Aanchir

Gorgeous work! It looks very authentic to the original while also beautifully matching the new Forest Hideout's updated design. Part of me feels like the big stone that conceals the entrance would look better in Dark Stone Grey, both so that it "reads" more clearly as stone rather than wood, and matches the secret hideout entrances from the Lion Knights' Castle, but obviously it's your MOC and your call!

I enjoyed KKII a lot in my teen years, though after year one I focused entirely on the constraction sets instead of the playsets — which I have since come to regret, after realizing how much cooler a lot of the later KKII playsets were compared to the ones from the first year! I loved the idea of a band of knights with varied personalities and strengths going on a very Arthurian sort of quest to save their kingdom from a wicked sorcerer. Even today I feel like the storyline and characters are pretty compelling! In hindsight, aside from the awkward mid-2000s playset designs, my main grievances with the theme are the same ones that bothered me as a child: First and foremost, the theme was entirely lacking in female characters, to the point that they had to make up new figures as the "queen" for both sides in the KKII chess set! That's a pretty severe downgrade from the previous Knights' Kingdom sets which offered both a queen and a princess with knightly aspirations! Second, the lack of civilians/supporting characters and everyday settings like farmsteads or inns (as sometimes portrayed in the trading card illustrations) made the world feel quite a bit smaller and less lively than I would have liked, and failed to showcase aspects of the main characters' lives outside of their quest. And third, while it may seem a bit silly, it's always bothered me that there were no large-scale horses to accompany the constraction figures! The third year at least gave them some accompanying builds, but otherwise there wasn't much to do with them besides make them fight each other. By comparison, Bionicle (the other major constraction theme of the time) had a wider range of creature builds to accompany its heroes/villains, as well as accessories like Masks of Power to search for and villagers to protect. All that said, I wouldn't mind a Castle series like Knights' Kingdom 2 with a similar sort of character-driven quest narrative, evocative scenery, and larger-than-life, fantasy-influenced architecture if it came out today — provided the builds were more in line with current LEGO set design standards and the cast of characters was a little more well-rounded. After all, those are just a few of the numerous attributes that I loved so much about the Elves theme!

Oh, nice to hear about the price change! That definitely gets me thinking that in the very least, the new mold likely produces more feathers with each molding cycle. I know Mark Stafford mentioned in this interview that stuff like that can often result in seemingly counterintuitive price differences between parts (such as how at that time, 5M and 6M Technic axles were cheaper than 4M ones). As much as a sucker as I am for color-coded characters (after all, some of my all-time favorite themes are Bionicle, Ninjago, and Elves!), I kind of get the impression that these days LEGO might prefer to try and maintain a more unified green+brown+red color palette for the forest people faction. As I've mentioned previously, many old-school knight minifigures used parts in colors outside of their faction's usual color scheme (e.g. capes, feathers, etc) in compensate for the lack of individualized facial features. I think the same likely applies to the color-coded collars/sleeves of the old-school forestmen minifigs. Naturally, I'm with you in hoping that future forest people sets will include more hat colors, feather colors, and torso decorations than just the one used in this year's sets! A faction that'd all dressed in identical uniforms would get pretty boring, and also would feel much more out-of-place for an outlaw faction like this than it would for uniformed knights/soldiers. But I also feel like if/when LEGO does introduce more variety in forest people minifigures, they may end up varying the torso designs in different ways than the old "palette swap" approach — such as different sorts of belts, vests, gambesons, and other accoutrements that still adhere to a similar color palette. Of course, this is all just speculation on my part, based mostly on the trends we've seen with other Castle minifigures from Fantasy Era onward compared to Castle minifigures of the 80s. So probably best not to read much into any of this — it's just stuff I've been thinking about lately.

I figure some of their color choices for the small plume have probably just been prioritizing the ones they see the most need for at any given time. White in particular seems to be their go-to choice for quill pens. That said, LEGO introduced a new part number for the small plume as of this year (presumably corresponding to a new mold), so hopefully that signifies a commitment to including it in more sets going forward! Fingers crossed, at any rate. After all, the previous mold and part number were the ones originally created for the Vintage Minifigure Collections and Collectible Minifigures. That may have limited their production capacity for that part somewhat compared to other parts like the large plume (64647/28661) which have been included in far more sets per year. On another note, the large black plume has also appeared in this Harry Potter set from this year, so the Lion Knights' Castle is not the only recent source for it. Hopefully it, too, will continue appearing in more sets in the years to come. Even beyond hat feathers and quills, plume pieces like these also make great detail elements for various sorts of plant and animal life, as well as great decoration for buildings, furniture, etc.

Yeah, this is my take as well. Nexo Knights was Castle-inspired through and through (specifically designed with the premise "future Castle", borrowing plenty of its heraldry and iconography from previous Castle themes, and focusing on a society that traced their in-universe heritage back to the Yellow Castle). In that regard, it's relevant to the history of LEGO Castle whether you count it as a "true" Castle theme or not. I imagine that even an AFOL-written retrospective on the Castle theme's history would probably at least mention Nexo Knights, albeit in a negative light, just as an AFOL-written retrospective on the Pirates theme would likely mention the 4+ Pirates sets of the early 2000s. Of course, an AFOL-written retrospective might mention licensed themes like The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit as well, but including them here in a non-licensed set's manual would've probably required approval from and/or royalty payments to the owners of those IPs, which would be more trouble than it's worth. So their omission from this manual is no more surprising than their omission from the "90 Years of Play" set. And truth be told, I don't think the LEGO Group cares nearly as much as we do about clearly categorizing the various themes they design! One look at the history of space themes from 2000 onward should make it clear that they are not always designed to adhere to any fixed definition of "LEGO Space", let alone any sort of shared universe. From what I've seen, LEGO's perspective on new theme development tends to be more like "This will be a space/castle/pirate/underwater/underground/spy theme" than "This will be part of the Space/Castle/Pirates/Aquazone/Rock Raiders/Alpha Team theme". The genre and focus are treated more as an attribute of the theme than as a parent category. I think you're viewing "big bang" themes through a bit too narrow a lens, myself. While we often associate "big bang" themes with various sorts of wacky mashup genres, in reality it refers more to a particular a marketing and development strategy than to a particular sort of subject matter. Sure, Ninjago, Legends of Chima, and Nexo Knights are all "big bang" themes, but so were Power Miners, Atlantis, and Elves — themes that each adhered more strictly to a particular established genre. Even the Friends theme ended up implementing "big bang"–like development and marketing approaches by the time of its release. And while there are some shared characteristics of these sorts of themes that are a natural outcome of their strategic roadmap (for instance, a multimedia marketing strategy tends to pretty much necessitate named characters with clearly-defined personality traits), those are not fundamentally incompatible with Castle, Space, and Pirates themes, at least not any more than they are with underwater and underground themes. To expand on what my brother said earlier, Knights' Kingdom 2 already shared a lot of its development strategies, marketing strategies, and other characteristics with more modern "big bang" themes, even if it did so half a decade before those approaches were codified or given a name: It had a cast of named characters with individualized personalities, skills, colors, and motifs. It was marketed through various types of products and media including online games and story content, a Game Boy Advance game, a board game, chapter books, and comics. Its standard playsets were accompanied by a range of lower-priced sets with eye-catching packaging and a focus on social/competitive play and collecting/trading elements (the constraction figures and trading cards) — not unlike LEGO Ninjago's spinner sets, Legends of Chima's Speedorz, or Nexo Knights' "Ultimate Knight" sets. It followed a three-year release timeline that concluded with a fresh, new theme with similar character-driven multimedia marketing (in that case, Exo-Force) taking up the torch. I think the biggest reason there hasn't been a historical fantasy "big bang" theme yet (unless you count Elves, of course), and may not be one for some time, is just that there are so many options for LEGO to choose from for each new "big bang" theme, and they usually only introduce one new "big bang" theme every few years! But that doesn't mean they're any less likely to make the next "big bang" a castle theme than any of the other hypothetical genres they could pursue, like a spy or dinosaur or space or time travel theme. It's just a matter of what they feel will stand out most and make the biggest splash at any given time.

Honestly, I tend to interpret these sorts of regularly placed black bricks in older Castle sets as the exposed ends of wooden ceiling joists. There are a lot of medieval castle ruins in real life that still have regularly placed holes in their exterior walls from where these sorts of wooden ceiling joists would've originally been placed. That would be great! If you want to put together a list and send them to me in a message I can go ahead and plug those in!

Yep! The easiest way is that once a set is inventoried on BrickLink you can click File>Import>Import Official LEGO Set and then input the set number to create a parts palette based on the set's inventory (which, unlike the default parts palette, will list the quantity of each brick that you have remaining next to its picture in the building palette panel). Of course, that only limits the part usage to the contents of that one set, not to a collection of multiple sets. IDK if there's any quick and easy way to make a parts palette based on the latter.

I'm pretty indifferent to Avatar as an IP (the movie was enjoyable in its own right, but not too memorable for me, and I'm not really excited at all for any of the sequels). That said, I am really impressed with the creatures environments from these sets! Lots of whimsical, brightly-colored alien plants and animals, nifty landscaping features like floating rocks and waterfalls, etc. A lot of it calls to mind stuff that I greatly enjoyed about the Elves and LEGO Movie 2 sets. From a historic/fantasy standpoint, honestly a lot of the most promising parts I see are the more generic ones like the numerous water pieces in Tr. Light Blue, or the rock and plant pieces in assorted earth tones. Some of the creature parts could also be used for more conventional fantasy creatures like dragons, sea serpents, etc, though the dinosaur-influenced head molds and four-eyed head prints have decidedly more modern fantasy or sci-fi vibes than traditional folklore/mythology vibes, so I guess it's up to the individual builder whether that's a deal-breaker for them. The most exciting part for me overall is the new wheelchair mold, which seems a little more compact than the current one (the wheel bearings are only three modules wide), and may fit through door frames more easily. But it's probably not too much use in historic contexts unless they introduced both the seat and wheels in a more neutral color like black or brown.

Well, I'm flattered! Here's a spreadsheet where I've been gathering set, theme, subtheme, and character names from catalogs and other print media from various countries: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dT_lHtnZLce6EgssDvITRQ41bxtpykPIbyCFWYM84P8/edit?usp=sharing It's sort of an eternal work-in-progress, and in hindsight there are parts I wish I'd organized better (I also wish I'd done better citing sources for some of these names so I could keep track of which are from catalogs, which are from comics/magazine ads, etc), but there's probably plenty there to sate your curiosity, even if it's far from comprehensive. I didn't mean to imply that only kids who play with dolls or similar toys care about interior detail — just that formative childhood experiences playing with dollhouses can help condition kids to expect detailed interiors in a way that other toys like toy cars, robots, dinosaurs, or trains would not. And since we live in a world where boys are often encouraged to play with those sorts of toys and discouraged from playing with dolls/dollhouses… well, you get the idea. Plus, as others here have recognized, set design is often a give-and-take, so sometimes putting a greater emphasis on interior detail means making compromises elsewhere (especially in KFOL-targeted sets, since they're typically constrained to lower price points than "premium" adult-targeted sets like the Lion Knights' Castle). To give a non-Castle example: even many AFOLs who enjoy the detailed interiors of themes like Friends and Elves often express frustration with how many of those sets lack full side walls or roofs. But of course, since kids can see, access, and play with the full interiors more easily WITHOUT full side walls or roofs, the designers have less incentive to spend money on those features than they would in sets that are more exterior-focused. Conversely, when an open-backed building DOES have full side walls and roofs, it can force the designers to reduce the depth (front-to-back) of the interiors or the amount of accessories and furniture inside — since that would make it hard to reach in and interact with stuff in the "front' of the building without knocking down stuff closer to the open back. Hinged rooms like the ones in the Lion Knights' Castle can sometimes be a good solution to these problems, since it lets you split each room in half when displaying or playing/interacting with the interiors. This way you don't have to reach past the dining room table to interact with the harpsichord and fireplace, or reach past the toy Yellow Castle to interact with the bed and writing desk — they are split into separate narrow chambers with their own openings, despite combining into single, larger chambers when the set is closed. But even that is not a perfect solution in all cases, particularly since it limits the size of a room's individual furnishings or how they can be arranged. Imagine if to access the interior of a schoolhouse set, you had to separate the half of the room containing the students' desks from half containing the teacher's desk and blackboard — meaning they would only be facing the blackboard when the room was closed! Or if to access the interior of a fire station's parking garage, you had to split it into two halves that were both too narrow for the fire truck to fit inside! In fact, I've spent quite a bit of time on stud.io struggling to design a "great hall" for either this set or 31120 — and one of the major frustrations I've encountered is figuring out where the interior can be split so it can fold/unfold. After all, a table has to be pretty large to seat enough people and fit enough table settings for a big medieval feast/banquet, and unless the great hall is ENORMOUS, it's likely gonna be smack dab in the middle of the room! Should I split the table itself in half down the middle? Should the room hinge into three sections instead of two? Should I make the room open vertically like the Modular Buildings instead of horizontally (which would make the whole floor plan accessible, but would not allow for a true "minifig's eye view")? I haven't yet come up with an answer I'm fully satisfied with. Maybe better/more experienced Castle builders than me would achieve better outcomes than me with this sort of thing.

Yeah, I think the designers most likely opted for a queen/lady instead of a king/lord was mostly because it was a way of keeping things fresh and different, even in a set as heavily nostalgia-influenced as this one. It's not as though they're somehow trying to insult/punish men or insinuate that "only women are fit to rule" or anything weird or petty like that. I think the original Castle sets arguably left girls in the lurch in other ways. As you mentioned, a lot of the figures' roles were definitely ones people would primarily associate with men, which was surely reinforced by some countries' set names and descriptions referring to them using gendered terms like "Men-at-arms" or "Forestmen". But beyond that, the set designs were also heavily geared towards the sort of "action play" that boys tended to enjoy, and that was typical of "boys' toys" from other brands. "Dollhouse" style play features like bedrooms, dining rooms, gardens, and even horse stables were scarce (the Guarded Inn was the main set with any of that sort of stuff in those early years of LEGO Castle). In fact, many early LEGO castle sets were largely devoid of interior furnishings aside from dungeons and places to store weapons! Obviously, girls can enjoy battles and jousts and other "action play" scenarios just fine if that's what they're drawn to. But overwhelmingly focusing on the sorts of features that people tend to think of as "boyish" over ones that people tend to think of as "girly" is hardly a neutral stance. Because usually, that means prioritizing the tastes of boys who would feel alienated by features they think of as "girly" or "dollhouse-like" over the tastes of girls who genuinely enjoy those same features. This article from the Atlantic about the development of LEGO Friends even used LEGO Castle as an example of where traditional LEGO themes had been failing girls: Again, I'm not saying any of this is biologically innate, or that there are no girls who'd jump just as eagerly into the same sort of combat play as the boys in those research sessions. But when a child grows up with plenty of opportunities to play with dollhouse-type toys, as many girls do, it goes without saying that it will influence their expectations of what features a toy playset needs in order to offer a truly complete play experience. They learn to take notice when a toy house or castle doesn't have places for its inhabitants to eat and sleep, or lives to return to at the end of the day when their work is done or their battle is won. Of course, adult-targeted sets like this one, Medieval Market Village, and the Modular Buildings have a much better track record for balancing these sorts of details than traditional Town or Castle sets. I figure that's partly because by adulthood, a lot of our tastes and expectations have become more complex, regardless of gender. We expect enough details to make these models feel authentic, not just enough to keep us busy during "playtime". But it makes me happy that even KFOL-oriented themes like City and Creator have gotten better over the years at balancing some of these sorts of features. And I hope that whenever LEGO decides they're ready for another dedicated KFOL-targeted medieval/fantasy theme, the same will be true there!

I think for me it's partly that the Lion Knights' Castle is a bigger set with more stuff to talk about — including some details that were not obvious in the official pics/videos or Fan Media Days interviews, and thus have only become clear in recent reviews! In the case of this set, there have been fewer new/hidden details to discover after the initial reveal. The Galaxy Explorer is also a more purely open-ended playset without any implied "storyline", at least from what I've seen so far — whereas the castle has some blurbs in the instruction manual that tease potential storylines surrounding the three factions depicted, and play features that serve as clear "story starters" (like the secret tunnel the Forestmen can use to sneak in and out of the castle, or their hidden "escape route" from the dungeons). So that stuff gives us a little more to discuss around that set, at least for those of us who enjoy that type of thing. They're both fantastic sets in their own right, though — no doubt about that! And definitely great inspiration and parts packs for "throwback" MOCs of our own! "Bogie"/"Bogey" is aviation/military slang for "An unidentified aircraft, especially as observed as a spot on a radar screen and suspected to be hostile." I think this ominous Blacktron indicator on the radar screen fits the bill in that regard!

I think one thing worth noting about the sorts of complex Castles you have continually pointed out as examples of what you'd have preferred is that they resemble decorative post-medieval designs. For example, Cochem Castle, which you shared in an earlier post, was actually brought to ruin in 1688, and the current castle that sits in its place is a 19th-century reconstruction in the Gothic Revival style. Frankly, the Disney theme is replete with sets influenced by these sorts of romantic, "fairy tale" style castles, which is probably part of why LEGO wanted the anniversary set for the Castle theme to hearken back to the castle architecture of the High Middle Ages, which inspired many early LEGO Castle sets. It emphasizes practical fortifications (battlements; arrow slits; machicolations; a postern gate; and a gatehouse with flanking towers, a drawbridge, and portcullis), and favors Romanesque influences (like circular arches and smooth walls) over later Gothic influences (like pointed arches and walls interrupted by elaborate ribs, columns, and buttresses). In other words, it's not that the designers put less time and effort into its design than the sort of castles you favor, but that they put their efforts towards emulating a different style of castle entirely! And rather than being uninspired, it wears its inspirations and influences on its sleeves — they simply aren't the more decorative sorts of inspirations and influences that you've shown a preference for. Make no mistake, I myself often prefer Gothic-inspired castles with elaborate shapes and textures and contrasting colors a lot of the time! After all, LEGO Elves remains one of my all-time favorite themes, and its sets take heavy influence from both Gothic/late medieval architecture and from all sorts of "fairy-tale"/"storybook" castles. But I also appreciate the authenticity and commitment to detail in this new castle, even if it's far from the sort of castles that I would usually rather design in my own free time. Oh, I very nearly missed this concept, but this is some incredible work! I hope once the set is released he'll continue on this project and maybe even build some of these expansions in real life!

Honestly, I feel the size and detail easily justify the price to me — even if it's still a tough pill to swallow! After all, its full size is around twice that of Modular Buildings from recent years like Corner Garage, Police Station, and Boutique Hotel that cost $200 USD apiece. Even if minifigs are not really a plus in your book, the lack of minifigs and molded animals was perhaps the BIGGEST criticism that 31120 got from other AFOLs in this forum, so it's not as though they're something that LEGO only threw in to boost its "kid appeal" as a playset. Just because you don't care for minifigures doesn't mean they're of no interest to AFOLs. For that matter, I hardly think the dollhouse-style interior really meaningfully detracts from the outside appearance. In fact, a lot of the most gorgeous and interesting exterior details in this set directly relate to the interiors of those parts of the set: for instance, the garderobe, stairs, and gate on the back of the gatehouse, the cavern/tunnel openings and big Forestmen-style tree near the moat, the water wheel and natural spring outside the mill/granary, the many arches and stairs that connect the different chambers, the balcony over the water wheel that turns into a bridge, and the bell tower — which would of course be pointless without a bell! Ninjago City itself was widely regarded as one of the best sets of 2017 even by many AFOLs who ordinarily had little interest in Ninjago. The idea that its AFOL-appeal was somehow compromised or sullied by its emphasis on by its interior details seems absurd to me — after all, its density of detail (inside and out) was in fact a big part of why AFOLs fell in love with it in the first place! And I am surprised that anybody would describe a set that massive, complex, and detailed as "somewhat plain". If anything, sets that prioritize the size and appearance of their exteriors over the detail, authenticity, and livability of their interiors strike me as more of a KFOL thing than an AFOL thing. How often have you seen any Castle, Town, or City set that even approaches the Modular Buildings and Ninjago City collections' level of interior detail? Granted, there are plenty of other AFOLs like you out there who care more about shelf presence than furnished/detailed interiors — the various 18+ sets focusing on static sculptures of famous buildings, sports stadiums, and huge Star Wars ships are a testament to that. But that perspective is far from universal, even among AFOLs!

Yeah, in most European countries (including the UK), "The Black Knight" was the title of the Black Falcons' leader, so it may or may not be meant as a reference to the "Black Knights" faction specifically. Alternatively, as I've mentioned in this comment, there's some media suggesting that "The Black Knight" who led the Black Falcons and the one who eventually led the Black Knights are the same character. So maybe this might be meant as an explanation for him taking up a new coat of arms (even, in some cases, against his former Black Falcon comrades). While I'm not aware of any classic LEGO Castle comics/stories revolving around magical amber, specifically, there ARE a number focusing on magical crystals more generally. In the Captain Indigo comics from the 1983–1984 issues of the UK's Bricks & Pieces Magazine, "The Wizard of Avalon", a shirtless mage who promises to use the power of his color-shifting "Zarconian Jewel" (an artifact rightfully belonging to the extraterrestrial Zark people) agrees to help the Black Knight overthrow Sir Richard of the Lion Knights. Perhaps this could be meant as a cheeky reference to that comic storyline. Or, ya know, it could just be that the amber isn't meant as an old-school set/storyline reference at all, but rather just a brand-new prompt to help builders imagine their own new storylines for these classic LEGO characters/factions!

TBH I wouldn't worry about plumes and capes in old-school not being strictly "color-coded" to their respective factions. I mean, despite all the complaints/confusion I've seen about that new torso from Build-A-Mini not being a good fit for the Black Falcons because of the red cape and silver armor, I feel I ought to point out that in 6073 Knight's Castle/Black Knight's Castle, the leader of the Black Falcons — named the Black Knight in the UK and Ridder Jan Swartegeest (Sir John Blackghost) in the Netherlands — had a red plume, cape, and hips — and in fact, LOADS of Black Falcon minifigures back then had red hips and/or silver breastplates. For that matter, in 6021 Jousting Knights / Sir Richard and the Black Knight, the black knight's tournament garb included a red tunic under his silver breastplate. I realize, of course, that "Black Knight" was sometimes used as a generic term for "mystery challengers" in tournaments, but in UK print media of the 80s like the Spring 1984 issue of Bricks & Pieces Magazine, it was unambiguously treated as the name/title of a specific character. So it seems that to classic set designers, the color red was 100% "Black Falcon Approved". As far as helmet colors are concerned, old-school Black Falcons sets generally used grey helmets to differentiate the Black Knight/Jan Swartegeest from other, more generic mounted knights. After all, back in the days before minifigures had varied facial features, this sort of color-coding was the main way to differentiate characters on an individual basis. If you were so inclined, you could likewise use silver helmets as a sort of rank signifier for modern Black Falcon knight minifigures — for instance, using black helmets specifically for knights and soldiers in the Black Falcon lord's honor guard/inner circle, and silver for other knights and soldiers that swear fealty to them. But of course, if you do prefer more uniformity, swapping helmets is never much trouble — especially since black helmets are hardly difficult to come by! On the subject of named Black Falcon characters: not only was the Black Knight still identified as the leader of the Black Falcons in later UK print media and set names (like 6074 Black Falcon's Fortress/Castle Draco and the Black Knight), but he ALSO was identified in the Spring 1988 issue of Bricks & Pieces Magazine as the lord/ruler of 6085 Black Monarch's Castle/The Black Fortress! And in fact, the photograph on that page replaces his Black Knight shield from that set with an older Black Falcon set, making the implied continuity even more overt. It's not hard to imagine that at least in the UK, the bearded Black Knight leader from sets 6009 Black Knight and 6086 Black Knights' Castle was probably meant to be understood as portrayals of the same character. After all, underneath all that armor, all those minifigures still have the same torso and hips as their earlier Black Falcon counterpart! For that matter, the minifigure from 6034 Black Monarch's Ghost/The Haunted Tower resembles an intermediate form between these character designs — with the traditional plume and generic smiley face of the classic Black Knight minifigure, but the molded breastplate and hinged helmet of the later one. A similar case could be made for the Crusader/Lion Knight leader from 1984 — named Sir Richard in the UK, Ridder Pieter van Blankevoort (Sir Peter Whiteford) in the Netherlands, and Prinz Löwenherz (Prince Lionheart) in Germany — and the Royal Knights' king — named King Richard the Lion Heart in the UK, Koning Leeuwenhart (King Lionheart) in the Netherlands, and König Richard Löwenherz (King Richard Lionheart) in Germany. In this case, the character design shows fewer similarities aside from both using lion heraldry and a red torso, but the similar character names strongly imply a connection. The Lion Knights and Royal Knights were also both branded as Leeuwenhart Ridders (Lionheart Knights) in some Dutch catalogs. Apologies for rambling. This is all just stuff I've found interesting while browsing online scans/photos of vintage LEGO publications from around the world.

I can maybe give you a partial answer to some of these questions! The sliding stone door to the right of the big tree does indeed connect to the inside of one of the dungeon cells! So in that regard, it's not a secret entrance, but rather a secret exit for forest people who've already been captured by the Lion Knights. I was only able to figure this out by turning up my screen brightness all the way while looking at these two images (the masonry bricks on the right wall of the left-hand dungeon cell in the first image can also be seen behind the forestwoman in the second The larger, hinged stone door to the left of the big tree opens into a carvern which is enclosed on every side, and doesn't appear to connect to the rest of the castle at all as far as I can tell — unless there's an opening in the top to connect it to the stable. The only contents of this cavern that I've been able to identify via the LEGOcon video and the images linked above are a sword clipped to the wall on the left of the cave entrance, and a barrel against the wall to the right of the cave entrance. If there is any way up to the gatehouse above, such as a ladder, it'd be against the wall furthest from the cave entrance, which I still haven't gotten a good look at in any of the pics or videos so far. Some other fun details I've spotted that aren't too obvious in most pics and videos: Right by the corner where you'd turn left as you climb the stairs from the kitchen to the walkway above (at the base of one of the two bastions along the castle's front wall), there is a Medium Stone Grey 3x3x2 round element which I at first thought was meant to be a large cooking pot for the kitchen, but which I now realize is probably a well/cistern to supply the castle with fresh water. The tower immediately next to the "playroom" is actually a bell tower! The bell is built using an upside-down Warm Gold 2x2 inverted dome which can be dimly seen through the windows in some of the pictures, such as the back view image linked above. The garderobe features a 1x1 round brick in white, which I assume represents an anachronistic roll of toilet paper (just as in 31120) to help signal the room's purpose to builders more clearly. But there is also a clip on a wall holding a more realistic leafy branch that would have been the more historically acccurate solution for those same — uh, hygienic needs — in medieval times! It's built from a short Brick Yellow plant stem and a Bright Green 1x1 flower plate. This is most visible in the 360-degree spin video from LEGO.com The forest people's hideout not only connects to the castle marketplace above via a trapdoor, but also to the outside of the castle via a tunnel mouth to the left of the drawbridge. The mouth of this tunnel is most clearly visible in the 360-degree spin video linked above, or in the Assembled designer interview video during some of the moments when the set is being turned around (as in most of the official images it's obscured by the walkway up to the drawbridge). There is a small oubliette-style window in the back of the skeleton's prison cell that looks out into the tunnel. Too bad they didn't have any friends on the outside to come to their aid like the forest people do! The back wall of the forest people's hideout in this image? That's actually the kitchen's left wall, viewed from the opposite side! The brown plate you can just barely see peeking out from behind the candle on the right-hand side is the 2x4 plate used for the shelf below the two hanging pretzels! Still a fair amount I haven't figured out yet, including stuff I probably won't find out until the set is released and the instructions are posted online — most significantly, the specifics of the drawbridge mechanism. But it's a fascinating set, and I'm very pleased with how much the designers were able to pack into the space available!

I don't really think this need for 3-in-1 sets to meet a "color variety" status quo is a real thing at all, to be honest. There are a LOT of Creator 3-in-1 sets with fairly limited color palettes, such as 31129 Majestic Tiger, 31126 Supersonic Jet, and 31121 Crocodile. For that matter, it's not as though modern day inspired Creator 3-in-1 sets like 31117 Space Shuttle Adventure or 31130 Sunken Treasure Mission are really any more colorful than their counterparts in modern day "play themes" like City and Friends. As such, rather than any sort of theme-wide creative mandate, I think the number of differently colored parts in many 3-in-1 sets (especially larger ones) is mainly individual creative choices on the part of the designers. Let's consider the colors of the new Viking Ship as an example. For starters, the bright stripes on the hull and sails were likely inspired by real-life viking ship recreations such as this one from the Viking Ship Museum in Denmark (which, in turn, uses colors inspired by historical depictions of Viking ships such as the Bayeaux Tapestry, as well as paint pigments and binders that Vikings were known to have access to, as described here). Theoretically, one of these hull colors could have also been reused in place of the Sand Green roof slopes — but then there would've been far fewer green parts to use for plant life in the B- and C-models. And while the Midgard Serpent's colors are of course pure fantasy, they were likely chosen specifically to contrast with the colors chosen for the ship. Just like that, nearly all the vivid color choices can be neatly explained without having to invoke any sort of managerial directive. And of course, if there's anything I've learned from all the criticism that numerous Creative Expert, Ideas, and 18+ sets have gotten over the years for being "too colorful", it's that AFOLs often have a far lower baseline expectation than official LEGO designers when it comes to how brightly colored particular subjects ought to be! I mean, even 10247 Ferris Wheel and 10257 Carousel were met with a number of complaints about the amount of bright colors the designers used — and it's not as though fairground rides in real life are expected to have understated color palettes! Your concerns about 3-in-1 sets' limitations on minifigs, minifig accessories, animal molds, and other specialized/theme-specific molds are entirely legitimate, though. Creator 3-in-1 is certainly a very different beast than a typical "play theme" in those regards.

I get what you're saying, but keep in mind that the very FIRST castle set to have an obvious "king" minifigure was called Royal Knights' Castle in the US, whereas previous sets with names like "King's Castle" or "Black Monarch's Castle" only appeared to include knights! I suspect that among other things, LEGO might've wanted to leave things open for builders of this set to interpret the rank of the leading lady according to their preference (be that as a queen, princess, duchess, baroness, or what-have-you). After all, in a lot of countries' set names and marketing material, the Lion Knights were led by a knight/lord rather than by a king, and so unambiguously establishing the ruler of this set as a king/queen might appear to contradict that. Also, in many countries such as Denmark, the term "Lion Knights" (or the equivalent in the local language) was used much more prominently in set names and marketing than in the US set names that have been adopted as the norm by most online reference catalogs like Brickset and BrickLink these days. Mind you, it was not used as universally/consistently as the term "Forestmen" in the US names of sets based on that faction. Even so, to give some examples, both 6080 King's Castle and 6081 King's Mountain Fortress were named "Løveriddernes Borg" (Lion Knights' Castle) in many Danish catalogs — the same as the name this new set has in Denmark. So perhaps LEGO felt that specifically including the name of this classic faction in the name of the set would boost its throwback appeal for AFOLs in many of the European countries that have been most vocal about wanting new Castle sets — without requiring them to change the name completely from one country to the next like they often did in the old pre-Internet days. For that matter, given that knights/soldiers are one of the main things fans of traditional Castle themes have found most lacking in other castle-heavy themes like Elves, Disney, and Harry Potter, it's possible that LEGO decided including the word "knight" in the title would just be a smart marketing/search engine optimization strategy. The use of the word "Knights" in the branding of some of their more specific Castle-inspired IPs over the years like Knights' Kingdom and Nexo Knights certainly suggests that LEGO considers it a very marketable buzzword. I don't think that would apply here necessarily. In that particular case, I suspect the change in the set's name seems like it was probably just to avoid contradicting the updated minifigure selection (one forestman and one forestwoman). That particular issue wouldn't apply to names that identify one particular inhabitant by a gendered name/title, as even some other 2022 set names like The Crystal King Temple, Ariel's Underwater Palace, and Princess Peach's Castle still do. Granted, there IS the very real (albeit unpleasant) possibility that LEGO specifically wanted to avoid alienating potential male buyers by giving the set a name with feminine connotations. But it's just as possible that LEGO already had the name "Lion Knights' Castle" in mind for the set before finalizing the minifigure selection and deciding for certain that it should include a female ruler. Or that they wanted its name to be "spoiler-free", just in case the set name had ended up leaking to the public before any description of the set's contents.

I'm surprised to see so much hate for 31120 Medieval Castle! Honestly, I feel it looked pretty outstanding, myself — at least by the standards of the Castle theme! And it's packed with authentic features that were rare or absent in earlier LEGO castle sets, such as machicolations, arrowslits, a moat, a millwheel, and even a garderobe — notably, all of which are features making a return appearance in the new 18+ Lion Knights' Castle. Even from a parts standpoint, I feel like 31120 was a pretty outstanding parts pack for medieval builds, and the sort of set that is well-suited to buying in larger quantities. While it lacks a lot of specialized parts like the large castle wall panels, arched doors, parapet bricks, raised baseplates, and BURPs that characterized many LEGO castles of the 90s and 2000s, it compensates for that with loads of other useful Castle-building parts like grey arches, slopes, SNOT bricks, masonry bricks, palisade bricks, and of course basic bricks in large quantities. And it also has some great parts in other colors, like arches and ingot tiles in Reddish Brown or slopes in Olive Green, Earth Green, and Earth Blue. The biggest drawbacks of its 3-in-1 theming from a parts standpoint, as many folks here have rightly mentioned, are its relative lack of minifig parts, minifig accessories, and molded animals compared to similar-sized sets from "play themes" like City, Castle, Pirates, or Ninjago. And the main design complaint I've seen about the castle itself is that the Bright Yellow and Reddish Brown parts used for the half-timbered portions feel too bright, and that it should have used a darker color for the wood and/or a less saturated color for the infill. It goes without saying that a set like 31120 could never measure up to many MOCs from the AFOL community — no KFOL-targeted Castle set could ever reaolistically be expected to do so. And many of the negative responses to the 2013 Castle wave on this very forum should amply demonstrate that a lot of the frustrations people have with its design (such as its bright colors and simple, rectangular structure) are in no way specific to the Creator 3-in-1 theme! That said, one of the other big complaints about the 2013 King's Castle was that it was over-reliant on castle wall panels in place of more elaborate building techniques that would give it more complexity and textural detail — an area where the 3-in-1 castle excels. All this aside, one of the main reasons I think a 3-in-1 forest hideout set would be fun to see in the future is how conducive it'd be to the sort of alternate builds that define the Creator 3-in-1 theme. Honestly, I find 31120's alternate builds immensely charming in their own right — after all, they feature many of the same design strengths as the main model such as their complexity and textural detail, and also full compatibility with the main model's modular segments! And given the tendency of old-school Forestmen sets to use very similar sorts of parts (lots of black slopes, arches, and corner panels for trees, green limb elements for leaves, and grey bricks and panels for natural rock formations and/or stone fortifications), I can't help feeling that you could easily come up with a selection of bricks that would allow for a single set to build a similar variety of different structures. Between that uniformity and the apparent popularity of tree houses/tree forts among Creator 3-in-1 buyers (e.g. 31010, 31053, 31078, and 31116), it seems like a very natural choice for a future Creator 3-in-1 set. Of course, a 3-in-1 forest hideout would probably differ from the recent 18+ ones in a number of ways — for instance, I expect it'd use a couple different shades of brown for the trunk/branches/bark instead of monochrome black, both because kids associate brown more with tree bark and because it'd make the instructions easier to read without extra accommodations like outlining parts in red as they're added. But I doubt that'd completely spoil the appeal of a 3-in-1 forest hideout, especially considering how many people wanted/expected the 18+ GWP set to use Reddish Brown or Dark Brown for the bark instead of the classic black. The Pick-A-Brick wall selection has varied at times in the past, but LEGO usually tends to revert back to a selection of basic parts in assorted colors since "average" buyers (e.gg. parents of young kids) often just DO want just the sort of standard bricks you'd typically find in a generic brick bucket. The most "out there" the selection got was a brief window of time in 2011 when they added an assortment of Hero Factory parts as a promotion/tie-in for the "Hero Recon Team" spin-off of LEGO Design byME.

I think it's worth keeping in mind that battle packs generally introduce no more than two or three new and unique decorations, with the rest repurposed from other playsets — so while they can be great for providing minifig parts in quantity, they aren't going to take the place of the variety you might get from CMFs. That said, I'm sure even a forest people battle pack with two or three new torso decorations coupled with pre-existing face prints and unprinted legs, hats, and accessories would be enough to make a lot of people happy! And there is precedent for generic/themeless minifig accessory sets, though most of them have focused on modern-day and/or seasonal figures rather than on historic or medieval fantasy figures. So something like this wouldn't be totally out of the question! Anyway, on the subject of the forest hideout, I was a doofus and forgot to place an order during the week that it was available (I've fallen out of practice when it comes to buying sets with any sort of urgency), so I hope the rumors of the offer getting brought back in August are true. Because it's definitely a very charming set that'd make a lovely companion piece to the Lion Knights' Castle and Medieval Blacksmith.

Good spotting, but to dispel any confusion: "Silver Metallic" (material ID 315) is the official name of the current color that BrickLink calls Flat Silver. In BrickLink terms, it is a "pearl" color — the metallic color is molded into the plastic itself, not applied as a lacquer coating on top of the plastic.

Wow, very neat article! It's cool to see how varied walled cities around the world (or even just in Europe) can be! I hope some of these examples provide some great building inspiration for folks here. As I've mentioned, I still prefer to have the Medieval Blacksmith outside the castle walls because the huntswoman, hunting dog, and other features give me more of a "town outskirts" vibe. I tend to imagine it near the edge of a deep forest, perhaps near other more rural points of interest such as a sawmill and farmstead nearby. Knights from the surrounding castle towns would venture out to the countryside for major repair work on their weapons and armor, whereas the country folk would travel to the larger towns to promote and sell their various wares. But of course, that's all just my own preference — I totally get that a lot of other folks might prefer to display a nice three-story house/shop like that as part of a large and bustling castle town! And once this castle comes out I'm VERY excited to see how different builders expand on it or build larger layouts around it! I figure that Vidiyo set prices were probably high in part to subsidize the development/licensing cost of the app, particularly since for a free app it includes a LOT of licensed music. A few years back Hasbro had a DJing-themed game/toy of their own called "DropMix" — essentially, an interactive game board you placed different collectable cards onto to create remixes and mashups of popular music. Much like Vidiyo, the app used to run it was free, but the "booster packs" themselves were priced pretty high to subsidize the cost of licensing so much different music by so many different artists Also like Vidiyo, its sales performance ended up falling far short of Hasbro's expectations (despite a lot of awards and accolades within the toy and games industry), although not necessarily for the same reasons — in DropMix's case, its sales struggled in part due to retailers having a hard time figuring out whether to display and market it as a board game, a card game, a video game, or an electronic toy, meaning it had a hard time getting many buyers' attention in the first place. For what it's worth, according to Brickset (which pulls their parts data from LEGO's customer service site), 88584 is a design ID that has stopped appearing in set inventories this year — all monochrome legs in inventories for this year's sets are listed under the design ID 73200. Specifically, 88584 is one of the controversial minifigure molds originally produced by an outside Chinese contractor for magnet packs and Collectible Minifigures in the late 2000s/early 2010s. I suspect the high Pick-A-Brick price for those plain Bright Blue legs is just because LEGO is now using the design ID 73200 for all monochrome leg pieces (now that even their Chinese-made parts are being produced in LEGO's own factories), and in the meantime they've raised the PAB price of the last of their 88584 batches as the supply begins to run low. In the meantime, Bright Blue 73200s do appear in many of this year's sets, and will presumably replace the 88584s in Pick-A-Brick/Build-A-Mini as that older stock of leg pieces finally runs out.

Oh yeah, I have no doubt about that. I was just pointing out that a set like MMV would probably fall short of a lot of adult fans' expectations if it came out today, simply because it doesn't have the complexity people have come to expect from other adult-targeted exclusives these days. Compared to the Modular Buildings, Old Fishing Store, Barracuda Bay, Medieval Blacksmith, Temple of Airjitzu, etc, it had very few SNOT details or other advanced techniques. Rather, the main features that set it apart "ordinary" KFOL-targeted Castle sets were its lack of large panels or conflict scenarios. I suspect this is mainly because with MMV, LEGO was trying to split the difference between older buyers who wanted something more realistic/detailed than the Fantasy Era sets that preceded it, AND to "tweens" and early teens who were towards the upper end of the other Fantasy Era sets' target age range (as evidenced by its 12+ age marking). By comparison, these newer exclusives are geared more strictly towards the same audience of adults and older teens as stuff like the Modular Buildings Collection, Botanical Collection, Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series, etc. So the designers have a lot more leeway to really push their level of detail and complexity. Yeah, that a point I made earlier about the scale of the Blacksmith. MMV's eaves sat around 13–14 bricks high, well above the 9–10 brick tall curtain walls of any Fantasy Era or Kingdoms castles. By comparison, the Medieval Blacksmith's eaves sit 15 bricks and 1 plate high, just one brick higher than the lowest walls of the Lion Knights' Castle. The peak of Medieval Blacksmith's roof certainly rises much higher than just about any LEGO castle's walls, but having the eaves sit above the walls bothers me more than having the roof peak rise higher than the walls.

It's certainly broken up into a larger number of smaller sections, but they still tend to be reasonably spacious when folded closed! The hinged layout plays a big part in making the individual chambers seem smaller at a glance — the kitchen/granary/pantry, dining room/living room, playroom/bedroom, dungeon/treasury, and gatehouse/armory are all essentially single chambers rooms split in half along the hinge. If the Medieval Blacksmith were split along the center that same way, its interiors would surely seem a lot less spacious themselves! After all, its ground floor interior (stripped of all furnishings and fixtures) has a 14x12 floor space. That's about the same size as the ground-floor chamber that houses this set's kitchen, granary, and pantry! The main difference is that the Blacksmith's interiors get incrementally larger as you ascend, while the castle's get steadily smaller. On a bit of a side note, I'm also impressed with how much this castle gets out of its interior space by moving its main stairwell OUTSIDE of all the chambers that make up its west wing — much like Parisian Restaurant did in the Modular Buildings series — and using ladders instead of stairs to connect the chambers that make up its east wing. Stairwells are a feature that's given me a lot of trouble in my own attempts at larger castle MOCs, so it's good to see the designers working them in so effectively here. After all, it'd be pretty weird if the king/queen/lord/lady had to climb a ladder just to get from the dinner table to their bedroom!

I mean, the real-life equivalents of a lot of the Modular Buildings would be considerably larger than Medieval Blacksmith, I feel that's because in real life they'd be more than two or three stories tall. And I still feel the Modular Buildings, Medieval Blacksmith, and Lion King's Castle offer more or less the same size/amount of detail per floor. That's the reason I consider their level of detail comparable. By comparison, sets like Medieval Market Village or Mill Village Raid scale better to a typical LEGO castle, but their level of detail per floor is simpler even than some Friends or Creator 3-in-1 sets, and certainly far simpler than the Modular Buildings, Old Fishing Store, or other 16+/18+ buildings along those lines.