10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[Greshi210]

41 minutes ago, qbrick said:

Do you think lego estimated higher demand, or are people nostalgic for castle, but not necessarily willing to buy?  I actually quite liked the Lion Knights minifigs and some of the parts, but wasn't that into the castle itself - was that a common reaction?

I think it's actually fairly simple. People aren't willing to spend 400$/€ on a castle set, even though they'd really like to have one. I for one only bought the castle in LL Germany last weekend because I got it for 25% off. But I'd never have bought it at full price.

[Roebuck]

58 minutes ago, qbrick said:

Was there any insight on if 10305 was considered a sales success?  It seemed like there was huge hype about it in the lead up to its release, to be met with comparatively few sales, only 60 units sold on bricklink, with high availability of stock in store in many of the physical lego stores.

Why would there be high sales on BL, when you most likely can buy it cheaper from Lego with a GWP or two?
After Skærbæk over half the people coming out of the shop that I saw was carrying a big yellow box (me included) so it sold very well then at least 

[MAB]

Just now, Roebuck said:

Why would there be high sales on BL, when you most likely can buy it cheaper from Lego with a GWP or two?
After Skærbæk over half the people coming out of the shop that I saw was carrying a big yellow box (me included) so it sold very well then at least 

I agree. Sales on BL for a current set are fairly meaningless when it comes to an indicator of how well something is selling at retail stores. BL sellers need to add on aabout 10% before they break even, to cover paypal and BL fees. Unless the set has been discounted at a retail store (so rare for D2C sets), current sets will nearly always be better value at a retail store than on BL.

 

[SirBlake]

Since TLG doesn't share that information, it's really an unanswerable question. The only thing we can point to is that it got a ton of coverage online and on social media, which is its own measure of success. 

Edited October 26, 2022 by SirBlake

[Shiva]

I do hope that it sold well enough.

Maybe enough so there could be more castle themed sets?

[cehnot]

On 10/26/2022 at 7:09 AM, qbrick said:

Was there any insight on if 10305 was considered a sales success?  It seemed like there was huge hype about it in the lead up to its release, to be met with comparatively few sales, only 60 units sold on bricklink, with high availability of stock in store in many of the physical lego stores.

Do you think lego estimated higher demand, or are people nostalgic for castle, but not necessarily willing to buy?  I actually quite liked the Lion Knights minifigs and some of the parts, but wasn't that into the castle itself - was that a common reaction?

I purchased 2 sets from lego.com and another 4 off ebay without minifigures for about 250-$275 each. I noticed that the flippers have slowed down their initial resales on ebay since the product isn't out of stock. They want $900 yet you can buy 2 for that price at the store. The demand for castle is high among adult collectors, but not other age groups. I think that they sell enough to the castle fans and hit their numbers there because many of those fans purchase multiples to mod the set. 

The fact that the 3in1 castle is a hit and sold many over the last year proves people live the theme. They reach a smaller price point to those who want a smaller and affordable set. There are a bunch of adult builders who have purchased 3 to 8 sets and built larger models or mocs from these sets. You can properly build a simpler version of the 10305 set with 3 to 4 smaller 3in1 castle sets. 

This being said. I'm designing a huge castle on studio that will be about 6 to 8 sets. That's a lot and the fact ebay has people selling the castle without figures for 100 to 150 less than the set its a great price per piece count. I'm averaging 7 cents per piece right now in current purchases. 

2 sets will make a great castle. There are a few people already showing those out there. One on rebrickable.com with a nice tower. 

I've decided to expand the set as a more practical castle installation. The gate house is twice the size as the set. The stairs and pier on the back is being reused in another section of the castle where I'll have am entire port. The keep will contain a throne room with the entire housing quarters as a 4 times larger section than the current residence. I want to make the entire thing open in sections like a dollhouse effect with each section connect similar to the original set that has 2 parts. I also am trying to design all these sections that are closed with dollhouse openings in a way that actually reconfigured with other sections. So if the gatehouse is open 180 degrees then you can place another section that is open 180 degrees and it doubles the rooms. So almost like 2 different gatehouse swing open and you can link them with pins or clips so it's one large gatehouse with 2 porticullises, murder holes and arrow slits in the tunnel section. The other tower and wall area would double in width as well when linked together and now make a nice tower or section to the castle. The residence area swings open and connects to another section that doubles the room sizes as well so it sort of makes each individual closed section nice independent areas or castle parts that can connect with clips like the set, but can swing upen then connect to the castle in a different way and make each room larger

This is why it's taken me so long to solve gatehouse. Trying to think how it will be used 2 different ways. Then build a second gatehouse without a draw bridge that connects in the back of the castle, but van swing open and connect to the front gatehouse for a larger gatehouse. Goal is to have everything work 2 ways. I also decided to build stone staircase on one side instead ladders. I'm working these into the walls and such for the gatehouse and will likely be extra parts to buy to complete the task. The goal is to use all the 6 to 8 set parts with minimal cost for extra parts but I do know it's already going to occur. I'm replacing the thatched roof and wooden rooms with stone walls and towers. I will reuse the concept for the inn, soldier barracks, and small Smith shops and such around the castle as a village idea. The castle will serve as a functional stone fortress with no wood exposing on the sides. This will cause me to buy more parts I'm sure. That is why I'm designing this in studio first. 

The castle will be surrounded by water from a lake. No grass or land outside the walls so the entire castle will be built with rocks and stone.

2 gatehouse

1 dining hall

1 great hall/ throne room

1 residence castle section

1 stables

1 soldier barracks

1 inn

1 port entrance

1 port with piers 

1 courtyard with tree

1 courtyard with fountain

1 courtyard with well near village section

1 chapel in keep

 Church in Bailey area 

Stone bridge with gate on other side.

 

 

[Yoggington]

6 minutes ago, cehnot said:

I've decided to expand the set as a more practical castle installation. The gate house is twice the size as the set. The stairs and pier on the back is being reused in another section of the castle where I'll have am entire port. The keep will contain a throne room with the entire housing quarters as a 4 times larger section than the current residence. I want to make the entire thing open in sections like a dollhouse effect with each section connect similar to the original set that has 2 parts. I also am trying to design all these sections that are closed with dollhouse openings in a way that actually reconfigured with other sections. So if the gatehouse is open 180 degrees then you can place another section that is open 180 degrees and it doubles the rooms. So almost like 2 different gatehouse swing open and you can link them with pins or clips so it's one large gatehouse with 2 porticullises, murder holes and arrow slits in the tunnel section. The other tower and wall area would double in width as well when linked together and now make a nice tower or section to the castle. The residence area swings open and connects to another section that doubles the room sizes as well so it sort of makes each individual closed section nice independent areas or castle parts that can connect with clips like the set, but can swing upen then connect to the castle in a different way and make each room larger

I'd love to see your work-in-progress pics if they exist.

[cehnot]

43 minutes ago, Yoggington said:

I'd love to see your work-in-progress pics if they exist.

good idea. I will take some shots. The gatehouse has gone through many changes, but I keep trying to take those changes and make conscious decisions to make it's construction similar to the set in terms of part placement. I will put together some renders over the weekend. 

[Yoggington]

9 minutes ago, cehnot said:

good idea. I will take some shots. The gatehouse has gone through many changes, but I keep trying to take those changes and make conscious decisions to make it's construction similar to the set in terms of part placement. I will put together some renders over the weekend. 

Good man yourself (or woman). Iterations of the changes are just as interesting to me as the final product! Maybe even more valuable.

[Sir Dano]

With the Lord of the Rings license back I don't think we'll be seeing any Castle sets again any time soon unfortunately.

[woodford86]

^^ Which is a big bummer, since IMO LOTR is more of a consolation prize to a proper castle reboot (just my opinion!). But licenses sell so I don't think classic castle stood a chance.

Edited October 28, 2022 by woodford86

[Rattlebricks]

On 10/26/2022 at 6:09 PM, qbrick said:

Was there any insight on if 10305 was considered a sales success?  It seemed like there was huge hype about it in the lead up to its release, to be met with comparatively few sales, only 60 units sold on bricklink, with high availability of stock in store in many of the physical lego stores.

Do you think lego estimated higher demand, or are people nostalgic for castle, but not necessarily willing to buy?  I actually quite liked the Lion Knights minifigs and some of the parts, but wasn't that into the castle itself - was that a common reaction?

 

In my country, there's only two local online sellers who sell this set and it sold less than 10. 

I myself only bought the forestman & peasants minifigs  . The other castle itself doesnt really interest me, neither the barding which looks like a mini skirt.

The sandgreen peasant is the best thing from the set.

Beside , if they really aim the nostalgic fans, with that kind of price tag,  these people could  go for 80s or 90s big sets instead.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Rattlebricks

[Roebuck]

6 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

With the Lord of the Rings license back I don't think we'll be seeing any Castle sets again any time soon unfortunately.

Hope you are not right LOTR was probably a big reason why Castle went away 10 year ago and now history can repeat itself

My impression of what happened:

2009 to 2012 had among them the best Castles sets ever made some more aimed at adults and other too all ages. Then LOTR arrived in 2012 aimed at adults or at least kids did not buy them, so they made a Castle wave in 2013 aimed at younger kids. However it was not enough afols at the time to support the LOTR theme and the adults did probably not buy the <insert that tiresome argument> Castle line, so instead of one broader line catering to all ages that sold enough they ended up with two specialized lines that did not sell enough and terminated both

Lately we have started getting the Castle sets aimed at adults again, LOTR probably has more adults to sell to now that can justify a line, maybe kids are into other things so a Castle line for them will not sell enough? However I hope the LOTR line do not eat up the few sets aimed at adults we are getting this time around, personally I like Castle better than LOTR

[Classic_Spaceman]

8 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Hope you are not right LOTR was probably a big reason why Castle went away 10 year ago and now history can repeat itself
 

I do not think that is the case; Kingdoms and Castle 2013 ran concurrently with LotR and The Hobbit, with all medieval/fantasy lines coming to an end in 2014. Dwindling sales over a 1-2 year period does not really explain why a theme that had run constantly (with only a few off-years) since 1984 would be unceremoniously canned, nor why only two years later we would get Castle retooled as a sci-fi theme (Nexo Knights). 
My theory is that by 2013-2014, Game of Thrones had become an undeniable cultural phenomenon, and LEGO wanted to avoid comparisons between their products and the show. This explains why traditional Castle ended so suddenly, and why when we finally got castles and knights again, they had a distinctly non-medieval aesthetic. 
 

[MAB]

10 minutes ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

I do not think that is the case; Kingdoms and Castle 2013 ran concurrently with LotR and The Hobbit, with all medieval/fantasy lines coming to an end in 2014.
 

I agree. Running concurrent LOTR and Castle in the past indicated at least back then they did not think one would damage the sales of the other. Also in 2013 Kingdoms had a set with a red dragon and that was still on the shelves at the time they did The Lonely Mountain in The Hobbit range, with another red dragon (Smaug). And in the past they have had Prince of Persia and HP on the shelves at the same time as Castle, despite having slightly similar styles. But then they have also had lots of cars at different scales in different themes, licensed and unlicensed spaceships in different themes, etc.

I can understand them not doing an elf based fantasy Castle theme if they were also doing a full blown LOTR theme at the same time. But there are plenty of other genres within Castle that they could do.

[Lion King]

17 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

With the Lord of the Rings license back I don't think we'll be seeing any Castle sets again any time soon unfortunately.

To be honest, I hope you are wrong… I mean I LOVE in-house themes like Castle, Pirates, Space.

if LOTR stays around for a few years, it would be another drought for Castle fans.

[iragm]

57 minutes ago, DBlegonerd7 said:

With the Lord of the Rings license back I don't think we'll be seeing any Castle sets again any time soon unfortunately.

I fear you're right.  I'm happy for LOTR fans, but I much prefer the 80's Lego factions.  At least figures are on PAB, and I can probably buy any good LOTR sets and sell the figures separately to get some good castle stuff cheap.

 

I think most people (myself included) did go for the 80's and 90's sets.  Lego saw that people have no qualms about dropping $400 on a castle and wanted a piece of the action themselves.  The problem is old stuff is seen as a collectors item, not a toy, and priced as such.  This set in 20 years will probably sell for several thousand dollars.

13 hours ago, Rattlebricks said:

Beside , if they really aim the nostalgic fans, with that kind of price tag,  these people could  go for 80s or 90s big sets instead.

Edited October 28, 2022 by iragm
Fix typo

[Sir Dano]

5 hours ago, DBlegonerd7 said:

To be honest, I hope you are wrong… I mean I LOVE in-house themes like Castle, Pirates, Space.

if LOTR stays around for a few years, it would be another drought for Castle fans.

No one hopes I'm wrong more than I do, trust me. I'm too much of a pessimist to expect I am, though.

[natesroom]

6 hours ago, iragm said:

I'm happy for LOTR fans, but I much prefer the 80's Lego factions. 

Yeah I love LOTR, but they are fleshies... I would rather see more in house castle using any of their factions that they have created over 40 years.

[Follows Closely]

The fist time is saw 10305 I was disappointed by size of the main gate. It just does not intimidate the foe or impress the allies. 

  Four studs on each tower is all it would take to make this into what it should have been.

 

[SirBlake]

On 10/28/2022 at 1:30 AM, Roebuck said:

Hope you are not right LOTR was probably a big reason why Castle went away 10 year ago and now history can repeat itself

My impression of what happened:

2009 to 2012 had among them the best Castles sets ever made some more aimed at adults and other too all ages. Then LOTR arrived in 2012 aimed at adults or at least kids did not buy them, so they made a Castle wave in 2013 aimed at younger kids. However it was not enough afols at the time to support the LOTR theme and the adults did probably not buy the <insert that tiresome argument> Castle line, so instead of one broader line catering to all ages that sold enough they ended up with two specialized lines that did not sell enough and terminated both

Lately we have started getting the Castle sets aimed at adults again, LOTR probably has more adults to sell to now that can justify a line, maybe kids are into other things so a Castle line for them will not sell enough? However I hope the LOTR line do not eat up the few sets aimed at adults we are getting this time around, personally I like Castle better than LOTR

I think things move more slowly than that. I suspect that LotR was piggybacking on the timing of the Hobbit on its own, and that 2013 Castle wasn’t affected either way by Middle Earth because 2013 Castle was always intended to be a one-wave nostalgia play extension of the Lego Movie release (February 2014). Castle wasn’t a big player in the story, but it was present in its 2013 form and is a logical play since a ton of 80’s-90’s Lego kids had kids of our own. Kind of a safe bet for a classic theme at that time. 

4 hours ago, Follows Closely said:

The fist time is saw 10305 I was disappointed by size of the main gate. It just does not intimidate the foe or impress the allies. 

  Four studs on each tower is all it would take to make this into what it should have been.

Very interesting mod. I look forward to seeing how it turns out. 

[Follows Closely]

Gatehouse is complete.

 

[Shiva]

2 or more 10305's to that build? Follows Closely.

[Follows Closely]

I used an extra 655 pieces from my collection.

Spoiler

 

[Lyichir]

1 hour ago, Follows Closely said:

I used an extra 655 pieces from my collection.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Very neat MOD!

Personally as a more casual Castle fan I was satisfied with the set's gatehouse (and certainly wouldn't ask to have paid more for the set to be a little bigger). But your modded version does seem to improve the limited interior space and overall looks quite seamless.