10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[BTappel]

The fact some have to nitpick the tiniest details about this set is a testament to how great it is.  There are no major flaws.  Next someone will complain the black falcon flags are blowing the opposite direction of the lion knight flags on the box art.

[R0Sch]

8 minutes ago, RichardGoring said:

Please, can we focus on other things about the set that this forum is normally so good on? Clever techniques that you like. Nice parts usage. The stories that can be told with the set. Modifications to the set. Combining multiple sets. Speculation about what might be next. Wish lists for future sets. And, of course, fair critique, given the parameters and intentions that LEGO set for themselves as a company. 

Well, I could show the progress I made in Studio and what discoveries I made during the process. It's really an awesome parts pack of basic and specialized parts loved by castle fans. And that new 1 x 4 x 3 arch piece in lbg and dbg is really super useful.

[Triceron]

How are the dungeon doors set at an angle like that?  Is that a special diagonal doorway piece?

[Follows Closely]

45 minutes ago, Triceron said:

Overall, I doubt they would make them stickers.  How many sticker-based shields have there really been in history?  I didn't even know it was a thing until I came to this thread really..

Castle in the Forest is the latest to have a shield with a sticker. But this is a bricklink set and has a precedence of no new printed elements. However, the printed shields are available in the Forest Hideout,too bad they could not have included them in the Castle in the Forest.

19 minutes ago, BTappel said:

Plot twist.  The knights who appear female are actually men trying to look like women so the other knights they are fighting don’t think they need to fight that hard which gives the cross dressing knights the upper hand.

Winner!

12 minutes ago, RichardGoring said:

I thought it had gone away. Can we please leave the 'gender' topic alone now?

Why is this topic taboo? Can't we discuss things as adults without getting censored and or slapped?

[R0Sch]

8 minutes ago, BTappel said:

The fact some have to nitpick the tiniest details about this set is a testament to how great it is.  There are no major flaws.  Next someone will complain the black falcon flags are blowing the opposite direction of the lion knight flags on the box art.

OMG, you're right! LEGO has to reprint box and instructions asap. This cannot happen in a 400€ set. Utterly unacceptable!

2 minutes ago, Triceron said:

How are the dungeon doors set at an angle like that?  Is that a special diagonal doorway piece?

Yep, 28327.

[icm]

2 minutes ago, Triceron said:

How are the dungeon doors set at an angle like that?  Is that a special diagonal doorway piece?

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=28327&idColor=1#T=C&C=1

This part was introduced in 2017.

[jodawill]

34 minutes ago, R0Sch said:

Well, I could show the progress I made in Studio and what discoveries I made during the process. It's really an awesome parts pack of basic and specialized parts loved by castle fans. And that new 1 x 4 x 3 arch piece in lbg and dbg is really super useful.
 

You did all that without the instructions? That's pretty impressive.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Darkdragon
please don't quote pictures

[SirBlake]

9 minutes ago, Follows Closely said:

Why is this topic taboo? Can't we discuss things as adults without getting censored and or slapped?

Nope

 

On 6/21/2022 at 2:33 PM, ZCerberus said:

I am highly disappointed by the amount of misogyny in here. 

For how many years did we all crave more female minifigure heads?  And now all we can complain about is the existence of female knights- or how lipstick is going to be smeared when they put on their helmet? 

Straight up ridiculous and shameful. 

If your army is sexist, change the heads or close the visors- but for goodness sake, leave the misogyny back in the medieval times where it belongs.

I encourage anyone who sees more of this nonsense in the thread to report it and I will be issuing warnings and slapping the enlightenment stick on idiots who care more about protecting their gender ideology than discussing LEGO. 

Thank you muchly.

 

[R0Sch]

Just now, jodawill said:

You did all that without the instructions? That's pretty impressive.

Thanks to the ultra high res images from all angles it's doable. But still many hours left and certainly a lot of hidden things, like that counter-weight mechanism built in for the drawbridge is still a mystery how it's built.

[SirBlake]

2 minutes ago, R0Sch said:

Thanks to the ultra high res images from all angles it's doable. But still many hours left and certainly a lot of hidden things, like that counter-weight mechanism built in for the drawbridge is still a mystery how it's built.

Isn’t that exciting! So many secrets, I can’t wait to build this thing and see how it works. 

[Follows Closely]

I see no evidence of snot work, so this must be a new piece as well :)

[Something_Awesome]

For the record, my position is not one that the female knights violate historical accuracy. I am OK with fantastical liberties. I am OK with the Queen also being a skilled fighter with a glorious set of armor. But the suspension of disbelief needed to buy in to the idea that the Lion Knights' have all female knights is eye-roll inducing. This was done intentionally, to make a statement.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Something_Awesome

[Lyichir]

8 minutes ago, Follows Closely said:

I see no evidence of snot work, so this must be a new piece as well :)

Yes, it had already been seen in white in some of the upcoming Super Mario sets. Should be a very useful part!

7 minutes ago, Something_Awesome said:

For the record, my position is not one that the female knights violate historical accuracy. I am OK with fantastical liberties. I am OK with the Queen also being a skilled fighter with a glorious set of armor. But the suspension of disbelief needed to buy in to the idea that the Lion Knights' have all female knights to be eye-roll inducing. This was done intentionally, to make a statement. The problem is that the statement is 100% bogus. 

Well, firstly, they're not all female. Secondly, if you can't suspend disbelief that HALF of them could be female (if for no other reason than this being a toy for modern audiences including both men AND women, and not an educational diorama for a museum or something like that)... that's a you problem. The "statement" it makes is that women have been asking for equitable gender representation in Lego sets for ages, and that doing so helps those women more than it hurts the small percentage of whiners who insist upon perfect historical accuracy in their plastic toys. And that statement is 100% true.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Lyichir

[R0Sch]

6 minutes ago, Follows Closely said:

I see no evidence of snot work, so this must be a new piece as well :)

And this must be the same inverted curved slope in 1 stud width. The regular ones don't fit atop 1x2 bricks as a snot build.

[Darkdragon]

First off: As staff has already stated, quit complaining about the existence of female knights in this set. It is a LEGO set and there is no reason to not make it a 50/50 mix of genders. you can replace the figure parts you don't agree with then you buy it and just let everyone enjoy the set for what it is. There is absolutely no point in arguing the historical accuracy of a TOY that is sold as a playset and not a historical model. So just stop it.

Second: Stop quoting pictures! 

[SirBlake]

Thank you DD!

Back to our regularly scheduled program...

With the recent offerings (Ideas Blacksmith/3-in-1/Lion's Knights), we now have more context to the "modern" design direction for Lego castle. Some things I've noted:

1. It's cool that the 3-in-1 is rendered in mostly dark bley with light bley accents so that it contrasts nicely with the new Lions castle.

2. All three feature wattle & daub/half timber construction on them. Not only is that something that was used in history, but it's just more interesting than just grey walls. We can likely expect more of this in any future sets of this nature.

3. They seem to have moved away from multiple prints for a given army/faction. For example, in the last full theme in 2013, there were 3 unique Crownie II torsos and a printed armor piece. Now they seem to have gone with a single tunic for all and plain armor pieces. That's not my preference, as I always liked it when foot soldiers and archers were easily distinguished from each other. Or at least, you could build your army that way.

[Triceron]

6 minutes ago, SirBlake said:

They seem to have moved away from multiple prints for a given army/faction. For example, in the last full theme in 2013, there were 3 unique Crownie II torsos and a printed armor piece. Now they seem to have gone with a single tunic for all and plain armor pieces. That's not my preference, as I always liked it when foot soldiers and archers were easily distinguished from each other. Or at least, you could build your army that way.

It's probably because they're bringing back Lion Knights and Forestmen at the same time.

If they were rolling out each faction's return individually, I can see them having more resources to diversify prints.  But since they're doing a bunch of different subthemes all at once, they're a bit more limited.  We even see them reusing a lot of the prints, like the Troubadour on the kid or the lack of print on Majisto.

I do have to say I would have liked to see an updated return of the Scale Mail armor; something generic that it could fit for any faction.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Triceron

[jodawill]

7 minutes ago, SirBlake said:

3. They seem to have moved away from multiple prints for a given army/faction. For example, in the last full theme in 2013, there were 3 unique Crownie II torsos and a printed armor piece. Now they seem to have gone with a single tunic for all and plain armor pieces. That's not my preference, as I always liked it when foot soldiers and archers were easily distinguished from each other. Or at least, you could build your army that way.

If you look through all of the original Black Falcon sets on Brickset, you'll notice that each minifigure with a bullet helmet is an archer, each one with a conical helmet has a spear or sword, and the ones with the grille, of course, have lances for tournaments. The only exception I see is the guy with the halberd in 6062. This is how I'm going to distinguish the minifigures in my castle. I actually love having a single torso because it gives it a bit of a classic feel.

Edited June 22, 2022 by jodawill
Conical helmet guys can also be swordsmen

[Frike]

Just now, SirBlake said:

3. They seem to have moved away from multiple prints for a given army/faction. For example, in the last full theme in 2013, there were 3 unique Crownie II torsos and a printed armor piece. Now they seem to have gone with a single tunic for all and plain armor pieces. That's not my preference, as I always liked it when foot soldiers and archers were easily distinguished from each other. Or at least, you could build your army that way.

I have also noticed this, and I have to agree that it is somewhat disappointing. I don't want too many prints either, but with at least two different printed torsos and legs you can make a nice variety of soldiers that still look cohesive.

Different helmets and armor pieces only go so far, unfortunately. For example, I am having a very hard time creating different units with my Black Falcons despite the new pieces looking incredible.

[Darkdragon]

9 minutes ago, SirBlake said:

2. All three feature wattle & daub/half timber construction on them. Not only is that something that was used in history, but it's just more interesting than just grey walls. We can likely expect more of this in any future sets of this nature.

I love this, it has always been a struggle for me to do properly and I like that the designers are doing more with the style and not using printed panels for it. 

[Triceron]

6 minutes ago, jodawill said:

If you look through all of the original Black Falcon sets on Brickset, you'll notice that each minifigure with a bullet helmet is an archer, each one with a conical helmet has a spear or sword, and the ones with the grille, of course, have lances for tournaments. The only exception I see is the guy with the halberd in 6062. This is how I'm going to distinguish the minifigures in my castle. I actually love having a single torso because it gives it a bit of a classic feel.

 It's hard to get a sizeable amount of black bullet helms today.  I was lucky to even get a couple from Facebook Marketplace purchases, and they're too rare on Bricklink to be worth paying individual shipments for.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Triceron

[SirBlake]

6 minutes ago, Triceron said:

I can see this likely being due to there being representation of new Lion Knights and Forestmen at the same time.

If they were rolling out each faction's return individually, I can see them having more resources to diversify prints.  But since they're doing a bunch of different subthemes all at once, they're a bit more limited.

I do have to say I would have liked to see an updated return of the Scale Mail armor; something generic that it could fit for any faction.

Yes, that reasoning makes good sense. To combat this, I've started by making my own archers for the new Black Falcons. I got some Rohan Soldier torsos and Eomer/Theoden legs and put blue arms on them. They look great, and work well with the desire for scale mail.

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?M=lor009#T=S&O={"iconly":0}

However, since the unveiling of the BaM second BF torso and these new Lions, I think I'm going to transfer my parts-bashed archers to the Lions and make the new BaM Chain mail+cape work for the BF archers. It's all fussy details, but it's fun world building.  

 

11 minutes ago, jodawill said:

If you look through all of the original Black Falcon sets on Brickset, you'll notice that each minifigure with a bullet helmet is an archer, each one with a conical helmet has a spear or sword, and the ones with the grille, of course, have lances for tournaments. The only exception I see is the guy with the halberd in 6062. This is how I'm going to distinguish the minifigures in my castle. I actually love having a single torso because it gives it a bit of a classic feel.

Yeah, I noticed that as a kid in the 80's, and organized all of my armies that way. 

• Original Lions/Crusaders: guards = crossed axes and conical helms, archers = lion torso and bullet helms

• Black Knights: guards = red scale mail, archers = blue scale mail

Black Falcons have always been the outlier since they didn't get an alternate torso print.

 

10 minutes ago, Darkdragon said:

I love this, it has always been a struggle for me to do properly and I like that the designers are doing more with the style and not using printed panels for it. 

It is pretty great. I also love that they don't just use one single technique or color for it. Keeps things interesting.

[MAB]

30 minutes ago, SirBlake said:

3. They seem to have moved away from multiple prints for a given army/faction. For example, in the last full theme in 2013, there were 3 unique Crownie II torsos and a printed armor piece. Now they seem to have gone with a single tunic for all and plain armor pieces. That's not my preference, as I always liked it when foot soldiers and archers were easily distinguished from each other. Or at least, you could build your army that way.

I prefer two factions with a single print each compared to one faction with two prints.

I find it quite easy to tell the difference between foot soldiers and archers - the archers carry bows and have quivers on their backs! :-)

[SirBlake]

4 minutes ago, MAB said:

I find it quite easy to tell the difference between foot soldiers and archers - the archers carry bows and have quivers on their backs! :-)

Hah! That's a fair point. I dunno, I just like a little variety in my army. 

[natesroom]

2 hours ago, R0Sch said:

Would everyone just please stop this nonsense of a debate about LEGO minifigure genders vs. historic accuracy? Cause next up someone will complain about the skeleton not having a definitive gender at all and ruining the 50:50 gender split of this set or even worse, argue that it's a female  because of it's wider pelvis and narrow waist.
Let's just focus on more important things like stickers, price point and lack of display space lol.

Hahaha... If you listen to the designers ACTUALLY talk about historical accuracy for reasons they designed something. Literally he says they designed a harpiscord and not a piano because it wouldn't be historically accurate.

Edited June 22, 2022 by natesroom