Mr. Elijah Timms

Those owl shields are interesting…. Is that gold and purple?

Behold, brave readers… out of bygone forest glades and forgotten rings of mysterious monolithic stone monuments come a new, if not official faction from my Medieval collection. I give you… THE DRUIDS! The Druids are an arcane order of magick makers who gain their power from the life force of the earth itself, and although they are clearly known to congregate together at Meadowhenge, the sacred dwelling of their sect, they are rarely seen together. In fact, it is often whispered before winter fires that the Druidfolk can be seen at one end of the realm one day, and mysteriously at the opposite side the next. Their mystical arts focus on manipulating weather, or speeding up or stopping the growth of crops, or summoning the primal forces of nature in times of need. Some are healers, while others embody some of the far less hospitable traits of the natural world beyond the castle walls. Finally, a staple of all of the Druids is that they share a life bond with their spirit avatar, an animal that they can choose to inhabit with their consciousness at will. Birds, cats, spiders, and even a mighty bear accompany members of this inclusive faction. Pictured at center is Greenwood, who is said to spend entire weeks in his wild hare form, traveling the forests and gathering all of the gossip the trees are willing to share. Meanwhile, dreaded Samhain wields the sheer force of the autumn and the dying of the crops. It is said he can speak to the dead, and can even travel to their world when he is not in his wolf spider form. The mighty Feldspar is said be able to hear the memories of the very earth beneath your feet, and will fight to protect it, in either his human form or his monstrous bear avatar. These are just a few of the little personas I’ve built up around the figs, and I’m sure some of you can see how easy and fun it is to do so with a little imagination, and the right vegetation and staff pieces! Obviously I’ve enjoyed creating the backstories for this strange little figures, and I’m sure you can see there’s some ninjago and D&D figs that I’ve incorporated untouched into their mix. Even the CMF acorn boy is in there somewhere. But mostly the whole concept started with that one torso from the Viking Village, pictured above.. I knew I wanted to explore something unique with them, and at first I built up this little squad of forest archer rangers, but then decided to build them into something far stranger. I’ve kept a few of the archers, I suppose to serve as younger members of the order to serve as defensive archers, with no flint or metal arrowheads, of course haha

Anybody else pick up the Barweer Crow Knight’s Castle? I used to be more of an official Lego purist, but at that price— just over $100 USD for almost 5,000 piece—, I just couldn’t say no after reading so many people insist that the parts quality was almost on par with Lego. im now about 3 steps in (multiple bags per step, I don’t know how many total, 12 maybe?) and I must admit, I am actually a bit overwhelmed by the size of it. It’s going to be massive when it’s complete, and I don’t know, I guess because of the price I just really didn’t anticipate how big it was in person. (Or where I’m going to PUT it, bc this is not modular and does not feel like something you disassemble for storage). the quality is good.. not Lego good, but the bricks hold well and aren’t too difficult to snap down for an engineer-level of squared order. The plastic seems a wee bit harder than TLG, but nothing to worry about brittle snapping,etc. I’m also wondering how I’m going to populate it— I only have about 20 Raven knights, and yeesh, this thing could comfortably host 50!

@AmperZand Thanks man, lovin your Serpent Knightsas well, especially that crazy Cyclops! I have one of those Blacktron Mutant head on one of my Green Dragon knights… rumor has it the Goblin Witch cursed him for attacking their king during one of their battles, hehe I’ll have to get my Serpents together to share a pic at some point.. I’ve leaned into the purple a bit more than others. Keep up the good work!

So last year I went through a bit of a nostalgic period and fell super hard for Classic Castle again. I was also looking for something of a pet project while waiting for the Horse Knight castle and the Vending Machine to drop. It was then when it hit me: I would rebuild a classic set using available modern pieces from Pick A Brick, and with some modern details as well. And it didn’t take very long to settle on a set to work from. It would have to be 1984’s epic 6080 King’s Castle. As a boy I owned 6073 Knight’s Castle, and it obviously created a lifelong loyalty to the beloved Black Falcons. But the larger, and wonderfully perfect King’s Castle eluded me. So why not recreate it using modern pieces? It wasn’t a huge piece count and plus I would fit in perfectly with the lore I’d invented for my still growing Black Falcons faction. I like to develop a story for each of my factions, then give some of the more flavorful characters their own name and motivations. In my world, the Black Falcons rule over a mountainous region and control the Peregrine Pass, the only gap through the mountain chain that separates the east from the west of the realm. On one side is the region known as Kestrel, and on the other is Osprey. My Black Falcons are a faction composed of two houses, one from each region, and control the pass via two strongholds on either side. The House of Osprey are more aggressive, and a bit more ruthless, and face the west from Castle Harrier (aka Knight’s Castle). The House of Kestrel value virtue and honor, and would need a stronghold to keep watch from the east, and so it was that the stage was set for me to create… The snowbound Castle Hawkmere. To create Hawkmere, I studied the instructions of 6080 faithfully to create a stud grid drawing, and actually extended the depth of the original castle’s footprint by about five studs. Don’t ask me how many pieces I used; if I’m being honest I kind of lost track along the way. I also worked in some additional details, such as a proper walkway around the castle walls, some timber supports, some thatched roofs, a great bonfire in the courtyard, and of course lots of gargoyles! I also chose to set everything up on a white foundation and built up some drifted snow along the walls. I also used a variety of plates and pieces to create a layer of snow across the top of the ramparts. Finally, I used some rounded plate pieces to create a system that enabled the bonfire to center on the two opening plates of the courtyard and yet still slide off when the castle opens. It took some experimentation, but the end result works well. All in all I’m very happy with the end result. All pieces were bought from Lego’s Pick A Brick, including a second round of ordering when I realized I hadn’t sufficiently prepared for how different the castle wall piece is today from the 80’s. It still wasn’t that costly in the long run. And honestly, it was all worth it when I was finally able to populate the castle with the knights, men at arms, archers, rangers, and squires of the House of Kestrel. And to bring it all full circle, I thought I’d wrap up this presentation by depicting a special occasion at Hawkmere. After spending the autumn at Harrier, the Osprey Falcons, led by Sir Nigel of Osprey, have escorted King Alus Peregrine to winter at Hawkmere. And for those of you that may have actually owned 6073 Knights Castle, you will recognize that both Alus and Nigel are the original knights of that set, on their original steeds. Thanks for reading my little love letter to the Black Falcons all the way to the end. Black Falcons forever!

Horse Knights have been a lot of fun to army build! Between being the only new faction with multiple torsos, there’s also a real opportunity to mix in some other figs from the past, such as the Dragonborne D&D fig or the blue CMF wizard. Plus the standard torso is basic enough that you can create some great variations with very little customization. My army of Horse Lords hails from the region of Equitane, under the rule of King Phillip: Pictured are Sir Destry the Daring and cavalry of knights: Lastly, here are a few pics That show off the variety of classes I’ve established for this faction. Depicted here are my Equitane archers, guards, men-at-arms, knights, ranger, and king figures: Since we already have more than a few factions that have leaned on blue, specifically from the Fantasy era, I tried to purposefully make this faction focus more on white as their primary hue. I love the archers wearing what is essentially an all white tunic and hood over their chain mail. And finally, yes, that’s a third party helm I used for the men-at-arms, but it looked so good I couldn’t help myself, felt like a perfect fit:

THE KRAKEN HAVE LANDED! Lord Leviathan leads his army of Sea Dog foot soldiers and Tridentmen. My Kraken empire features Irish names and complexions, and is easily one of my favorite factions to build out so far. Sooooo much fun!

Started my Outlaw Forest Den last night. I was a bit surprised and how different the bagging was, even to a massive set like Lion Knights Castle. I think there’s, what, 29 bags, but the piece count of each bag seems fairly small. I guess that makes it less daunting, but 29 bags could certainly be interpreted the same way to a novice builder. also found it interesting that after the first bath featuring the cart and the Lion Knight driver, there’s not another minifig until, like, bag 10. Lego does a pretty great job of spacing those out well so they serve as a bit of a mini payoff throughout a large build. still very exciting.. my first BDP set

Fwiw…. PAB order arrived todaaaaaay! the Kraken and Griffins have invaded my kingdom and I couldn’t be happier!!

Just saw it on Reddit. Mehhhh… so many other properties seem to have more appeal than Shrek.

Yeah, that’s a Monkee Kid legs piece.. I paired it with the Pirate Quartermaster torso to create the fair Lady Fiona here, with her faithful hermit crab Rory. (yes, my Kraken lore is firmly based on the Irish)

Ohhhh yesss! A throwback fig of my favorite character from Lego’s most underrated original theme, Dumpster Hunters!

That torso was around for a while…. I actually pulled a dozen or so, swapped out black arms, legs and have them set up as archers and a squad of men-at-arms to be part of the serpent faction. They look great— paired them with the Friends purple bows and quivers, I’ll have to post some pics at some point

I was wondering if the BDS palettes affected which torsos are being retired and which are not? Obviously the Lion Knight soldiers and Wolfpack parts were part of the series 6 palette and are part of the Outlaw Forest Den. But the BFs were not, nor were the Lion Queen legs, soooo is that why some are being retired from PAB yet others remain?

Some updates: in less than 12 hours, PAB supply for Griffin and Kraken figs seems to be pretty well exhausted. I thought I’d share some prices (listed in USD) as I already made the list for myself anyway: Kraken: Torso: $1.25 Legs: $0.70 Shield: $2.34 Brown Viking Helmet: $0.82 Pirate Cutlass: $0.16 BS Mini Mask No. 1 Earth Green: $0.14 BS Griffin: Torso: $1.25 Legs: $0.70 Shield: $2.34 Dark Knight Helmet Silver: $0.82 BS Mini Short Sword Silver: $0.16 (BS meaning Best Seller; if you’ve ordered from PAB before, you understand the importance of this)