6th Anniversary REVIEW: 850889 Castle Dragons Accessory Set

[WhiteFang]

Hello everyone,

Earlier ago, I have done the 850888 Castle Knights Accessory Set Review and similarly, I thought I will extend the reviewing coverage to this pack as well. Likewise, I had also bought this during my visit to LEGOLAND Malaysia. I am equally excited to acquire this, so that my ambition to expand my small army of villainous Dragon Knights can be made possible. Without further ado, let's see if the evil counterparts stand up to the might of the Lion Knights.

Name: 850889 Castle Dragons Accessory Set

Theme: LEGO System / Castle / Dragon Knights

Year: 2014

Pieces: 42

Minifigs: 4 minifigures

Price: USD $14.99, GBP 10.99, EURO N.A, SGD $24.90, RM 34.95

Resources: Brickset, BrickLink

Enter battle with the Dragon army and firing catapult!

Get ready to take on the King’s Knight army with the LEGO® Castle Dragons Accessory Set. This detailed set features 4 Dragon soldier minifigures suited up with weapons, helmets, shields, as well as a buildable, firing catapult – just the thing for playing out epic battles against the King’s forces!

• Features 4 LEGO® Castle Dragon soldier minifigures

• Weapons include a sword, axe, spear and a flail

• Accessories include 4 helmets, 2 shields, torch with flame element and a firing catapult

• Play out epic battles against the King’s army!

• The perfect addition to any LEGO® Castle collection!

• Build your very own LEGO® Castle Dragon soldier army!

• Combine with the 850888 LEGO® Castle Knights Accessory Set for even more exciting LEGO Castle battles!

An original box image of the 850889 Castle Dragons Accessory Set

Back view of the original box image of the 850889 Castle Dragons Accessory Set

Expand your army and form epic battles with it

As always, I have found army building to be an enjoyable form of collecting where I can amass a large number of soldiers to deploy in a large scale warring diorama. However, similar to the other counterpart pack, these minifigures are produced and done via 'Made in China' minifigures standards. I have no qualms of the quality and will still continue to integrate them into my existing minifigures collection.

This pack suffered the same reduction of minifigures. From the previously five minifigures in a pack, there is only four minifigures instead. To me, I don't find this a welcoming move. Including the very common bricks of building up a simple catapult does not constitute the strong value of acquiring this pack since the main objective is to expand the basis of an army through building up of soldiers.

The full content

As you can view from the full content, you are able to get four minifigures, an instruction manual and a small sealed bag of bricks to build up the catapult. Trust me, you don't really need the instruction manual to follow the steps to build up this miniature catapult.

The miniature catapult

These are the parts required to build up the miniature catapult. There is no hard-to-find or uncommon elements, so it is pretty easy to do it on your own in the amount of spare bricks given. This built for the representation of the miniature catapult is much suitable in those advent calendars such as the 7979 Castle Advent Calendar. By positioning a minifigure by the side, you are able to ascertain the scale comparison. Sorry, but this does not impress me at all.

Front view of the Dragon Solders minifigures

The 850889 Castle Dragons Accessory Set consist of the above four minifigures. It contain a knight and three generic soldiers. These soldiers are all available in the existing 2013 LEGO Castle sets. All of these minifigures have back printing and three minifigures have dual facial feature which is very good to have. The accessories given for the soldiers are slightly below average as I am not very fond of the torch design. There are two minifigures which held shields. Some areas of improvements will probably include an additional shield for the other minifigure and the change of short sword to chrome sword for the knight.

As you can see from the detailed breakdown of the Dragon Knight, there is printing for the knight torso instead of giving a plain version. The armoured Dragon Knight is not highly sought after, as compared with the Lion Dragon Knight is because, this minifigure is slightly easily available in two other sets.

Neither sides are going to surrender

To conclude, this is a mediocre army pack to buy. I personally felt it is a "good-to-have" battle pack for the expansion of the evil Dragon Knights. Honestly, I will prefer to put my spare cash on the actual building sets and I personally felt the 70600 Forest Ambush will be more worthy for army building than this pack. Furthermore, the miniature catapult is not very appealing and the given minifigures are very common as well. By comparing it with the 850888 Castle Knights Accessory Set, I felt the other counterpart pack is better than this. Furthermore, both packs' pricing are the same. I will really prefer to get the treasure chest content than the miniature catapult.

Summary review

Playability: 7/10 (Add them and expand your Castle army with these soldiers.)

Design: 4/10 (Poor miniature catapult design and very common minifigures.)

Price: 5/10 (I don't recommend getting this pack for its SRP. Do consider it if you can find a good discount for it.)

Overall: 5.3/10 (Slightly below average, but not an essential set to acquire. Save the money for better Castle sets.)

I gave it a "3" based on my Review Score Card. What about yours?

I hope every one of you enjoyed reading this simple review of mine. Comments and Criticisms are strongly welcomed.

Pictures can be found in My Flickr.

[Hive]

Great review, like the other one - but just like the other one, I feel this one is below average for the same reasons as the other battle pack: too few minifigs, too high price and low quality plastic. I will say though that these Dragon knights are way better than their Lion adversaries when it comes to their shield and colouring.

[Vorkosigan]

I really don't understand the choice to have one less minifig, I can't imagine the cost savings is worth the decreased interest in the set. Maybe they'll go back to 5 for the next generation. But with forest ambush at $8 USD on Amazon lately, Castle army building is still quite affordable.