ziljin

I think his point was that, Lego can make a compromise on sets. Have civilians, and the soldier minifigs. Like 2 warriors duking it out with a peasant as a bystander. Or some merchant traveling to a distant land accompanied by soldiers and they are attacked by the enemy (like King's Battle Chariot, except replace the King with a Merchant). Edit: Random other examples, the enemy raiding a local farm plot for food. Invaders attacking a treasury for gold. Maybe a blacksmith/stable with valuable resources. A crypt/mausoleum being looted by bandits for the treasure. I say enemy so you can replace it with trolls, skeletons, or any human faction. Whoever the "bad guy" is.

Hm, I just found out about this. How come i can't find any info about it except this review? Has it already been discontinued as soon as it was released? Or will they eventually release it. I definitely want one of these.

So did anyone have any luck with removing the plate from the box?

I like the diverse amount of stuff going around. Like that orc cart thing, the burial site, the market, and the countryside.

Nice, I didn't even notice the roof wasn't sloped until I zoomed in. Seems a bit cramped though. Like one catapult shot and they are all goners. Then again, its a bit difficult to fit in a staircase in a small structure.

While, maybe not so much in terms of the architecture, but you could easily do the same with the fantasy. There is no reason why all dwarfs, and humans must coexist. And trolls/skeletons coexist. There can easily be factions of skeletons, trolls, dwarfs, and humans. Some random examples I came up with. Pirates as bandits/mercenaries/less "civilized" faction. There is the evil wizard but you could easily make your own skeleton king as the leader of a splinter undead faction. Probably too expensive, but you could buy a bunch of golden knights/drawbridge defenses and make a splinter crownie faction. Leg swaps between trolls and dwarves can result in goblins, and some dwarf inspired viking faction. Using generic torsos or any other type of torsos, you can make a different dwarf faction (or at the very least increase variety of dwarves) Using generic torsos or any other torsos, you can make all sorts of human factions (well this applies to any theme, not just fantasy era_=).

If they do make new Castle sets, it would be awesome if there is a cheap set with the golden knight(or any kind of armored knight for that matter) minifig. As of right now, its way too expensive. i have 2 lol. Wish I could afford more. I got into Lego just at the beginning of August, missing out on all the awesome Castle sets. =(.

Well they usually have some sort of minifig pack. The battle packs are just more unified and more weapon oriented.

This is great. I like how you can take apart the tower to see the inner details. And I think the pirates look great as fishermen/villagers. The trolls trying to sneak in one one side is a nice touch. Gives the scene some action to it.

gold heist is pretty crummy. The ship is really underbuilt. Missing windows and a chunk in the rear. Frenzy is nice, but paying 20 usd for a minifig is kind of lame. i should know, I bought three of those sets lol. Now I realize I made a poor decision. Space Truck Getaway looks pretty awesome though. It has a giant laser cannon.

that's a lot of neck armors, did you purchase mass battlepacks/tower raids or did you just buy them via bricklink/ebay?

Maybe they didn't find a proper NA group for Autism?

I like the landscape. The trolls blend right into the greenery.

they don't necessarily have to be the same face to be considered a clone. Like whatever your theme is. Example being city, would you rather have like 50 firefighters(to make some epic firestation or something) or a 1-3 of each community worker. Say for current castle theme, is 30 regular knights, a 5 grey and golden knights good enough, or would you want say 20 regular knights and 10 grey and golden knights (cost more obviously) ETC.

Well the weapons, helmets, shields, and other accessories are the standard quality. And the minifig legs and heads look standard as far as I can tell. Just the torsos are lower quality. The battle packs have more weapon variety and minifig heads(at least for human and dwarf). But in the future, I guess I will get chess/tictactoe sets, impulse sets, and battlepacks. Combining them all together should result in nice diversity and numbers for a cheap price.

Well they are all made by lego, so the quality is the same. =P.

lol yea. my cousin has a few city sets. All but one minifigs have the silver glasses head. I want to get more golden knights, but it costs way too much (via bricklink or set purchase). But if I get additional drawbridge sets, I get more skeletons, weapons, grey bricks, and dark blue slopes. Not too concerned about the gray knights since I have zero of them. But ultimately the next castle theme will probably have more armored knights, so I guess I shouldn't fret over only having 2 golden knights. They could be generals or something.

Actually I did order some of them through pick a brick to supplement my skeleton army. But the skeleton shields, helmets, and armor cannot be bought through S@H. Not going to BL them though, since a dollar spend at BL could be a dollar spent on S@H. Well hopefully they will continue the fantasy theme and have more fantasy minifigs in the future.

they discontinued them unfortunately. If they only had them for a few months longer, and I could have a nice Crownie and Skeleton army.

Especially if you mostly collect minifigs or build armies. It's cheaper to get stuff like chess/tictactoe sets, impulse sets, and battlepacks to get mass minifigs. But on the other hand, the more expensive sets have unique minifigs, and trying to get multiples of those will be costly and difficult (especially after the sets go out of production). Just having one of a minfig seems unfufilling for some reason. EDIT: It's too late now, but I didn't mean like in absolutes. Since I am a castle fan going to use it as an example. Quantity would be mostly regular soldier crownies with a 0-1 of the kings, golden knights, grey knights, queens, villagers, etc. Diversity would be a couple of more of those unique minifigs and less of the cheaper regular minfigs. Like for star wars, is 2 senate commandos enough? or would you want more, etc.

I have been recently enthralled with castle sets. So I am now mostly concerned with the fantasy era sets. The minifigs are great, on one hand there will probably be newer more awesome ones later on. I could get more battle chariots and drawbridge defenses for the gold knights (15usd at bricklink lol !) and kings for the armors (the dearmoured kings can become nobles instead), or I could spend money on troll and dwarf battlepacks since its uncertain if there will be more trolls and dwarfs in the future, while humans will always be around. And there is the Tower Raid for more dark blue slopes and the one older crownie torso. Or I could save my money until the next castle theme comes out and get mass minifigs from those sets. I guess it boils down to quantity vs diversity.

well I hope they continue the trend. They are cheap sources of minifigs. And unfortunately I missed out on the fantasy era chess and tic tac toe sets. =(. I hope they continue so I can get tons more in the future.

The Troll and Dwarf battle packs also suffer from this. No neck printing, numbers, and the indent on the arm. I wonder why they did this. Although truthfully, I will probably get a tic tac toe set or two. does anyone know if the pirates battle pack suffer from this as well?

Not sure why, but I don't see any reviews on these sets? Since I have crummy, pics I don't see why I should make two separate topics. I recently bought 4 of each. I am sure most people are well aware of the lower quality of these minifigs, but if you don't this topic on Classic Castle will inform you. Never done a review before, so forgive me if its crummy. If anything, just consider this inspiration for someone to do a proper review of the two sets. EDIT: I created slideshows compiling these pictures. Box shot of Troll Battle Pack Group Shot. Pikemen with capes that have holes in it. IIRC same ones on the Troll King and Sorceress from the Mountain Fortress Set Standard Trolls with swords and shields Troll general with an earlier helmet, neck armor, doubled sided axe and shield. And the rat. Price 14.99 Pros: Neck armor for troll general 3 Shields Nice assortment of weapons Troll army builder Cons: Wish they included the troll king minifig head Lower quality minifigs (see classic castle thread linked above) A spear instead of an extra sword, or at least a different colored sword would have been nice. Neutral: Not sure what to think of the rat. Could be useful for vignettes I guess. The Dwarf Battle Pack Box Set Dwarf Group Shot. 3 Axmen and 2 miners, notice 2 beards are on backward. Pics of the heads and torsos under the beards. Three Crown torsos, and 2 Viking torsos Shots of both sides of the double sided head. Price 14.99 Pros: Different Helmets Very cheap source of dwarfs (compared to bricklink, well thats probably going to change as more people buy the battlepacks) 3 Battle axes and 3 shields 5 different heads, which helps diversify your other human minifigs if you swap heads Extra shovel, mallet and barrel Cons: Like the troll battlepack, lower quality minfigs. Could have used another weapon, but I guess you can take the flame off the torch and it becomes a club. Neutral: I have trouble taking the beards off, which is annoying that they have two of the beards on backwards on every Dwarf battle pack.

lol awesome it does look a bit like that. I will have to wait until my next order to get some gray offsets to detail the windows. Probably more dark bluish gray bricks to break up the monotone even more.