10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[Triceron]

23 minutes ago, eldiano said:

How big of a box would it be?  I just brought MicroMachines blind boxes but I can find out which items they are from the barcode so all is not lost LOL. 

PS. If you type in the set in PAB the lego website does populate the bricks for this set now, you can buy almost every brick from 10305. Out of 711 available bricks only 95 are sold out, they have the generic torsos, heads and legs but no forestmen goods or printed castle stuff, the only shield I saw was the Black Falcons.  

It usually takes a couple of months for them to add the other parts, this was the case Medieval Blacksmith and Medieval Castle, let’s hope Lion Knights Follows suit! 

Hmm, did the Vidyo Blind Boxes have any barcode differences?

Good to know the PAB has em all in the system even if they're not available yet.  I missed out on grabbing some Black Falcons, I wish I knew of the system before I bought some miscellanous sets to get the Forest Hideout.  I'd rather have gotten $50 worth of Black Falcon torsos and legs when they were still in stock.  I'll just have to wait for them to get back in stock, hopefully during another good sale.

[dimc]

1 hour ago, eldiano said:

How big of a box would it be?  I just brought MicroMachines blind boxes but I can find out which items they are from the barcode so all is not lost LOL. 

 

So as a Lego fan and not really any other toys, what is the MicroMachines market like? I got some in a haul a while back and know nothing about them, other than based on the age of the Legos, they're probably from the late 80s or early 90s.

[RichardGoring]

2 hours ago, Triceron said:

Hmm, did the Vidyo Blind Boxes have any barcode differences?

No. A sealed box usually had all the figures in a specific order, so you could probably tell that way, but there were reports of dinner boxes being mixed, so it wasn't reliable. Other than each side of the box contained a complete set.

Hopefully they do some kind of identifying mark in the future, perhaps as a response to all the opened boxes that plagued Vidiyo series 1, but I doubt it.

[Poco Lypso]

14 hours ago, Hive said:

I don't get the complaints about the amount of females in the set. This is a toy for children, not an accurate historical representation of the dark ages. If that's what you're looking for, you shouldn't be looking for LEGO sets to begin with.

That said, I'll probably be turning most of the female soldiers into males myself - but that's not much of a hassle anyway, it's literally just a head swap. And I'd expect that most people buying this set have spare male heads anyway.

yeah, its an easy workaround :)

people have a right to have an opinion though, you either like a set or you don't. and if there is something about a set thats odd then why not say it?

 

[AyeMatey]

Anyone think some brave soul will take a stab at a similar multi-set build as the 3-in-1 currently?

[Follows Closely]

4 minutes ago, AyeMatey said:

Anyone think some brave soul will take a stab at a similar multi-set build as the 3-in-1 currently?

I am sure that people are all ready working on it.

[AyeMatey]

nice

[woodford86]

peter.g.keith has already made a massive expansion for it

https://www.instagram.com/p/CgGrm9TozVF/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Edited July 19, 2022 by woodford86

[SirBlake]

9 minutes ago, woodford86 said:

peter.g.keith has already made a massive expansion for it

https://www.instagram.com/p/CgGrm9TozVF/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Really enjoying his stuff lately. 

[Roebuck]

10 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I personally think a part as versatile as a new arch is WAY more interesting than an animal mold or weapon that would have less impact overall on the look and design of the castle itself. People are talking about this set like it was the last or only opportunity for a goat when honestly, small animal molds and minifigure weapons are practically tailor-made for something like collectible minifigures where they have a big impact on the appeal of an individual fig, and where individual figs can be easily acquired in quantity even without resorting to the aftermarket. In a giant set like this, introducing a new weapon or goat would both have very little impact on the appeal of the set as a whole (goats may be popular but I doubt they'd sway buyers to drop $300+ on a set unless they were already interested in the set on its own merits), and would make people who want them in quantity have to resort to bricks and pieces or aftermarket sellers (since buying multiples of a set like this for the goats alone would be absurd).

I guess if you are a MOC builder the part is probably more appealing, if you are not like me then a new display piece like the goat etc would be more useful. I think that a lot of the people that are interested in the goat is interested in the set anyway, however I am sure if the set had goats some people being on the fence would buy it. 2 goats cost over 100$ now so then 400$ for the castle would not seem so expensive with them included (of course the value of the new goats would not be 50€ anymore)

8 hours ago, eldiano said:

  It usually takes a couple of months for them to add the other parts, this was the case Medieval Blacksmith and Medieval Castle, let’s hope Lion Knights Follows suit! 

The problem now is with the new system they have removed every 2022 part, so even new parts from January are not added. So the question is when if ever they add the 2022 parts not only to the castle, but every other set from this year

9 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

I prefer a lamb over a sheep - at least until lambs are available on Bricks & Pieces. I have a flock of sheep, but no lambs (and don't really want to pay crazy prices for the City Farm just to get one.

Yes, sheep normally have more than one lamb as well, so are going to need a hole flock of them to go with my sheep herd

[Merlo]

14 hours ago, jodawill said:

I'm confused on how this isn't a "crazy interesting shape." I think this is the first castle that isn't a square. How do you imagine this set should have looked like?

I think it's fair criticism though that every wall "needs" to have an interior. I watched the Jangbricks review of Fort Legoredo the other day, and he mentioned that they wouldn't put a simple wall in the set if they released a new fort. He's probably right, but that just seems absolutely ridiculous to me. In real life, most of the walls of a fort would have been simple barriers to provide a barrier. The same goes for a castle. A castle should have some section that's simply a wall with guards traversing it. This castle looks fine as it is, but I think that's an area that's ripe for MOCing.

It "should have" looked much more irregular. I say "should have" because it's possible that would've been a worse decision. Yes, it would appeal more to AFOL's with more sophisticated taste, but I imagine most people buy Lego because the Lego brand is strong and their nostalgia is tied to the brand, not because of the designs, that have reached a relative peak cca 1992. The problem with having sets like 10305 as display items (as opposed to playing with them) is that you need visual detail in order for the eye and the brain not to store every surface and then treat it like wallpaper. This is not that difficult to do with some irregularity and contrast, e.g. like on this image.

The style and the colors and everything else is not important. These are some basic principles that can be applied to anything, and usually are in good designs, unless we're going for historical accuracy.

This is also what makes all the Ninjago City sets work. You never get bored of them, and when you do - you can just flip them into some crazy new combination, and there are a lot of combinations that work, more than I would've thought.

As for the shape, I love that the castle is not a square and nothing can take that away. But it also speaks of the lack of ideas they had. Not only is it just a bigger, blander version of 31120 when it comes

to the general look and even placement of different elements, it also took the idea of the irregular shape that you can get by putting different builds of 31120 together.

It basically feels like it was very skillfully done, as usual, but someone had to do it on an extremely tight schedule and just didn't waste a lot of time developing the design or the color scheme, but just realized the basic idea of "31120 but more grown up + anything else that is in there is extra"

I don't have any gripes about the actual interior, the more there is - the bigger the play value. It's true there would've been a lot of parts that were just passages or such IRL.

Actually, the only thing I can think of is there doesn't seem to be a throne room, and that's always a cool play element imho.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Merlo

[Hive]

8 hours ago, Poco Lypso said:

yeah, its an easy workaround :)

people have a right to have an opinion though, you either like a set or you don't. and if there is something about a set thats odd then why not say it?

 

Sure, people have a right to their opinion. Having opinions on the design, coloring, size, price, amount of peasant minifigures, number of horses, chosen heraldy and stuff like that is all quite valid.

Having an opinion on whether a children's construction toy is historically accurate enough when portraying women in the military, however, is quite silly.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Hive

[Agent Kallus]

38 minutes ago, Hive said:

Sure, people have a right to their opinion. Having opinions on the design, coloring, size, price, amount of peasant minifigures, number of horses, chosen heraldy and stuff like that is all quite valid.

Having an opinion on whether a children's construction toy is historically accurate enough when portraying women in the military, however, is quite silly.

I mean the Knights aren't replicating any specific real world group so it doesn't really matter.

1 hour ago, Merlo said:

It "should have" looked much more irregular. I say "should have" because it's possible that would've been a worse decision. Yes, it would appeal more to AFOL's with more sophisticated taste, but I imagine most people buy Lego because the Lego brand is strong and their nostalgia is tied to the brand, not because of the designs, that have reached a relative peak cca 1992. The problem with having sets like 10305 as display items (as opposed to playing with them) is that you need visual detail in order for the eye and the brain not to store every surface and then treat it like wallpaper. This is not that difficult to do with some irregularity and contrast, e.g. like on this image.

The style and the colors and everything else is not important. These are some basic principles that can be applied to anything, and usually are in good designs, unless we're going for historical accuracy.

This is also what makes all the Ninjago City sets work. You never get bored of them, and when you do - you can just flip them into some crazy new combination, and there are a lot of combinations that work, more than I would've thought.

As for the shape, I love that the castle is not a square and nothing can take that away. But it also speaks of the lack of ideas they had. Not only is it just a bigger, blander version of 31120 when it comes

to the general look and even placement of different elements, it also took the idea of the irregular shape that you can get by putting different builds of 31120 together.

It basically feels like it was very skillfully done, as usual, but someone had to do it on an extremely tight schedule and just didn't waste a lot of time developing the design or the color scheme, but just realized the basic idea of "31120 but more grown up + anything else that is in there is extra"

I don't have any gripes about the actual interior, the more there is - the bigger the play value. It's true there would've been a lot of parts that were just passages or such IRL.

Actually, the only thing I can think of is there doesn't seem to be a throne room, and that's always a cool play element imho.

Lego model design peaked in 1992?

[LegoJakob]

2 hours ago, Merlo said:

I imagine most people buy Lego because the Lego brand is strong and their nostalgia is tied to the brand, not because of the designs, that have reached a relative peak cca 1992. The problem with having sets like 10305 as display items (as opposed to playing with them) is that you need visual detail in order for the eye and the brain not to store every surface and then treat it like wallpaper. This is not that difficult to do with some irregularity and contrast, e.g. like on this image.

I wonder how you make such assumptions.

I don't like the madewithbrix design, Loewenstein and Bluebrixx castle designs.
They all may have some merits, but they don't manage to blend the world of minifigures with the impression of thick castle stone walls well enough.

10305 on the other hand I like, it's in my eyes a modern take on the art style you called "design peak of 1992".

[Poco Lypso]

3 hours ago, Hive said:

Sure, people have a right to their opinion. Having opinions on the design, coloring, size, price, amount of peasant minifigures, number of horses, chosen heraldy and stuff like that is all quite valid.

Having an opinion on whether a children's construction toy is historically accurate enough when portraying women in the military, however, is quite silly.

Female knights is part of the design.  Imagine: Lego brings out a set with mermaids, but the 'mermaids' have male torsos, thats simply a design choice. Some people will like it, while others may not and some people will say you can easily replace them torsos if need be. 

[natesroom]

2 hours ago, LegoJakob said:

I don't like the madewithbrix design, Loewenstein and Bluebrixx castle designs.
They all may have some merits, but they don't manage to blend the world of minifigures with the impression of thick castle stone walls well enough.

I agree. I didn't think of it that way but that's the best explanation. This new castle blends the restriction of pieces and minifigures and gives the impression of a castle, while the others you mentioned look nice and everything, but doesn't really fit into the "lego" world.

Edited July 19, 2022 by natesroom

[jodawill]

2 hours ago, natesroom said:

I agree. I didn't think of it that way but that's the best explanation. This new castle blends the restriction of pieces and minifigures and gives the impression of a castle, while the others you mentioned look nice and everything, but doesn't really fit into the "lego" world.

That's something I really don't like about a lot of the fancy MOCs I see. I want Lego to look like Lego. This set fits the bill. I don't like the blacksmith shop because it looks like a MOC, not a Lego set.

[eldiano]

19 hours ago, dimc said:

So as a Lego fan and not really any other toys, what is the MicroMachines market like? I got some in a haul a while back and know nothing about them, other than based on the age of the Legos, they're probably from the late 80s or early 90s.

The market is hot and could be a gold mine depending on what you have, usually can net you 60-80usd per container but if you have the rare vehicles I’ve seen them fetch up a high price!

 

Hey when did Legoland start offering GWP?! They have the current Harry Potter staircase I always thought they were separate companies 

Edited July 19, 2022 by eldiano

[dimc]

14 minutes ago, eldiano said:

The market is hot and could be a gold mine depending on what you have, usually can net you 60-80usd per container but if you have the rare vehicles I’ve seen them fetch up a high price!

Thanks, I will have to dig a bunch to find them, but it sounds like it might help me fund this castle! Without knowing what's rare, I guess I'll have to look on ebay and so on to get an idea.

[Aanchir]

12 hours ago, Merlo said:

It "should have" looked much more irregular. I say "should have" because it's possible that would've been a worse decision. Yes, it would appeal more to AFOL's with more sophisticated taste, but I imagine most people buy Lego because the Lego brand is strong and their nostalgia is tied to the brand, not because of the designs, that have reached a relative peak cca 1992. The problem with having sets like 10305 as display items (as opposed to playing with them) is that you need visual detail in order for the eye and the brain not to store every surface and then treat it like wallpaper. This is not that difficult to do with some irregularity and contrast, e.g. like on this image.

The style and the colors and everything else is not important. These are some basic principles that can be applied to anything, and usually are in good designs, unless we're going for historical accuracy.

This is also what makes all the Ninjago City sets work. You never get bored of them, and when you do - you can just flip them into some crazy new combination, and there are a lot of combinations that work, more than I would've thought.

As for the shape, I love that the castle is not a square and nothing can take that away. But it also speaks of the lack of ideas they had. Not only is it just a bigger, blander version of 31120 when it comes to the general look and even placement of different elements, it also took the idea of the irregular shape that you can get by putting different builds of 31120 together.

It basically feels like it was very skillfully done, as usual, but someone had to do it on an extremely tight schedule and just didn't waste a lot of time developing the design or the color scheme, but just realized the basic idea of "31120 but more grown up + anything else that is in there is extra"

I don't have any gripes about the actual interior, the more there is - the bigger the play value. It's true there would've been a lot of parts that were just passages or such IRL.

Actually, the only thing I can think of is there doesn't seem to be a throne room, and that's always a cool play element imho.

I think one thing worth noting about the sorts of complex Castles you have continually pointed out as examples of what you'd have preferred is that they resemble decorative post-medieval designs. For example, Cochem Castle, which you shared in an earlier post, was actually brought to ruin in 1688, and the current castle that sits in its place is a 19th-century reconstruction in the Gothic Revival style.

Frankly, the Disney theme is replete with sets influenced by these sorts of romantic, "fairy tale" style castles, which is probably part of why LEGO wanted the anniversary set for the Castle theme to hearken back to the castle architecture of the High Middle Ages, which inspired many early LEGO Castle sets. It emphasizes practical fortifications (battlements; arrow slits; machicolations; a postern gate; and a gatehouse with flanking towers, a drawbridge, and portcullis), and favors Romanesque influences (like circular arches and smooth walls) over later Gothic influences (like pointed arches and walls interrupted by elaborate ribs, columns, and buttresses).

In other words, it's not that the designers put less time and effort into its design than the sort of castles you favor, but that they put their efforts towards emulating a different style of castle entirely! And rather than being uninspired, it wears its inspirations and influences on its sleeves — they simply aren't the more decorative sorts of inspirations and influences that you've shown a preference for.

Make no mistake, I myself often prefer Gothic-inspired castles with elaborate shapes and textures and contrasting colors a lot of the time! After all, LEGO Elves remains one of my all-time favorite themes, and its sets take heavy influence from both Gothic/late medieval architecture and from all sorts of "fairy-tale"/"storybook" castles. But I also appreciate the authenticity and commitment to detail in this new castle, even if it's far from the sort of castles that I would usually rather design in my own free time.

16 hours ago, woodford86 said:

peter.g.keith has already made a massive expansion for it

https://www.instagram.com/p/CgGrm9TozVF/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Oh, I very nearly missed this concept, but this is some incredible work! I hope once the set is released he'll continue on this project and maybe even build some of these expansions in real life!

Edited July 19, 2022 by Aanchir

[TeriXeri]

2 hours ago, eldiano said:

I always thought they were separate companies 

In 2019 , KIRKBI / LEGO had a deal with Merlin Entertainment to buy some ownership into LEGOLAND parks/discovery centers back, they had 30% ownership before the deal, now 50%.

So they less seperate companies compared to at least 2005-2019, but I don't know the exact details.

Edited July 19, 2022 by TeriXeri

[SirBlake]

2 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I think one thing worth noting about the sorts of complex Castles you have continually pointed out as examples of what you'd have preferred is that they resemble decorative post-medieval designs. For example, Cochem Castle, which you shared in an earlier post, was actually brought to ruin in 1688, and the current castle that sits in its place is a 19th-century reconstruction in the Gothic Revival style.

Frankly, the Disney theme is replete with sets influenced by these sorts of romantic, "fairy tale" style castles, which is probably part of why LEGO wanted the anniversary set for the Castle theme to hearken back to the castle architecture of the High Middle Ages, which inspired many early LEGO Castle sets. It emphasizes practical fortifications (battlements; arrow slits; machicolations; a postern gate; and a gatehouse with flanking towers, a drawbridge, and portcullis), and favors Romanesque influences (like circular arches and smooth walls) over later Gothic influences (like pointed arches and walls interrupted by elaborate ribs, columns, and buttresses).

In other words, it's not that the designers put less time and effort into its design than the sort of castles you favor, but that they put their efforts towards emulating a different style of castle entirely! And rather than being uninspired, it wears its inspirations and influences on its sleeves — they simply aren't the more decorative sorts of inspirations and influences that you've shown a preference for.

Make no mistake, I myself often prefer Gothic-inspired castles with elaborate shapes and textures and contrasting colors a lot of the time! After all, LEGO Elves remains one of my all-time favorite themes, and its sets take heavy influence from both Gothic/late medieval architecture and from all sorts of "fairy-tale"/"storybook" castles. But I also appreciate the authenticity and commitment to detail in this new castle, even if it's far from the sort of castles that I would usually rather design in my own free time.

Oh, I very nearly missed this concept, but this is some incredible work! I hope once the set is released he'll continue on this project and maybe even build some of these expansions in real life!

Some excellent observations here. I like all styles of castles but if pressed, I think I prefer the high Middle Ages approach. I bet that preference is heavily influenced by past Lego castles and fuels my excitement for this new 90th set. 

[eldiano]

4 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

In 2019 , KIRKBI / LEGO had a deal with Merlin Entertainment to buy some ownership into LEGOLAND parks/discovery centers back, they had 30% ownership before the deal, now 50%.

So they less seperate companies compared to at least 2005-2019, but I don't know the exact details.

LOL, is that why in the past they could sneak new sets before the official LEGO store release date?

I’m not going to lie, being an annual pass holder member does have it perks, especially when it comes to getting a 10% discount on the majority of newer sets on items less than a 100$

Edited July 20, 2022 by eldiano

[Mandalorianknight]

17 hours ago, Hive said:

Sure, people have a right to their opinion. Having opinions on the design, coloring, size, price, amount of peasant minifigures, number of horses, chosen heraldy and stuff like that is all quite valid.

Having an opinion on whether a children's construction toy is historically accurate enough when portraying women in the military, however, is quite silly.

I mean, one could argue buying legos as an adult is "quite silly". It's what we do. Plus, how many children are you expecting to buy this set? At least the galaxy explorer is comparably affordable for kids. This is going to be a set mainly purchased by adults. And while it's of course unrealistic to expect a set to be completely historically accurate, there's a difference between "this castle set based on the idealized middle ages has a faction that didn't really exist and isn't based on a specific castle" and "this castle set has a lot of female knights, but knights were almost exclusively men", because we know lego isn't going to make a set based on the Sacrum Imperium Romanum, but until recently they at least kept the knights the gender they were. It'd be like if they gave every knight a flintlock instead of their other weapon. You might say, "Sure, it's not really historically accurate, but buyers probably already have spare swords and pikes, right?", but it's still kind of annoying.

I'm never going to be able to afford this set, especially since it's a bit lower on my priority list compared to some of the other giant sets coming out this year, but I get people's nitpick. 

 

Anyway, here are my thoughts as someone who mainly collects Lego Star Wars:

I like it overall. It's a real nice castle with some actual depth and design to it than all the squares we've seen, and it adds in some actual colored roofing rather than the standard assortment of towers and stonework. I also like that it brought in some of the more famous factions (wolfpack would be cool, though). The amount of figures is very nice, and I'm glad that there are a solid amount of soldiers along with some peasants and other factions. The size is also of note. The price is high, but it seems worth it. The castle seems HUGE. I wonder if, assuming the set sells well, we'll see more. A Forestmen enclave or Falcon Knight castle could be cool, as well as some sort of Wolfpack lodge. That's one of the things I always felt was missing, it was just the good knights and the bad knights. We rarely saw different organizations, much less ones like the forestmen and wolfpack, who weren't just "good" or "evil". I may have grown up in the waning days of castle, back when it was "kingdoms", but I liked even the Crown and Dragon knights enough to get a couple sets. If I ever strike gold, I'll be picking this up.

Edited July 20, 2022 by Mandalorianknight

[RichardGoring]

35 minutes ago, Mandalorianknight said:

I mean, one could argue buying legos as an adult is "quite silly". It's what we do. Plus, how many children are you expecting to buy this set? At least the galaxy explorer is comparably affordable for kids. This is going to be a set mainly purchased by adults. And while it's of course unrealistic to expect a set to be completely historically accurate, there's a difference between "this castle set based on the idealized middle ages has a faction that didn't really exist and isn't based on a specific castle" and "this castle set has a lot of female knights, but knights were almost exclusively men", because we know lego isn't going to make a set based on the Sacrum Imperium Romanum, but until recently they at least kept the knights the gender they were. It'd be like if they gave every knight a flintlock instead of their other weapon. You might say, "Sure, it's not really historically accurate, but buyers probably already have spare swords and pikes, right?", but it's still kind of annoying.

I'm never going to be able to afford this set, especially since it's a bit lower on my priority list compared to some of the other giant sets coming out this year, but I get people's nitpick. 

I totally get it. FWIW, I will buy it, and I will let my daughters play with it. They like female characters in things, so they'll enjoy it and won't see any issue.

More broadly, think about it from LEGO's perspective. Those people that don't like the idea and want historical accuracy will kick up a small fuss (and that's fine), but then buy the set anyway and swap the heads, which is easy to do. Very, very, very few people are going to not buy the set because of this. However, more general sites like The Verge, IGN, and bizarrely, Business Insider, who also picked up the story of this, showcase the set to a much broader audience. Some of them might be interested in castles and could well be tipped into getting it for the idea of a group of female knights. LEGO needs to cater to both AFOLs and getting in new high-spending customers with this kind of set. The Ferrari SP3 Daytona is another example. Beautiful model, but not really very good as a Technic set. But you can bet that quite a few people will buy it who have never bought a LEGO set before.

So it has the potential to generate good publicity and have people consider buying it. There's very little negative (to LEGO as a company) from doing it.