] King's Castle" or "[Something] Monarch's Castle" were the names given to castles occupied by a ruling monarch. I wondered if that meant the "lady of the castle" was actually supposed to be a knight, but the official description says she's a queen. By that convention, shouldn't this be "Lion Queen's Castle" or "Lion Monarch's Castle?"

I guess "Lion Monarch's Castle" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "Black Monarch's Castle."

[Triceron]

11 minutes ago, jodawill said:

Has anyone else found the name of this set kind of confusing?

To be honest, I wouldn't try and overthink it.  I think they're intentionally keeping things intentionally vague for PC reasons, like 'Forest Hideout' instead of the original 'Forestmen's Hideout'.

You make a good point that they could have used 'Monarch' in the name though, I think that would have worked fine too.  Though if they did that, I would expect a Throneroom to be included :P

[Aanchir]

2 hours ago, jodawill said:

Has anyone else found the name of this set kind of confusing? It's my understanding that "[Something] Knight's Castle" always referred to a castle owned by a lord, and "[Something] King's Castle" or "[Something] Monarch's Castle" were the names given to castles occupied by a ruling monarch. I wondered if that meant the "lady of the castle" was actually supposed to be a knight, but the official description says she's a queen. By that convention, shouldn't this be "Lion Queen's Castle" or "Lion Monarch's Castle?"

I get what you're saying, but keep in mind that the very FIRST castle set to have an obvious "king" minifigure was called Royal Knights' Castle in the US, whereas previous sets with names like "King's Castle" or "Black Monarch's Castle" only appeared to include knights!

I suspect that among other things, LEGO might've wanted to leave things open for builders of this set to interpret the rank of the leading lady according to their preference (be that as a queen, princess, duchess, baroness, or what-have-you). After all, in a lot of countries' set names and marketing material, the Lion Knights were led by a knight/lord rather than by a king, and so unambiguously establishing the ruler of this set as a king/queen might appear to contradict that.

Also, in many countries such as Denmark, the term "Lion Knights" (or the equivalent in the local language) was used much more prominently in set names and marketing than in the US set names that have been adopted as the norm by most online reference catalogs like Brickset and BrickLink these days. Mind you, it was not used as universally/consistently as the term "Forestmen" in the US names of sets based on that faction. Even so, to give some examples, both 6080 King's Castle and 6081 King's Mountain Fortress were named "Løveriddernes Borg" (Lion Knights' Castle) in many Danish catalogs — the same as the name this new set has in Denmark.

So perhaps LEGO felt that specifically including the name of this classic faction in the name of the set would boost its throwback appeal for AFOLs in many of the European countries that have been most vocal about wanting new Castle sets — without requiring them to change the name completely from one country to the next like they often did in the old pre-Internet days.

For that matter, given that knights/soldiers are one of the main things fans of traditional Castle themes have found most lacking in other castle-heavy themes like Elves, Disney, and Harry Potter, it's possible that LEGO decided including the word "knight" in the title would just be a smart marketing/search engine optimization strategy. The use of the word "Knights" in the branding of some of their more specific Castle-inspired IPs over the years like Knights' Kingdom and Nexo Knights certainly suggests that LEGO considers it a very marketable buzzword.

2 hours ago, Triceron said:

To be honest, I wouldn't try and overthink it.  I think they're intentionally keeping things intentionally vague for PC reasons, like 'Forest Hideout' instead of the original 'Forestmen's Hideout'.

I don't think that would apply here necessarily. In that particular case, I suspect the change in the set's name seems like it was probably just to avoid contradicting the updated minifigure selection (one forestman and one forestwoman).

That particular issue wouldn't apply to names that identify one particular inhabitant by a gendered name/title, as even some other 2022 set names like The Crystal King Temple, Ariel's Underwater Palace, and Princess Peach's Castle still do.

Granted, there IS the very real (albeit unpleasant) possibility that LEGO specifically wanted to avoid alienating potential male buyers by giving the set a name with feminine connotations. But it's just as possible that LEGO already had the name "Lion Knights' Castle" in mind for the set before finalizing the minifigure selection and deciding for certain that it should include a female ruler. Or that they wanted its name to be "spoiler-free", just in case the set name had ended up leaking to the public before any description of the set's contents.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Aanchir

[GeoBrick]

Personally, I would have liked it being called "The Count(ess) Castle" (or Duke's/Duchess) for a change. Simply for variations sake. There's really a King overkill in medieval LEGO world already.

[TeriXeri]

I don't really put that focus on set names that much, even way back then, many catalogs just had a set number and a star icon next to it if were new.

Like really , they call this 43205: Ultimate Adventure Castle

I see the point of the name, as it's a disney set with small side rooms for each disney princess' story, but easily taken out of context if someone knows nothing of disney and read "ultimate castle" or something.

Edited July 5, 2022 by TeriXeri

[Triceron]

True enough.  They also had different localized names of factions and sets.  I think I grew up with them being called 'Lion Crest' and 'Eagle Crest', and only adopted the more recent Crusaders and Black Falcons after getting into the online Lego community.

-Looking it up, seems like these names were specifically used in Canada and Australia.  Makes sense why, as a kid, I was so confused from lego sets I got from the States that had differently named factions in catalogues from the same year.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Triceron

[TeriXeri]

Currently there are a lot of Disney sets with Castle, Palace, Stables, or Courtyard in the name, just not really the type of sets most AFOL people desire here.

I don't want to derail the topic too much, as I see those disney sets as a complete different target group, and also did not prevent a theme like Elves co-existing with it for 4 years.

Edited July 5, 2022 by TeriXeri

[jodawill]

I could be wrong, but I think the images in the description in the listing are new? I don't recall seeing this one before. It seems to show a tunnel that wasn't available in previous images. I don't think this is the same as the little hideout we've seen before.

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

2 minutes ago, jodawill said:

I could be wrong, but I think the images in the description in the listing are new? I don't recall seeing this one before. It seems to show a tunnel that wasn't available in previous images. I don't think this is the same as the little hideout we've seen before.

I think this is the feature that the set designers meant to keep secret until people actually went ahead and built the set. Too bad!

[Follows Closely]

I have seen that image the day of release. The feature that the set designers meant to keep secret is this, and the other half of this room (between picture below and drawbridge) of this which we have not yet seen.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Follows Closely

[Triceron]

It's weird that the designers wanted to keep that secret, when the secret area is also shown on the official box art (bottom left corner)

[SirBlake]

Yes, but it's location (the hideout) and how it relates to the rest of the castle was kind of a secret. The image showing the trap door kind of spilled the beans on that part. I do think there are going to be more than a couple details that we'll really only see, or at least, have a more complete understanding of, once we build it. For instance, we don't truly understand how the secret entrance by the tree connects, if at all, to the rest of the castle. Presumably it connects to that jail cell under there, but I haven't seen photos that can confirm that.

[GeoBrick]

50 minutes ago, Triceron said:

It's weird that the designers wanted to keep that secret, when the secret area is also shown on the official box art (bottom left corner)

Keep in mind that these kinds of interviews are done before the set is revealed.