The_Cook

I'm not a LOTR fanatic so I'm ambivalent about the set, however I did run the numbers through a calculator and can provide some quick comparissons against existing sets: 10193 - MMV - 4.497p/6.245c per piece - as a comparisson for an unlicensed set with comparable detail levels 79003 - BagEnd - 9.201p/10.735c per piece - as a comparisson for a licensed set with comparable detail levels 10237 - Orthanc - 7.206p/8.478c per piece So in terms of price per piece it's not as bad as the smaller sets but worse than unlicensed sets. I'll admit that if were released MMV now (rather than 4 years ago) it would probably be more expensive due to inflation and the piece cost would be nearer 5p/7c per piece.

I think it's a 1x12x3, my reasoning is that the curve looks a lot shallower, that there's no middle pillar and that if building to TLG standards some form of tie would be required across the back to hold the structure together.

Those were my first thought and it's not them!

Are those Gothic (half-) arches on the Council Of Elrond? Finally after decades we can do pointy arches Oh for the day when then come out in Bley, such a shame I'll never be able to get them in old-grey.

Will there even be a D2C set? If the range is targetted at younger builders, which anecdotal comments coming from the tradeshows seem to indicate it is, then there might not be a D2C set. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but TLG don't typically produce D2C sets when the target demographic is the younger age range, probably because the sales of those sets are parents buying for kids rather than Lego fans buying for themselves. Whilst I'd expect to see some D2C sets for LoTR I don't think that we'll get anything for Castle. A Monastry is a religious subject, whilst they may have been a key part of medieval life TLG hasn't produced a set that touches on religion since they became a global brand that appeals to everyone. I'm not Lego historian but I seet to recall reading a review of a church that they produced back in the 70's that predates the big global expansion of the early 80's.

Forestment's Clifftop Lookout is the 19th in a series of MOC's intendd to recreate the ambiance of the 80's. Design I don't recall the precise moment of inspiration, it's lost behind the pain of this set's torutured evolution, but I do remember looking (admiring even) my Forestmens' Mountain Stash as it sat on my desk and thinking that I should do another Forestmens' set. From that musing the idea that there should be a cliff to act as a backdrop to the Mountain Stash clawed it's way into reality. Once the idea of a cliff had been settled upon there is a wealth of fantasy art and literature around living-in and exploring mountains from which to start drawing ideas. A couple that came quickly to mind were: Rope bridges Waterfalls Caves Falling rocks or barrels Collapsing Ledges Steps in the rock A clifftop lookout Plenty of action and play features in that; but how to squeeze them all onto a 32x16 baseplate and retain the style and ethos of the 80's sets? More importantly how to achieve it all in a brick count that is in keeping with a lego set of the late 80's era! Like it or not it's going to involve BURPs, it's just not possible to get the height and bulk without resorting to BURPs. In my mind I sketched out a general schematic. A ladder front left that could be used to connect to the lefthand rock formation on the Forestmen's Mountain Stash. The ladder leads to a rock ledge that can be bombarded from above with rocks or barrels, a slight homage to Donkey Kong. The rock ledge crosses to the right over a centrally positioned rope bridge that passes infront of a waterfall. I felt that the righthand ledge should be collapsible, our intrepid minifigs would be left clinging to steps cut into the rock face as the ground falls away beneath them. Stepping stones or a plank bridge across the top of the waterfall would lead to the barrel dropping mechanism and on the top right a simple lookout on tall wooden pillars. The cliff-face provides lots of height which creates space behind so if there is a way of turning the space behind into caves then we should try that as well. There is precedent for this sort of forward facing playset, more so in the Adventurers theme in say the Temple Of Anubis, than the Castle theme. Large panels are used to create a fascia with rooms in behind. Rapid River Village or even Volcano Base are inspirations for BURP based rockwork. I struggled with the first designs. Although the play ideas existed from the very beginning translating them into stacks of bricks proved exceptionally tricky. I just couldn't get the BURPs and other sections to line up correctly to give me what my mind desired. This design hasn't suited my particular way of working whereby all the design occurs in LDD whilst I'm travelling and I only comit to building in ABS as a final last step. Intricate rock formations aren't as natural to build in LDD as they are out of a pile of bricks and the mechanics for the collapsing ledge needed some proper brick based experimentation that LDD just can't achieve. Above is the first design in LDD at the point where I abandonned it. The general structure is in place, the waterfall, bridge, cave and tower are all present. The collapsing ledge is just 2studs square, hardly a ledge. The collapsing ledge sounds easy enough but creating a great playable feature is much more complex than a stack of loosely joined bricks that tumble down. The key point is that the ledge itself needs to be solid enough to attach figures to right up until the point where the ledge collapses. That solidity requires something to lock the stacks of bricks into place. My LDD design time came up with two mechanisms that I felt I should try in ABS form before proceeding further with the design. Mechansim 1 involves a see-saw held firm by a tile topped bar. When the bar is pulled out the see-saw drops. Balanced on-top of the end of one of the beams of the see-saw is the stack of bricks that forms the ledge. Three different mechanisms for frimly locating the top of the stack of bricks were developed when the see-saw drops the stack of bricks the locating mechanism is disengaged allowing the stack of bricks to topple forwards. Mechanism 2 involves a stack of bricks being pushed off of a supporting tile by a push-rod formed from a technic axle. Again some form of locating mechanic is needed to stop too much movement at the top of the stack of bridge. With this mechanism a Plate 1x2 with Slide locates into a slot on the back wall limiting the movement of the stack to a single direction. Mechanism 1 will produce the most solid structure but is significantly more complex. Both mechanism allow the ledge to collapse progressively, so that an 8 stud wide stretch of ledge can collapse in 2stud increments allowing the minifigs a chance to escape. With both mechanics another key design criteria is that once collapsed the wall still looks like a cliff just without the ledge. There will always be some degree of compromise but the aim is that it looks like a natural disaster. One evening I finally bite the bullet, I pull out my box of black bricks and build up test versions of the two mechanisms. There are some teething problems with mechansim 1, the pivot point on the seesaws is in the wrong place which stops the stacks from dropping far enough that the locking mechanisms at the top disengage. After shifting the pivot back to allow a greater drop the test piece works nicely. Mechanism 2 works but is nowhere near as smooth as the first mechanism. The stacks have to move a considerable distance before they drop, again adjustments were needed to get the pushrod into the optimum position for operation. From the tests I know that mechanism 1, the 4623 Plate, Modified 1 x 2 with Arm Up into a 3176 Plate, Modified 3 x 2 with Hole, is the most preferable. Back to LDD and a clean start. I build up the collapsing cliff mechansin which neatly comes out at 10 studs wide, the width of a BURP. I spend some time tweaking the stack designs so that they look a little less uniform, one stack even conceals a gem. I want to use a ropebridge across the front of the waterfall but it's fairly obvious very early on that a 10studs worth of BURP, 16studs worth of Bridge and 10studs worth of Collapsing ledge aren't going to fit 32stud baseplate. I try angling the bridge but it still won't suqeeze and the plating assoicated with angling the bridge is creates more problems than it solves. I abandon the idea and revert to a plank and pole bridge that can be rotated to tip minifigs into the river. The lefthand side is made up of stacked BURPs, with simple barrel launchers mounted at the very top. The lookout tower comes across unchanged from the original design. I tried my best to get the steps to the upper level onto the righthand side but the use of the BURP on the righthand side was problematic. This means that there's no zig-zag approach to the launchers which is a great shame. All told the design weights in at 331 bricks with 4 minifigs putting it on a par with 7418 Scorpion Palace which fits neatly into the next pricing bracket up from Forestmen's Mountain Stash. Now that I'm now happy with the design in LDD I start pulling together Bricklink orders. As ever the problem is the availability of parts in Old Dark Grey. I was expecting the 1x5x4 arches to be hard to source as they only ever appeared in some NBA sets; sets which probably weren't great sellers in the UK given that we're a nation of football (soccer for the US readers) not basketball lovers. Indeed, I'm right, I end up sourcing them from Germany and the Czech Republic. The real sticking point was though is the 3176 Plate, Modified 3 x 2 with Hole. They exist; they are available, but there was only ever one, in one set, and that set just happens to be one of the rarest of the SW sets produced. 10123 Cloud City regularly commands hundreds of pounds when sold on eBay. Bizarrely enough a UK Bricklink seller happens to have five of the pieces but they're £6 each, a hundred times more expensive than the black or old grey equivalent. Thankfully I spot the price before I commit to the order and I hesitate; I don't think I can justify those sort of prices for such a small piece even if they are hard to find, especially when they're primarily going to be hidden. I'll have to compromise and use black or old grey. As ever I've ended up using one piece that doesn't exist; Lego have never done a 3754 Brick 1x6x5 in Blue. I'll have to resort to a stack of 1x6 bricks to build up the waterfall. As the Bricklink orders are slowly winding their way towards me from across Europe I take another look at the design in LDD. I think to myself that the back is a little empty I can dress the caves better. The supporting structures to the rear are pulled apart in LDD and rebuilt to allow a trapdoor to be fitted beneath the watchtower with a ladder that leads to a treasure chamber. In the lower cave I add a simple fire-pit with goblets and a saucepan and an extra two Forestmen who are ready to burst out through the waterfall to surprise the attacking Lion soldiers. I'm much happier now that there are play features on the back of the set. The brick-count has climbed, it now stands at 382 bricks, we're close in count to Forestmen's River Fortress. A week later, I'm still waiting for the last Bricklink order to arrive so I use the spare time to write up my design notes, this very page. Whilst complaining that I wasn't able to get the rock-cut steps onto the righthand side of the cliff I realise that I just haven't tried hard enough. I bring the design up in LDD and start on a 4th iteration pulling the waterfall and upper righthand side completely apart. The first thing to be rebuilt is the steps, since they're the key element that I'm trying to reposition, they're added to the righthand side. The righthand BURP goes back in next with the trapdoor and watchtower ontop. For some reason I decided that using a BURP as the back of the waterfall would be a good idea. I humour myself and follow the process through, the waterfall now cascades off the LURP and there is space around the back for steps to the upper level. It all looks very nice, the cascading water is almost MOC like. I also spot a 2stud gap where with the use of a pivot brick a secret door can be introduced. Not only have we fixed one fairly important play feature we've added one more. All the changes have pushed the brickcount right up to 428, that makes this set the Forestmen's equivalent of a Black Falcon's Fortress with it's 430 bricks and 6 minifigs. Am I happy with it? I feel that the BURP might have been a bad idea and whilst I like the cascade falls it's costing 30 something bricks rather that the 5 in the first designs. The LURP also complicates some of the brick-work and plating around the rear which could be significantly simplified if more sensible pieces are used. I manage to save 3 bricks when building it for real because when building in LDD it's not always obvious that you can combine bricks standing side-by-side, eg. two 1x2s standing side-by-side can become a 2x2. It's still not quite enough to get me back to the 400 brick mark. LDD files are available on MOCPages here. Analysis Storyline - For once there's plenty of storyline, both assaulting the mountain from a Lion Knight's perspective but also domestic life living in the mountains from the Forestmen's perspective. Buildability - There's nothing particularly complex, there are no fancy techniques but it's a reasonably lengthy build due to the number of bricks. The hardest part to explain in diagram form would be the assembly of the collapsing ledge. Playability - Lots, in the final design the playable features are: Zig-zag path through the traps Barrel trap Secret passage and Tilting Bridge Collapsing Ledge Trapdoor access Stepping stones and Hidden cave Cave dwellings Watchtower Lots of things to encourage play and combine in a myriad of different ways, as well as both strands of storyline. I expect the assualt storyline will be the most popular but the cave dwelling/mountain living could play a part as well. Consistentcy - It's fits nicely alongside my Forestmen's Mountain Stash, which itself isn't too far removed from the Forestmen's Hideout. The anachronisms are the BURPs which are from the early 90's and part 6091 Brick, Modified 1x2x1 1/3 with Curved Top which is also early 90's. Dark Grey was rare until the 90's but I don't think it looks out of place and I recently discovered that the 1x1x6 columns of the lookout are modern additions to the catalogue (and not available in black!) Shown here alongside Forestmen's Mountain Stash Cost - With a final count of around 430 bricks it's the equivalent of a Black Falcon's Fortress. As ever it's difficult to compare with modern sets because they use a significantly higher number of much smaller pieces rather than the classic sets did. If 7947 Prison Tower Rescue is £45.99 for 365 bricks and 5 minifigs then I'd expect this Forestmen's Clifftop Lookout to be nearer the £50 mark, another interesting comparison point is 7572 Quest Against Time with 506 pieces but costing just £39.99. Conclusion My emotions run high on this set. It always had the potential to be a great set and I think I realised the majority of that potential in it's final incarnation but it's been a painful journey getting to the finished set. It works as a set in that there's plenty of play potential, my biggest concern is that it's a big wall of Dark Grey which doesn't sell itself quite so well. Some of the play features are a little fiddly, I'm sure if this went up for design review I'd be told to take some of the features out and make the remaining features easier to access and play with. Certainly if I went for a 5th revision I'd try to open the back out further so that little big hands can get in to play with minifigs, that accessibility is why so many of the "cave" sets from LoTR just suggest a cave or cellar and concentrate on the items within. Given that Forestmen's Mountain Stash is close in size to 6067 Guarded Inn and this Forestmen's Clifftop Lookout is close to 6074 Black Falcon's Fortress perhaps my next move in fleshing out my mountain retreats should be a proper 700piece set that's the equivalent of 6080 King's Castle, or maybe I should do the sensible thing and go the other way towards a 100 brick set like 6041 Armor Shop.

They're all desgined in LDD and the files are available on MOCpages if you want to have a go at building them yourself. Since they're designed in the 80's style they are reasonably buildable - I make no guarantees that LDD in it's wisdom won't decide to start it's instructions from the top-down rather than the bottom-up like sensible person would! Most of the bricks are readily available, there are one or two Dark Grey bricks that are slightly rarer and occasionally Red/Brown ends up being substituted for old Brown.

Right SirBlake, here you are: The Bakehouse joined jammed in with all of my other creations. Not quite what you were expecting? Alright, I'll set up a little scene... From left to right: Market By The Wall - mostly out of shot, although the figures populate the square 6061 Siege Tower - just the stretch of atriculated wall, there's no besieging going on today The Bakehouse The Goldsmith - not yet posted, but I will do shortly The Stables tucked in at the back Coaching Inn with the large gates allowing access to the yard Guildhall with it's arcade and meeting room above To be honest what it's really missing is an orange backdrop, I've been toying with the idea of picking up the right shade of paper...

Finally MOCPages is allowing uploads again... The simple oven with it's door open and closed, flatbreads on the bench at the back of the shop. Apologies for the photo qualitiy it wasn't the easiest of spaces to get light and camera into.

Click on the image to head to the MOCPage where there are more shots from various angles. My latest MOC's such as the Watermill and Bakehouse aren't in the above picture, and there are one or two in there that I've never posted, namely the slightly dodgy looking piece of wall (it collapses) at the very front, which has never been photographed because I've not built up the battering ram that should accompany in.

MOCpages is playing up and not showing my uploaded photo's, once it starts behaving I'll add photo's of the oven. To complete the alleyway I have an adjacent building, a silversmith, drawn up in LDD but it'll take me a few weeks to turn it into ABS, more if I need to send out to Bricklink for parts. At that point between the Coaching Inn, Guildhall, Bakehouse and Market by the Wall I've got a fairly substatial town square with one or two more little set ideas to further add ambiance. I'll do a full photoshoot then. You'll be pleased to know that I have "Forestmen's Clifftop Lookout" sitting in ABS form on my desk awaiting photography. It turned into an exercise of just how many play features can be squeezed onto a single 16x32 baseboard... I'll try to post it next week.

The Bakehouse is the 18th in a series of MOC's intended to recreate the ambiance of the 80's. Design Inspiration comes from the strangest of places. I'd been trying to build a prison complex around some recent designs for a Traitors Gate (which I still need to photograph and post) and it's corresponding Gaol and I kept finding myself wanting a small stretch of castle wall with a door in it. Anyone that's ever explored an old medieval city will know that there are always doors at the end of little passages and strange little alleyways squeezed between buildings. The Bakehouse grew from that want of a door at the end of an alley. Coincidentally I'd just built up 3739 Blacksmith Shop so I was already in the mindset for creating a civilian building, although I wanted to keep to a Lego group brick budget of around 300 bricks rather than the 600 that Daniel Siskind used for 3739 Blacksmith Shop. The starting point was the gateway and two panels of adjacent wall. For once I decided to use a square door in a similar manner to 6062 Battering Ram rather than the more usual pair of curved doors. A long green plate forward of that gave me the alleyway even if it only has one of the adjacent buildings needed to make an alleyway. A hinged front facade completes the floor-plan, I opt for a doorway down the alleyway side and a large opening shutter on the front, so I'm very definitely creating a shop, I just don't know what sort of shop yet. A fireplace goes onto the far wall and I start building up the chimney using 3x3 Facet bricks and tall 2x2x3 slopes. The upper story is half timbered with shuttered windows across the front, an attic garret under sloped roof. A smattering of simple furniture. The fireplace is dominant so I decide to make it a baker and decorate it accordingly with round 2x2 tiles to represent flat loaves. I put the design to one side for a couple of days. When I returned I felt that the fireplace didn't adequately convey that the building is supposed to be a bakery, what it needed was an oven rather than an open fireplace. I started pulling the existing fireplace apart in LDD, the aperture to the fireplace is lifted by a brick and a fold down oven door is provided for the opening. The original neon orange feather flames no longer fit so have to go, but the fold down door definitely makes it feel like an oven. In many respects I'm happier with the design but it's going to cost a little more on BrickLink to pick up the needed parts. Minifigs, a Baker, his wife, a boy and a guard on the wall with the usual set of accompanying tools, weaponry and barrels. Build instructions can be found here. Analysis Story: Not much. It's just part of the wider medieval life. This is always a problem with the domestic buildings there's no conflict to drive a story unless the daily grind of medieval life itself is the story. Playability: The front opens to place the minifigs inside and play in the interior but the more I think about it the more I realise that it either needs to be classed as a Display set or a Doll's House style playset rather than an Action style playset. Build-ability: Nothing complex. Some simple SNOT in the interior but the rest is 80's style brick on brick building. Cost: The brick count is just shy of 300 bricks which is high for an 80's domestic set. 6067 Guarded Inn comes in at 260 bricks, 6074 Black Flacon's Fortresshas 360 bricks. At 18 bricks tall it's looks a substantial set so it's size justifies the brickcount, but it doesn't have the width to compare with the fortresses. Minifig count seems appropriate for the size of set. Consistency: There's nothing in there that wouldn't be unfamiliar to a young builder from the late 80's. My concern with the consistency is am I stepping beyond the design parameters into a more modern building style, for which it's worth taking a slight digression. 3739 Blacksmith Shop really is an interesting set partly because it wasn't designed in-house by Lego. Firstly it's brick, not panel, built. Let's be honest, panels allow bulk and size for minimal cost, those classic castles couldn't be the size they were for the price they were if they'd been entirely brick built. Because the designer of 3739 is an AFOL he's not constrained to the Lego design strictures and the walls are brick. The interior decoration is detailed, fireplaces, beds, tables, stairs, coloured floors and lots of little utensils and props, again a departure from the utilitarian interiors of the late 80's. This style of building won't be seen again until the next millenium with Jamie Beard's designs for the Fantasy Era castle range where the buildings are primarily brick on brick rather than panel, a trend that continues through in LOTR. Although it looks like the 2013 castle line with have a simpler build structure to attract younger members to the genre. Conclusion I like this design very much, I think it will add a lot to the interior of my medieval town, but I do have issues with it. As mentioned previously it's borderline on what a Lego set of that era would be. To modern eyes, used to 10193 Medieval Market Village, it may look archaic but the brick-on-brick building and interiors aren't necessarily in keeping with the simplicity of the 80's playsets. The Series

It kinda makes sense from a sales standpoint, these castle sets are aiming at the younger market who (in general) need simpler builds, by doing so they're not cannibalising the market for the detailed sets which is currently represented admirably by LoTR. Of course as MOC'ers the EB community wants more detail (and more parts) but that's not who Lego is selling or marketing to with this line.

As SirBlake says, I think the case is that "different people collect in different ways", here on Eurobricks fan community the tendency is towards Army Building or collection of specific parts to create MOC's. Out there in the toy-shops the predominant strand is kids and parents who collect/purchase in a different way. The trick is not to extrapolate our (as in the EB Historic Forums Fan community) personal wants and desires onto the rest of the world because everyone else out there is different. Lego does what the market wants and the market is much, much bigger than the small specialised fan-dom corner that we exist in.

The license might also preclude them from making all-figure packs. If I remember correctly the Star Wars license that Lego holds is for construction toys not figures, therefore they can never produce a pure army-builder pack for Star Wars because that would be the figures license and someone else holds that, there must always be a tree or vehicle or building with it. The same might well be true for the LoTR license. Other companies have other LoTR licenses, Game Workshop presumably holds one for wargaming which may (or may not) have exclusivity clauses attached to it that stop other licensees producing battlepacks. It's also worth pointing out the Army-Building is a specialised form of collecting and that market is nowhere near as big as the main kids (or their parents) in toy-shops market which is Lego's core business and which it tailors it's strategy to regardless of what the xFOL fan-base thinks.

Whoah there fella, that's crazy talk!

Very nice. Definitely brings back memories, I've been meaning to try to replicate the old tan ground and orange sky in my own 80's reconstructions for a while but haven't quite got around to purchasing the requisite pieces of card. My own suspicions are that the photo team at Lego used backlit cloths rather than card as evidenced by the way the haziness of the sun. Raiding the ideas book is alway fun, I'd been eying up that little yellow building for recreation myself.

I wouldn't say that I've changed my mind on themes or factions, but I have changed my mind on various build techniques. Principally I've come to appreciate raised baseplates and BURPs, for minimal ABS they are able to give a castle height and body that would take hundreds of bricks and tens of additional dollars. Strangely enough I was leafing through the instructions for 8877 Vladek's Dark Fortress the other night and whilst the jelly bean knights are still horrendous I have to say that it is one of the best castle builds available. Unlike the original 6080 King's Castle and 6074 Black Falcon's Fortress, both personal favourites, it's got considerable interior detail with snakepits and fires. Those BURPs and sloping panels whilst to many are considered dumb building, give the castle more substance than it could possibly hope to achieve through brick built means. Contrast it with the more modern brick built sets and you don't get anything with as much presence. My intrest in raised baseplates has reached the point where I've just picked up a 6776 Ogle Command Center purely to see what I can do with the baseplate.

Whilst the buildings on Old London Bridge varied quite considerably over the 700 years it was in existance the majority of the arches remained the same (one or two did fall down and were replaced hence the nursery rhyme "London Bridge is falling down"). In general the arches varied between 20 and 30ft (appox. 6 to 9m) the entire bridge itself being around 900ft (appox. 275m) in length. The arches need to be 31ft (9.3m) above low water at neap tides, bearing in mind that the Thames is a tidal river and rises and falls around 23ft (7m) at London Bridge. Indeed the old piers used to restrict the river so much that there could be as much as an 8ft (2.4m) drop between the upriver and downriver sides of the bridge which meant that "shooting the bridge" (passing between the piers of the arches) was fraught with danger and there were regular fatalities. The seminal reference tome is Old London Bridge, Gordon Home, published by John Lane The Bodley Head, 1931, although Old London Bridge, Patricia Pierce is a more recent work and more likely to be found on Amazon or similar bookstores. Living in London I did once consider doing a full Minifig scale MOC of Old London Bridge but abandoned the project when I realised that it would be at least 25 baseplates long or 20ft (6m) real world length. Maybe one day when I have a bigger room...

The Watermill is the 16th in a series of MOC's intended to recreate the ambiance of the 80's. Design Sometimes you're really straining; sometimes it just flows right out. This was definitely a case of the latter. I'd been typing up The Watermill and listing out the sets that might sit alongside it and out of the blue I wrote down Latrine. Sometimes the urge cannot be ignored, it's going to come out whatever you do, so I grabbed a sheet of paper and let it pour out. As befits the smallest room in the castle it would be a small set, certainly no more than 50 bricks, roughly in line with 6035 Castle Guard. My starting point was a blue 6x6 plate to represent the stream or moat and a green 2x6 plate. A short stretch of wall would straddle the join between the two, technic bricks on either side provide the clipping points to allow attachment to the rest of the wall. It's a task best tackled from above. A large black slope would form the roof of a small overhanging room with an open floor. I chose 1x2x3 panels to form the walls since these would allow room for minifig arms without having to push out the width of the building by an extra 2 studs. Shutters form the outer wall, airflow could be important. The room itself is supported on some inverted slopes with a step or two to climb up onto this most important perch. To the front an arch and a pair of curved castle doors provide privacy. Job done! Later that day I get the chance to convert from paper I find two sticking points. The connection of the 6x6 plate is somewhat flismy being attached by just a single row of studs. A quick redesign to add some buttressing to the wall means that the buttress clip onto the second row of studs on the plate. Significantly better than before, it's no longer just hanging in there. I try to stick an LDD minifig onto my glorious throne, his head hits the roof. My original intention had been to use a Slope 33 4x3, by changing this to Slope 45 3 x 4 Double / 33 which has a cut-out on the underside the minifig can finally take their throne. A bit of a squeeze but it came out right in the end! Analysis Storyline - Minifig's going about their daily business. I can see this is sort of storyline appealing to small boys in particular, possibly more so than grinding corn. Buildability - Nothing complex, just laying down a couple of bricks. Playability - It does what it has to do. Consistentcy - Good consistency, nice and solid. Here it's shown up against my Watermill. Cost - At 46 bricks it's in the same realm as 6035 Castle Guard, there are more physical bricks but that makes up for the lack of horse and second minifg. In modern terms it would probably be around the £10 mark, slightly more than the penny one would like to spend. Conclusion Would Lego create a toilet? Well, Friends have one at their 3185 Summer Riding School, so I don't see why we can't have one in a castle. Indeed, they are often key features of castles, regulary featuring in tales of daring-do, with people escaping through them so there's historical precedent. Would it sell? Well little Johnny would probably love a toilet, although I suspect his mother might baulk at paying for such an uncouth accoutrement to the castle and instead choose something more wholesome like a jousting tournament. The Series

If they're going to re-release previous designs there's the question of what to do about grey vs bley? As a classic 80's castle fan the re-releases are interesting but if they're in bley then they won't match my old-grey. Another interesting question (already posed by Deathleech) is which 5 designs from the castle range would you pick? One additional criteria is that you'd want the price spectrum, it can't be a list of the big castles it has to be a sensible mix. For a spread of sizes and coverage of the classic castle factions my votes would be: 6012 Siege Cart 6060 Knight's Challenge 6070 Forestmen's Crossing 6086 Black Knight's Castle Europa would be nice, but unlikely as I can't see it selling so well beyond the xFOL community. Put your own desires for the theme aside and ask yourself what would little Johnny's mum do? Ninjas and snakes or men in funny wigs? Same argument goes for the Greeco/Roman theme. In either case the best hope is that Disney release a family movie set in the 18th century or ancient Rome and that it gets chosen as that years Disney license.

One of the problems that I'd run up against was that the wall around the town evenutally gets too big. Adding more and more wall segments just creates more and more space inside and although I've got built up a handfull of free standing buildings to fill the interior it's nowhere near enough. The following is my 80's medieval town as of about a month ago, ie. missing the Watermill. The convex corners of the 6081 King's Mountain Fortress and my Gatehouse help by bringing the outer wall back in but I still wantted to do more. Many medieval cities were divided into Wards with walls separating each ward. Strangely enough my home town of London was never separated into sections because it reused the Roman walls from a thousand years earlier, but other towns such as Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber became divided into wards as the town grew and enclosed subsequent plots of land. Of my creations the The Apiary and the Watermill are the only two that provide perpendicular attachment points at the moment. I do have a "Traitors Gate" watergate all built up and ready to photograph, it provides the opposing perpendicular attachment point for the opposite end of the stream that the Watermill has started but there's a Washhouse, a small Bridged Gate and (my personal favourite) the Latrine to go before the stream is complete.

The Watermill is the 15th in a series of MOC's intended to recreate the ambiance of the 80's. Design The Mill came out of the desire for a Watergate in the town wall, mostly to provide something that would fit alongside The Wharf and extend the waterfront. I'd already had a couple of watergate designs on the drawing-board, playing with different mechanisms for creating a grate over a low opening in the wall as well as decorating the wall to try and avoid the grey slab problem so I wasn't overly worried about the wall aspect of the build therefore I could turn my attention to the mill buidling itself. With the mill building I knew that I wantted a roof that curved over, ie. steep sides at the bottom getting gradually shallower until they reach the peak. For playability purposes I wantted to follow the design paradigm set by 6067 Guarded Inn with an open back and a hinged side/front. I decided to stick with the brick palette used by the Guarded Inn and use the red timber panels, brick budget would also be commensurate at around 260 bricks. The first technical challenge was how to build a waterwheel out of bricks available in the late 80's. 6 hole technic wheel with connectors? pairs of 3 way technic thingys with brackets? Existing part, eg. Fabuland? Clips onto pirate part; modified plate with octagonal handles The easiest of the above options to discount was the existing part; I'd hoped that there might be a Fabuland part that resembled a waterwheel but couldn't find anything in the catalog. The technic wheel was discounted next, the holes are too close together to add plates between them. That left the techinc parts and the pirate parts. Having used the technic parts as part of the man-wheel for The Wharf I chose to investigate the octagonal part. By using a modified 1x1 plate w/ vertical clip I could attach larger 2x3 plates and create an 8 bladed waterwheel. Stick a technic shaft through the middle and it's job done. With mill building I started at the top, working downwards to build the roof. Primarily it was a case of matching my desired curve to the width of the building which I assumed would be two 4444 panels or 10 bricks wide. With a rough plan for the roof in mind it was time to start working from the bottom up. First to go in were the ground floor panels, stone panels adjacent to the waterwheel, red half-timbered panels on the front. The later half-timbered panel would be part of a hinged wall that allowed access to the interior so the hinges had to be sited, finally an arch to support the upper layers on the open, accessible side. Fixing the roof to the lower floor turned out to be more complex than expected, not from a construction perspective but from trying to fit doors to the front and rear gables. I started out trying to fit square 4x6 doors, but they just weren't sitting right. My next attempt utilised pairs of 3x6 Curved Doors on both the front and rear gables. These were accomodated by raising the roof a little higher on some low walls although the low walls were eventually removed in favour of having the doors on the outside of the roof rather than under a gable. The mill itself backs onto a fairly standard piece of town wall, 4444 panels with inverted black slopes on the outside supporting a walkway and parapet. On the wheel side the 4444 panels were spaced two studs apart to allow a technic shaft to pass through into the interior. A techic crown gear and associated pinion allowed the water wheel to drive a turntable that represents the millstones. A couple of slopes at the base of the wall help hold together the plates that for the base of the model. The watergate went in next, aerials into a 1x6x2 arch with a craftily placed piece of foliage to disguise it slightly and add a bit of colour differentiation. To add a bit of height differentiation a tower, loosely copied from 6062 Battering Ram, was added on the opposite side of the mill stream. Model complete... I'd always felt that the far side of the stream felt a bit barren. During the initial design phase I'd tried adding both steps and a platform but they didn't sit particulary well with the model. After several months I finally got around to assembling my 80's style town in it's entirety and it was during this process that I realised the number of opportunities for creating interior walls running perpendicular to the main wall were fairly limited. This set me thinking about whether The Mill could become one of the opportunities for creating a perpendicular wall. Duly a section of wall terminating in the usual technic brick and pin connection was added on the far side of the mill stream from the mill building, the parapet overhanging the stream. This later point being important since I could already see in my mind opportunties for sections of wall with a stream running infront of it. A simple bridge and gate being the most obvious but I also had visions of wash-house and maybe even a latrine. Whilst I intend to use these sections internally they could easily be used in the context of a moat against the external wall and so form another great way of extending the town. Finally the design is settled and I've got a couple more ideas stacked on the corner of the drawing board ready for a rainy afternoon. The Minifigs added are the miller and his wife, plus two soldiers maning the wall and tower. The usual props, swords, spears and bows for the soldiers, barrels for the miller. I have nothing to represent sacks of grain or flour, the options are limited to either 1x1 bricks or 1x1 round bricks, there's nothing else available from the 80's bricks. Colour choice is similarly limited, white or yellow being the obvious. The LDD file is available here. Analysis Story - None, it's another piece of Medieval life. Buildability - Nothing complex, the waterwheel is a little fiddly, everything else is brick on brick. Playability - Accessing the upper floor of the mill is a little tricky, opening the wall is easier than squeezing fingers the doors. The lower floor is much easier to access with the open back and the opening side wall. Turning the waterwheel turns the millstones so that the milling process can be acted out. The two sentries provide defence and there's plenty of walls, wheels and roofs for them to leap around if they do engage in battle, plus the added indignity of a river to fall into! Cost - At 270 bricks it's slightly over the target that I'd set myself but fairly close. Ideally I'd spend another 10-15 bricks on detail in the mill and additional utensils for the minifigs. Consistency - The open steps are an anachronism but don't look out of place, the octagonal plates forming the wheel were also introduced later than our 80's time-period but again the colouring and usage is such that they don't look out of place. The simple build techniques and panel construction also contribute to the 80's feel. Shown here lined up against my Beggars steps and the classic 6067 Guarded Inn. There's also the first of the buildings that will extend the river and which will be the subject of the next posting. Looking at it with fresh eyes after a couple of days what the Watermill lacks is that little bit of yellow the Guarded Inn has that just lifts the design, the brown doors don't provide enough colour variation to make it stand out. The Guarded Inn doesn't have much, just the shutters and roof windows but that's all it takes from the accent colour. Conclusion It's another nice slice of medieval life and the stream running through the town opens up a whole host of new possibilities that I can explore over the next few weeks and months. The Series

The flat roofs on the winter keep look odd, change the flat roof for a slope down the opposing side. If you extend all of the roof out by a stud in every direction so that it overhangs this will improve the look and also hide the top edges of your vertical timbers. Otherwise a some very nice little castles. The rockwork and moat are particularly nice.

Temple Of Mt Evereset retailed for £25 / $30 at the time of it's release so if it were real it would retail around the same sort of price. With inflation etc... it would probably be a $40 if it were produced today my logic being that it's somewhere between Outpost Attack and Prison Tower Rescue in size.