CM4Sci

LEGO Castle 2013

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The bad guys have a shield with a wolf logo. I am not 100% sure because it looks different than the wolfpack. They are black with the red logo (the shield). The shield edge should be gray. The logo of the good guys is the same as the royal night from the '90 only in blue and not red.

Any other details please ask. I will answer if I could. :wink:

the smallest set, forrest ambush, has 4 minifigures, 2 good and 2 bad guys. there is no horse. there is a small ugly tree with flick missile and a cart with the treasure chest on it. and yes, tere is a dog!

One of the bad soldier has a helmet similar to the evil knight from cmf 7.

Well, I at least like the sound of this so far. Thanks for your observations! Do you have any idea how many minifigures we can expect in each set?

Edited by Crownie

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So you have seen these catalog pics up close? Any other minifig details that you can give us? Are they using the new sword mold from the variant chess set/CMF heroic knight? What about details in the horse barding and head armor?

I was afraid of that old lion heraldry being reused. That is baffling and beyond lazy if that is used on the final product. That one of very few factions that nobody bothers to collect. I get that it's a bit more kid friendly than some, but at least come up with something new, TLG!

That aside, a wolf faction sounds great.

Edited by SirBlake

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- the big castle 7 figs. 4 good and 3 bad. A king, horse with barding. the barding is blue white and gold or yellow. there is a king. yes new swords. the castle has a lot of brick 1 x 2 with Masonry Profile.

- the dragon fortress, I count 4 minifigs. There is a prison. I don't konow if there is a lady inside. There is a black magician as a leader od the wolfies.

- gatehouse raid, 4 figures, a horse with red and black barding. nice barding.

- gold getaway, 3 figs and a horse. I can see also the old sword here.

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These new descriptions make me very happy. If nothing else, the figures should be really nice.

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Thanks for the observations, does there look like there is any special fig, like a general or royal knight?

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Looking at the pictures again, it looks like we may be wrong about the big chunky siege weapon wheels? The ones in the Gatehouse Attack picture look to be more like those used in the Ballista in the Uruk Hai set. A round 4x4 tile with a 2x2 tile in the center.

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- the big castle 7 figs. 4 good and 3 bad. A king, horse with barding. the barding is blue white and gold or yellow. there is a king. yes new swords. the castle has a lot of brick 1 x 2 with Masonry Profile.

- the dragon fortress, I count 4 minifigs. There is a prison. I don't konow if there is a lady inside. There is a black magician as a leader od the wolfies.

- gatehouse raid, 4 figures, a horse with red and black barding. nice barding.

- gold getaway, 3 figs and a horse. I can see also the old sword here.

Could you provide any additional details? E.g., the type of helmet the "goodies" have, as well as the "badies."

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- the big castle 7 figs. 4 good and 3 bad. A king, horse with barding. the barding is blue white and gold or yellow. there is a king. yes new swords. the castle has a lot of brick 1 x 2 with Masonry Profile.

- the dragon fortress, I count 4 minifigs. There is a prison. I don't konow if there is a lady inside. There is a black magician as a leader od the wolfies.

- gatehouse raid, 4 figures, a horse with red and black barding. nice barding.

- gold getaway, 3 figs and a horse. I can see also the old sword here.

Thanks for the info! It makes me feel a bit better about this new castle theme. When I first saw the blurry photos I was a bit nervous that we were going to get blue lions and red dragons even though Kingdoms just had red lions and green dragons. Even if we are getting a lame redo of the Royal knights, at least we'll have wolves instead of dragons again! Seriously though, is it really that hard/expensive to have a sigil other than a lion? Enough with the Lions already! I complain, but I really am happy to have a non fleshie castle line coming soon.

Edited by Ellroy48

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I complain, but I really am happy to have a non fleshie castle line coming soon.

This times 1,000. I know the fleshies have their fans, but I always trade out their heads/hands if I buy licensed sets.

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Thanks for the observations, does there look like there is any special fig, like a general or royal knight?

special figs: king, the evil magician, and knight with blue cape.

Could you provide any additional details? E.g., the type of helmet the "goodies" have, as well as the "badies."

the helmets are pretty much the same shape as the kingdoms line. some of the badies wear http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=48493.

some of the figs does not have printings on the torso. the reason may be the preliminary photo.

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*rubs hands together*

So perhaps this is what became of the Wolfpack faction? They armed themselves, were taken in my an evil magician (Really, LEGO? Another evil magician?), and poised to take down the ridiculously-attired Lion Knights... :grin: (Perhaps LEGO is re-doing them in an attempt to correct their rather poor handling of the faction the first time?)

I'm so replacing the Wolf magician with some sort of foul-tempered band-leader, lol. The Lupine Knights has kind of a fun ring to it...

See? My imagination is having a blast with this line already, and all we have are some awful preliminary pics. :tongue: Who said grown ups can't play?

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@Crownie, (whispering:) even in the GoH here on EB, the bad guys are lead by an evil magician.

I have a lot of fantasie, but honestly I always found no point in a magician having an own army as in my eyes, he can kill everyone just using magic... :laugh:

@those who are complaining about the BURP's used in the castle:

As a child, I really loved those prebuild wall-elements as I found them very easy to use... So I am quite sure that kids nowadays don't complain about this neither!

How hard it is for us AFOL's, we have to live with the truth that the market of the kids and parents is much bigger than ours :classic:

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Thanks for the inside info. To be honest, the only thing about this line that I find disagreeable is the thought of TLG re-using that unappealing Lion crest. Otherwise it looks like some good ol' fashioned Lego Castle fun to me!

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@those who are complaining about the BURP's used in the castle:

As a child, I really loved those prebuild wall-elements as I found them very easy to use... So I am quite sure that kids nowadays don't complain about this neither!

How hard it is for us AFOL's, we have to live with the truth that the market of the kids and parents is much bigger than ours :classic:

I don't particularly mind BURP's, but I do think it would be nicer to have the whole thing built with smaller bricks.

Anyhow, I believe that it wouln't be very difficult to make brick-built BURP's, or at least something similar.

But I see that TLG would preffer using less plastic where possible.

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Thanks for the inside info. To be honest, the only thing about this line that I find disagreeable is the thought of TLG re-using that unappealing Lion crest. Otherwise it looks like some good ol' fashioned Lego Castle fun to me!

Indeed. Otherwise I'm quite liking what I see, but that emblem... why, oh why? :sick: If they wanted to use a bright and childish design (understandable considering the age group they are aiming at), they could have at least given us a new one to dislike? But maybe the design is slightly different? On principe a lion's head is not a bad motif, if done better than last time. If not, I just hope the good guys won't sport the emblem on their torsos. As such only shields and bardings would be unusable.

Edited by Haltiamieli

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Thanks for the inside info. To be honest, the only thing about this line that I find disagreeable is the thought of TLG re-using that unappealing Lion crest. Otherwise it looks like some good ol' fashioned Lego Castle fun to me!

I was getting excited about the possibility of a Hawk crest for the 'good guys'... that it's the boring old "King Leo" Lion crest in blue is disappointing.

I'll also switch out the 'evil magician' as leader of the 'Lupine Knights'... I've had great fun building some bandits recently, so I'll just make a new leader for them. The magician can be part of some Dark Council with the Green Dragons' wizard, Troll Sorceress, and a witch or something.

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Thanks for the inside info. To be honest, the only thing about this line that I find disagreeable is the thought of TLG re-using that unappealing Lion crest. Otherwise it looks like some good ol' fashioned Lego Castle fun to me!

Since it was mentioned that there is no printing on some of the torsos I hope that the Lion Crest head is also preliminary and will change to something better for the final version since it is very unoriginal. The same lion crest has been used twice before once for the "Royal Knights" in 1995 and again for "Knights Kingdom I" in 2000. For TLG to simply change up the colors a bit does not make it original. There are plenty of lion crest ideas to get design inspiration from in the middle ages.

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They should have had a blue background with three yellow/golden crowns instead :)

Is there anyone who knows when to expect better/more pictures? I'm new to more serious Lego stuff so I don't know what's the general procedure for Lego when revealing new stuff.

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@Crownie, (whispering:) even in the GoH here on EB, the bad guys are lead by an evil magician.

I have a lot of fantasie, but honestly I always found no point in a magician having an own army as in my eyes, he can kill everyone just using magic... :laugh:

@those who are complaining about the BURP's used in the castle:

As a child, I really loved those prebuild wall-elements as I found them very easy to use... So I am quite sure that kids nowadays don't complain about this neither!

How hard it is for us AFOL's, we have to live with the truth that the market of the kids and parents is much bigger than ours :classic:

I don't mind BURPs at all for Castle sets. Sure it looks nice the way they built Helm's Deep, but brick-building everything would also mean a castle would cost lots of $. I do however think LEGO could design some new castle wall BURPs, some with brick patterns perhaps, and grips for torches and whatnot.. Just so that they don't look so plain and BURPy.

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There seems to be a lot of misinformation being spread around with regards to these new Castle products, and some unfair judgements (partly based on low-res images and wrong expectations)

We were informed about these sets in November at the Lego store I work, and the images found on the link provided earlier are from an internal 'catalogue', albeit rough and for staff viewing only. The images are not "preliminary", they are the final products. You'll also find out why the Series 10 CM minifigs have gold packets, too..

The new Castle products follow some cues found in recent City counterparts - the company wishes to introduce new fans into product lines much friendlier. This has been a real challenege; bridging the gap between different product lines, especially Duplo and System.

In addition, these products are very economical and are NOT meant to appeal directly to Afol's. LOTR and Hobbit haven't sold in the quantities that even we as retail staff expected, and that's largely because families want the best value, and the children can easily be pursuaded to spend their money on many smaller products rather than one large one. For this reason, the smaller licensed sets are popular with children purely because they can own a movie branded product with their pocketmoney, while the larger ones appeal to a far older audience. Whichever way slice the cake, some of the products are shocking value for money, and don't provide a inviting entry into this style of theme.

It's interesting to read of the negativity in this thread, because it would seem that many members automatically assume (or expect) these new Castle products to have the same level of detail as those from recent years, without taking into account what function a product serves in the first place. These new Castle sets will provide a fun and enjoyable entry into historical territory, and as long as the kids enjoy it, then I honestly don't give a damn how bad they are. Playability is the single most important attribute, and that's something that the company sacrifices with LotR/Hobbit.

So please, spare a thought for just who these products are aimed for.

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These new Castle sets will provide a fun and enjoyable entry into historical territory, and as long as the kids enjoy it, then I honestly don't give a damn how bad they are. Playability is the single most important attribute, and that's something that the company sacrifices with LotR/Hobbit.

So please, spare a thought for just who these products are aimed for.

Interesting post, and I appreciate your insider perspective. We all understand that LEGO is targeted to children; however, why does that automatically mean a good product needs to be sacrificed? What struck me most from your post was "I honestly don't give a damn how bad (castle sets) are." Are they really that bad?

I'm excited for this wave - any new castle is ALWAYS a good thing. But if you've actually seen and held this catalog, and claim they are bad - well that's just discerning.

. . . just as long as the minifigs don't look like the Jelly Bean Knights.

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So please, spare a thought for just who these products are aimed for.

This is an odd post for a couple of reasons. First of all, simply because it's off topic and confusing: are you insinuating that series 10 CMF is gold because it's the final series?

To address the rest of it, yes, detail is nice, but the overwhelming majority of us here are less hung up on detail (BURP conversations not withstanding), and more focused on good design. It's this last part that can often get lost in translation with the dreaded "juniorization".

The simplest answer is actually the best answer: return to Castle's roots, and everyone will win. Kingdoms was actually doing a pretty good job of this before it got cut off too early. The low-res pictures we've seen so far are on a similar path as far as types of sets, and that's fine. TLG could hit a home run by doing simple, small castle builds much like they have, but echoing the golden age of Castle with modular builds and references to factions that AFOLs and kids have always responded to. King Leo ain't one of those.

My only real concern is that TLG had the great idea to revive an old faction, and they picked one of the only ones that nobody has ever cared about, kid or adult.

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Why reuse the Lion heraldry? Simple economics. Lego has molds specific to the Lions head. They invested in tooling of the lion piece.

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=30274

So they will recycle the general concept of lions or lion based heraldry periodically in order to use the pieces and mold. Now here's hoping that the exact styling of the heraldry and markings are a little better. As others have pointed out the set designs shown in the preliminary pics are probably the real deal. But history has shown us that the Minifigs and printing used in these sorts of box mock ups is often pretty rough and of a temporary nature. Just look at the first pics we saw of the SW Sith Fury, and how improved the figures were by the time we saw the release shots. I'm betting while we are getting a Lion faction, the printing will be all new and not in any way recycled.

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I'm betting while we are getting a Lion faction, the printing will be all new and not in any way recycled.

I hope so. I just can't see TLG being dumb enough to use that ugly lion logo. :sick:

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