10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[Triceron]

I still have a lot of sets unbuilt as well, namely the Flower Fruit Mountain.  Forest Hideout was a fun build, though I have a few gripes about its size and spacing where you can't really fit a mini to show off in the building.  I guess builds were like that back then, and meant to be displayed in Dollhouse form.  I didn't expect it to be that small, but I really enjoyed the build and look of it as a display piece.

I built this little peasant cottage MOC in the meantime, waiting for LKC to drop.  I wanted a little farmhouse to go along with a giant castle for better scale, something like the Farms in the Warcraft games

[TeriXeri]

2 hours ago, eldiano said:

Once I got the Forest Hideout I couldn't let it sit there not being built, the curiosity got the best of me and I had to finally build it.  Weird building techniques and all but worth it!!! The only regret was not having this castle set next to it! 

I just finished building it, and some of the techniques were surprising, didn't look up parts/instructions beforehand.

Quite a few of those rounded plates and the branches are quite different using those handlebars and horns to split/angle them, and the 1x2 palisade bricks make it look partly made out of black logs 

 

32 minutes ago, Triceron said:

I built this little peasant cottage MOC in the meantime, waiting for LKC to drop.  I wanted a little farmhouse to go along with a giant castle for better scale, something like the Farms in the Warcraft games

Love the smaller scale of that cottage.

Edited July 29, 2022 by TeriXeri

[Warbinator]

1 hour ago, Triceron said:

I built this little peasant cottage MOC in the meantime, waiting for LKC to drop.  I wanted a little farmhouse to go along with a giant castle for better scale, something like the Farms in the Warcraft games

That looks great! A very good match for the Lion Knight's Castle. I'm torn about displaying the new castle alongside last year's Blacksmith Shop. The Blacksmith looks great, but it's as tall as the castle and seems way out of proportion.

[SirBlake]

1 hour ago, Warbinator said:

That looks great! A very good match for the Lion Knight's Castle. I'm torn about displaying the new castle alongside last year's Blacksmith Shop. The Blacksmith looks great, but it's as tall as the castle and seems way out of proportion.

Yeah, you’re not alone. That has been much discussed a few pages back. The closest thing to a solution seems to be to put it on a different shelf. 

[DaleDVM]

VIP points are nice but only 5% which for this set is $20.   Double VIP $40.  The value of the GWP is about $25.  So I will be trying to get all of my castles with the forestman GWP and the VIP points.  I guarantee that the forestmen hideout will be going for $50 within a year especially because it was never available for purchase.  

[Black Feather]

23 hours ago, Something_Awesome said:

I'l be waiting for the pirate pack before buying anything. I am extremely confident the Forest Hideout will still be available. It didn't sell out in four days last time, then it won't this time. The castle may sell out, but the GWP won't. Not in a rush to get the castle. Just happy it's available. I'll probably be getting the Orchid set and one Viking ship and call it a day. If the Republic Fighter tank comes back in stock, then I'll place a second order with another viking ship and the tank to double up on the promos (I want two Viking ships anyway).

No way I'm spending $400 USD on a set that does not yield double VIP, especially when the price point to stack two great gifts is only $150. I am extremely calculated on LEGO purchases. LEGO is expensive enough as it is.

My 2 cents.

There’s a pretty good rationale for why the GWP might sell out much faster this time.  The first time it came out in a dead spot when not many new things were available and certainly nothing new for castle fans.  The rumor already came out that it would be available again with the castle, which probably encouraged some people targeting it to hold off. This time it’s coming out with a lot of new sets from multiple themes.  A lot of people are going to get it without caring about or targeting it just because they spend $150 on the things they want.  Of course LEGO knows that too and will probably just make more this time to be sure the extra incentive is in place when the castle comes out.  Your probably safe.  Just there’s no way to predict when we have know idea on either of the significant variables (how many produced and how many will spend enough to earn it.)

[Rattlebricks]

6 hours ago, Triceron said:

I still have a lot of sets unbuilt as well, namely the Flower Fruit Mountain.  Forest Hideout was a fun build, though I have a few gripes about its size and spacing where you can't really fit a mini to show off in the building.  I guess builds were like that back then, and meant to be displayed in Dollhouse form.  I didn't expect it to be that small, but I really enjoyed the build and look of it as a display piece.

I built this little peasant cottage MOC in the meantime, waiting for LKC to drop.  I wanted a little farmhouse to go along with a giant castle for better scale, something like the Farms in the Warcraft games

Great build. I prefer this kind of scaling than something like Medieval blacksmith set.

[Aanchir]

I haven't seen it mentioned in this thread, but Metro UK published a new interview with the lead designers of the Galaxy Explorer and Lion Knights' Castle (Mike Psiaki and Milan Madge) and there are some neat details about the development process there that I hadn't heard before — specifically, about some of the challenges they encountered while trying to make the castle as authentic to real medieval castles as possible, while still keeping the size and cost in check:

Quote

MP: We looked at a lot of real castles but as soon as we started to look closely, we were like, ‘Okay, these things are enormous!’ The proportions of the courtyards and the tunnels, the staircases, and all of that. We built some bits, like some cool spiral staircases and other bits from real castles where we were like, ‘Oh, this would be so cool to put in.’ And then we realised this would be 90% of the model, if we wanted to include this. Real castles are just way too big. So I think that’s where we focus much more on the details of real castles that we like, and then try to figure out how do we combine those all into something that’s actually a realistic size for a Lego model?

MM: We had a version originally where we had the curtain wall and outer bailey and stuff to kind of expand it. It was enormous. And, like, where’s anyone gonna put this?

MP: A lot of those old castle designs, especially in England and France, they really weren’t thinking about how it would be played with as a toy. [laughs] We wanted to do one of those entrances where you have multiple portcullises, and you can drop them down, and we built it but we’re like, ‘There’s no way to play with any of this!’

And it’s also so long and deep that the model needs to become enormous. So there’s a lot of different factors, like just how big you make it, we also wanted it to fit nicely on a shelf, things like forced our hand on a lot of decisions.

MM: In many ways it actually made it quite difficult. ‘Cause we started essentially from scratch. We had no layout or anything, we had to build this from the ground up.

MP: Yeah, normally real castle builders get at least a piece of ground where they’re gonna build their castle and that informs the decisions of where you put the gate and how high the walls will be, and where you need your towers. But we’re just like, ‘Okay, we can do absolutely anything we want, but we also can only do so much.’

It's definitely neat to hear about some of the features they were forced to omit for practicality's sake, and could be good inspiration for folks who want to expand this castle into a larger walled city/castle town! For my part, I think they achieved a decent compromise — the asymmetric composition and many of the specific features are far more authentic and detailed than you'd be able to expect in a smaller, kid-targeted castle playset, but also compact enough to fit on a shelf and keep the entire interior accessible when opened up, even for our adult-sized hands!

I remain especially impressed with the staircases of the west wing/living quarters. "Enclosed" stairwells are an EXTREMELY tricky feature to achieve while still allowing a builder to access the full length of the staircase once the model is complete, particularly with narrow castle stairwells like these ones — but here, the open-air space between the lowest and highest flights of stairs ensure you can still reach into each of the enclosed portions from both the top and bottom.

IMO, the spots where the compromises on the model's authenticity still feel most obvious in the final model are the rooftops of the barbican, postern gate tower, and bell tower, which lack any sort of stair or ladder access. For some of these, I might've preferred if the designers had included some rope ladders or movable wooden ladders that could be freely moved to allow for for either rooftop or interior access. Even though it wouldn't necessarily be historically accurate for a castle as grand as this one to lack permanent ladders or stairs for its towers, it'd at least reduce the suspension of disbelief needed when moving minifigs up and down from these towers! But in any case, these are thankfully the sort of feature that can be easily modded in.

[GeoBrick]

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

I haven't seen it mentioned in this thread, but Metro UK published a new interview with the lead designers of the Galaxy Explorer and Lion Knights' Castle (Mike Psiaki and Milan Madge) and there are some neat details about the development process there that I hadn't heard before — specifically, about some of the challenges they encountered while trying to make the castle as authentic to real medieval castles as possible, while still keeping the size and cost in check:

Thanks for the link. There are indeed some interesting tidbits in the interview.
It's no surprise alot of features the designers thought cool had to be omitted. At least, not unless you go UCS Millennium Falcon size. 
But that's where MOCing comes in. For instance, I hope to extend the gate tower a bit so a removable wall could be put in front of the open armoury section.
And I think with the removal of a weapons rack the ladder from the gate house to the armoury could be extended to the battlements on top of the tower.
A continuous walkway on the outer wall of the marketplace section would be nice too. Now its just the protrusions that have space to put a minifig on.

[DaleDVM]

This will likely be the first set I have built since the Kingdom's Joust set.  I am really looking forward to building by the instructions again!

[SirBlake]

That interview is great, thanks @Aanchir !

Makes me excited for the future. 

[jodawill]

Is everyone going to gloss over the section on raised baseplates?  They said in the interview that raised baseplates are still an option for designers, and they considered them for both of these sets! I would love to see them return for a smaller set in the near future, especially the moon crater baseplates.

 

 

[Imrryran]

On 7/30/2022 at 12:04 AM, Warbinator said:

That looks great! A very good match for the Lion Knight's Castle. I'm torn about displaying the new castle alongside last year's Blacksmith Shop. The Blacksmith looks great, but it's as tall as the castle and seems way out of proportion.

It is indeed gorgeous but much bigger than other more 'playable' sets.

I'm searching for an alternate build that would have a more convenient scale, I guess I could even convert it to two smaller buildings that would look very nice next to a castle.

[Weil]

7 hours ago, jodawill said:

They said in the interview that raised baseplates are still an option for designers, and they considered them for both of these sets!

I think this means it is less likely that one will be used in a new set than if designers wanted to use them at the minute but were not allowed.

If the desire was there but some sort of "rule" stopped them then you could see that "rule" being changed.

However, if it's freely decided that it's not desired to use them for these two sets then it's hard to imagine what potential set might make them decide to use them in the near-ish future.

I think the most likely re-introduction of raised baseplates would actually be them just being sold by themselves in various designs to assist people with creating their own models/layouts with limited bricks, similar to how all other(?) baseplates are now sold.

[Lordofdragonss]

There is something off in this set. Like its cool, has great figs, outstanding build and all, but for some reason my mind goes meh.

[jodawill]

2 hours ago, Weil said:

I think this means it is less likely that one will be used in a new set than if designers wanted to use them at the minute but were not allowed.

If the desire was there but some sort of "rule" stopped them then you could see that "rule" being changed.

However, if it's freely decided that it's not desired to use them for these two sets then it's hard to imagine what potential set might make them decide to use them in the near-ish future.

I think the most likely re-introduction of raised baseplates would actually be them just being sold by themselves in various designs to assist people with creating their own models/layouts with limited bricks, similar to how all other(?) baseplates are now sold.

The way I understand it in the interview, they're allowed to order new raised baseplates, but they chose not to.

For the Galaxy Explorer, they they thought it would be too much gray because the ship is larger than the original. It wouldn't fit on the smaller baseplates, and they also chose to skip the moon base because the original was underwhelming and wouldn't scale well like the ship did unless they completely redesigned it.

 For the castle, it sounds like they didn't want to limit the MOCs based on this set. If they had used a raised baseplate, it would make it much harder for people to extend the set.

I think these are fair reasons not to use them in these particular sets. But I could definitely see them being used again for smaller scale sets.

 This is really interesting to me because I had assumed the tooling doesn't even exist anymore, or they had a hard rule against using them. Perhaps it's always been the designers themselves who have chosen not to give us more baseplates. I think a lot of it has also been this silly perception people have on value by parts per price. Everyone is obsessed with that 10¢ per piece standard, which I think has been a very unfortunate limitation for designers. I would much rather see more large elements like baseplates than be stuck with that 10¢ per piece dogma.

I think printed baseplates would be more useful though. One of my favorite parts has always been the baseplate from Bandit's Secret Hideout. I've used a lot of them in my displays, but my western towns have always been restricted to winding roads. I would love to have a straight road that matches that one. If we ever see Wild West return, that's the #1 piece I would like to see produced. (A raised baseplate canyon would be so cool though!)

[brimbolet]

After reading the interview, I still don't get it.

Either Lego has still the machines and production of raised baseplates is possible = designers are allowed to consider them in their design, and it's only a matter of calculation/profit, if raised baseplates will be produced or not. There must have been a reason why they decided to stop adding them in sets in the first place?

Or moulds for new raised baseplates have to be made from scratch; then I'd prefer a new goat instead, since you'd probably get 50 goats for a raised baseplate if the pricing trend continues...

Edited July 31, 2022 by brimbolet

[mrcp6d]

The topic of baseplates in general still being an option for designers outside of the modular buildings series is strange, not to mention raised baseplates being an option, given that I thought Lego has communicated they are trying to phase them out of production.  They technically are only partially "in system" and are expensive for a variety of reasons compared to plate elements; this is why in City we've got a new baseplateless standard for roads, sidewalks, and whatnot--that includes brand new elements to support the standard.  Interesting that the designers said a new raised baseplate was not completely out of the question.

Edited July 31, 2022 by mrcp6d
Grammar.

[dilligan]

It looks like the Forest Hideout GWP is active again in the US and UK but not Australia. Anyone know if we will get it again in Aus?

 

[Khargeust]

Do we know why the castle is not available at the same time as all the other sets of this wave of August 1st?

 

 

 

[Roebuck]

17 minutes ago, Khargeust said:

Do we know why the castle is not available at the same time as all the other sets of this wave of August 1st?

Maybe not to overload the shop so it brakes down The anniversary is 10th of August so maybe have it closer to that, but should have it on the day for that to make much sense

[kermit]

the set will be made available on the 8th but on the 3rd for early vip access

[BitByBrick]

If the forest hideout doesn’t resurface when the castle is released, I will definitely be holding off on purchasing it. Must have something to show for spending $400. I was counting on the gwp to offset the high price. Guess I’ll be saving some money this month. If there is another great gwp or triple vip points (joke) or sale or something else that comes up before Christmas, I may eventually get the castle. By then, however, LEGO may increase the price to $500 (joke?)

[Rjbricks]

12 hours ago, dilligan said:

It looks like the Forest Hideout GWP is active again in the US and UK but not Australia. Anyone know if we will get it again in Aus?

 

Not active in the US anymore.

[eldiano]

Anyone seen this out on in the wild yet?