Artanis I

Same as the recent "Space Police" line, to AFOLs it was known as Space Police 3. "Fantasy Era" is a fan dubbed term too... the official name was "Castle"... the list goes on. I have photographed all my castle Lego and my armies, I will upload the photos to post here if not this week then eventually, as things are going to be very busy for me for a month or so.

Why would anyone want to clone someone Obi Wan sliced in half first time he engaged him? Your first explanation appears to be more sound to me! And will the next season hurry up?! We're up to 19 pages already, before it's even aired an episode...

So show us some of your wares! And welcome to the club at last.

Knights Kingdom was the official name, I believe - but they were of course of the Kingdom of Morcia. Obviously the fans have dubbed it Knights Kingdom II - and nicknamed them as the Jelly Bean knights or Power Rangers. It seemed fairly pointless to give them a name collectively as each figure was given a name initially, until the hero knights vs rogue knights era. So you have Vladek & his Shadow Knights, Dracus, Karzon & their Rogue Knights up against King Mathias, Jayko, Santis, Rascus & Danju, and Kentis, Adric & their Hero Knights.

Vladek's Dark Fortress is actually a really good castle. Firstly, it's huge and imposing - as castles should be. Secondly it is dark red & black, (a colour scheme I love) - giving it a really cool evil vibe. It's very playable, has stacks of room for placing minifigs on guard. Not too <insert that tiresome argument> build from memory. Can't be bothered thinking about other reasons, haha. Sure, the jelly beans are annoying, but take those away & replace them with a couple more shadow knights and you have an AMAZING set. Well, I like it anyway. I disagree with most of the rest of their list though! Donut's looks a lot better, but I don't know #10, and #3 & #5 aren't castles...

indeed... But nothing to be ashamed of , it is slightly bigger than mine, and I have no droids.

I don't think it would fit the medieval castle theme. Maybe as part of an adventurers theme, it would probably be a rehash of the Islanders from the Pirate theme in the early 90s - up against the Spanish "Imperial Armada".

It's one of those ones isn't it... like the Royal Knights tower bridge with the "Dragon Masters/Knights" mounted knight with a Black Knights MkII (ovoid) shield. Some people say that that set is the final set with Black Knights. I say it's a Dragon Knight with "a typo" - the wrong coloured shield, and not Black Knights canon in my opinion. I quite like the black plumes, I think it's a shame that it was never used for the dragon plumes, and that they cost so much to purchase on Bricklink! Looking forward to the Forestmen post, they were my favourite daydream in the old Lego catalogues...

Lego has been releasing medieval themed sets for decades, however there was a bit of a "dark age" (very difficult pun to avoid) not long ago, and the last decade or so the theme has been rebranded every few years, because TLG want to have the theme head in a different direction each time. We have swings between highly concentrated fantasy and more historically accurate. "Kingdoms" is more historically accurate, and with more adult friendly sets compared to what we had 5 years ago (Knights Kingdom II, featuring the dreaded jelly bean knights...) "Castle" (commonly known as the "Fantasy Era") incorporated undead skeleton warriors, trolls/orcs, dwarves & dragons - these are generally assumed to be fantasy elements, not historically accurate. TLG changes the direction of the medieval theme for many reasons, and rebrands it each time to give distinction. Just like a band changes its name when they don't want to play their old (maybe outdated) songs anymore. It sends out a message to those who wrote off the last lot: "Hey, we've changed! Expect something different, something better!" Star Wars is unique in that there is source material to make sets from - and plenty of it. So many ships, vehicles, characters and movie scenes to reproduce, and in time re-release with improvements. There are only so many different things to make for a medieval set. Therefore new factions need to be introduced, with different colours to keep things fresh. You can't just release 3 or 4 different 1 man horse carts for the same faction (even if the next one is an improvement over the last), whereas in Star Wars there are many different speeders, ships, vehicles etc that can be available at the same time (that perform the same function) because we know these all exist in the source material, and can justify their coexistence. That reason stands for most non-licensed themes actually, not just medieval. Star Wars is an exception, not a rule.

I like the concept of this maxivig/moc and the structure+environment is a nice setting. Without much of a backstory I'm not sold on the minifigs used though, I don't think they go well together. I'd lose the sword, replace the knight and maybe change the dude in the blue hat to fit the other two a bit better. He looks a bit of an outsider. I'm 60/40 about whether I like the facelessness of the Professor. Keep it unless you have something cooler/more ominous but still enigmatic. It's a great scene apart from that.

Under 6035 you mention red & yellow, however it is red & white. I have this set - with the black triple plume intact! As the mounted knight in this set has black plume, helmet, torso, legs & horse I nominated him as "The Black Falcon" The minifigs for 6018 are certainly curious, I think they should have had a Black Knight shield, they certainly don't look Black Falcon-y to me. I don't think there was ever a Black Falcon minifig with chain mail. There's a certain type of charm to the Black Falcons, they don't seem evil at all, but an opposing faction with some level of honourable conduct.

Unlike much of Europe and many other countries of the world with red, white & blue flags... and Arab countries with green, red, black & white...

Now that's what I call Crusaders...

This has been the case since the 80s, it's nothing new. The Black Falcon sets had green, white, blue, red & yellow flags for example. At least these days it's consistent within factions.

In addition to the 4 or 5 excellent arguments already put forth*, the figures clearly look photoshopped in. Especially the droid in the middle. What is that green blob? It looks like a toy dinosaur. What is that in the background?! Looks a bit like a bookshelf in someone's study. What's with the blue (table ) ground underneath? * No confidential/preliminary stamp, box theme art is inconsistent to what's expected, picture is deliberately blurred rather than low-res, Amidala minifig is not being released until a subsequent wave - yet we have no pictures for the upcoming wave... It looks less like a work of art and more like a photoshop knock-up. I'm not convinced that this is legitimate.

It doesn't look like I'll be spending the fortune required to obtain one of these for free any time soon - and since I have all the other Alien Conquest sets I may possibly also track this down on the secondary market...

and welcome to it officially! Those sets certainly are impressive, aren't they! 'fashionably incomplete' Death Star 2

They were definitely surprised by his appearance on Tatooine. And the report was "...I/we think he may be a Sith..." So said the Jedi High Council. Even if GG gets GG'd (see what I did there ...) and rebuilt/rebirthed whatever, how would you explain the presence of the cough in Ep III? I think what should've happened is that he only had 2 arms for the entirety of The Clone Wars - giving him an excuse to suck in it, then get an upgrade for the movie and unleash some awesome with a "Surprise General Kenobi, I've now got 4 arms!" "Well, Grievous, I've always had forearms" (in typical Obi Wan wit)

Count Dookula! Can't believe I've never thought of that before, what with Christopher Lee being very associated with Drac... Some good ones today guys.

I don't get the line before the punchline. Just noticed Nacho Libre in the background there... As a BTW, apparently the keychains can be removed by applying heat to the ring that sticks out of the top of the head, use pliers to simply slide it out. No yanking required!

Maybe you should read the first page!

$10US. As for piece count I don't remember. Have a surf through the least 40 pages or so if you dare...

Yes but our 10% tax is very little compared to many VATs etc overseas... by the way GST replaced 25-40% taxes on electrical & other consumer goods - imagine what the prices in that article would be if they were still in place!!!

Some really good ones on the last page or two

too funny. What's with the Lego scamfest of late? Maybe the scammers have picked up on the general disappointment in retail prices. Evil exploiters of the vulnerable... (and stupid)