Alexandrina

I've never played Spyro myself but I think sets are incredibly unlikely unless the series is revitalised in the near future. There's been nothing but a remaster in the last fifteen years (two full console generations ago now) and even when the series was active, it was never as iconic as the big hitters (I say this as someone who was until about 2009 very unaware of video games in general, beyond what seeped into pop-culture; I'd heard of Mario, Sonic, Zelda, Pacman and Grand Theft Auto; I'd certainly never heard of Spyro).

Older in the sense that it's been around longer, the same sense as people age. For instance tomorrow I'm going to a local beauty spot I go to once a year or so, and I'll be older than I was last time I went there. Doesn't mean I'm going there in the past. Similarly, the fortress has aged in the intervening years; it's now older than it was before. Two things I would point out here. First, the officers' lipstick isn't exactly super-bright like Lady Anchor's. In fact when I was looking through the instructions @eldiano linked I originally assumed it was the aforementioned enlisted soldier in that book, as the lipstick is barely visible on the instructions. Secondly, is it not sort of expected that officers are allowed to take more liberties with their personal appearance, especially in older settings? Look at the Governor's ragged beard; an enlisted soldier with a beard like that would be sent to shave it all off. In that sense it doesn't seem surprising that women in the officer ranks are allowed to wear lipstick while women in the enlisted ranks are not. (My understanding also is that officers during the Golden Age of Piracy were almost entirely pulled from the upper classes; these officers are therefore the daughters of nobility, and are going to be allowed to wear make-up if they want to). Personally I don't think Lego were going for a "these women are disguising themselves as men to enlist" storyline; I think the world Lego bases its sets in is a more egalitarian world, in which women are allowed to fight just as much as men are. We've seen in the Blacksmith, Lion Knights' Castle and Forest Hideout that the "medieval" factions have plenty of women in fighting roles. Logically that would continue into the Age of Sail. And in a world where women are just as welcome as men into the armed forces, in such a class-delineated military, I think it's entirely consistent that female officers have more lax standards than female enlisted.

Are you saying you've had a lot of new pieces breaking in recent years? That's incredibly unfortunate but certainly not the norm.

I was building some of the Indiana Jones set Escape from the Lost Tomb last night and couldn't help but think, this set would have benefitted from a particular piece being printed. The bricks with hieroglyphics on are cool and very useful for MOCs, but because they're stickers it's very hard to come by a large amount. You would have to either buy multiple sets or multiple sticker sheets. On the other hand, if there had been one printed brick (maybe with different patterns on each side) it would be easily possible to acquire more via PaB, making Ancient Egyptian MOCs stronger.

There's also the issue that those who are most desperately wanting the goat are more likely to have already bought one on the secondary market if they didn't get one new (obviously not everyone is in a position to afford a goat, of course) - the demographic that already owns a goat and therefore won't buy a set just because the goat is in it likely overlaps with the demographic who would see a goat as a significant selling point influencing their decision to buy.

Another question has come to mind which I don't think will be an issue but wanted to clarify: In addition to custom decals, are we allowed to use bricks in colours that were never actually produced but which realistically could have been produced? For instance, I have my eye on using 30156 in white. In reality it was only available unprinted in dark grey and tan, but I don't see any reason why Lego wouldn't have made it in white had a set at the time required it.

Unless they're already in production (which I've heard nothing about; correct me if I'm wrong) 2025 is wildly optimistic. There's currently a writer's strike preventing new productions from getting going, with no end currently in sight. Even beyond that, high end television production takes a long time - realistically there's no chance of starting filming before 2024 (since the earliest they could likely start is going to be November, and there wouldn't even be time for a single block before Christmas break) and you'll be looking at 8-10 months from then. Given Harry Potter is also very VFX intensive, even in the best case scenario I would expect nothing before 2026.

I don't think @Lyichir was saying goats are in any way niche or obscure as animals, but the subset of people who 1) are Lego fans, 2) care about what animals Lego puts out, and 3) want goats more than any other animal is niche. Especially given that until two years ago there were no sheep, cows were long out of production, and pigs were recently released in a Harry Potter set. There are limited opportunities for farm animals anyway, especially since if the rumours that the Medieval Village is a spin-off of part of the original Lion Knights Castle model are true, animals weren't the priority for that set. Last year's Farm subtheme did a good job bringing the standard farm animals into Lego's repertoire (alongside the squirrel, which isn't a farm animal but is far more common a sight than goats). I'd also argue that goats are in the "second tier" of farm animals. To me, the mundane farm animals are pigs, cows, sheep, horses and chickens. I don't remember seeing any media where goats are resident on a standard farm, nor can I recall ever going to a farm which had goats.

And you were right, that is a wonderful build. It very definitely maintains the feel of Blacktron, to the point where I'm almost wondering if I did see it in an old catalogue somewhere . Excellent job! Out of interest, is the support stand so thick out of necessity? Is the model heavy enough that a flimsier stand wouldn't be able to take the weight?

I don't know if this is accurate to sets on the market currently but it's certainly not the record. Even discounting Dacta and Basic sets, there are 117 Light Bluish Grey in 10241, 114 in 21137, 83 in black in 10018, etc. I didn't take it as being a selling point of the set, more a bit of trivia about it. I certainly don't think the designers were thinking "how many 2x4 bricks can we fit into this model?"

It depends on what your purpose is - what you're going to use them for, and what vibes you want. If you want a "grounded" medieval realm then heads from Pirates sets as others have suggested will be good, as will certain older heads such as the ones from the original Vikings theme. A lot of good heads, especially those used in City sets or older themes, feel less fitting for such a grounded setting due to their broad smiles - but if they don't clash with the vibe you want, go for them, your options are opened up drastically. Personally I'm more into filming than MOCing, so I use a lot of standard smileys and the 'core' variants of that (pointy moustache, eyebrows, freckles for a nose) as background fodder. This is because it's important for my use case that people seeing them know who is important and who's not. I also use a lot of female faces, but my personal setting is more fantasy based so I'm not bothered by realism as much as some are. If in doubt, a search on Bricklink for yellow heads with the keyword 'beard' will yield a lot of the best ones (there's a few with glasses/eyewear, but the vast majority are suitable for knights). If you got all of the different faces with beards, you'd have about 125-150 - you'll probably have some other good heads already in your collection, and a good starting point for the last few you need will be looking at Castle/Pirates sets from the past and seeing what non-bearded heads were used in those. Not all will be perfect, of course, but generally speaking Lego are quite good at picking the most suitable faces for their Castle sets.

I'm not sure this is a consistent argument. Space and Castle have always gone through subthemes, and while it's definitely fair to argue that both are dead now, they both continued beyond 1998. Insectoids is similar to UFO, and Space subthemes lasting one or two years was a thing pretty much from the moment they moved past Futuron. Castle much the same - throughout the 90s, new subthemes pop up every year or two. The only difference between, say, Fright Knights and Knights Kingdom I is the complete absence of standard smileys, but even in Fright Knights several of the characters had different expressions underneath the facial hair. You also metioned Wild West and Aquazone. Both were very short-lived themes (Western especially, which lasted as long as a theme like Atlantis). There was definitely an issue with the quality of sets declining in the early 2000s, but to my mind it's hard to argue that a theme like Kingdoms is not a continuation of the Castle lineage.

Excluding baseplates; Belville, Clikits and Scala parts; and a few smaller accessories, the only parts available in light green are the 8x8 plate with and without the grating.

What gets me is all the 90s colours that basically never got into general use. Something like Fabuland Brown or Light Green would be really nice for MOCs, but barely any parts were ever made in these colours so your options for MOCing are limited. Light Green is particularly egregious - eleven different baseplates in the colour, but not even small plates and slopes to accent the baseplate.

If any Western set gets a remake it'll be Fort Legoredo. They're unlikely imo to go near Rapid River Village, and Gold City Junction is just less iconic than Legoredo. Adventurers could be anything but most likely Pharaoh's Forbidden Ruins - but not until Indiana Jones has gone, as it's very similar to the current sets but minus the Indy characters. Outside of these themes, we might see Aquazone or Rock Raiders remakes if we're very lucky but I'd be surprised if anything else outwith the classics gets into Icons.

But we've had trans-orange and trans-bright green for twenty years without issue. Actually, looking at it there was a trans-neon yellow but it was basically only ever used for Clikits.

No chance of that imo. Police boxes as an actual thing unrelated to Doctor Who have basically never had relevance outside the UK, and probably haven't been seen in the UK for fifty years at this point - they're so indelibly linked with Who that anyone, the BBC included, would immediately know what they're doing. In fact, the BBC actually has a trademark over the image. Don't do this to me... don't give me hope... In all seriousness I've had Doctor Who as the most likely licence for Lego to take on since 2007 (obviously after Star Wars and Harry Potter, which were both old by then) so I'm genuinely surprised we've gone this long without having a full theme. It seems perfect for Lego - it's an excuse to go to any and all time periods (and futuristic settings), and the sheer number of characters means they can have exclusive minifigures for fans while still giving the kids their favourites in the cheaper sets.

Trans-neon orange is currently retired and trans-neon green is supposedly due to retire imminently (like, end of this year) but that doesn't mean Lego couldn't bring them back if they wanted to. As far as I know all of the colours Lego have ever had could be produced (and trans-neon colours would be easier than most as they were made recently and thus the formula for them should still be known) - I doubt Lego would bring them back just for one set, but I could see them making a set using those colours if they'd brought the colours back already. Sidebar: why has there never been a trans-neon blue or trans-neon yellow? I want a full trans-neon rainbow please Lego!

Nobody has ever said you aren't allowed to dislike the set. The issues I take are with the name-calling and insulting language towards those who do like the set. At no point have I called you any names, nor have I insulted your intelligence or accused you of being out of your senses. And yet, it seems, you're happy to do so to me. I am not saying things "just for the sake of disagreeing", as you say - I genuinely am taken by the set, I'm excited to buy it, and I'm far from alone in that. When I make comments to that extent, or when I make comments defending things I don't see as issues, that's not me being contrarian, it's me using a discussion board to discuss a set that's coming out very soon.

That is a gorgeous set. I'm glad Lego have finally started using the colour for buildings rather than just minifigures, it's a really nice summery colour.

Potentially (and potentially is doing a lot of heavy lifting here) we could see a remade Fort Legoredo in the near future - cavalry versus bandits is relatively unproblematic and has been done as recently as a decade ago in the Lone Ranger sets, and Fort Legoredo is one of the last few truly iconic classic sets that could be remade without the need for new colours/parts (something like a monorail would need a whole new part-set, Ice Planet would need trans-neon orange to come back, etc.), without feeling similar to a recent set (we're not gonna see Guarded Inn or Black Monarch's Castle or Imperial Trading Post while the current sets are on the market) and without being too small (something like Breezeaway Café can't exactly be expanded to 2000 pieces) I'd love an Adventurers set too, but I doubt that'll come until the Indiana Jones sets are off the shelves.

Wow, that's a whopper! Hopefully lots of those pieces come to PAB - light nougat faceted bricks are useful but I can't justify buying a 4k piece set just for those and a few minifigure elements!

I can get behind that narratively. I just personally don't like the look of it.

No, you're talking about a different metric - value for money, which is subjective. Price per piece is as objective a measure as you can get. The set costs a certain price, it contains a certain number of pieces. And why do you feel the need to name-call? Who does that help? And just because you don't like a set (which is fine, nobody has to like a set and nobody has to buy a set) doesn't mean that people who do like the set are "outta your senses" and "need to stop pandering".

Here's the thing: you don't get to tell someone else that they only want a black dock because of nostalgia. That's not always true. In fact, I specifically don't have nostalgia for Eldorado Fortress. I own the original, yes, but I bought it a month ago - hardly nostalgia worthy. Yet I still have no issue with a black dock for the reasons enumerated above. For me it makes perfect sense as a colour.