DaleDVM

Thank you for your great work on the history of LEGO castle! I liked the Dragon Masters as a faction alot. I loved the new printed capes and the printed cloth flags. This made their army really stand out for me. I didn't like most of the sets nearly as much. I had been collecting castle for quite a while already when these came out. In comparison to classic castle sets the builds seemed <insert that tiresome argument>. The structures were undefendable and fanciful IMHO. The dragon head that dropped rocks was particularly large and silly to me. The dragon defender was disastrous. I found the dragon wagon as kind of flimsy and easily escapable. However, Majistos workshop and some of the tiny sets were bright points for me. I did not find that the Dragon Knights were the beginning of the end. After 1994 the Royal Knights and Dark Forest sets were nicely done and recieved well in the LEGO castle community. However, I think the Dragon Knights were the first example of the same flawed set designs that followed in 1998 with the Fright Knights and later with KK2. Since they had some similar flaws to those later unpopular themes, some collectors label the dragon masters as the beginning of the end.

That is the Troll Mountain Fortress.

Luckily for me fives. I have a job that pays me pretty well. I will wait until a LEGO convention to buy the sets as well so 30% off will help. I kind of look at LEGO as my secondary retirement account. Or atleast that is the excuse I use! I mainly collect castle sets. There isn't a castle set I own that isn't worth more now than when I bought it. I think the castle theme seems to be more collectable than many others. 200 uruk-hai is a moderate sized army for me and will likely seem like a tiny force when compared to my other 5,000 castle figures.

This makes me smile. I went through the same thing back in 2007. The Fantasy Era Castle line brought me out of my dark age with a vengeance. When I came out of my dark age I bought every castle set I had missed out on. Luckily for me I had already collected just about everything up until 1998. Strange enough I was able to get all of the Knights Kingdom and Viking sets for cheaper than their original prices. Those sets hadn't sold very well and were still on the primary market well after LEGO stopped making them. The old sets and multiple copies of the Fantasy Era sets set me back $15,000 in that first year. I feel your pain financially. The good news is all of those old sets have just appreciated since then. I wish you the best of luck picking up the rest of your desired sets. Just about every castle has some redeaming qualities and having all of them is like a time machine through LEGO history. It is so fun to build them all in sequence of their release. Welcome to the History forum. It is great to have another castle collector here at Eurobricks!

I have just about all of those old 80's and 90's posters. They are all tucked away in ziploc bags. I haven't had them out in over a decade though. Nice to see some of them again!

Thanks Whitefang as always for all the work you do here at EB. I voted for the Roman, like so many others, because... its a Roman for goodness sake! I note the historic/fantasy army builder figs minotaur, celtic warrior, and roman make up over 50% of all votes cast. Hmm... I wonder which figs are going to cost $10 on the secondary market? This series is going to break the bank for me. I wonder if only 3 of each of those figs will be in a case? It will make it hard to collect large numbers of them.

So sick and delicious at the same time. I also love the lighting effect!

I looked back 5 pages but could do no more. Does anyone know the distribution of figures in the case yet?

I don't think the thread needs to be closed. Some people are still just learning that the Kingdoms sets are now unavailable. I do agree that everyone should take a step back and relax. This is a fun hobby about toys. There is a lot of LEGO out there to buy and we will all be OK in the end. Another castle line will come along soon and perhaps we might even get a couple of Kingdoms exclusives in the meantime. The run for LOTR will not be as long as some say and longer than others. It is not something to fight about. I have some reservations about the LOTR theme. In particular I have 5000 yellow castle figs that won't fit in well with the fleshies. However, I don't hold a grudge against LOTR fans. I am happy for them. I have collected castle for 25 years and it will be back better than ever in the near future. In the interim I will collect these sets as they do have nice castle environments. I will likely need a lot of yellow hands and heads to convert the figs though...

Those prices are reasonable and similar to what castle sets have been priced at over the last few years. Now I have to decide how many uruk sets to get. 50 seems like a decent amount for a 200 figure uruk-hai army and 100 fig Rohan army.

Great old photos. We had a topic like this on Classic Castle a way back. These are some new photos to me. The first building is definately a western fort. But still interesting all the same.

It is a piece of dark green fabric with some glue applied to it so it keeps shape over the shoulders. It is actually an exact replica of a costume I wear to Rennaisance Faires. Back to on topic. I didn't even notice the dark grey patches on the barding. Don't know why they did that? The review is going great thanks again!

Thanks Kristof for doing this review. I know these are a lot of work, and it was taking so long for one to show up that I was gonna break down and do it. Now I can lazily sit back and enjoy your labor. It is looking great so far!

I agree with Aanchir the original message from TLG explains quite a bit. So a big thanks to Ogre for posting it. However, this was a totally futile effort in the first place. VIP fans missed out on series one and two because there was just so many fewer of those figs in the first place. They were not on shelves for very long at all. Unless you are very new to the LEGO hobby you cannot have missed the series 3 figures. They were on the shelves for a very long time. This is a classic case of allowing expectations to get way too high. It would have been smarter to only allow voting for figs that could possibly have been produced in the first place.

What I find funny is that people are on here still thinking more Kingdoms sets are coming out. They might have an exclusive or two but no regular wave of sets is coming for a while. TLG moved the Kingdoms line off of the shelves awfully fast. I feel bad for those who didn't get the sets they wanted. The last wave was on shelves for only 6 months. LOTR will do very well but I do think it will be limited to 3 - 4 years. Once the movies are out on DVD/Blu-ray the line will fade from the store shelves. However, it is possible generic castle may make a return in just a couple of years time and run along side LOTR after the original excitement of LOTR dies down.

The replies in this thread have me laughing so hard. This is an epic fail by TLG. Except for the elf every one of these figures can be bought for less than $3 on bricklink. The mummy is going for half of that price. Luckily I drove all over the place and got 55 elves the first time around. Trying to build an army of them at $15 a piece would be extremely painful. Sure a few new color elements might be useful. I would love a new elf hair color. Am I gonna spend $15 to get it? Heck no! Plain and simple. If they wanted to sell a lot of this minifig pack they should have included all army building figures. (Zombie, Spartan, Forestman, Elf, Robot, Space Villain) Even the indian or ninja would have been acceptable. I would have bought 50 of them easily. I will not be buying this until it goes on sale for $3 like the pharoahs quest figs and my prediction is that this will not sell at the regular price... Until then I can buy the special elements from Hinkley who is picking up 10.

I've never really understood how TLG can charge so much in other countries for their product. However, they simply cannot raise prices very much in the US right now. The economy is not that great and LEGO is already percieved as an expensive product here in the US. IF prices were to go up much more TLG could price themselves out of the toy market. LEGO has to compete not only with building toys but all other childrens toys as well. I imagine the price structure will not change much for these new LOTR sets. They will be similar to the Star Wars sets. Marked up about 10 - 15% compared to general themed LEGO sets.

They were in the LEGO stores here in chicago on the 27th. I will pick up my copies on the 1st. (when I will luckily get a 30% discount) Now just trying to decide how many to buy...

I also find all of this very strange. As has been mentioned the second wave of Kingdoms sets have only been around for 6 months. I don't remember any sets in the castle line being available for so short a period of time. I think TLG made a mistake by not making more of these sets. If LOTR doesn't show up on shelves until June then there will be no castle on the shelves until then except for the joust which is cost inhibitive to many buyers. This makes me think the LOTR line is going to show up sooner. Maybe as soon as April? Best of luck getting the collection. I hope you find what you want.

I respect your opinion and am sorry you do not like the sets. Like you I am a classic castle fan. I am an avid collector of those sets. I will certainly miss a generic castle theme over the next 2-3 years as well. However, I do not agree at all that these sets have nothing but a few pieces in common with the castle themed sets. In fact these LOTR sets have a whole lot in common with the fantasy era castle series from 2007-2009. I would even venture a guess that the success of fantasy castle may well have led to the license we are seeing today. When I look at the LOTR sets I see a set with a cart. I see a dwarf mine. I see a part of a wall and a siege weapon. I see a castle. The only new thing I see with these sets is new figures. One might say LOTR is a rehash of so many old castle sets. If I had no idea what Helm's Deep looked like, I would be totally impressed by TLG's innovative round castle design. The LOTR theme may not adequately replace a castle theme for us fans, but its similarities IMHO cannot be ignored either.

I just checked and Kingdoms is back here in the USA. However only 2 of the old sets are still listed and they are marked sold out. The joust set is also on that page. They may have taken it down for a couple of days to remove some of the items and to add the joust set? Either way the sets are going going...

Respectfully, I would never consider hair or a horse mold to be made for LOTR. But they will likely make their dubut in those sets. Sure the hair may be designed for one of the characters but it will find its way into sets from almost any theme. The new horses will also be found in almost every other theme. I agree with Ardelon. I don't think they are going to be making new molds of every weapon. TLC can just change the color of certain weapons to make them a bit more special as well. Black swords for the wraiths vs silvery ones for aragorn and boromir as an example. Here is a little lego sword mold history for some perspective. For brevity, I am going to stick with ancient/medieval type swords. I will break this into the first 30 years of LEGO and the last 5 years. In 1978 we got the first Lego sword, the good old classic shortsword. It took 18 years until 1995 for them to make the broadsword. We got a Katana in 1998 with the release of Ninja sets. In 2003 we got a scimitar for middle eastern troops. In 2004 we got the ill advised (IMHO) angular greatsword. Over the first 30 years 5 swords were made. 3 of which we could consider western swords, 1 middle eastern, and 1 far eastern. I the last 5 years things have picked up tremendously. In 2007 we got the scythe sword for the skeletons. In 2008 we got the scimitar for the trolls. In 2011 we got 4 new swords: dragon guard katana, gladius, khopesh, and heroica sword. In 2012 we will be getting the celtic warrior sword and I would imagine some new molds for LOTR. In conclusion from 2007 to 2012 (not including LOTR) we have gotten 3 western type swords, 1 middle eastern, 1 far eastern, and 2 fantasy swords. That is more than the first 30 years combined. I for one am very happy with TLG for all of the new goodies they have been sharing with us. Any new LOTR molds are just going to be icing on an already great cake!

Well... the Kingdoms theme has been gone from the LEGO shop website for several days now. I hate to be the adult at the party but... I think it is time for people to come to the realization that Kingdoms is over. The joust is a good sendoff for the theme. Like many on this site, I too wish generic castle was continuing. I have been collecting it from the beginning and have almost every set ever made in this theme. In fact it is the only theme I collect extensively. However, I will be buying LOTR too. It is very similar to castle and in the end will be considered a "castle" theme by a lot of AFOLs. By the time it is done LOTR is going to have several castles, walls, towers, and gates. If we are honest with ourselves we all know that LOTR will sell like hotcakes. It will run atleast until a bit after the 2nd movie release which is DEC of 2013. The DVD will come out in the summer of 2014. I would expect LOTR sets to continue atleast through that date, and likely to Christmas of that year. That would give us 6 waves of LOTR sets. There is plenty of material in the 5 movies for 6 waves. Realistically, I am not expecting any castle theme until 2015. I know TLG could surprise us but I find it very doubtful. The two lines just wouldn't sell well along side one another.

No crucifiction. This thread is long and don't expect everyone to read every word. In an earlier post I mentioned that The helms deep mockup photo was done earlier than the Uruk army mockup. In the Uruk photo the med dark flesh brick piece is replaced by light bley ones. Also the new horse mold is in that photo as well. With Helms deep I think the med dark flesh bricks will be replaced by the light bley ones and theodens horse will be of the new type as well. Note how in that photo they take an normal molded horse and have him posed like he is rearing up on his back legs. I don't think the new bricks and horses were ready in time to make that photo. I find this also very interesting as it shows how the designers have to adapt as they go along. The process has to be adapted as new pieces are getting ready for the sets.

I don't think the molds were ready yet and they didn't want to mislead on the promo packaging. Similar how they pose Theoden's horse to rear up even though it is the same old horse. They just didn't have the new horse mold ready in time for all of the mockup photos.