Martijn

I like this one a lot. Could easily be a commercial set. I've always liked the civilian side of the Castle theme, so it's great to see the orcs have a somewhat civilian side too.

I'm taking the "never" to mean: "never as part of the current fantasy theme". I hope Lego will still be around in 100 years, and I wouldn't find it unreasonable if they'd changed their mind by then.

Many sets from the early '80s were pretty realistic. And more recently, the medieval market village is as realistic as I could possibly hope for. Though in between it's been mostly silly junk.

I was a bit confused by that too. Originally I didn't know the lion knights as "crusaders", but when I came to this forum, I quickly learned that they were called that here. And now a big article messes up the new terminology I'd gotten used to.

Easy. City is a natural fit for Lego, and middle ages, pirates and science fiction are always popular settings, not just for Lego. Look at roleplaying games, for example. The most popular settings there are medieval fantasy, science fiction, modern, oriental and swashbucklers. (Clearly Lego still needs ninjas as a main theme.)

While I wouldn't say it really bothers me, I get where you're coming from. I always loved the civilians of the Castle theme. That first guy in the '80s with the medieval hood and a cart was my favourite minifig. I also loved designing impenetrable castles, mind you, and I definitely had my crusader-black falcon battles, but it's more as part of a world that should have been fleshed out more, than as just a story with protagonists and conflict. I really need to buy that medieval market village. It's exactly the kind of thing I love. (And of course it's going to get wrapped up in a orc-crownie conflict, but it's going to be more about how it affects the civilians than about who wins.)

Why is Sir Aldric wearing a bucket on his head? I think that helmet would be really cool in a cyberpunk running man gladiatorial thingy, but not in Castle.

That is so pimp! I love it! I completely disagree. A chariot is not a tank. It's supposed to be fast and light and maybe feature a hand bow and a lance. Scythes on the wheels and other spiky bits are okay if you want more, but it's not a platform for a catapult. In any case, I agree that the minifigs look good, and this set has a lot of very interesting pieces, but I would never use those pieces to build something awful like this chariot. It's too big, clunky and uninspired, and I really pity that poor horse that has to pull it all on its own. The chariot is a nice showcase for some funky pieces, but they were put together the way a child would do it. I admit I built stuff like that when I was a kid, but I expect a slightly higher standard from official Lego designs (although I admit that over the years they've produced tons of sets that were far sillier than this one).

Except that would also affect the position of the main sail. Also, being in port, I really hope the ship isn't going that fast. But I don't care. It's a brilliant MOC. One of the best ever!

10 years. After that we had some really weird Castle stuff for another 20 years. I too would like to see some normal castle stuff for a change. But I prefer big quality castle sets with orcs and elves over humans with flimsy castles with indefensible walls. Definitely. The '80s were the golden age of Castle in my opinion. In the '90s it started to get weird. Although the occasional ghost, wizard or dragon was kinda funny and not nearly as bad as that fright knight stuff. I don't mind elves, but I'd love it if they could double as Forestmen instead. Furthermore, my preference is towards realistic sets with lots of bricks rather than tiny flimsy sets that try to be as spectacular as possible. I'd love to see a return of the classic big trebuchet, supply carts, civilians and realistic buildings (something that goes with that market village, for example), and not just for the humans, but also for the other factions. And dare I hope for a return of the Black Falcons?

I'm very much in favour of neutral shields with only a single colour. As a kid, I loved the round coat-of-arms-less shield from the Supply Cart. I want more shields that look like they're just a piece of wood or leather with no special decoration. As for the elves & forestmen debate, I think the idea of elves that can be turned into forestmen, or forestmen that can be turned into elves, is really great. I think the only real difference is their hats or hair. Forestmen have those Robin Hood caps, whereas elves should probably have some blonde elvish hair or something. Forest elves, anyway. Tolkienisque elven warriors should probably wear scale armour and a really high helmet in an unusual shape. A set with two different kinds of hats would be perfect. Alternatively: some big forestmen sets (or elves, depending on which way TLC decides), and a small set with elvish minifigs (or forestmen, depending on which way TLC decides) with a double set of hats, so you can turn all your existing forestmen (or elves) into elves (or forestmen).

Yeah, let them play and imagine their stories! But why wouldn't you be able to that with educational toys? While your 70% false is probably accurate when you're talking about sets from the last 10 years, the first Castle sets (late '70s and early '80s) were pretty good. Sure, many real historical castles were either much bigger or much more primitive, and of course the ratio of mounted knights to peasants is all wrong (because it focuses on the romantic aspects of chivalry), but about the sets themselves, there's nothing really fundamentally wrong (the fortified inn was particularly good! not everything is a castle), as opposed to the stuff from the late '90s, which had very little to do with the middle ages at all. But it's not necessary. Or even sensible, for that matter. Yes, it's a toy, but Lego has always been an educational toy. And those are in my opinion the best ones. And the big molded pieces that can be used in only one way go against that idea. Sure, it looks nice, but lacks the creative versatility that lego traditionally has. Saying "others are making cheap crap too" is a lousy excuse. Nothing wrong with a Robin Hood line, though (wait, did we just switch positions there?). Great opportunity for adventure, and not entirely unrealistic either (depending on which interpretation you're going for). In fact, I'd love it if TLC were to make a Robin Hood line, with one big, detailed Nottingham Castle set (which is fully compatible with any other Castle stuff of course). How about: Nottingham Castle - big, details $99 or more Robin Hood's hideout - a cave, a tree, some bushes, Robin Hood and some of his men Ambush - some bushes, a tree, a cart, and some outlaws Nottingham town houses - a bit like the market village, but smaller Peasant village - huts, pigs, peasants Smaller sets with more outlaws, peasants and men at arms I think it'd sell like wildfire. What I'd like even more is a castle design contest where TLC gives us a budget in how many bricks we're allowed to use, and whichever castle is best (in terms of beauty, detail, realism, but also whether a kid would be able to build it and play with it) gets to be the center piece of a new Lego Castle line.

There's more than two ages, actually. There's Black Falcons/Crusaders, Black Knights, Dragon Masters, Fright Knights, and now Orcs & Dwarves. (And I'm definitely forgetting a couple.) It looks a bit like a sliding scale from historical to fantasy. Interesting is that the extremes of this scale seem to be the best ones. Or the favourites, at least. Although that's probably because they were simply the best executed, and TLC slipped in between those two. Falcons/Crusaders didn't have a lot of civilians, but it did have a few. But how was it during the '90s? Were there still civilians there? Or could the presence of civilians be a sign that TLC is putting more attention to the theme? I agree, but again, Black Falcons had lots of siege engines too. It's mostly during the '90s that things got a bit silly, I think. So maybe the current line is just a return to the good old fashioned quality of the '80s, but in a slightly different theme.

Uniforms are a post-medieval invention, I think. Knights did tend to wear a tabard with their own or their lord's coat of arms, but also tended to wear a lot of custom equipment. Peasants at war often wore no identifying marks whatsoever (and got slaughtered by both sides as a result). It's only the men at arms (profressional soldiers in someone else's employ) who might wear uniforms, but there it's also more likely to be a coincidence because they use the same armour, weapon and other equipment, ,ade around the same time, and with the same tabard from, the same lord over it all. But if one soldier loses his shield, he probably gets a new one that looks slightly different from those of his colleagues. When I was a kid, I always gave the shields with different edges, the different coloured legs, etc to the mounted knights, or I used them to distinguish the commander of the foot soldiers. Other than that, I think we're exactly on the same page.

This is an interesting point I hadn't considered. As a kid, I never really had a need for bad obvious guys. There were black falcons and crusaders (although I didn't know them by those names), so there were two clearly opposing forces if I needed them. And although there wasn't an official black knight, I'd quickly created my own by putting a blue/black mounted knight together. Fits the black falcon colour scheme perfectly, so he clearly was there leader. The black falcons were a bit short on mounted knights, but the one they had was really good (because he had a three-feathered plume), and they had plenty of halberdiers and siege equipment. But most of my play didn't involve opposing factions at all. Didn't need them in Space, didn't need them in Town (although in Town, my brother and I did have a complete city with city council and government and a country with other cities in it (one of them, New Hamburg, ran by two friends of ours)). Never really saw the need for direct conflict in any theme, though. Castle was for me mostly about designing even better and harder to conquer castles. Besides, castle design with walls and towers is rather meaningless if your enemy has flying dragons and witches. I think Robin Hood in particular is an excellent idea! Lots of opportunity for wild adventures, you could make big sets for Nottingham Castle, the town of Nottingham, hideouts in the forest, and assortment of carts to rob and places to hide. I think a Robin Hood line would sell like wildfire.

I think in the 19th century, the heir will marry into wealth and use that to turn the castle into a neogothic fairy tale castle with an overdose of towers. Was a popular thing to do, in those days. And in the 20th century, it will be turned into a tourist attraction, and the walls will collapse because the 19th century improvements were a bit more than the structure can handle. Anyway, brilliant project! I love the idea, and I love the execution even more. This and stage 1 are by far the best MOCs I've ever seen (but that may not mean much, since I'm new here).

Exactly! I love those detailed and realistic sets, and I don't mind paying good money for them. (I just need to convince my wife that that's exactly what our unborn child needs.) If they'd make a realistic medieval line like that, I'd want to buy every set. I don't really mind the fantasy element so much. I like fantasy, and I'd love to have had orcs and dragons as a kid. But at the same time, I think that's mostly interesting to slightly older children. For little children, just knights and princesses is good enough. Only when they want more than that would I add the fantasy stuff. I've been looking at all the Castle sets I had as a kid, and I notice that the level of realism even started to drop before 1990. We had sensible stuff like a supply cart, a treasure cart, and our siege equipment were big but realistic looking storm towers, balistas and trebuchets. (And I distinctly remember that as a kid I wanted more peasants like the one on the supply cart, so it's not just weird dads who care about that.) Anyway, around 1990, you got things like the crossbow cart (if you're gonna mount crossbows on a cart, make it a real balista, not to tiny crossbows on the side), and the bizarre "double defender". It looks like it was more an attempt to push weapons and other weird bits rather than an attempt to make credible medieval sets. Even if I do like orcs, I'd still prefer to see sensible, practical equipment in the boxes, rather than something that looks like a child designed it. That's basically the feeling I get (especially with the Fright Knights, but also with other sub themes): I'd be really impressed by an 8 year old who designed something like that. I'm not so impressed when it comes from a profressional designer.

I recently turned 35 and got my first Lego set in 20 years for my birthday. I never stopped loving Lego, but simply had way too many other things to do. Anyway, I got the Troll Warship, so color me surprised that Lego Castle now has trolls! I think I did notice the occasional ghost, skeleton or wizard over the years, but I hadn't realised that the theme had turned into a full-fledged Lego Fantasy theme. I hope you'll allow me to get a bit nostalgic here. Looking through sites about all the different lego sets over the years, I got the impression that my childhood, the early '80s, was the Golden Age of Lego (although I imagine that's true for anyone's childhood, no matter what decade it was in). Classic (blue grey) spaceships seemed (to me) realistic at that time, unlike some of the black-grey stuff I got later, which had all sorts of big odd shapes that didn't mean anything to me (though it did get me to build Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors from Lego, but that's another story). Similarly, our knights were the Black Falcons and Crusaders, and I once got the brilliant Crusader Castle for my birthday, and to this day, I'm convinced it's the biggest, best and most realistic Lego castle ever. Later castles (like space stations) got gaudier, more extreme colors, with flimsy towers and less defensible gates. And while I did consider the first castle with a ghost a nice touch, and I understand the demand for the occasional wizard or dragon, it seems that over the last 15 years, every castle had to have a ghost, skeleton and a wizard, and every box of more than $20 had to have its own dragon. Or big troll, now. Somehow it feels like it cheapens it. Maybe the castles should be as historic as possible, with wizards and dragons in seperate sets, so you can add them to taste? On the other hand, I do like my new little orcs, and even the big troll. It doesn't feel like my old castle, but I'd love to use them in roleplaying games. They look better and are more versatile than my still-unpainted pewter miniatures. But, well, the thing that actually led to me getting Lego for my birthday (from my wife) is that we're about to have our first kid in two months. And ofcourse in 7 years he/she needs to become a huge lego-fan. But somehow I'd prefer my kid to grow up with the kind of lego I had as a child: somewhat realistic, and suitable for being shaped by your own wild imagination, rather than coming already-infused with some standard average imagination that's harder to subvert. And there's also the educational aspect. I don't want to have to explain what orcs are in order to play with lego, I'd much rather use lego to teach a bit of real history, but orcs get in the way there. I'd rather not have her/him play with lego orcs until after reading Lord of the Rings. And I certainly don't want my child thinking that dragons and ghosts are as real as knights and castles. The castles also look more like fantasy castles. The current big castle has a tower hanging in the air beside a very flimsy keep tower. My crusader castle had a big hulking gatehouse, and small but sturdy guard towers. And it had lots and lots of bricks and wall sections (although back then I even considered those wall sections cheating), so you could take it apart and design millions of completely different castles. I must have designed dozens of castles that were even better than the already brilliant crusader castle. But these modern sets, they seem to be intended for a single design. I have absolutely no idea how to turn my Troll Warship into something that's not a Troll Warship. It's really pretty, don't get me wrong, but shouldn't I be able to make something else out of it? As far as I can tell, I can only make it shorter, rearrange the masts a bit, and change the sides of the ship a bit. I can't make it sleeker, higher, or add a second deck on top (without at least getting a ton of extra bricks). And the dragon is even worse. Maybe I can turn it into a wingless dragon, but that's it. I can't turn it into something that's not a dragon, and that goes completely against the spirit of Lego, in my opinion. So despite my rekindled interest in Lego, I feel a bit sad and nostalgic. Of course with my luck, our kid will hate Lego. Oh well, more for me. PS: I love the medieval market! It's very historic, and it has tons of bricks! It's everything Lego should be. It's going to be high on my wishlist for my next birthday.

Wouldn't he need a skeleton body? He also should be a bit taller than your average minifig, if that's possible.

Disney copyright law is a travesty, and certainly not an admirable example. The only reason that post-Steamboat Willy copyrights will never expire is that Disney has American politicians in its pocket, and the US is powerful enough to force its copyright standards on the rest of the world. (I certainly hope copyright will be reduced to a more reasonable 30 years again.) Patents, however, have always lasted shorter than copyrights, and if pharmaceutical companies can't get patents extended, then neither can Lego. The important thing to realise here is that it's not the law's job to protect monopolies. Quite the contrary, in fact. Copyright, patent and trademarks are artificial monopolies granted to a company or person, because they're assumed to be beneficial to the public. That's what this is about: the public. Monopolies are usualy bad for us, because they stifle competition, leading to less choice, higher prices, and less innovation. It's different for copyright and patents because they're protecting something that (is supposed to) take some investment to develop, but is relatively easy to copy. Artists and inventors need to be able to make a living, in order to encourage them to create more art and inventions, and the limited monopoly granted by copyrights and patents gives them that chance to make money from their investment before others can copy it. But the monopolies are not unlimited, because if you can't get enough of a head start on the competition while your patent lasts, then apparently your invention wasn't all that great anyway, and artists will eventually need to make new art again. Trademark is the only one that's supposed to be unlimited, because it protects a brand name, and it's useful to the public to be able to identify who made something. It's important that we can distinguish Lego bricks from MB bricks because the Lego ones are much higher quality, and they're what we want. But if anyone is willing to accept lower quality for a lower price, then there's a market for competitors. That's how the free market works. As long as they're not being marketed as Lego bricks, it's only good that MB bricks are compatible with Lego. Now in the Lego-compatible brick market it may be a bit confusing that there are lower quality non-Lego bricks availlable, and we don't really need the competition, but there are many other markets that do benefit from this kind of competition. Consider the PC market where AMD makes Intel-compatible CPUs. Intel used to have a monopoly on PC CPUs, but got lazy, focused and the wrong stuff, and basically dropped the ball. Suddenly tiny upstart AMD starts making superior CPUs, and Intel has to compete or lose market share. Now Intel makes the best CPUs again, but they need to keep working at it, or AMD will overtake them again. In any case, we win. There are very few companies that produce such consistent high quality for a long time as Lego does, which means most markets benefit from competition. Consider the (unlikely) scenario that Lego quality drops, and suddenly MB starts producing higher quality bricks for a lower price. Then we'd suddenly be happy with MB, and cursing Lego for pulling that crap. Competition is important.

I just got this ship for my birthday (I'm taking this as a hint from my wife that I should start collecting lego, which I haven't done in 20 years). It looks spectacular, but at the same time, it's all frills. Few bricks, big molded pieces, it doesn't give me much opportunity to build anything other than a troll warship out of this. In a way, that's unavoidable of course. Masts, sails, boats, bow of the ship, they have to be molded or they look like crap, and the masts in particular look like they can be used in many different ways. The set's strength is in lots of minifigs, and it does give me a bit of everything. I haven't bought any lego in 20 years (and my parents have all our old stuff), and now with one box I've got orcs, a big troll, a dragon, a knight and a dwarf. The many frills and extras are just asking to be looted and combined with simpler sets. I have no idea why this (low, viking-style) ship needs to rowboats with crossbows on the bow, and the way those boats are attached to the ship is silly, but they're generic boats that can be used in any lego scene that has water. I suppose a castle, village or hideout could easily be near a lake and make use of a small boat. In fact, if the orcs are attacking from a boat, then their target has to be near water, and should have a boat of their own. Right?