Artanis I

Review Monster Fighters 9468 Vampyre Castle

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I think there's no doubt left that this is a brilliant set. I do believe it'll be the only flagship set I'm getting this year. =)

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On that note, I've ended up with two Vampyre Castle sets - and now have a dilemma of selling one off or combining both into the one castle - has anyone seen any photos of this being done anywhere! Wouldn't mind having a idea of what it could look like to see if it's worth keeping or I should recoup some money and sell my second set off....

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Great review!

It's interesting that LEGO appears to be far less aversive to violence in their themes than they once were. I was surprised to see the "spike pit" booby trap, and especially the hanging skeleton in the dungeon, from an original theme. IIRC, violent themes were present mainly in licensed themes only until now.

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Took some shots recently..

I have added these to the original post (credit given of course), thanks for sharing!

For anyone undecided about getting the kids/yourself a large set for Christmas, there's this one for AU$150, or Helm's Deep & Jabba's Palace for AU$200 each. I don't know what your local currency is, but I think that you get the idea. For what you pay, I'd choose this one over the others. Helm's Deep is awesome, but for the price, this set wins.

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Great review!

It's interesting that LEGO appears to be far less aversive to violence in their themes than they once were. I was surprised to see the "spike pit" booby trap, and especially the hanging skeleton in the dungeon, from an original theme. IIRC, violent themes were present mainly in licensed themes only until now.

?

In Castle in the '80's you had Lion Knights and Black Falcons and later on wood people. Do you think they had high tea every day and did hide and seek with there weapons? They were fully armed. They fought. Fighting is violence. Correct?

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I have added these to the original post (credit given of course), thanks for sharing!

For anyone undecided about getting the kids/yourself a large set for Christmas, there's this one for AU$150, or Helm's Deep & Jabba's Palace for AU$200 each. I don't know what your local currency is, but I think that you get the idea. For what you pay, I'd choose this one over the others. Helm's Deep is awesome, but for the price, this set wins.

No worries. I agree with you. I was expecting this to be $200 given the prices on the the other flagship sets but I guess not having the licensing fee made it cheaper. Jabba's Palace for $200 is absurd.

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Right now this set is one of, if not THE, top contenders for "Best Set of the Year". It has all the hallmarks of a true classic, and it spans age groups better than Helms Deep or Jabba's Palace.

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I just finished this building this set about 30 mins ago and I must say that its an awesome set. I'm a long time castle fan and this one of the most fun castles that I've ever built.

Everything seems just right. There's no repetitive builds unlike other castles. Its completely asymmetrical and opens up to great effect. And when closed it even solves the often castle problem of how do figures reach the upper towers. Even though the villains can fly they still have the castles floors accessible to people on foot.

It has fun extra features like the guest bedroom for victims, the crypt with curtains and a coffin and the pipe organ in the rooftop. It even has its more gruesome parts like the skeleton hanging in its prison cell, spikes that stab people who come through the gate and a trap door that drops the victim onto spikes. Thats definitely different from the usual Lego castles that have trapdoors dropping people into prison cells. It even has a secret wall that opens into a staircase. [although its not so secret with a staircase leading up to the hidden wall]

The glow in the dark stickers aren't very glowy and the net launcher .... well I still can't get that to work correctly.

But this is one of my favourite sets of the year. And very nearly one of my favourite castles of all time. I plan on buying an extra few copies of this one when they are on sale and building castle Duckula.

Awesome set. Its definitely a worthy follow up to the Pharaohs Quest sets. Lego does its best work when its not based on movies. :grin:

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I plan on buying an extra few copies of this one when they are on sale and building castle Duckula.

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

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Son bought this set last saturday from his birthday money, Build it in two sessions (he's six and I only was allowed to do technic bricks and help with the bigger plates on top of walls), finishing it sunday morning.

A really great set, a cool build, lots of play features and richly decorated rooms (which is a really plus).

Highly recommended. (I am glad he bought this and not a Chima set. ;) )

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It's actually not a bad castle, my favourite part of this set is the Organ that Lord Vampyre is playing

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Got this a couple weeks ago and I'm a huge fan. I love the detail in the rooms (the organ was one of the things that made me want the set in the first place.) I've also modified the moonstone thing slightly and added a Frankenstein CMF so it looks more like a machine to bring him to life. Good times, and one of the best themes I've seen in years.

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I just picked this set up yesterday from my local Target store. It was on clearance for only $69.99! Amazing deal for a castle set like this! It really does have a lot of neat features, and some decent parts for furture castle/medieval MOCing (once I actually have enough pieces). Though I think this set will stay complete for a while. I was missing one piece, but fortunately, it was only one of the 1x2 plates that make up one of the "books" on the bookshelf, so nothing to really be upset about. I'm also not a fan of the heros having bionic parts. Seems too steampunkish for me in a theme like this, but I don't have other minifig pieces to replace parts with, so it'll stay as is for now.

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Completed my MF collection with this set the other day. Unfortunately I've got no room to display it at the moment so it'll have to stay in it's carboard tomb for a while longer!

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I just picked this set up yesterday from my local Target store. It was on clearance for only $69.99! Amazing deal for a castle set like this! It really does have a lot of neat features, and some decent parts for furture castle/medieval MOCing (once I actually have enough pieces). Though I think this set will stay complete for a while. I was missing one piece, but fortunately, it was only one of the 1x2 plates that make up one of the "books" on the bookshelf, so nothing to really be upset about. I'm also not a fan of the heros having bionic parts. Seems too steampunkish for me in a theme like this, but I don't have other minifig pieces to replace parts with, so it'll stay as is for now.

Heh, we also missed one 'book' piece.

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Heh, we also missed one 'book' piece.

You know mine was missing 1 1x2 book piece as well now that I think about it?

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I've built the set last night, mine did have the book piece, but unfortunatly they have the new GITD stickers that arent GITD anymore. :angry: Well atleast TLG was kind enough to give two sticker sheets with the set. I have been reading that people had the same non-GITD issue with the 9464 Vampire herse's roof sticker.

As to building the castle, it was quite fun and the building manual takes you for a nice building expierence with each step being more grand than the other. The construction also had some wow moments, as i am a new AFOL who knew the lego's from the 80's and early 90's the advancements made in the lego system the last two decades are a pleasant suprise. (like finding bricks you always wanted as a child, but lego did not make at the time)

You start with building the minifigs, and monster fighters car. Allthough i really don't care about the storyline, (i love the horror theme) the car was a nice and well thought out build. Allthough i do have my doubts about the net launcher, but it's a nice play feature for kids. Then we start building the dungeon tower, with the winch system to hang poor souls up in the dungeon. Then the gate is constructed with those nice boobytrap stakes and flick-fire spider. Then the library tower with the trap door and certain death by stakes, the vampire's resting room that has curtains, the hidden stairs level with the guest's room, and finally the last tower with the machine, and to top it all off, the organ is just the icing on the cake and saved for last.

The play features are nice, but as an AFOL i probably won't enjoy them as much as a child who gets this set to actually play with. The details are nice and rich, lots of pieces, and for the price, it's an awesome set. The only minor issue i could think of, is that you have to mind about how to pick it up and move it, because the first time i tried to move it from the building table to it's final resting place, one of the towers came loose. Maybe that's normal, but i don't remember bricks coming loose that easy in the past.

Either way, i will probably get more of these sets to build a huge castle. :wub:

Edited by Jorrith

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Looking to get this set for my daughter (who's seven) and me for the upcoming Autumn/Halloween season! We've checked out a few reviews online and loving it! The Haunted House looked AMAZING as well and the Hearse, too! Would love to display these sets seasonally (like the Winter Village). Does anyone else do this? Would love to see any pictures any of you might have if you do!

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The only minor issue i could think of, is that you have to mind about how to pick it up and move it, because the first time i tried to move it from the building table to it's final resting place, one of the towers came loose. Maybe that's normal, but i don't remember bricks coming loose that easy in the past.

Either way, i will probably get more of these sets to build a huge castle. :wub:

Yeah, they've entirely dropped the big baseplates of the past for these "modular" builds so you can rearrange the elements. For the Vampyre Castle, I have to separate the front and back halves before moving it at all. I've considered getting grey or tan baseplates and maybe some other plates for landscaping to give mine a sturdier foundation and maybe some detail for display.

Looking to get this set for my daughter (who's seven) and me for the upcoming Autumn/Halloween season! We've checked out a few reviews online and loving it! The Haunted House looked AMAZING as well and the Hearse, too! Would love to display these sets seasonally (like the Winter Village). Does anyone else do this? Would love to see any pictures any of you might have if you do!

I'm planning to ;-) Especially if I do manage to build a little landscape for my castle, I can add the Werewolf tree to the grounds for some extra atmosphere. Also, I have some of the CMF minifigures in Gorilla, Chicken, and other animal suits, and I'm thinking those might make for some good trick or treaters.

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Looking to get this set for my daughter (who's seven) and me for the upcoming Autumn/Halloween season! We've checked out a few reviews online and loving it! The Haunted House looked AMAZING as well and the Hearse, too! Would love to display these sets seasonally (like the Winter Village). Does anyone else do this? Would love to see any pictures any of you might have if you do!

My five year old informed me that we are doing that this Halloween. Ha. We have all of the sets except The Zombies and Haunted House, so it will be a nice display. Should be fun!

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Yeah - the Werewolf set looks great, too! I was also thinking of adding it for a little "scene"!

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The werewolf set was cheap enough, but the only parts i was interested in, was the werewolf itself.The tree? meh. Car with monster fighter? meh. The set does have some nice parts for building trees tho.

The haunted house on the other hand... Wow. No pesky monster fighter hero's, and a ton of bricks. The build itself was not as much fun as the castle, but the end result is so much more rewarding. I highly reccomend it if you want to do a haloween display. Also the house has less of a tendency to fall apart if you want to move it.

Oh, and the best part: My parents loved it!

The herse? Has some flaws, but it looks so darn good that i've ordered an other set today! (it was on sale) :wub:

Also ordered the mad proffessor and the frankenstein monster to go with it, and i will somehow replace the sun blocking machine in the vampire castle with a frankenstein machine in it, as i personally don't care about the monsters fighters storyline. (all the hero's and their vehicles i don't display)

Also get the haloween accessory set 850487, it's a nice addition to the theme.

Now i only need the ghost train and zombies to complete the series, but with the train i have doubts about getting your money's worth, and zombies is a limited edition set that goes for outrageous prices now, so i definatly won't jump on that unless the price is right.

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