BrickJagger

The Mountain Windmill by Hanwasyellowfirst has now crossed 9,000 supporters! Link to support it is below: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/f966f364-7cee-44ad-8870-6d7ff1cfe053 We can argue about whether or not this is properly medieval but I think that it is. It's inarguably a bit fantastical but it wouldn't look out of place in the countryside in a Castle-themed layout.

I look at those sets past the nice box art and presentation and I see a million stickers, huge wall panels, and poorly designed interiors, but I'm well aware that I'm in the minority Hidden Side has quite a few clunkers but its best designed sets are better than those.

I don't really agree with that. I've never been a huge Harry Potter guy but even from a design standpoint the newest wave is pretty weak and probably the worst one they've made since the line came back.

So, any theories as to who the new faction of villains are? The black knights show up in three sets and it seems like their leader is the Slenderman-type figure.

Hi there @tomaaki ! Nice to see another Castle fan joining the boards. Do you have a favorite set or subtheme in particular?

The castle looks better than I thought it would. A little too similar to the Monster Fighters version though. There's someone who's clearly important on the balcony, but I can't tell if it's Lady E. Two of the knight figures are included as well.

And if we were in 2006 you would have told me the exact same thing about both Space and Castle. This forum is getting old enough to the point where it's starting to repeat itself I'll quote this in a few years for ya.

If they knew that with the kind of accuracy you claim they have, there would never be a Lego theme that sold poorly. Clearly that's not the case. Companies can make mistakes, or lose their way. Lego freely admits that that applied to them as recently as '04. We'll probably never know how well Hidden Side actually sold, or why it kept going and bucked the trend of short-lived action themes. That's ridiculous and defeatist.

This is one of the most bizarre Lego themes in a long time. Three waves in and the aesthetics are all over the place, the villains make no sense, and the entire storyline is just wacky. Yet it's actually endearing in a way. (I.e. Slenderman? In 2020? ) Yeah, some of the sets are pretty bad, but think of Hidden Side as merely a spooky melting pot that at the very least has something salvageable in every set instead. It's a rarity that we get sets that look like this in an era where Lego is focused on making everything squeaky clean and "sellable", and the design direction reminds me of Time Cruisers. I, for one, home that this theme keeps soldiering on, whether the sets are even good anymore or not. At least it's different from the overdesigned mecha-crap that they're pumping out otherwise.

Sorta looks like an updated version of this set from 2007, which is neat.

Eh, they're more similar to the NK Lava Monsters than anything else. Not many useful bits for historic builders.

Wow, those pictures are something. Interesting sets, but they're a couple of tiny differences away from just being another wave of Ninjago. There could really only be two possible reasons for this theme's existence: 1. Ninjago doesn't sell well in China. Not sure if this is true, but Monkey Kid may very well be a regional exclusive regardless. People in other continents will now have to choose between two similar themes, and doubtless they'll go with the more established one. Makes no sense to be a worldwide release. 2. Lego is phasing out Ninjago in favor of Monkie Kid. Now before someone comes in here hollering about it being an Evergreen theme, we don't know what Lego's plans are outside of what they choose to tell us. It's possible that something changed in the last couple years and they've decided to go in a different direction, but who knows?

Great work as always @Vorkosigan. Are those microfigures I spy behind the portcullis? Impressive detail

What was the reason for this again? Seems pretty pointless not to go through with it if they'd already poured money into a finished product.

Or maybe just "Ninjago Ninjago" since Ninjago can hardly be qualified as Japanese anymore

Personally I think that we should start pushing The Mountain Windmill and Four Swords Inn, which are Staff Picks and are quickly gaining steam. I hope that Castle fans don't stop pushing these projects and rest on their laurels; we need several more to hit 10k to basically force Lego's hand and fully bring back Castle. Edit: This castle is running out of time but is just 31 supporters away from getting an extension. Please support it y'all!

@Lego David @Medzomorak It is highly unlikely that this gets made into a set, but it means a lot that we were able to get *another* medieval set to 10k so soon after the last one. I'm sure that got Lego's attention. The end goal is getting Lego to make another fully fledged Castle theme, and the more medieval projects we support on Ideas, the more likely that becomes.

Just to keep the thread updated, Povoq's "The Castle in the Forest" has reached 10k supporters on Ideas and is moving on to the review stage! This project hit 10k in less than two months, even after Lego had already approved the Blacksmith Shop. This is proof to me that there's very clearly a demand for a new Castle theme, and Lego should take note of that. It's been seven long years, and I'm getting the impression that people are finally fed up with TLG making excuses for the better part of a decade. We want what we want, Lego!

Congratulations @povoq! It's very impressive how quickly your project achieved 10,000 supporters!

I wouldn't rule it out. The original Minecraft set sold so well that it turned into its own theme, so I could certainly see a scenario where Barracuda Bay is a catalyst for reviving Pirates. In response to some other users in this thread, if Lego were to bring back an old theme because of an Ideas set, they probably wouldn't be banking on adults buying those products to ensure the theme's success. We know that at some base level kids do like themes such as Castle and Pirates, simply due to how long they've been making those kinds of sets, so if a percentage of adults are willing to back an expensive Ideas set, it would be smart to capitalize on their interest with a theme soon after. Again, they wouldn't be doing the heavy lifting financially, but I would imagine that Lego would consider the fact that a large group of consumers with larger-yet wallets are interested in them bringing something back.

Thanks for the review @makoy . Unfortunately, this set has one of the worst price-per-piece ratios in history and I'm afraid that Big Brick has bamboozled us yet again

I think this sentence right here shows how far from grace we've fallen

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this the same approach they used with Vikings? It was a regional exclusive to Denmark.

Just to add on to @Blazej_Holen 's theory, over the last few years Lego has hired several EB builders who almost exclusively made highly detailed Castle MOCs. The last two "castle sets" we've gotten, Löwenstein and the Blacksmith, line up more closely with their style of work than what TLG traditionally makes for the Castle theme. I'm not saying a line of medieval modulars are in the cards...but I'm also not saying it's not a possibility.

There's a preexisting Castle fanbase that's been around four times as long that they haven't addressed in close to a decade...