Bazziman

Me too. I love my black falcons with their new faces and I am thinking of upgrading them too wth new weapons and shields. It's the same (or rather the oposite) with trolls for me; I 'downgrade' their weapons to more realistic ones (I don't like the oversized fake looking troll / orc swords). There's a balance to be sought afaic.

My wife just emailed me: 'when is the lego going to stop coming in': I spent most of the weekend ordering stuff left and right and it's rolling in in big boxes now. ;) At the same time I see there is a Troll Battle Pack coming out from TLC. It's okayish (I like the cloaks) but it doesn't have the variety the human pack had though.

:(. I've just spent tens of euro's on bricklink buying these little fellers for way too much money. I want these battle packs. At least 5 or so of them.

Speaking of variety..I think the trolls kinda suck at variety. Just two types of torso and that's it for the warriors. In case of an 'organized' faction (crownies) I don't mind soldiers in a unit wearing the same uniform and helmets - but a horde of orcs looking all a like is a bit silly. Basically they all have the same helmets too. I did get a lot of the impulse sets already - just to get me going. Too bad they included a rat instead of a decent shield....I also ordered some decal paper (I have a very good printer at work) - now I need to get my hands on green-handed-torsos (haha)

Thanks for the decal tip! Never really thought of that myself. Perhaps it's a nice route - and certaintly worth a try...

Yeah..I guess it's cheaper to buy 5618 and rearm them a bit (bow / arrows, shields etc.). Well, the knights and the skellies have battle packs...it's just the orcs / trolls that seem left out. I think it would be cool to have a battle pack with 1 troll and three small orcs - one with a spear, one with a bow and arrow and one 'leader' with a shield and a sword - for the price of the skellie battle pack or something.

Hi guys...what packs are reasonable options to go for for some serious Troll / Orc army building? There are no battle packs like with the knights and the skellies. The single orc with the cart / cannon is okay-ish but it lacks a shield and buying just that kit kinda kills any variety. Ideas?

I would absolutely love it. Greeks hoplites....perhaps some Romans and barbarians too?

Nice fusion of two themes.

Speaking of which: I just finished building the Tree Hide out (the small one with the two minifigs) that I got for a decent second hand price. It was a very nice little project (took me about an hour or so). I noticed the bricks made a very different sound than the new bricks I got with the 20 boxes of Trolls & Knights (I got a bunch of the impulse packs for army building purposes...battle packs are also on the way)...the new ones were kind of 'bendy' and felt soft...a bit weird to this old-skool-grey-castle-builder. The details on the new minifigs are great though (the weapons were a bit to rubbery for my taste though, compared to the old skool hard plastic ones). I think I am going to upgrade my 'great' Black Falcon Army so it will be slightly more modern looking (perhaps a bunch of custom ovoid shields for the spear men?) A new forest faction would certainly grab my attention...with long bows and capes and stuff. I don't care if you call them Elves or Woodsmen or Men-in-tight....

Thanks people for the nice welcome! I just finished building both the old tree hide out (forrest men) and I unpacked 10 soldiers + 10 orcs. I built a nice watchtower from the parts that were intended for the weapons rack (and some parts of the troll/orc carts). I also took out all the minifigs and parts from the Advent set. I guess that should tell you I'm in full swing army building straight from the bat. I like the new minifigs (nice details) but I am rather disappointed with the swords and weapons - they are soft and bendy. Not like the old school swords. Well at least they're not ridiculously oversized like the swords on the early 2000s models. One other thing: the old tree hide out had nice, bricks that snapped into place - they have a certain sound that I remember from my youth. The new bricks from the Castle impulse set and the Advent set felt a bit soft - almost like you could bend them if you tried (less brittle if you like)....I'm not sure I like that. (this probably has been noted by the lot of you...for me this is all new).

I nearly overlooked this part of the forum. My name is Bazziman. I am from the Netherlands, an industrial designer by training but a senior marketing professional by profession. I'm married and have one son (with a girl on the way!) Until a few weeks ago I hadn't touched any Lego bricks for over 20 years. As a kid however I was crazy about lego. My big brother had some classic space lego, some technics and a train or two (both the blue and the grey tracks)....I loved the grey castles (I also had the yellow one) and miniland (town). Most of my pocket money was spent on lego and I always eagerly looked forward to reading the new 'Legokrant'. This was a newspaper you could get in the toystore...I think they ran an issue ever few months or so. Until I was about 11 years old most of my world consisted of playing with Lego's. And than all of a sudden I stopped playing with it. Just like that. Lego seemed childish, stupid. Not interesting. My mom put all the bricks (and the booklets) in two plastic containers which she stored in the attic...because 'one day you too will have kids'. 'Sure mom. Whatever'. I couldn't care less. Almost two years ago me and my wife got our first son. Caspar. For his first birthday he got his first two duplo sets (the Big Zoo and a smaller plastic bucket with various blocks). At december the 5th (Sinterklaas) he got his second set: the train starter kit. I learned to build faster than he could destroy stuff. Strangely he doesn't care much about the amount of plastic blocks: he just wants a car, a car and maybe a few duplofigs. That's all he needs. That's also the time when the tingling started. That's when I remembered those two plastic boxes that were now in my own attic. They were heavy. Dusty. And hidden behind stacks of other stuff that only waited for me to get rid of it. A month or two ago I started thinking about my lego's again. My castles in particular. Memories and thoughts ran crazy in my head. Would I still have all the bricks? Would I need to set up a big table in Caspar's new room for me - for us - to set it all up again once he turned 5 or 6? A few weeks ago I took out the plastic boxes and started washing, sorting and building my first models again and from that day onward I am hooked. I noticed most of my own bricks had been badly discoloured though, so I am hunting the web for cheap bricks to replace them.....and for new minifigs, weapons and parts to build new armies. I'm not sure if this all had happened without my mom not giving away my old lego (like she did with my Star Wars action figures!)...I'm also not sure where this will end:my secretary is giving me weird looks because the mail man just delivered a second hand Forrest Men set (the small tree), 10 orcs/trolls, 10 knights and a castle advent calender...

I really like the guys working (doing the construction). Some things I noticed are the fishing rod (it looks out of place) and the fact that some of your base plates are dirty! ;)

This is so strange. I remember building it for them. Twice. (they were a bit too young / not interested in lego themselves)...It came in a big box in which they put the piece after playing with it (which I found strange since I always left my models on a big table to play with)...I distinctly remember it being similar but not the same to my own yellow castle....the only set that comes kinda close is the street scene. It must have been real lego (I would have recognized a fake wouldn't I?) This is so weird. I guess I am getting too old! It's been more than 20 years after all (gosh, I AM getting old.) Thanks guys for trying to help me out with this one.

Nope. It was a different yellow castle. Hmmm...nothing that seems to be the one I am looking for. Here's what I recall. 1. It was (largely at least) similar to the yellow castle (yellow bricks, those slopes in the walls and built on a green base plate). It felt more girlish though. 2. It came with instructions (because I built from them). 3. It was lego branded. 4. It must have been from around the mid 80's - it came in a big cardboard box with a lid (I think). 5. I don't remember any minifigs...I do remember the set missing one part (small yellow 1x1x1 round brick). Thanks guys for trying to figure this one out. Coming out from my DA feels like a total rush; memories come poppin' up again like crazy. Eyes - hurt - can't - see. Aaargh.

No. I think it was put on a green base plate. Thanks for trying to help me out though. This is a very nice set though.I love the bodies and shield of those minifig knights!

Hi Guys, I've been googling myself silly but I couldn't find the answer to this one. For my 6th birthday (1981) I got the famous Yellow castle which I enjoyed building a lot. A few years later though a neighborhood girl got *another* yellow castle. I remember me building it for her. It had the same yellow wall (with the sloping piece) but a different lay out and I'm not sure if it had any knights in it. Does anybody have a clue which castle that would have been? (coming out of my dark age has triggered a lot of old memories to pop up!) Oh, and I think the other one must have been from around 85 / 86 or a bit earlier (I was about 10 or 11 when I build it)

Guys, I have to fess up....I just ordered 4 battle packs of crownies and 4 battle packs of skellies, 10 trolls wariors and 10 knights armories AND the castle Christmas set...in other words: my 35 BF soldiers have two armies to deal with that are almost the same size as theirs. I'm afraid leaving my 'dark ages' has thrown me in a new addiction....

I think this is true. The old castle theme (80s style) was very well executed - the falcons especially still look very nice (even today). The stuff in between is childish (the King Leo stuff and KKI / KKII it's horrible if you ask me). The newers stuff is better - though it's a bit over the top (if you ask me) from time to time - the minifigs however are gorgeous. I've got half a mind of buying loads of trolls and skellies to attack my rapidly growing Falcon Army. Perhaps things will get so bad they need the crusaders to come to their aid. ;)

Sure. (Though I do think that the Romans and perhaps other professional armies had some kind of uniform). I think my 'peasant' and rag tag / barbarian armies - the ones that more or less got raised on the spot will have lots of variation (lots of grey and brown). But the professionals - the full time soldiers that had armour and helmets and expensive equipment should look more uniform - at least that's how I feel about it. It's not 'real' realism, but especially the Black Falcons look really cool when they are in all black and blue - no yello plumes or saddles: those should all be white I think (or black / blue). Perhaps red should only be used as a special colour (to denote commanders and such). The variation (I think) should come from having them have different faces - I'm ordering some of those from various sources right now. Even the helmets should be of one colour if you ask me: black for the falcons, dark grey for the lions / crusaders. I always hated the black helmets on the crusaders. That just didn't look right when I was a kid. I also feel that the ratio of horsemen to footman should be much lower. Like one horse per 20 soldiers or even lower. Especially in medieval times horses were for the knights only - not for the rabble. Same here. I *still* do that. Haha. Black or blue pants for the soldiers and grey pants (or something like that for the knights). I am very picky about that. ;)

Hi Martijn, I recognize much of your story. I started out with the yellow castle when I was 5 or 6 and 'upgraaded' to the grey ones during the late 80s. For more than 20 years my lego bricks lay dormant. Now I have a son (1.6 years old) whom I gave some new Duplo as well as my old Duplo. This triggered me to open up to two large plastic containers full of lego bricks. I've spent the better part of the weekend sorting out bricks and washing them (a LOT of them have discoloured unfortunately - anyone have a good suggestion to get rid of that brownish colour, the yellow, light gray and white brick in particular look very bad)... I even bought a second hand Falcon's castle (the one with the little yellow tudor wall piece) and immediately felt the need to build an army of black falcons (whom I consider the coolest of all factions, ever). The castle came with some smaller sets of the more recent knights (with vampires and boars on their shields). I like the torsos and the new heads, but the 'weaponry' they have is ridiculous; too large swords, weird 'guns' and slings. I think I'll sell those and start collecting *some* of the new stuff - the stuff that doesn't look too childish or feels too much like cheating (and yes, those 5 by 6 wall pieces felt a bit like cheating in the 80s). I'm seriously thinking of rebuilding a neo-classical world; in which the falcons are the 'good' guys and perhaps they have to fight thugs in the wood (woodsmen, robbers, some wolfpack) and keep the land safe from maurauding trolls / orcs and skeletons. I kinda like the new units (though most of the weapons suck) but I really dislike most of the new sets....In the mean time I've been googling the web and found all sorts of wonderful examples of people doing similar (or very different stuff) with their legos. Oh, boy, the wife sure as hell ain't going to like this. Oh, and some other ideas I have are: - building a *real* crusader army (with custom shields / torsos) - you know with the red cross on the white background. - upgrading the Falcons to a late middle ages army - with one or two cannons, crossbows and perhaps giving them longbows and large shield etc. - upgrading the faces of the Falcons too (the moderns heads with grins, beards etc. to add a little spice / difference) Did anyone notice how lego really tried to make all the minifigs a little different (different shield colour, helmet colour, different plumes etc). Especially if you try to build a bigger army (with say 10 or so swordsmen) this looks a bit weird to me....as I kid I never like that. Uniforms are meant to be uniform. ;)