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46 minutes ago, Warbinator said:

Great catch! Perhaps we'll see future sets featuring these factions.

For those wondering, these are updated designs of the shields used by the Black Knights, Wolfpack, Fright Knights and Fantasy Era. The instruction booklet highlights the design updates made to the Lion Knight's shield, but it looks like the designs for other shields were also updated.

Thank you for this light. I force myself not to consult the booklet before getting the castle in order to preserve a little of the magic of discovery!

How seriously can we expect this to be a sign that LEGO could focusing on future Castle sets involving these factions, and not just aesthetic harmonization with the Black Falcons, Forestmen and Lion Knights insignia update?

I would love to see the return of the Black Knights, Wolfpack, as well as the fantasy era, particularly for dwarves and trolls for which there were few sets finally. I missed the LOTR & Hobbit themes because I was in the so called dark age when they came out. Sets and figurines are at an unaffordable price today. It's a shame.

I don't really like the Fright Knights though, so I don't care if they come back, but it would bother me if it happened at the expense of other more emblematic factions or just factions that I prefer.

Edited by Khargeust

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So based on the instructions flavor text, 'Majisto' mentions:

- Wolfkpack Marauders

- The Black Knight (going mad after looking at Amber)

- Cousin Willa (Fright Knights Witch reference)

- Letter with Lord Basil's seal (Another Fright Knights reference)

- House of Lionne (Lion Knights)

- House of Black Falcon

- Pink Heraldry from 'simpler times' (Classic Pink Crown shield)

 

Of the references, the one we know returning in the near future is the Pink Crown Knight in the upcoming CMF 23.  And with CMF and Build-a-Mini, we still get a trickle of throwbacks to old factions, like the Rogue CMF with a Wolfpack buckle, the "Fright Knight" CMF, and recently the Build a Mini Wizard and 'Silver Falcon' crests.  So there's a very good chance Lego will still pepper more references to Castle through CMF/BAM in the future.

As for actual sets, I think they'll do a similar thing to what we've been seeing with Medieval Blacksmith and Lion Knight's Castle, where they reserve bringing back popular factions when the time is right.  I don't think this 90th anniversary set will be ushering in a new wave, I very much see this and the Forest Hideouts as one-offs for the 90th anniversary alone.  It's very likely going to be quite a long wait (years) before we see any news on Black Knights or Wolfpack sets in the future.  I can only imagine they even start considering tackling these themes only after they determine whether the latest Castle sets sell well enough to consider bringing back more.

Edited by Triceron

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5 minutes ago, Triceron said:

So based on the instructions flavor text, 'Majisto' mentions:

- Wolfkpack Marauders

- The Black Knight (going mad after looking at Amber)

- Cousin Willa (Fright Knights Witch reference)

- Letter with Lord Basil's seal (Another Fright Knights reference)

- House of Lionne (Lion Knights)

- House of Black Falcon

- Pink Heraldry from 'simpler times' (Classic Pink Crown shield)

 

Of the references, the one we know returning in the near future is the Pink Crown Knight in the upcoming CMF 23.  And with CMF and Build-a-Mini, we still get a trickle of throwbacks to old factions, like the Rogue CMF with a Wolfpack buckle, the "Fright Knight" CMF, and recently the Build a Mini Wizard and 'Silver Falcon' crests.  So there's a very good chance Lego will still pepper more references to Castle through CMF/BAM in the future.

As for actual sets, I think they'll do a similar thing to what we've been seeing with Medieval Blacksmith and Lion Knight's Castle, where they reserve bringing back popular factions when the time is right.  I don't think this 90th anniversary set will be ushering in a new wave, I very much see this and the Forest Hideouts as one-offs for the 90th anniversary alone.  It's very likely going to be quite a long wait (years) before we see any news on Black Knights or Wolfpack sets in the future.  I can only imagine they even start considering tackling these themes only after they determine whether the latest Castle sets sell well enough to consider bringing back more.

I sadly agree.

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1 hour ago, Warbinator said:

Great catch! Perhaps we'll see future sets featuring these factions.

For those wondering, these are updated designs of the shields used by the Black Knights, Wolfpack, Fright Knights and Fantasy Era. The instruction booklet highlightsthe design updates made to the Lion Knight's shield, but it looks like the designs for other shields were also updated.

that would be awesome! I just hope they come up with a 'reasonable' way of selling potential new sets. the worst thing would be gwp's with no new sets to purchase.

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Honestly, I'd be fine if it was a great set every couple of years, because man with the price increases is it getting harder to justify. Maybe not $400 every time, but something like the blacksmith would be excellent.

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18 minutes ago, Triceron said:

I don't think this 90th anniversary set will be ushering in a new wave, I very much see this and the Forest Hideouts as one-offs for the 90th anniversary alone.  It's very likely going to be quite a long wait (years) before we see any news on Black Knights or Wolfpack sets in the future.  I can only imagine they even start considering tackling these themes only after they determine whether the latest Castle sets sell well enough to consider bringing back more.

I think you're probably right. TLG seems to now realize that there's money to be made with occasional drops of classic-inspired sets, but is not convinced that there is enough juice there to support a full theme. I'm not sure where they get that impression, but whatever. If I can complain about nearly a decade of nothing, I also have to acknowledge that the last 18 months has been pretty great. 4 outstanding sets isn't nothing, even if a whole theme would be preferrable.

I imagine they'll dip their toes in ever few years until those of us that were there originally are aged-out of the market, and then they'll be doing occasional special sets for Ninjago in the same way.

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Unfortunately I don't see Castle sets returning for a very long time. Look at kids in your family, among friends etc. how they play, what books they read or what they watch on TV. After the end of Pirates of the Caribbean there's just nothing left regarding historical settings, that a toy company could profit on.

And the old school fans can easily be satisfied with one set every two years and some BAM figures.

That's why I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for the new LOTR TV series. If it's better than all the lates Star Wars series (which shouldn't be too difficult), then perhaps we'll get something special out of it.

Regarding the anniversary set, has anybody already put it next to one of the vintage sets for size comparison?

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Well, I finished my build. I don't know what people were complaining about with the female knights. Looks good to me.

3zooYIh.png

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3 minutes ago, Yoggington said:

Well, I finished my build. I don't know what people were complaining about with the female knights. Looks good to me.

Haha, luckily the new CMF knight comes apparently with a sword too.

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23 minutes ago, Yoggington said:

Well, I finished my build. I don't know what people were complaining about with the female knights. Looks good to me.

Bwahahahaahah!

The hot pink horse is a really nice touch. Bravo!

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45 minutes ago, brimbolet said:

Unfortunately I don't see Castle sets returning for a very long time. Look at kids in your family, among friends etc. how they play, what books they read or what they watch on TV. After the end of Pirates of the Caribbean there's just nothing left regarding historical settings, that a toy company could profit on.

And the old school fans can easily be satisfied with one set every two years and some BAM figures.

That's why I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for the new LOTR TV series. If it's better than all the lates Star Wars series (which shouldn't be too difficult), then perhaps we'll get something special out of it.

Regarding the anniversary set, has anybody already put it next to one of the vintage sets for size comparison?

I don't really agree, as there are a ton of media properties that are filled with castles. I don't really want to go point-for-point on that, as it's an exhausting list. Suffice it to say, I think there are plenty of opportunities as far as media goes. Or to put it another way, as this is the real point: fads come and go, but there's no getting away from the basis that is the castle. Whether it's Disney, Harry Potter or Middle Earth, or Dungeons & Dragons or... well, you get the idea. Many of those things can be sliced and diced into their own licensed thing or otherwise. At the end of the day, castles as a concept, and therefore a legitimate touchstone in culture, are here to stay. The degree to which that trickles down to toys that one company makes that will satisfy our very specific desires is one giant question mark. Either way, I don't think we have the ability to understand TLG's motivations. We can either hope or despair. I'm personally somewhere in the middle of that. Hoping for the best, expecting the worst. :)

 

50 minutes ago, Yoggington said:

Well, I finished my build. I don't know what people were complaining about with the female knights. Looks good to me.

 

Hahah! Excellent.

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^^ Thats the most confusing part. Castle/fantasy is having a bit of a golden age these last ten years (Game of Thrones, Vikings, new LOTR, House of the Dragon, Wheel of Time, DnD going mainstream, I’m sure there’s more) so clearly theres a big market for that genre.

 

In any case Fedex finally picked up my package, castle should be here Thursday! Which is odd, I ordered the Viking ship on Aug 1 yet it hasn’t been picked up. Somehow the castle shipment jumped the queue and I’m ok with that.

Edited by woodford86

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FedEx picked mine up today too, expected date is Wednesday but they're always a day late in my experience.

1 hour ago, brimbolet said:

Unfortunately I don't see Castle sets returning for a very long time. Look at kids in your family, among friends etc. how they play, what books they read or what they watch on TV.

It's hard to gauge this kind of thing but given the amount of castle themed Paw Patrol toys I've seen at wal-mart lately, I'm guessing there's still some kind of market out there.

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8 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

So, I was looking at the instructions again, and noticed that either the graphic designer was having a bit of fun or there's perhaps a hint of things to come:

YPPjrzu.png6s61gXz.pngSIzRINp.pngQnr3c8t.png

I haven't yet looked at the instruction manual, good pick-up! The Black Knights is very promising. 

Although the updated Fright Knight bat shield could just be borrowed from the CMF series 19 shield:

508ec5ec0f273f0c6d640f04fce1f48a

 

The same could probably be said for the updated Wolf:

973pb2397c01.jpg

I hope I'm wrong about those two, I'd absolutely welcome new factions, especially Wolfpack!

 

5 hours ago, Yoggington said:

Well, I finished my build. I don't know what people were complaining about with the female knights. Looks good to me.

 

:pir-love:

 

Edited by rebelpilot

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Nice detective work. 

The dragon shield seems to be the outlier with no recent reference from the CMF. 

On one hand, I want to go on a flight of fancy, imagining what could come from future exploration of updated classic themes. Reading between the lines of a couple of interviews, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an upscaled and updated 6086 Black Knights Castle.

On the other hand, that plan makes too much sense, and I’m too used to being disappointed, lol. I can see them redoing all of these shields just for the design exercise, especially early on when refreshed Black Falcons were on the drawing board. 

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23 minutes ago, SirBlake said:

I wouldn’t be surprised to see an upscaled and updated 6086 Black Knights Castle.

10305 borrows several design features from Black Knights Castle, I'd love to see an updated 6086 the most (now we've got new Lion Knights) but given the designers have stated 10305 isn't just a remake or update of 6080 but has been inspired by or borrowed from all the classic era castles, I can't see an updated 6086 existing while 10305 is still on the shelves. Maybe once it retires, I hope I'm wrong.

 

Quote

I can see them redoing all of these shields just for the design exercise, especially early on when refreshed Black Falcons were on the drawing board. 

At the very least the Black Knight shield may have been updated for a future CMF or BAM release. I hope it's CMF series 24 before the cardboard packing is featured. Maybe wishful thinking.

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I’d be good with a classic castle homage set every year as long as they make torsos and accessories available on PAB. Let’s see, how about Falcons Fortress, Black Knights Tower, and Wolfpack Lair

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25 minutes ago, Black Monarch 88 said:

I’d be good with a classic castle homage set every year as long as they make torsos and accessories available on PAB. Let’s see, how about Falcons Fortress, Black Knights Tower, and Wolfpack Lair

I agree. Hell, why stop there? They need to do the same thing with the various 80s/90s Space themes and Pirates, too.

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I'm really tired of all this "paying homage" stuff. I don't want a bunch of cute little references. Just make things that are cool. An updated Black Knights Castle would be amazing. It wouldn't need to be a recreation of the original though. I just love the aesthetics of that theme and the ghosts.

I got my set on Sunday. It shipped on Friday. Thankfully, it arrived in perfect condition. I've been enjoying all of the interesting building techniques. I've never built a set anywhere near this size before. I have to say though, I do miss the simpler sets. About a quarter of the way through the set, I was ready to be done with it. If I had been building an older castle, I would have been done at that point and would probably have already torn it apart to build my own creations. This set is fantastic, but I don't really have the patience to sit there following hundreds of steps to build something from someone else's imagination.

I think I'll keep this copy of the set in tact for a long while, only because I just can't see myself ever building it again after the parts are no longer separated into numbered bags. I hope to get more copies of the set to just use as parts to build my own castle, or maybe build extensions to this one. The parts selection really is great. I've always loved how quickly you can come build the old sets made of big panels, but I've never been good at making something look good with those panels. They're pretty awkward to work with. Having all of this made out of bricks means I'll have a lot more flexibility with the parts.

It was interesting how the harpsichord attached at an angle. I was surprised to see a set actually make use of the bar inside a plate, and I'm even more surprised the angles actually work out correctly.

The thatched roof looks much better in person than it does in the photos. Oddly, it doesn't really look or feel like Lego. It actually seems more like Playmobil because the "tile" pieces are so large, and the roof goes on in a large section, just like Playmobil roofs.

I've actually been off doing Playmobil for the past few years because Lego hasn't made anything interesting to me in so long. Coming back to the Lego scale is a bit jolting because this set, being so large at the Lego scale, is dwarfed by even small Playmobil sets that cost a tenth of the price. That's not all bad because you get many orders of magnitude more flexibility with Lego than Playmobil, but it's jarring when you see the size of a "large" Lego set sitting next to Playmobil. I've also been spoiled with Playmobil's greater variety in figure customization. I like both - it's just interesting that I have a different perspective coming back to Lego now.

I'm only halfway done, but the set does feel a bit smaller than I was expecting. Hopefully I'll be able to flesh it out some more after I get some more parts. It would be awesome if they released an entire wave of sets to go with it. Imagine if there were about 5 extension sets that could be combined in any permutations you want.

If I don't sound super upbeat in this post, that's because I'm super tired. I've sacrificed a lot of sleep building this thing, and I've been woken up by a baby every hour the past several nights. :pir-grin: I really do like the set.

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Just finished building this set. Wow that was a long build! But alot of fun. The set looks great displayed next to my many castles. And the minifigs are amazing!  Side note, I wish Lego would have all the minifigs in the first bag. 🤣

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54 minutes ago, jodawill said:

I'm really tired of all this "paying homage" stuff. I don't want a bunch of cute little references. Just make things that are cool. An updated Black Knights Castle would be amazing. It wouldn't need to be a recreation of the original though. I just love the aesthetics of that theme and the ghosts.

I got my set on Sunday. It shipped on Friday. Thankfully, it arrived in perfect condition. I've been enjoying all of the interesting building techniques. I've never built a set anywhere near this size before. I have to say though, I do miss the simpler sets. About a quarter of the way through the set, I was ready to be done with it. If I had been building an older castle, I would have been done at that point and would probably have already torn it apart to build my own creations. This set is fantastic, but I don't really have the patience to sit there following hundreds of steps to build something from someone else's imagination.

I think I'll keep this copy of the set in tact for a long while, only because I just can't see myself ever building it again after the parts are no longer separated into numbered bags. I hope to get more copies of the set to just use as parts to build my own castle, or maybe build extensions to this one. The parts selection really is great. I've always loved how quickly you can come build the old sets made of big panels, but I've never been good at making something look good with those panels. They're pretty awkward to work with. Having all of this made out of bricks means I'll have a lot more flexibility with the parts.

It was interesting how the harpsichord attached at an angle. I was surprised to see a set actually make use of the bar inside a plate, and I'm even more surprised the angles actually work out correctly.

The thatched roof looks much better in person than it does in the photos. Oddly, it doesn't really look or feel like Lego. It actually seems more like Playmobil because the "tile" pieces are so large, and the roof goes on in a large section, just like Playmobil roofs.

I've actually been off doing Playmobil for the past few years because Lego hasn't made anything interesting to me in so long. Coming back to the Lego scale is a bit jolting because this set, being so large at the Lego scale, is dwarfed by even small Playmobil sets that cost a tenth of the price. That's not all bad because you get many orders of magnitude more flexibility with Lego than Playmobil, but it's jarring when you see the size of a "large" Lego set sitting next to Playmobil. I've also been spoiled with Playmobil's greater variety in figure customization. I like both - it's just interesting that I have a different perspective coming back to Lego now.

I'm only halfway done, but the set does feel a bit smaller than I was expecting. Hopefully I'll be able to flesh it out some more after I get some more parts. It would be awesome if they released an entire wave of sets to go with it. Imagine if there were about 5 extension sets that could be combined in any permutations you want.

If I don't sound super upbeat in this post, that's because I'm super tired. I've sacrificed a lot of sleep building this thing, and I've been woken up by a baby every hour the past several nights. :pir-grin: I really do like the set.

That hapshichord threw me off as well!

I know what you mean the residential area feels small and compact but once you get into the bigger areas you’ll keep asking when it will ever end 😍

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8 hours ago, Yoggington said:

Well, I finished my build. I don't know what people were complaining about with the female knights. Looks good to me.

 

Best pic of the year! :dhappy:

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Took me a full day to build this and it was a very pleasant building experience. So glad my wife had taken part in the building process and it helped greatly by speeding things up and completed the built within a day. :wub:

52274019260_537b92b368_c_d.jpg

 

52273551238_afd0f9b176_o_d.jpg

52274014655_caa9a07d02_o_d.jpg

52273526261_cbb1bd1d76_o_d.jpg

 

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