The Cobra

It all probably happened in cold late autumn days. A mighty king and his brave horsemen. A master of evil and his sneak henchman. All of them marched in the mist to reach a blacksmith, the one that could forge a shield so strong that no weapon could possibly harm the one who holds it. Prepare to enter Mistlands tower! Set data: 8823: Mistlands tower Year: 2006 Theme: Knight's Kingdom II Subtheme: N/A Pieces: 431 (including extras) Price: 50 USD / EUR / UKP Building time: about 90 minutes MISB on review: No Notes: extra pieces include a Steven Spielberg head! More info: Brickset - Peeron Box / Instructions front (stock photo): two notes. 1) Anti-violent policy? What about that falling henchman? 2) The front walls and gates are detached from where they should lie; quite odd. Box back (stock photo): an alternate model, some of "secrets" of this set, some more KKII kits and a classic in latest years' Castle set: bottom left corner shot of weapons and shields Random instructions page: building a trap with Technic and Bionicle pieces. Pieces inventory: first half of the last of the three pages. Full inventory: click on thumbnails. Minifigs: 1) King Jayko. Armor and sword, crown and shield. Minifigs: 2) The good soldier. His shield is an exclusive to this set and the 8822 Gargoyle bridge. Minifigs: 3) the Blacksmith. Both this shield and the King's are exclusives to this set. Minifigs: 4) The evil henchman. Featuring another semi-exclusive shield and an odd mace (skellies' maces are much cooler!) Minifigs: 5) Lord Vladek. As cool as ever. Minifigs: all 5 of them. With 4 different armors, 4 different rare shields, 2 capes. That's an assortment! The catapult: snakes on flags are stickers. No "fireball" but a steel (?) blade! The catapult: top view. It must be a hard life for the henchman, since this thing only has two wheels, and I don't think the boss is gonna dirty his hands! The catapult: front view. Push the Technic beam to fire! The catapult: bottom view. Ground floor: left-front corner view. A door on the left side, some jail bars (?) and a defense catapult ready to shoot fire rocks! Ground floor: right-front corner view. Plenty of room here. Oh, and a rat! Ground floor: rear view. If that's prison, it's a minimum security one! Ground floor: behind close doors... Ground floor: ...something's waiting for you! Ground floor: catapult close-up. Ground floor: top view. Ground floor: lift the bars for a quicker prison escape! Walls and gates: side view from the outside. The other wall is a mirror image to this one. Walls and gates: front corner view, featuring some sticker bricks. Walls and gates: a view from the inside. Realistic and 3D! Walls and gates: they add a modular touch thanks to the technic pins. Those crossing teeth are definitely a plus! First floor: look on the left, maybe there's something worst than sharing a prison cell with a rat. First floor: the anvil and the furnace. First floor: a view from the top shows the trap ready to strike. First floor: is that hanged skeleton a way to remind the Blacksmith of what could be his fate? First floor: view from the rear. First floor: did the trap make another victim? First floor: the barrel and the weapons. Second floor: a stickered BUWP (Big Ugly Wall Piece?). The building is now going vertical. Second floor: someone likes the open air more than a ground cell. Second floor: the Tower protects a treasure too. Second floor: the treasure consists of two sets of golden coins. Third floor: up we go. A three-sided panel wall and two columns, plus some warning crossbows. Third floor: this time, there's nothing inside. Third floor: side view. Top floor: two flaming dragon heads guard a Light hemisphere. Top floor: both the two dragon heads and the hemisphere are hinged. Top floor: on the rear, some steps will lead the brave to the light. Building the tower: adding the front walls and gates Building the tower: adding furnace floor Building the tower: adding the treasure floor Building the tower: adding crossbow floor Building the tower: adding the Hemisphere of Light More building views: click on thumbnails. Behold the tower: building is complete Review: Back in 1997, Lego went vertical with 6097: Night Lord's Castle. A decade later, they did it again, and to me the second coming was much better. This has been a challenging review, being the set so tall and usually lying in a closed space. The opening pic is the tower's shadow! That light resembling the sun is actually a bulb light against a white wooden library. Mist effect self-came by shooting without a flash. This set is full of weapons, both in minifigs hands and in some tower floors. That's a must-have for a large castle set. The only lame weapon is that sort of mace made of a stick and a Technic piece. Lord Vladek looks as bada** as he could be, and his' and the king's presence tell you how important this place is for the destiny of KKII! All 5 torsos are plain, but four figs wear armour and the blacksmith has a long ZZtop-like beard, tso there was no need for printing. The building itself: as a tower, it's tall and thin, with slightly different pieces and play options at each stage. There are some walls and rock pieces, and a door leading to the prison cell. Some people don't like those prebuilt BURPs or MURPs, while I think it wasn't a bad choice to use them (and if I was into MOCing I'd like them even more). With a RRP of 50$, you can compare this set to 7093 Skeleton Tower, which has a lower piece count but includes a big dragon (and a a female princess). I wuold pick Mistlands tower anytime. If you have the chance, the money, and a place to put it, add 8823 to your wish-list, maybe along with 8813 Battle at the pass. Ratings: Colour scheme: 4.5/5. We have some dark green (baseplates and the lower part of the panels, which have some icy white on top), two tones of gray (the "rocks" the tower is built of), some black (mostly baseplates) and some brown (for "wood" pieces like the big doors). Floors: 4/5. The fourth floor is only there to add some height, while on every other stage you have some accessories and plenty of space for minifigs and game play. Minifigs: 4.5/5. I think having 5 figs (+1 skeleton) in this set is ok, we have a balance between the good and the bad and there's a good choice of armors, shields and other weapons. Only one horse included, two would have obviously been better. Pieces also include a "standing" rat and a spider (with web) Overall design: 4.5/5. This is something original and daring, you can't obviously have too many sets so thin and tall. Pieces: 4.5/5. 431 vs. 50 bucks price, so we're under the 10/1 ratio. But the choice is good and I don't think there's so much missing. Rare pieces: two of the shields are exclusive, two are only available in one other set. The hemisphere in Chrome blue is another exclusive (of course there are lots of other colours elsewhere) Overall rating: 4,5 / 5. The only con is in the set design; being the tower so tall, a few people could overlook it because they can't find a place to store it. The last words: I highly recommend this set, and if you can find it for half price (see bonus story) I higherly recommend it! Of course, KKII had some other interesting large sets, including 8877 Vladek's dark fortress and 8813 Battle at the pass. But if you look for something different, Mistlands tower could be it. Bonus story: back in October 2007, a local shopping mall had a few medium/large sets for sale (50% off): ExoForce Striking Venom, and KKII Gargoyle bridge and Mistlands tower. I thought this set was a steal at 25 Euros. BUT: where could I have put this thing once I built it? That's when I "officially" decided I needed a new bookshelf, with glass shutters. In late December I custom-designed it and by mid-February it was there. See my Lego collection page for some shots.

I own it and I dig it. I only rated it 4/5 brcause of a major flaw: the only way to put pilots in the cockpit is to unbuild half of the model! Thanks for the review.

Going back to where it all started... Brickshop page. My favourite monster is the blue one, so I'll end up buying the 10 Euro set.

A bit expensive at 20 bucks. Good choice of diamonds, cash and gold bars, and the locking system is great! I'd say, above average.

Let's see. Creator: another good year, yet I haven't bought anything. But I'll likely buy one or two of those Mini sets. City: Coast guard is good; terrific colour scheme, good sets. Nice to have Post back (what about a post office?) and cargo. Nad I think blue fits great on Police sets. Castle: exit skellies, enter trolls. Not a bad trade-off. Dwarves are good too. Exo-Force: great. Too bad they're gone. Agents: I'm not so impressed. I think Alpha team was better. Indiana Jones: good, and it's here to stay. Star wars: I'm really not a SW fan, I liked & bought the Imperial dropship and that's it. Racers: Tiny turbos look great with Glow_in_the_dark pieces. TT Ferrari sets look lame. Speed racer: they're nice, and they brought me waaaaaaaaaaaaay back to the anime. But the movie flopped so we'll probably not to see any more of them. Technic: good, as always. Indeed, at 34 I bought my first technic set ever! Mars Mission: better than 2007, too bad they weren't to be sold in Italy! Everything else: I'm not interested in them.

Not perfect, but very close to. I hope the new Space line gets rid of c**p like jellies and stomping things and gets closer to those cool old sets. Thanks for the review.

I think that having a set available as LE is better than not having it available at all. Look on the bright side: the Internet can bring you most everything you want, even LE or Promo sets that were meant to be given to someone living some thousand miles from you!

October + November btw, it's a collage, that's why 7743 and 7702 boxes look so odd!

Video <- This one is from an eighties movie, "Da grande" (it means: big, grown up). It's about an eight-year older who suddendly grows up, and his body looks like he's 40 (Renato Pozzetto). Still, he thinks like the child he is. After the old woman says "this money is not enough to buy this Lego", while crying he says: "This morning I turned 8 and I can't have Lego..." I know, the whole thing sounds a lot like "Big" with Tom Hanks, but the Italian movie came out one year earlier.

Oops, my bad. Have you tried removing the seats and put a slope instead? Something like the 6835. But I fear you'll have to get rid of the steering wheel.

Maybe you'll like this topic (minifig-sized cool convertible).

Ok, I'm in too. Thanks.

Google-translating this page. --------------------------------------------------------------- To prevent our planet damaged by a strange, restless rumble begins a courageous team of miners to a long journey deep into the subsoil. Here they meet creatures in the rocky soil and dig the earth's crust undermine fanatical in their hunt for a certain type of crystal. Once they have tasted of the crystals have to change this earthly creatures in samples that can not stop digging, because they have more and more crystals ... The series, consisting of 6 different sets, is available from December 15, 2008 BRICK shop in Holland. The series consists Miner Power in the first instance from 6 different sets: 8956 Stone Runner 8957 Mining Machine 8958 Granite Kraker 8959 Claw Hunt 8960 Thursday Drilling 8961 Crystal Veger Special offer: The Complete Collection 2008 for Power Mineraria € 99.95 including sending FREE! Caution! Available from December 15, 2008! ---------------------------------------------- Thursday drilling? Now that's a set name!

Page 14: LEGO® Santa Fe Super Chief Train - #A0001! Opening Bid: USD 50.00 Winning Bid: USD 2137.00 Auction Ended: 12, Apr 2002

My first Academic review was 3055. Three more will follow after my graduation (unless those 3 sets will be heavily reviewed by some other forum fellow; and, I'm planning to post my 9th Academic review within the end of the year.)

And it will probably be my first 2009 set. (that's partly beacuse of different lines coming out in different months). I was shocked when I saw the tiny turbos version of this set, and I feared 8168 had been dropped. I'm happy that's not the case.

ITALY again. IperCoop has some offers like most other Italian malls, + 15% off on Lego for card subscribers only! Il Gigante has some of the best offers so far. AGENTS 8635 Mission 6 Mobile command center = 48,68 (90) CASTLE 7048 Troll Warship = 48,90 (70) CITY 7744 Police HQ = 58,90 (90) 7945 Fire station = 38,90 (60) 7738 Coast guard Helicopter = 23,90 (35) 7726 Coast guard Truck with speed boat = 17,90 (25) 7723 Police plane = 17,90 (25) My Local Il Gigante has a few more offers: 7415 Aeronomad = 12 (20, but they used to sell it for 25!) Police superack = 45 (mobile command center, Prisoner transport w/blue stickers, motorbike w/black stickers) Town superpack = 25 (ambulance, fire pick-up, police helicopter)

The newest Impulse sets (5618~5621) are still to be sighted in Italian shops.

@5150 Lego: I'm not saying those sets are bad, I'm saying that I'm happy there's more than Police, Fire, Rescue and Construction. Let's talk about availability. After the Pirates invasion on the eBay, here's a city set too: 4WD w/Horse trailer (oh please, Limited edition on a 20 bucks set?)

Today I built this set, so here are my thoughts. I can't help comparing it to the "Army of Vikings with heavy artillery wagon". That's not only an impressing name, but an impressing set too. I bought the Army... for 17 Euros (RRP = 30) and this Troll assault wagon for 15 (RRP = 20). The pros in the Troll wagon are: the giant troll (who wouldn't want to own at least one of them?), the small troll (being my first one... where are those new impulse sets?), the fact you can lower the spears and the flag (that helps when your built sets lie in a closed space) and the small blu Technic piece at the end of the magazine, the idea of using the chicken leg with the giant troll as one would use a carrot with a donkey and those creepy Bionicle spines. The cons: Only 3 Crownies weapons (and they need a small cart to carry them!), only one small troll, a not so big piece count (161) and the fact that the whole thing is a rip-off of something older, bigger and better. That's why I rated it "Average".

That's the saddest minifig face ever! I dig this set, and surely am going to buy it next May when it's supposed to hit the (Italian) shops. Ithink this sets deserves 5/5.

These set names surely sound more interesting than the same old Constructins set that come out again and again.

I think that Alpha Team was better than Agents; Let's wait and see what happens next year. Thanks for the info!

It seems like some actually owns them. See 5372 and 5373.

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