blueandwhite

The shift here reminds me of the 2009 Pirate line; a line that was at least in part targeted at AFOLs who were yearning for the return of classic Pirates. The goal seems similar here with conventional knights and armour including the often requested great helm. Shifting the line in a different direction isn't necessarily a bad idea either. The current Fantasy line seemed somewhat worn out after three years. This year's sets were hardly inspired and there are only so many Trolls and Dwarves one can collect before the excitement is gone. A new line with a different direction is a great way to get people interested in Castle again. I think we'll see another fantasy line in the future. Moreover; a few years without fantasy folk will probably only serve to heighten interest in the theme when it inevitably returns at a later date.

I definitely see where you're coming from. Personally I find that this isn't a major issue on larger plates, and I don't really have a hard time pulling up conventional bricks. The "brick grip" approach you describe is a pretty decent way to pull up smaller plates though. Then again, I don't build a lot of Technic MOCs, so I can't speak to how important this issue might be for Technic fans. For me, almost all of my bricks hold together well (well, bricks that are 5+ years old). I find that the newer bricks just don't have the same grip that older ones do. I've got 25 year-old bricks that grip far better than most of the stuff I'm seeing today, and honestly it worries me. I may have to re-evaluate the use of my brick separator on newer bricks after reading your posts.

It's a nice start, however I would definitely extend the tower to the edges of the baseplate. A gatehouse is most certainly going to be affixed to a larger wall so it's only natural to run the edges of your tower to the edges of the baseplate leaving the rest to our imagination. Right now you have a small tower but it doesn't look like it's attached to anything negating the purpose of having a gate in the first place. As for the overall build; the design itself is nice enough however you might want to add a couple of doors to access the unused space in each of the round towers.

While most of these ideas will probably never happen, I would definitely like to see a Castle Creator set much like the modular homes we've had in recent years. Either that or a microscale model akin to the Taj Mahal LEGO produced a few years ago. The Creator line seems to be aimed at older builders so I could see LEGO actually producing such a set. I don't think we'll be seeing too many civilian sets outside of the occassional S@H exclusive like the MMV. As Tyrant pointed out, Castle fans don't really have a good source of basic bley bricks to rely on. A Creator set would definitely fill in the void. I'm also hoping that the collectable minifig line expands to specific themes in the future. It would be a great way to introduce minifigs that probably will never find their way into a conventional set. A monk, historical figures such as Saladin or Henry V, popular folk heroes like Ivanhoe, or more peasants are but a few of the possible figures I could envision appearing in such a line. With the Castle line we get a bucketload of soldiers and knights, but it would be nice to see something a bit different. If the minifig collectable line proves to be a success it would definitely be nice to see a future run dedicated to the various major themes (Castle, Town, Space, etc.).

Honestly, nationalism and LEGO are fine but I don't want to see sets dedicated to it. We've had sets that pay tribute to the US before (the USS Constitution, Statue of Liberty and the Wright Bros. Plane) but it has never been a major focus. Being a patriot is fine. Expecting a toy company to wave your colours is a bit much though. The Western theme is clearly inspired by the US frontier, just as the Ninja line clearly refrences feudal Japan. Do we really need LEGO to be any more specific than that?

I would suggest building small and then working up to something bigger. Smaller MOCs will allow you to experiment with techniques and design strategies that you could implement in your large castle. The biggest failing when making a large castle is trying to rush to the finish line. Take your time and come up with a suitable design. Make sure you have the bricks and the building skills to see it through to the end. Be persistant and by all means look to others for inspiration.

Personally, the brick separator is a worthwhile investment (you actually are better off with 2). Plates and tiles can easily be separated from each other without doing any serious damage to the bricks. A knife is an okay substitute but you still run the risk of scratching or damaging your bricks. It's also far easier to remove bricks quickly with a brick separator. Try popping off 100 2x2 tiles from a 32x32 baseplate with a knife. Then do it with a brick separator. There is simply no comparison; the separator is light years ahead of any other method out there.

I'm still waiting on Harry Potter before I make any conclusions. As it stands, Prince of Persia looks like it has a strong selection of figures and parts but I'm not that impressed by the sets themselves. The Harry Potter line looks like it could be very good, but again I'll hold judgement until I see some actual pics.

Agreed. Honestly, I hope that the Hogwarts Express is a proper train set and not a horribly stripped-down version of the Emerald Night. We've already had a couple of versions of this set and neither were anything to write home about. I'm concerned that this will be yet another throw-away given that it looks to be priced under Hogwarts Castle yet again. Harry Potter sets have always sounded good on paper, but the line itself has always been a bit of a disappointment IMO.

Bunch of bandwagon jumpers! I've been blue and white before y'all smurfed along.

My collection is at the point where it's difficult to keep track of. I have made too many orders from Bricklink and LEGO that I never filed, make it a major challenge to determine just what my collection consists of. I would be in a heap of trouble if there was a fire, because I couldn't begin to tell you how large my collection is (other than it's well over 100,000 bricks).

Between the new Castle line and the return of Harry Potter, this year looks to be a great one for Castle fans. Speculating on the actual sales figures for the Fantasy line seems rather pointless. I doubt the change was spurred on solely by sales (or lack thereof). Still, with Harry Potter's return we should see a lot of great sets for Castle fans; fantasy or not. I appreciate that there is a TFOL and AFOL contingent that wanted elves, but I'm still not convinced that kids would be any more interested in Elves than they would in the castle line we're getting. Moreover, as a fan of non-fantasy castle I'm pleased with the direction LEGO is taking.

Probably not considering that your truck looks more like this truck which came out in 1997. The new truck really doesn't look like the one you linked to at all (other than colour). Now, it could be that LEGO was inspired by the Imagination Celebration Truck, but I don't think you need to worry about LEGO is steeling your ideas. Moreover, this is probably the wrong thread for this topic.

Come now, we Canadians aren't really that neglected. In fact, we get pretty much everything that the US does. At the end of the day, I just hope that LEGO attempts to release all of it's 2010 products in all major world markets.

After looking at these photos again I'm starting to get a real Playmobil vibe from the line. This is perhaps the most traditional castle theme LEGO has done in years. I'm wondering if this is going to be a single-year thing like Pirates or if we might see it expanded in the future (Robin Hood perhaps?). 2009 is looking interesting indeed.

Gatehouse on the castle? Check! New armour and elements for soldiers? Check! Great assortment of sets? Check! This line is everything I've been expecting from LEGO castle. It is truly a genuine return to the golden years of LEGO castle (IMO of course ). I had high hopes for this line, and it looks like things are absolutely perfect. The Dragon Knight tower looks absolutely beautiful. And how about that new portcullis brick or the new unicorn-shaped chaffron (horse helmet). I'm not terribly fussy about the new great helm, but the heraldry for both looks absolutely beautiful. The only real disappointment is that it looks like LEGO has yet again dropped breastplates from the Castle line. Given how wonderful this year's sets look, I can forgive them.

This is easily the best news in this thread thus far. I can't wait to see a few photos. KimT, as you've had the chance to see the line is there a possibility that you might be able to give a few hints on some of the new pieces we could expect from next year's sets as we wait patiently for photos? Any info at this point would be amazing.

I really hope that the figures aren't randomized. Honestly, not all parts are created equal. This is evidenced by the fact that many figs don't have printing on their legs. I don't mind getting one of the blander figs (the Ninja for example), but bland parts and no complete fig is even worse.

Am I the only one who finds it strange that the smallest number belongs to what I would assume to be the largest set (7946)? Complaining about the sets at this point seems a bit premature when we haven't had so much as a single photograph. It almost goes without saying that every castle line reboot would likely feature a large castle as the centrepiece. The names alone really tell us next to nothing about thes sets themselves. All we know is that we're getting a castle, tower, presumably a smaller outpost, a prison wagon and a set of knights. They could be largely redundant or they could be something completely amazing. Who knows if the knights will simply be rehashes of older figs, or if we will see new armour and accessories? The same is true for the sets themselves. We could have another generic castle design or something completely different. Who knows, maybe we'll actually see a real gatehouse on this next castle.

The legs are white, however it looks like the cheerleader's legs are only printed on the front. I don't see any colour on the sides of her legs. I imagine that the difference in hair that you observed has more to do with the fact that the business card image is a render as opposed to an actual product. The figure will more than likely have the same hairpiece as the pirate wench you displayed.

For me it's a tossup between the cheerleader and the clown. I love the hair and pompoms. If anything, it really looks like LEGO is starting to go out on minifigs and accessories; something that was traditionally reserved for Star Wars figs only.

I'm kind of surprised that they don't have a bluecoat to grab the Pirate folk in the way they've thrown a bone to City, Space, Castle, Ninja and even Western fans. Having said that; this line looks incredible. Moreover, it presents some interesting possibilities. I could see online trading through Eurobricks becoming quite popular in 2010. I only hope that the figures are produced in even quantities so that it doesn't become a negative experience. The idea that some of these parts could be exceedingly rare making it difficult to complete certain figures worries me. I don't want to have 25 Wrestler heads and no torsos because LEGO decides to produce these in random quantities. 2010 is looking interesting indeed...

Well, in fairness the line is one based (extremely loosely) on the middle ages of Europe. It's actually one of the reasons I'm not too big on Vladek's Scorpion design. It just doesn't fit well with that idea of medieval Europe. I also find the lion kind of tiring. I liked the classic 1984 Lion Knights but I feel that the lion has been done to death. I also would like some new colour schemes (the rumoured one sounds suspiciously like an update on the Royal Knights). I'm sure that the new knights will look great, but it is a shame that we can't get some other heraldric devices.

Maybe it's just me, but I find that Snakes are usually associated with evil. I'd like two human factions that could be treated as either good or evil. A snake as heraldry worries me as I can almost see KKI where we had Cedric and his evil Bulls against our heroic King (Leo I think). Then again, the black and green colour scheme that was rumoured really does lend itself to an evil stereotype given that the new lion knights apparently have red gold and white heraldry. I guess what it really comes down to at this point is waiting for new photos. Without them all we have is conjecture.

The thing is, the LEGO pirates have always been portrayed as being the protagonists of the Pirates line. This idea of having monsters and dinosaurs as villians is a fairly recent trend in LEGO's history. We were fine for years with multiple human factions. Perhaps a larger point was that the classic factions didn't seem nearly as antagonistic. We simply had a variety of knights and outlaws occupying a Kingdom. There was no clear-cut hero or villian and the sets were designed in a way that you could easily reverse those rolls if you so chose. Even themes like Adventures with a clearly defined hero were designed in a way that you could easily sympathize with both the heroes and the villians. The characters were treated in a fairly neutral manner. With more recent lines there is an emphasis on overtly evil villians with monster henchmem, skeletons and robots. It almost seems that by dehumanizing certain figures that it somehow condones a violent attitude towards them. I've held this view since I was a child. I remember how in Cartoons like GI Joe and TMNT the heroes always had hordes of robots to kill which apparently justified the use of lethal force. In GI Joe the Joes couldn't shoot the broad side of a barn when going up against a human foe, but when it was a robot or a vehicle they suddenly became snipers with handguns. The same was true of the Ninja Turtles. I seem to recall that only after cutting up several of the robot villians (footsoldiers I think?) one of the turtles comments that they are robots so destroying them is okay. Strange that there was an apparent intent to kill before they made this discovery. I find that the inclusiion of inhuman creatures is simply an excuse to emphasize the more violent tone of certain themes without comming across as being morally inappropriate. I'm all for two human factions as I was never fond of the overt good vs. evil themes that LEGO has been pushing.