DaleDVM

I am with MAB and Alexandrina here. It is about the parts selection for me. I own all of the the Knights Kingdom II sets. But I only own one of each from the first year because I am a collector and had to buy them. I find the jelly bean knights terrible! Strangely, in the second year of KK II the minifigs and heraldry was pretty awesome, but alas the damage was done and the line came to an end. IMHO it wasn't the story that killed KK II. As soon as I saw the Jayko minifig in his baby blue armor, (baby blue?) I didn't even want to know what the story was! So I think it is vital to have good sets to go along with a gripping story, otherwise it will still fail. However, if they are going to do a story driven castle series. This is what I suggest. Make the named good guys a series of leaders/heroes. Make 5 factions. A male wizard faction. A female elf leader faction. A male dwarf leader faction. A female human hero faction. A male human hero faction. Then over time each faction can have some generic unnamed soldiers to expand those kingdoms. These 5 factions need to ally to defeat a new threat... The evil faction should have a leader/warrior and sorcerer/sorceress plus plenty of non human generic soldiers. This is classic for just about any fantasy franchise (Warhammer, Warcraft, LOTR, etc.) LEGO doesn't need to pay for a license. Nor are they violating any. These are factions that everyone already knows. They just need to make a few leaders to fill the story in. The key for kids is the obvious bad guy factions. I truly believe this is why fantasy era castle sold so well.

I am confused. Alexandrina's post was directed at AmperZand. MAB, is it your opinion that Kingdoms wasn't castle? Also, who said Joust and Mill Village Raid did not sell well or more specifically that castle fans didn't buy those sets? I don't remember those sets being on sale to try and get rid of them? As for the candy castle... Not really expecting anything except to possibly delay a castle theme for even longer.

This is my favorite post of all! I laughed so hard I had tears... Your determination on this subject is commendable! I can still remember being so torn about buying my copy of this set. I had to because I am a collector, yet I could tell this set design was TLG venturing down a bad path. And when I built that oversized dragon head that drops rocks on would be attackers... Well, the set was worse than I ever could have imagined. Obviously this is just my opinion, and almost every other owner of this set. Kudos to AViewToALego for a strong unconventional opinion, and thanks for making me laugh!

I know that TLG could build a system that would automatically fill custom orders similarly to how they fill sets. This would reduce labor making PAB more efficient and profitable. However, we are talking about a huge investment in making space for all of the parts and machinery capable of accurately counting and packaging those parts. I have little doubt it could be done and make a profit at bricklink like prices. The big question would be how long would it take to recapture the huge capital investment in land, buildings, machinery, etc? On the other hand this would undermine Bricklink, which they own. So I guess why not make a small profit on the resale of your own goods every time they cycle through Bricklink, and receive a ton of free labor from your own customers. Like many companies it may just be easier to invest their money in the markets, acquiring other companies, and earn money on their investments. Money making money... instead of spending a ton on such an adventure.

I get you Alexandrina, Every time I do a Bricklink order, I almost always buy all dark bley slopes (for that mountain) and civilian castle minifigs/animals they have unless they are crazy expensive. As long as you are paying the shipping you might as well pick up anything that is reasonably priced that you need. My problem is sometimes, I forget some of the parts I already got a large supply of because I bought a bunch a few years ago on the PAB wall or with LUGBulk. I have too much LEGO and don't build frequently enough to even know what I already have and so I make stupid purchases.

Some of these posts made me LOL!!! My unpopular opinions are... 1) It has been said already, but I also just can't stand the overly detailed MOCs. You know the ones that look like somebody swallowed a ton of small plates, tiles, and foliage... And then vomited them up over their entire MOC. So... every building looks like it is about to fall apart, every roof is leaky, and grassy areas look like the deep jungle where no minifig could ever walk without a machete... These are often the most well received MOCs in our hobby. This is commonplace in the historic forum. I know these buildings are supposed to be historic. But... back when they were built shouldn't those structures be relatively new? Therefore, IMHO every building shouldn't look like a ruin. It is like Monty python... "Hey Dennis, there's some lovely filth over here." "How do you know he's a king? He hasn't got shit all over him!" The common perception that the dark ages were covered in mud is not very realistic. Don't get me wrong, I think the technic is attractive, if people use it within some limits. Sometimes a little is enough. 2) I didn't think this was unpopular, but after reading this thread? People that think AFOLs purchasing power does not have an effect on TLG are wrong. Because it does. It really does. Just talked with my LEGO store manager friend this week. What products won't stay on the shelves? It isn't Ninjago, or monkey kid, Disney, or DC. It is the modulars, the ideas, the large creator sets. And in kids themes it isn't the small batman sets but the $200 batwing that they can't keep in stock. She told me that it is the adults making thousand dollar purchases on a daily basis that has led to their performance and may be making up half of their sales for the last year or so. Then I looked at the shelf space. A good half of the store's shelf space was dedicated to adults. I know LEGO stores cater to adults more than other stores, but in my experience I found this significant and a trend over the years.

All castle up to 2013 is castle in my opinion. Brickset and Bricklink's classification is good enough for me. Some of it was good, much was great, and there are a few real duds mixed in. Knights Kingdom 2, electric boogaloo was not a good effort in the first year for certain. Another obvious way to tell if a theme is castle is, do the sets look like they could be displayed together and look like they fit? If yes for most all of the sets in a theme, then it is likely they share the castle tag. Nexo Knights is in no way castle, and TLG did not treat it as such. It truly is an action theme like Ninjago, and Chima. All of which had some elements useful to castle. Swords, armor, some buildings, and such. Historically castle can have fantasy elements or not. I like both just fine. Kids strongly prefer obvious bad guys... so I think it is best for fantasy elements like 2007 fantasy era only because it sells better with children and that means many years of releases which results in sets like MMV! If sets with multiple human factions sold as well that would be my preferred choice just because you get twice as many factions this way.

As far as BURPs go. I love using them. They are nice for use in any MOC. However, they are essential if you are going to make large mountainous terrain pieces. IMHO the structural integrity is the most important feature. This is to make the terrain stable enough to travel to LEGO shows without being solid LEGO pieces which is both heavy and even more expensive than using BURPs. The rock pieces can be minorly dressed up with a few parts, or totally hidden with enough slopes and foliage. If you ever want to do a large scale terrain piece AND are part of a LUG. LUGBulk is the way to get them. But you have to plan early, and be patient. I ordered hundreds of BURPS, a few MURPs, and LURPS as a good 50% of my LUGBulk order for 4 years straight. I am making a gigantic mountain to add to my display and it needed 850ish BURPS. LUGBulk is literally the only way to get large numbers of these at anything resembling a reasonable price. On Bricklink these parts are hard to find in large numbers and are very very expensive. Any Bricklink store with 10 or more BURPS, charges over $3 a piece, and the shipping is a killer since they are so big. These parts have never been available in large enough numbers in a set to collect them that way except on a smaller scale. Slow and steady accumulation of parts is the economic way to plan any large scale MOC.

The ladder reaches up to the prison cell (kind of) I thought it was odd when I built the set too. If my old castle sets were still complete sets afterwards, I would gladly separate from the raised baseplates. As a homage to raised baseplates you can see my sigfig and the raised baseplate from are set up as my avatar.

I had forgotten the tan base bricks, the wood effects in the gatehouse, and the fact that the catapult had brown rocks which IMHO made it look like they were firing logs into the enemy castle. None of which, I was a fan of. I did like the asymmetry of the castle. The drawbridge design was very functional. However, my favorite thing from that set was how the flags were made so they hang properly when on a diagonal flag pole. I didn't mind the raised baseplates back in the day. However, I really don't want to store any more of them tucked away with my unused LEGO stuff. IMHO they can stay away from them for, for, forever.

It only makes sense for a 3-in-1 creator set that they will use whatever is available now. I won't complain since these new black falcons are only available in a $100 and a $150 set. They will not be widely available to get in large numbers at any rate, unless they are available on pick a brick or BAM.

I have well over a hundred blacksmiths. Granted they are different blacksmiths from several different sets. But they make up about a quarter of all of my medieval civilian minifigs. They have been one of the cheapest medieval appropriate figs to get on Bricklink. Like MAB said they look generally like any artisan with an apron. I have them working in a smithy, mint, barrel maker, candlestick maker, wagon/wheel maker, on a butcher, in a dairy, at a winery, and even on some farmers. A work apron is a pretty common accessory even to this day for a lot of occupations. I have about 20 blacksmiths alone working in a quarry with different heads, hair, hoods to make them look like individuals. I have had nothing but positive feedback and nobody has ever mentioned they look too much alike. People just think the quarry is cool to see. I think castle will sell just fine when it isn't competing with other licensed themes that overlap. We here, obviously, over analyze the whole situation. But then again, what else do we have to do? We are at TLGs mercy until the next release.

I personally wish they wouldn't rehash old factions at all. A nod here and there is fine. But, there are plenty of animals, weapons, and symbols that could be used for heraldry. There are also many color schemes that have not been used yet. When a new castle theme is released I hope it has new unique factions. I know people want to collect many of the old factions they missed out on. However, those factions are available. Sadly often at a high premium, but are available nonetheless. Any new release of lion knights will be a new faction anyway because they are not going to outright copy the old factions heraldry anyway. It will be new and updated. I know that 13 or so years ago when talking with a LEGO employee they shared that the focus groups of children really liked when castle had a faction of good guys and an obvious bad guy enemy instead of two opposing knight factions. That was why the crownie knights first fought against skeletons and then against the trolls. Note that they have carried that over in the action themes. Most bad guys aren't even based on humans at all. That is why I would expect any big castle release to include fantasy elements. This isn't strictly what I want, but if it makes castle sell so I can get more factions and sets over more years, I am all for it. I remember back to kingdoms and the fantasy era when the best way to build your armies was to buy a chess set. You could get knight minifigs for an average of $2.00 or under. Oh, what a wonderful time it was! That was a much better price than buying the blister packaged battle packs of minifigs that were much more expensive. But to be honest with you... I would take just about anything now. LEGO take my money!

Absolutely love this. So many perfect details on the furniture! The buildings are fantastic with a perfect level of detail and messy bits. So many MOCs are over detailed to the point of blurriness these days. You hit the mark perfectly! And that windmill... I am blown away!

I have used Dumbeldore. And I have hid Ron, Hermione, and Harry in my display with another 1500 castle figures just to see if the public notices them. A few people find them. But they are the old yellow versions of the figs sitting in a crowd, so most casual LEGO fans might not recognize them at this point. I suppose if I put them together in a group people would notice them more frequently. But I don't think in general the HP figures help me out much in a castle layout. Especially now that they are fleshies. I like most of the lions. However, the lions from Kingdoms are just incredible. The heraldry, the lions on the armor pieces, the shields, and the barding... The red and white checker pattern. I love that faction! Just out of curiosity, If the 3 in 1 is coming out in June when typically will we see pictures?

I like Harry Potter books, LEGO, and movies but am torn because I do think those sets are competing with my beloved castle. The last movie aimed at kids came out over a decade ago. I would argue later Harry Potter movies and the fantastic beast movies are aimed at older teens and adults more than kids. So I say, enough LEGO HP already! The hype is done... Begone Harry Potter sets! TLG is just rehashing the same stuff over and over at this stage anyway and bring back castle!!! Long live the king! No Harry Potter fans were harmed in the making of this post. But maybe a couple got hurt reading it. If so, Reparo. and sorry bout that.

How many black falcons do I plan on getting? Well... I have about 75 of the old black falcons, and a half dozen of the Kingdoms joust "black falcon" knight. The kingdoms joust "Black Falcon" knight is really interesting in the history of Castle minifigs. The joust fig did not have a unique torso, legs, or head. It shared a torso and legs with many of the green dragon knights from kingdoms. However, It had a unique piece of printed armor that was never used again in any minifig, but that armor had no heraldry on it. The barding for the horse was also unique to that figure, and yet, it also had no identifying heraldry on it. The barding was black and grey and had tiny fleur de lis symbols across the bottom. The only identifying feature for the knight was the shield which had a black falcon but didn't have any blue (or yellow) trim like the classic shields did. That shield was also unique to only that mini-figure. The new shields in the blacksmith set are pretty similar but are not the same. His helmet had a dark green plume which obviously was an "oversight" on the part of the designers... which needed to be replaced with standard blue at the earliest convenience. In all honesty, that fig didn't much represent the old "blue" black falcon faction at all. However, I immediately absorbed those figures as elites in my old black falcon army since the black falcons were the only major castle faction that never got any barding. So perhaps LEGO has now done them justice with a smattering of love scattered through the years! So... with that long winded response, I guess I will get around 25-40 of the new black falcons to make an elite unit of soldiers (24 for my units) and some to replace the leaders of the old units as these "new" black falcons look much nicer than the 80s version. Which will bring this faction to over a hundred figs which they deserve.

Once you start collecting the castle theme, even if on a limited basis, you tend to gather quite a large number of military figures soldiers/knights pretty quickly. You also tend to collect a decent number of nobles. I have enough kings to make a small army of them. However, once you start building MOCs, unless it is strictly a battle scene, most AFOLs note that you need a lot of peasants/merchants/artisans to occupy the scene and draw a better balance between soldiers/knights/royalty, and the commoners which should actually be more "common". hehe For kids, I would imagine having a few peasants is actually cool. You need people for the knights to save from the "bad" guys. But kids will never want a lot of peasants. Soldiers and knights are so much cooler to them. My only desire as an AFOL is... when they do come out with a new castle theme, it gets fleshed out enough, that they release at least one civilian set. As long as they do that I can buy in multiples to even out my minifig distribution between the military and civilians. I would note, this has always been a problem in all historic type themes from Pirates, Wild West, Castle, etc. from the 1980's until very recently. None of these themes have historically included many civilian figs or female minifigs either. Thankfully in 2009 they changed things up and released what many consider one of the greatest sets of all time the Medieval Market Village. And yet, 2 out of the 7 figures in that set were still soldiers... Needless to say collecting commoners from historic themes is an expensive proposition. A smattering of figs from the collectable minifigs series have helped a little as well.

I think that the green hunter torso is asexual enough to be used for both male and female characters. The legs/boots on the female hunter are a nice color combination that will mix and match with other peasant figs also so you can create a little variety.

Alexandrina, I am certainly not going to give names from what is a pretty small community. However, I know of 2 friends who designed sets for TLG who at separate times told me stories of how corporate sacked them. (One of these literally started an entire theme.) They were let go because of their salaries, which were still less than 6 figures, but were considered too high for TLG. This was not because of the quality of their work or at least that is what TLG told them. They are great builders. TLG replaced them with young talented AFOLs who were willing to work for LEGO for less than $35,000 a year. For a company making profits like TLG is currently, they should be paying their content creators well and not cutting costs and talented builders. Just my opinion. This was done a few years ago when LEGO sales were still climbing. When I hear stories like that, and some others, from different people, at different times, who I know worked for TLG, I believe them. It also jives with a casual offer that TLG made to me a decade ago when they put out feelers about employment. I know TLG can hire at lower compensation because people want to work for them. Employees think it is an honor. I feel a company honors its employees by sharing profits and paying them well. I also know that TLG used to have rules in company that anyone working there had to be LEGO fans and had to build with LEGO. Now I know, they have a lot of people in the financial end of the company that literally have never touched the product and have no connection with it at all. For those business types, the bottom line is all that matters. That is not the company I grew to love over the last 35 years. Lets put this discussion behind us... I find it depressing. Now on to happier talk. The 3 in 1 set. I do not mind that they are using the black falcons. It is not surprising at all and I didn't expect anything more for a 3 in 1 set. However, unless these black falcon figs show up in a cheaper set or on bricks and pieces, they are still going to be expensive to obtain in any numbers for army builders. Luckily for me, I already have a ton of the old black falcons and these figs can just be an elite unit or leaders with updated/fancier heraldry. I am not a fan of brick built animals, even when done well. Why? Minifigs are molded and creating animals that are smaller than minifigs out of bricks results in something that doesn't IMHO look good standing next to the minifigs. They end up looking kind of minecrafty and too blocky. I was never excited about the printed panels from the old black falcon castles. I have a bunch of them and they are boxed up away from my collection I use to MOC with. In fact all of those wall panels from old castles never get used in my MOCing unless they are used as filler under large pieces of landscaping. I hope the yellow tudor section is tastefully done just for the sake of sales of this set. The peasant figure is what I am really looking forward to. Please do not let it be the blacksmith from the blacksmith set. I am hoping it is a more generic peasant print. However, unless I am able to order the torso/figure directly it will likely also be too expensive to collect a lot of these. Figs from $100 sets rarely can be found on the cheap. For people making small civilian MOCs this is good news. And since the rest of the set is brick and older molds there really is not much to offer castle collectors with large collections. I hope it at least has a good percentage of newer parts or new colors. For those who have wanted to collect castle over the last 8 years and don't have a lot of castle molds this 3in1 set, plus the blacksmith set, is truly a godsend! So enjoy everyone! I will be buying a bunch of both sets. Going forward, I will still be hoping for a real castle release. But in reality, with this year getting a slight nod to castle, unless this sells like gangbusters, I don't think we will be getting anything for a while. I hope I am wrong!

Boy people really seem to be taking any criticism of TLG personally. They also don't seem to understand that we can all have our own opinions and get back on topic. Well, I am ready for another several months away from this forum. Play well...

Great graph of sales flattening for the past 5 years and a measure of TLG vs other companies instead of vs itself over time. Not that any of that would matter anyway. These metrics will lag behind real time impressions fans have. By the time you see big changes in these graphs the damage will have already been done. It is my opinion that by the posts on this and many other threads on these forums and conversations at the largest LEGO fan events, that TLG is not fostering the best relations with their fans. Your opinion may differ and that is fine. Lets get this thread back onto future castle sets.

I used to spend 4 to 8 thousand dollars yearly on LEGO. Now it is less than a thousand per year. I know I am not the typical LEGO customer, but I chose the theme I like/collect 35 years ago. I really am not interested in other themes and at my age I doubt that will change. Nexo knights had very little to offer to classic castle fans and builders. I am glad it is gone. I just hope castle gets a full fledged release for a few years again. A 2013 weak effort with no civilian sets isn't what I want either. I guess I will wait... and until then my bank account is getting full. Totally agree about the corporatization of LEGO. They are making a big mistake. LEGO benefits greatly from history, tradition, its image of family, and being a generational toy handed down to loved ones. I feel like that type of sentiment is priceless and can be destroyed by too much greed. There is already a lot of talk in the AFOL community of how they chew up their employees. They benefit so much from the free promotion AFOL LEGO shows provide. I am afraid they may kill the enthusiasm in the LEGO fan community at some point. I know I don't speak as glowingly about the company to the public at LEGO shows like I used to 15 years ago.

I just ventured over to Bricklink to see what the peasant figs are going for right now. OMG!!! I am sitting on a gold mine. If only I had the stones to sell my collection. Especially the female figures! The latest kingdoms peasants are going for over $20 each. But wait a tick... The medieval market ones are going for a lot less and they are the older figs. Weird!

Whew... 3 months of posts to catch up on and still no castle theme in the forseeable future... Ugh! I suppose there is 2022 to look forward to? and I have been saying that for years now... I am losing hope and it is really hindering my hobby. 2013 castle was awful because of the minifigs and more specifically the heraldry was cartoony. They could have released ten more years of sets with those awful print designs and I wouldn't like any of them. Why? I am an AFOL. Sure, sets are parts packs, and I do appreciate good set design, but I buy castle sets for the minifigs, animals, and accessories that I can't get anywhere else. I could care less if a set has a catapult, a cool castle, skeletons, carts, or whatever TLG needs to include to get kids to buy it. I just want the heraldry, minifigs, animals, and accessories to be good because those are irreplaceable and I can't MOC them. I also really don't do third party stuff. TLG is never going to make a set to actually match the skills of AFOLs and that is cool. I don't need them to. So... I purchased TONS of Fantasy era sets with cool heraldry, figs, animals, and new molds. I purchased TONS of Kingdoms sets with cool heraldry, figs, animals, and new molds. And I purchased a few of the 2013 sets mostly because I am a completist. The problem that TLG has is they do too many polls for children and too few for the parents who have control of the purse strings. Kids want everything, and ask for everything! Parents control what the kids actually get. Because when mom and dad think the set looks pretty cool they are more likely to say yes. Especially to the larger purchases. If the set looks dumb to the parents they think it is a novelty that the kid will lose interest in quickly. If it looks interesting to the parent that is a purchase with staying power. Thanks for the tip on the lavender torso. The christmas torso and dress might be appropriate for a medieval scene if the character is somewhat hidden as the candy cane wasn't invented until the late 1600's. The new blacksmith set is fantastic! I need to get out to the LEGO store now that I am fully vaccinated. The thing I most desire like so many others is peasant garb on some figures. I have more than a half dozen of both the MMV and Mill village raid and purchased tons of those very same figs on bricklink back in the day. I have between 100-200 plain clothes peasants (some are from star wars) but with the size of my display they are still way too few and most are much too similar. This is especially true for the female figures. So I need new designs. Blacksmith torsos from fantasy era and kingdoms are the cheapest way to get some medieval appropriate attire for shop keeps and artisans. There shouldn't really be any debate. Fantasy era sold great. Kingdoms sold pretty well. 2013 castle not so much. Lesson... Don't dumb down print designs for kids. The kids liked the realistic heraldry that came with Fantasy era and Kingdoms just fine and it keeps AFOLs happy too. It is a win win! All this talk of sets can't sell without cartoons or a strong media push is silly. Did all of the themes with cartoons sell well? No. For goodness sake Fantasy era came out in 2007 and Kingdoms in 2010. That was less than a generation ago. Have things changed that much in toyworld? Castle can sell just fine as long as it doesn't have multiple castle centric licensed themes to compete against. That was the real problem. As there is no castle to look forward to until next year. I suppose I have another year in a mild dark age. In the meantime, everyone stay safe and I hope we can all get together real soon at an actual live LEGO event!