Review: 70404 King's Castle

[Leoman]

I like this castle alot. It has really cool features like the double gated prison and the portcullis.

I like the modular open way it is put together rather than a base plate.

My main gripe is the use of too many large castle pieces which limit what else can be built with it. Also I don't think lego should have put a ladder in there, I think a second staircase would have been much better.

[legouch]

My gf's daughter (7) loved this castle. However, being a bright little kid, she has pointed out that it's rather small so I've been assigned to design extensions to the walls. I've been looking at previous castles 7094 and 7946. This would also mean that the overall area would expand which was leading me to do a small statue and a sword in rock at a smallsih atrium.

Anythoughts of any other sets from which i can gather inspiration?

P.S sorry for the necro.

[Hive]

Anythoughts of any other sets from which i can gather inspiration?

How about the Gatehouse Raid set from this wave? It's specifically designed to latch onto the Castle.

And if you're up for some creative building, I'd like to suggest something like this old classic:

[legouch]

How about the Gatehouse Raid set from this wave? It's specifically designed to latch onto the Castle.

And if you're up for some creative building, I'd like to suggest something like this old classic:

classic. :D I'll add it up on the ground floor.

we have the gatehouse, that is actually what lead to the castle. by the way, we have the Constitution train from the lone ranger movie. the train rides in between the gatehouse and the castle.

Don't ask me about industrialization in the kid's mind, it's afun thought though. I looked into helm's deep but not much to use from there (other than the dinning table, i guess).

update: A little room I did during my lunch beak; not yet finished. (it's helm's deep funiture + a room derived from the front of 7946 the red castle)

Edited November 25, 2013 by legouch

[rriggs]

Nice review!

I have this castle and I think it's great. The blue is ok - although I am in the process of replacing with grey - but the best thing for me is that it's modular. This has made it really easy to integrate with the other 2013 Castle sets and also my LOTR castle and wall sets and has allowed me to create a substantial castle with a keep and different levels very easily.

My favourite part is the gate house with more brick building than i was expecting and very neat portcullis and drawbridge.

I have no problem with the heraldry on any of them although, compared to my Kingdoms chess set for example, the gold weapons and accessories are a bit orange and not very shiny.

Overall I really rate this set and recommend it.

Cheers

Rog

Edited December 1, 2013 by rriggs

[dnguyen722]

Thanks for the review. I just got this set from Amazon when it was 25% off.

I was wondering if anyone's been having issues with their minifigs. My crown isn't fitting snugly on anything and keep popping off. The legs also feel looser so it seems like it's too easy to bend the minifigs' torsos forward and backward.

[Blazej_Holen]

Nice review, although, it has weird color scheme - suppose its targeted to kids :) Lion soldiers and knights are really cool, and they have really nice printings, almost some realistic one - like the soldier with the blue and white coat. So these can be used in some historic moces, captures some French soldiers. Dragon knight are nothing special, almost poor. Castle itself looks childish :)

[Hive]

An average castle, nothing special about it. The Kingdoms castle had better colors, figures and heraldy - though the king does look pretty nice.

I'll likely end up getting this one down the line, when it's on a steep sale. But right now, it has no "must have" elements for me.

Well, I ended up getting this in a sale at the end of the summer - and finally decided to build it a few days ago. As I suspected judging from pictures and reviews, the castle wasn't really to my liking. But I asked myself: "do you dislike it simply because you find the colours and shields off-putting, or do you dislike the actual build as well?"

So to solve that puzzle and try to judge the set solely on the merits of it's build, I decided to recolour it into a Fantasy theme dark blue castle. I had to abandon that idea pretty quickly though, due to a lack of suitable dark blue bricks in my collection. So instead, I changed it into a red Kingdoms theme castle:

I made it as much of a straight conversion from the original model as my brick collection allowed me to. And I must say, I actually do enjoy this version a lot more than the official set! While liking blue and absolutely loving the Fantasy dark blue, I simply feel the blue of this line works poorly with the greys... and also feel that there was simply too much of it in the original build. I find both this red as well as the (in my opinion) far superior heraldy to make the model much more appealing.

That said, I still think it falls short compared to the Kingdoms castle. I do think the central gate part of the castle looks pretty good though, and will use it to make a cross-breed between the two castles next - possibly using the two round towers from this one as well. But with the Kingdoms red, of course.

All in all, I appreciate this set much more with the blue and heraldy replaced.

[SerenityInFire]

I must say that I completely agree with you there. The red looks MUCH better. Also, the Red Dragons' catapult to me just demands to be retrofitted into a battering ram.

Edited January 14, 2014 by SerenityInFire

[Lord Butters]

The Dragon catapult works really well and would be wasted as a battering ram. However, building a ram based on a similar design would look cool.

[Rarah]

I was actually disapointed by this set and the whole theme. Tke kingdoms were great and I thought wow finally castle is becoming excellent again. The medieval village, kings joust all brilliant, blacksmiths house etc ..but when I saw the new series I thought it must be aimed on even younger target than before. It simply looks too childish for me too simple and the sets have nothing special. I recently went to a local LEGO shop owner and we share the same vierw this set is ismply below average and it even does not sell good as I was told. I don´t really understand why LEGO when it comes to some high standard can drop down to a very low standard. The only good thing I found on this theme in general are minifigures which look good at least the good guys.

Also the set has very few minifigs which I guess is the major problem. At least 2-3 horses for a castle would be appreciated and a count of 9 minifigs. The older set were uch more creative and playable.

The review is actually good but it looks to me a bit too soft / neutral. However the pictures provided are brilliant ;) love them all.

[fred67]

Thanks for the review.

Good review! I really like this set and feel like it easily measures up to the previous King's Castle, which was itself a beauty to behold. It's simple and iconic, but at such it should meet the expectations of any kid who's getting this as their first LEGO castle. It's got lots of great features like a dungeon, treasure room (I imagine that's what the empty room behind the treasure chest is supposed to be — not sure why the instructions put the chest in front rather than inside), throne room, and catapult. It is modular, and improves on the modular system in the last King's Castle since the openings of the towers all face inward, meaning it will look complete in pretty much any configuration. At the same time it is compatible with both the last King's Castle and the new Gatehouse Raid.

I very much like this set, too. I understand a lot of AFOLs get caught up in the factions and heraldry, but it seems to me to be bigger than both the Kingdoms and Fantasy era castles (both of which I have, which is why I'm not getting this one). I understand the dislike of the big panels, but it makes for a pretty epic build, if you ask me.

I do think any castle fan kid would love this set, personally. If I didn't already have the last two castles, this would be a sure buy for me. If I could find it for a good discount, I will almost certainly get it.

[Spud The Viking]

Brilliant Review! I have seen this set scattered around shops and I must say, for the price (and this is my personal opinion) I would prefer more figures. The design is great but there seems to be no real siege/battle with that amount of minifigures.