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jodawill

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Everything posted by jodawill

  1. jodawill
    I have no problem with a queen's castle because that's pretty normal from an historical perspective. There have been lots of queen rulers. I think it's a cool idea.
  2. jodawill
    I just got my Forest Hideout today. Except for a few Technic sets and the Lego Movie 2 space sets, I haven't bought a new Lego set since the 2015 pirates. So a lot of the pieces in this set are new to me. There's a lot of interesting parts here, like the one that's half of a 2x2 circular brick. One of my favorite subtle changes (and I'm probably way late to the game in seeing this) is the new bow and arrow piece. If it weren't for the pip marks, I might not have even noticed it's a new mold. But you can see in this picture that the arrow is longer so it's easier to make them hold it with both hands. This set totally lives up to my expectations on what a new forestmen wave should look like. I really hope we get more of these soon. I would love a new Dark Forest set also. I always loved that theme, but the big set is too expensive, and looking at it as an adult, the build seems pretty underwhelming. But I love the spirit of that theme.
  3. jodawill
    I got my first Black Falcons from PAB today. Except for some Technic stuff, I haven't bought a new Lego set since Benny's Space Squad. I had issues with the torsos cracking in that set, just sitting in storage. It may just be my imagination, but I think the quality of the minifigures has improved since then. The joints on these feel stiff and they feel much more durable. I hope that's true because I want the minifigures in this new set to last my entire life. I can't wait to have a full army of each faction.
  4. jodawill
    How is this set affecting everyone's thoughts on LUG bulk this year? I haven't participated in LUG bulk in a long time. I'm considering going back to the LUG this year for the bulk order, and also to see what people are doing with this set. I can't wait to see all the new MOCs.
  5. jodawill
    I might do that eventually, maybe when my kids are a little older. I love that entire faction. I wish they were more common. This has always bothered me too, ever since I was a kid. I mentioned in a previous comment that I only had two female minifigures when I was a kid. Back then, the gender was assumed based on the clothing and role. I don't think adding female heads to soldiers and knights solves the problem of a lack of female minifigures. I still want more female castle and pirate minifigures, but I want actual females. All of the female roles are still very under-represented. I would like to see more female nobles, a milkmaid, and a forestwoman torso, among others. Just including female heads seems like a band aid to me, or they're just checking off the box because each department is required to meet a quota of 50% female minifigures.
  6. jodawill
    I was born in 1989. My family was never able to afford any of the large or even medium sets when I was a kid. I got a few small castle sets. Black Monarch's Ghost was my first Lego set ever. As an adult, I bought a few of the smaller sets, like the king's carriage. The castle sets they made during this period weren't appealing enough to me to warrant saving up for them. I actually did buy Helm's Deep, but I didn't like it once I put it together, so I sold it. It's only been the past few years now that I've actually been able to afford things like this easily. I've considered buying the Black Knight's Castle or the Black Monarch's Castle, but I feel like I couldn't truly enjoy them if I had them because I'd be so afraid of breaking or losing pieces after paying so much for them. With this new castle, I'm going to stock up on all the great parts so I'll never feel stressed out about pieces breaking or being lost. (And I have to tell you - when you grow up poor and not having access to Bricklink, losing a piece is absolutely heart wrenching. I think I have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with having backup copies of everything now. If I like something, I always buy at least two, whether it's records, Playmobil, Lego, or whatever.)
  7. jodawill
    I'm curious to hear other people's opinions on this. I just sorted all of the castle sets on Brickset by year in descending order to see when the last great castle was made. This is highly subjective, of course, so I'd like to hear everyone's take. But I would argue that the last truly great castle was Black Knight's Castle 6086 in 1992 - exactly 30 years ago. All of the subsequent castles were a bit too frilly for my personal taste, although there were a lot of great castle themed sets between those years, of course. This set really evokes images in my mind of a war, good versus evil. I've been waiting my entire life for this set. I'm really glad it's being released now when I can actually afford it. (I missed out on a lot of great sets in the past like the Imperial Flagship and the Medieval Market Village just because I couldn't afford them at the time.)
  8. jodawill
    Thanks. That's too bad. Maybe I can find another part that will work. Maybe some cascading, rounded tiles? Like the Playmobil thatched roofs. Edit: That piece does come in black, so you could make a Black Falcon's castle with a black roof, just like Black Falcon's Fortress.
  9. jodawill
    What parts did they use for the thatched roof? Is it available in red and dark red? (I want to recolor mine to yellow and red.)
  10. jodawill
    That only means it last appeared in a 2018 set. That's not very long ago, so it surprises me that they chose not to use it in this set. That makes me wonder if they're done with that mold. If that's the case, it's a very sad day. (Thankfully, the old ones aren't expensive, though.)
  11. jodawill
    Years ago, when Bricks & Pieces was new, it was amazing because almost no one knew it existed. I was able to buy all of the 2015 pirates minifigures MONTHS before the sets were released because B&P was such an after thought. There's no way it could have remained a secret for long because it was so awesome. Unrelated - It seems that the classic halberd is conspicuously missing. Is this piece retired forever now, I wonder?
  12. jodawill
    If I search for set 31120, the torso is listed on the last page if I show out of stock parts. The site definitely isn't easy to use. But I hope we see all of the parts from the new castle show up soon.
  13. jodawill
    I think if an item is sold out, it just doesn't appear in the results at all.
  14. jodawill
    Everyone has different opinions on what takes it too far from the verge of realism. I think pretty much everyone thinks Nexo Knights are incredibly stupid, or at the very least, completely separate from the classic castle lines. For me, it's not only the female knights, but also the inclusion of Majesto. I mentioned that in my original comment, but that's not really a controversial take, so it was lost in the comments. Majesto doesn't belong in this set. He belongs to a complete different castle era, and to me, it isn't similar enough to the original to make me think it's actually supposed to be the same character. Still, to me, both of these points seem nitpicky in light of everything that is great about this set. I love the "dollhouse" aspect and the non-realistic tree colors. To me, this is the first set in a long time that's actually looked like Lego to me. I'm pretty old school. I like the old, simple designs of forts and castles. This set looks to me the same way the early '90s castles looked to me when I was a kid (and yet they don't appear that way to me now, looking back as an adult). It's pretty much exactly what I was hoping for - it even gives the feeling of being built on a raised baseplate with the rounded green corners and so forth. I remember I was very underwhelmed when I built the Helm's Deep set because it didn't feel complete. I think this set completely solves that problem. I'm really hoping that Black Monarch's Castle gets the same treatment very soon. I think that's probably the best castle Lego ever made until now. A Dark Forest set would send chills down my spine.
  15. jodawill
    I really shouldn't be online posting about controversial stuff at 1am when I'm tired. I'm not into the female soldiers. If you are, that's awesome because that's what we're getting. I hope you get many years of happiness from them. I don't mean to dwell on the only negative thing about this set. The set is absolutely amazing. It's way better than I imagined it would be. I'm going to buy as many copies as I can afford before the castle goodness dries up for another decade. 😂
  16. jodawill
    Those are the only options?
  17. jodawill
    We also can't tell whether the black falcon knight is male or female. But to me, the issue has nothing to do with the ratio of men to women. It's about their roles in the set. Having an army of 50% women in medieval times is just completely ludicrous. Something Awesome compared it to having females in the German army in WWII. If you were watching a WWII movie and half of the nazi soldiers just happened to be women for no apparent reason, you'd just shake your head at how preposterous it is. It's the same thing here.
  18. jodawill
    That was a great video. I think he's absolutely right when he says that the people who complain about products not being woke enough will get distracted by the next controversy and simply move on, while the actual consumer base will continue buying the products. To me, having all female knights in this set is just incredibly stupid. It's like they're going out of their way to inform us about how woke they are. He did get one thing wrong in the video. Joan of Arc wasn't a knight. There were never women knights. The honorific title for women was "dame," and it was extremely rare for women to join the men in combat. From a historical perspective, having only female knights just doesn't make any sense. The problem isn't the male to female ratio. When I was a kid, I always wished I had more female minifigures. They were very rare. I think I only had two, and they were both from freestyle/basic sets. I would love to see a 50/50 split between men and women in castle sets. That would just be awesome. But I want to see women dressed as women. To me, having all female knights is almost as weird as including a bearded man in a dress. These women are all in men's clothing. (That's convenient for people who want to switch the heads, which I suspect is why they did it, but it's just really weird.) It's ironic that you're saying the gender binary concept in Lego is probably being phased out because back when we just had plain smiley faces, everyone was free to assume their minifigure was whatever gender they wanted. Their genders were inferred from their roles, but a girl would have been free to pretend her knight is a woman if she wanted to. That's why the yellow minifigures are great. They're not white and they're not black. They're totally neutral - whatever the child wants them to be. I hope other AFOLs who are irritated with this will have the courage to speak up on the forums. I'll probably get some hate mail for sharing my opinions here, but I don't want Lego to think everyone is happy about these "woke" changes to their sets. I'm certainly not, and I suspect the majority of people don't like it either, and they're just afraid to speak up.
  19. jodawill
    I'm a purist, but I think it would be amazing to have some tools to do custom prints on official pieces if they have the same quality as official prints. I'm surprised there aren't people doing this.
  20. jodawill
    What's wrong with it being a "dollhouse" style? This is exactly what I want. I want it to be playable, like the big sets they made when I was a kid. This reminds me a lot of Fort Legoredo.
  21. jodawill
    I'm really surprised by all the negative comments about this set. Please, everyone, just buy this set. Buy multiple copies. If you don't, we likely won't see another castle ever again.
  22. jodawill
    I haven't been this excited about a Lego set since the '90s. This is absolutely fantastic. This is at the very least the best set made within the past 25 years, if not all time. I don't want to get into politics here, but honestly, I find the number of female soldiers in this set to quite patronizing. Having a queen in a full suit of armor is pretty cool. I can't find any evidence that queens ever wore armor, but I could imagine at the very least, a ceremonial suit used during a time of war. But having half of your military being female soldiers? That's just completely laughable when you consider not only the time period, but the physical requirements of being a soldier in medieval times. And, as someone else pointed out, this set is targeted at 30/40 something year old dudes like me. It's not for children, and the vast majority of people buying this will no doubt be men. I will switch the heads on my set, but it's unfortunate that I can't change the box art. Majesto is really out of place in this set, and his portrayal was executed so poorly, I would have preferred they threw in another forestman or soldier. Not a huge deal. The parts will be useful at least. Those are really my only gripes about this set. They'll never make a perfect set because everyone has different preferences, but this set is just absolutely fantastic. I love the fact we got several factions, and everyone has their own spot here. The hideout for the forestmen was the perfect touch. And the working portcullis? Amazing. Hats off to the designer of this set. He really knocked it out of the park.
  23. jodawill
    I was just reading RichardGoring's comment about combining 40567 and 21318 into a large forestmen hideout. Looking at the autumn leaves in the latter set gave me an idea. Imagine if Lego released a set of autumn themed forestmen! They could don their brown caps again and have torsos that blend into the autumn leaves.
  24. jodawill
    I haven't received an email yet, and my card shows they only charged $5.78. Is anyone else having similar issues? I ordered the Duplo Chinese house for my kids and a dozen black falcon minifigures from PAB.
  25. jodawill
    Yeah, my bad... that's the page Duck Duck Go took me to when I searched for the set number.
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