Hive

I find this to be pretty hilarious.

These are my two favourite LEGO themes as well, and in fact the only ones I care about. They are both great, but Castle is #1 for me. My favourite LEGO set of all time is the Imperial Trading Post, though. Some day, I'll own that bugger...

Close, but not quite there... #1 was one of the last ones I got, but when I think about it should have been one of the first... where do the pirates live? The Caribbean. What is the most Caribbean artist who ever lived? Yes, Bob Marley... Bob Marley is his favourite artist. #2 I thought for a while that seagull was the answer as well, and the fact that one of the teaser images had one supported it. But I eventually found out that he really hates Spongebob Squarepants as well, so I believe the seagull may just have been a ruse or a hint to something else. Though his response to both is pretty much the same "annoys me greatly". #3 Indeed, Murray from the Monkey Island games (to those unaware). #4 I had a really really hard time finding this one, but eventually got there after just typing all internal organs I could think of (and google). I like the irony in the skull wanting the most useless of all organs. #5 Another tricky one. I got it from typing in random king names. When I typed "Philip", he asked me which one... and then I just started from Philip I and went upwards. #6 This one took me way too long considering that one of the teasers had avocados in it... doh. #7 This one's Capybara, not #8. For a while I thought the answer was just "jungle rodent" untill a fellow treasure hunter told me it was a specific animal. Never heard of this bugger before though. #8 He says he plans on marrying a Goddess some day, but I'm unsure whether it's a specific one he means... I tried typing in a HUGE amount of known and lesser known Goddesses, but to no avail. #9 I believe he said 'diety', not 'God'... but yeah.

I stumbled across an interesting article yesterday: http://politiken.dk/erhverv/ECE1179524/lego-trodser-krisen-med-supersalg/ Since the article is in Danish, I'll briefly summ it up for you: in spite of the financial crisis, LEGO is doing better and better for every year. Their increase in sales is in some countries as much as between 7 and 70 % (!) and their total market share on the global toys market has increased to 5,5 %, going up from 4,8 % last year. Furthermore, where other companies might choose to move lots of job functions abroad, LEGO has actually kept all their current jobs in Denmark as well as expanded and hired several hundred new employees. Things are looking good for everyone's favourite plastic company!

Was that it? Damn... I tried writing them all combined, but didn't think about adding them. Doh! I got to the tomb part on the first or second day of my hunt, but never managed to crack that missing number. Good thinking though. I think I guessed abour 8 of the codes in total, though only one of them was unclaimed when I got it: #17 for the magnets. It was quite lucky, actually... I was hunting for the above mentioned number and was trying ANYTHING... I tried SO MANY numbers... and decided in the spur of the moment to try the set number of the magnet set, which then proved to be the solution for that particular puzzle. But what about the damn pop quiz, then? What was that for...?

Flesh minifigs look wrong to me somehow... I don't like them one bit. Besides, I like the notion of classic LEGO having just 1 generic race/ethnicity. It's both a nice signal saying that race doesn't matter and where all the same as well as a good way to prevent LEGO from getting trouble on that aspect... I recently read some people complaining about not enough LEGO minifigs being women, imagine the same complaints about various ethnicities if that was to be introduced...

The new pics certainly makes the sets appear much more impressive in general... and the QAR is awesome, nothing less. But too bad there were no pics of the London Escape, my favourite from the prelim images. ...though looking at the absurd prices, I doubt I'll be getting any of these sets.

6277 Imperial Trading Post is not only the best base of the Pirates theme, but probably my favourite LEGO base of any theme. This is the set I'd love to have more than any other LEGO set, in spite of being a Castle fan before Pirates.

I'm no fan of flesh minifigs (or POTC for that matter), but The London Escape and to a lesser extent The Mill looks pretty awesome. White Cap Bay looks like it could have potential as well, but I'm waiting for final pics of that.

This is simply jaw-dropping. Amazing work, guys.

Congrats to everyone winning (especially Rick, that clever bastard! ). I didn't do quite as well as I had hoped, kept guessing prize codes after they were already claimed and felt I was close to winning more without getting the finale step... so I'm looking forward to hearing the solutions, especially for the damn pop quiz as I had NO idea what to do with the answers there. And I'd like to know whether and how that quiz was connected to the magical number I lacked on my mountainous quest.

Not only will I be getting my eagerly awaited Drawbridge Defense in about 30 min or so, I also got 7948 Outpost Attack at 40 % off today earlier today. Yay!

Well I'm from the northern part of Denmark, and going to Germany just to buy these would be more expensive than what I save on them.

Having a lion on the shields is nothing bad in itself, it was heavily used during the middle ages in real life. But this particular shield... well to me, it just looks like a silly logo from a kid's cartoon about happy animals living in a forest. It doesn't look at all like heraldy, unlike those shields of eg. the Crusaders, Black Falcons or those of the Kingdoms line - which all pretty much look like something that could actually have been coat of arms for a real faction/nation/family/etc in the medieval times. But hey, it's great to hear some different views. It would be boring if we all had the exact same taste anyway.

Anyone know how to find it in Europe? I tried to find those braile spots someone listed, but the packages here did not appear to have any...

Good offers, but sadly they don't ship outside Germany.

Thanks for all the replies, it's good to see all my ramblings didn't go unnoticed. Exactly! Same colourschemes and shields, but new torsos and heads. Sorry, my knowledge on the sets preceding Crusaders/Black Falcons is extremely limited... so forgive me for missing some guys there. The guys with the crossed axes, did they not come with Crusader shields? Or am I remembering that wrong? They have the exact same colourscheme and only have the torso print differently, and I personally remember it as if they were Crusaders and used Crusader shields... but I could be mistaken. How about we call it a tie? No, can't say I had the pleasure... To each their own. It's one of my biggest gripes with the old minifigs, it makes them way too generic... and even worse, the weird happy face just doesn't go well along with combat scenes. You're probably right, most of my views are based on reviews here on Eurobricks. A first hand experience might change my views on some sets, but I doubt they'll change much in regards to my views on factions as a whole, colours used, acccesories, etc. This is definately true. I had the exact same (very dissapointing) experience with Transformers, one of my favourite memories from childhood. Hell, I even got nostalgic and bought some old G1 figs about 7 years back... but yeah, those cartoons are pretty poor standard from more than one perspective. They are still heaps better than the recent movies though, but that's for another discussion. Yeah I agree with you that the castle is good (as I think I wrote as well), but that's pretty much all I like from that subtheme. Yes, some of those KKII sets did have some interesting and different ideas. I just feel they were poorly executed, for the most part... with eye-gorging colours and way too <insert that tiresome argument> parts. But they were different, and there were some fair ideas. That I'll give you. Again, thanks for all the responses - sorry if I missed commenting on something.

Thanks for the reply. :)

Thanks. Perhaps I got a bit incoherent in the end, it being late and me being tired... but to sum up my point: when people complain about castle these days compared to castle from the 80's/early 90's, I think they often forget about the TONS of improvements made... and only focus on the few things that were a bit better back then. Speaking of one of those things btw... does anyone know why exactly LEGO changed the plastic on weapons from hard to soft? I'm not a big fan of the new types, to be honest. Too much pearl as well. But oh well.

I'm from the "good old days" of LEGO Castle, with Crusaders, Black Falcons and Forestmen. As a kid, Castle was among my favourite themes (though back then, I think Pirates was #1 - the two have since then switched places). I did not own any of the bigger sets, sadly, but had several of the smaller ones. When I started coming out of my "Dark Age"s last year, Castle emmediatly became my main focus on interest. And since then I have viewed and re-viewed the history of Castle, coming to realize something that kind of shocked me. But first, my own little historical walkthrough: Classic Castle, where it all started; the beloved Castle theme way back in the late 70's. Looking back at it now, it doesn't look like much: brick-made horses, torsos with stickers, excessive use of the colour yellow... but hey, it was a beginning. Next came the factions. This is where I started getting Castle LEGO, since I wasn't born/was too young for Classic Castle. We now saw several factions, starting with the Crusaders and the Black Falcons. And what great factions they were! To this day, I still think the colour schemes and shields made for these two factions are among the fines LEGO ever made. In fact, the Crusaders shield (both variants with lions) is #2 on my personal "best shields" list, only surpassed by the current Dragon Knights shield. Of course, their torsos were rather plain... but that's just how it was back then. The sets back then were pretty good, especially the castles themselves. Very classic looking in style and with lots of bricks and excitement, often with modular builds. The carriages and boats and whatnot were pretty nice as well, though often with excessive use of red and blue. What was that all about? But the castles and factions really made the theme. Then came an expansion, with a very innovative and beloved faction: Forestmen. Completely different colourscheme, another great shield and some very different sets. And what kid does not love the Robin Hood vibe? Just too bad they didn't use brown much back then, as eg. Camouflaged Outpost would have been so much better with brown instead of black. The Black Knights were another fine addition, that introduced us to stylistic black castles and another very fine shield (yes, I do love a good shield - they pretty much decide whether or not I like a faction!). And iirc, this or Wolfpack was when we first saw a hint of fantasy in LEGO Castle, with the introduction of the ghastly ghost! Which gloved in the dark! Woo! Sadly, I never had one of those. Still want one. Wolfpack then replaced Forestmen and while they had some good sets (among the few they did get), a nice enough shield and (finally) some of the pirates heads, they just weren't as awesome as the Forestmen... which wouldn't be such a huge problem if not for the fact that they were more or less a direct replacement that leaned towards them in so many ways. Of course, it was heaps better than Dark Forest... but more about that later. Fantasy time! Dragon Masters was next, and while their shield was quite nice (but too similar to Black Knights) this was - in my opinion - when LEGO Castle started going downhill. Sure, we saw some cool improvements: new headpieces, new weapons, new non-pirate faces... and a wizard and a dragon! I know not everyone likes the fantasy parts of various Castle themes, but I rather enjoy them as long as they are done well. The problem with Dragon Knights was that the dragons and the wizard pretty much was the epicenter of everything, with nearly all sets having one or the other. Some sets were good, of course, but not very varied... and having for example a giant dragon head spewing rocks or whatever from a fortress was simply taking it too far. LEGO did abandon the fantasy theme again (for the time being), only to replace it with one of the worst LEGO Castle factions I have ever encountered: The Royal Knights. Sure, we saw a king for the first time. And flashy chrome swords and crowns and whatnot. And skeletons (though not undead) for, I believe, the first time. But OH MY the figures themselves sucked... terrible terrible colours with a HORRIBLE shield. This was by far the worst Castle shield LEGO ever did, it had no reedeming qualities whatsoever. The sets were not all bad, with the main castle being rather spectacular (though weird choice of colours for this faction). But a horribly boring and ugly faction overall. They then added Dark Forest to spice things up a bit. And while I don't have anything bad to say about the figures, the shield (since it was the Forestmen shield re-used) or the sets themselves (which I find to be rather good actually), it just felt too cheap of them to throw two former themes together in what looked like a last-minute act of desperation to find a new filler theme. I believe it had only 3 sets, which I would have outright loved had it been just plain Forestmen (or even Wolfpack). The return of fantasy then came around with the introduction of the Fright Knights. Which were frightening indeed... frightening bad. While their colours and shield were not as bad as Royal Knights, all their sets were pretty much horrendous. They introduced a witch, which was quite interesting... but went overboard with the fantasy element in the sets that saw what appeared to be small airplanes and helicopters, powered by witchcraft, dragons and... uhm... bat wings. And their helmets were weird and ugly pieces with bat ears that made the knights more laughable than frightening. In fact, I wouldn't believe this theme was ever made had I not seen it with my own eyes. Thankfully, instead of outdoing themselves negatively yet again, LEGO decided to take a break with European castle settings and took it to the far east with their Ninja theme. Since I'm only interested in the European medieval settings however, I'll skip that part. Never encountered a ninja set either. Knights Kingdom reintroduced European castle with two new factions, led by King Leo and Cedric The Bull respectively. Leo's faction had a shield that was slightly less ugly version of that of the Royal Knights, but even though they improved it I simply cannot fathom why they decided to re-use that abomination. Cedric's shield was a bit boring, looking a lot like that of the Fright Knights only with a bull instead of a bat. I belive it's commonly accepted that this is when "juniorization" started kicking in, and the sets were generally not all that impressive. And wasn't this when we first saw the horrible "flick fire" missiles...? Anyway, the sets weren't all bad... and especially King Leo's Castle and the jousting set appeal to me. Knights Kingdom II. Wow. Just wow. I think we can all agree this was the low point of LEGO Castle. Much bad has been said about this subtheme, and for good reasons. Man did it suck. Big time. Worst LEGO minifigs EVER in ANY theme, horrible sets and even worse colours chosen (at least for the good guys). Though the sets did improve with time, and some of the later sets are pretty decent. Especially some of the bad guys sets, which had a nice clean black tone. I'd especially like to own Vladek's Dark Fortress, which without the eye-gorging minifigs is pretty damn cool. But still a horrible theme overall. And don't even get me started on the weird action figure-ish releases. Vikings. Well... not fully fitting in with the other Castle subthemes due to being of a slightly earlier timeline, it still wasn't all that bad. In theory. I know it was meant only as a filler subtheme and that it was actually quite popular, but it was dissapointing to see them only fight mythological Norse creatures (mostly dragons). And some of the sets seemed a bit half-assed. They did introduce some interesting new pieces both in regards to torsos, weapons, faces and other accessories - and weren't the Vikings theme the first Castle subtheme to give us the new style faces...? But they also had tons of flick fire missiles. TONS. LEGO then decided to go all-in on fantasy this time, bringing first skeletons and dragons and evil wizards and eventually dwarfs and orcs/trolls as well, likely trying to exploit the LOTR craze. The human faction was pretty good, with a really nice colour scheme and a shield that wasn't half bad. The skeletons were an innovative idea for a faction, but for obvious reasons lacked variation. The dwarfs and trolls were pretty innovative as well, featuring great colours and interesting shields. This theme really revolutionized LEGO Castle in my opinion, bringing in so so many new things. Tons of new pieces and the best colour scheme to date (only surpassed later by that of the Dragon Knights from Kingdoms). Of course, it wasn't all good... some hated the fantasy focus. And while I'll rank some sets as being outright awesome (like Drawbridge Defense, which I'll be getting my eager hands on next week if everything goes right) we also saw some pretty stupid ideas like the Troll Battle wheel or the Troll Fortress itself, which both were more weird than interesting. The King's Chariot was somewhat the worst Castle wagon ever produced and like Vikings, this subtheme had waaaay too many flick fire missiles. Did I mention that I hate those? But apart from the awesome Drawbridge Defense, there were several other damn fine sets - like the Castle Defense and Skeleton Ship. Not to mention Medieval Market Village, the best Castle release EVER which I really really hope to own some day. This theme, like those in the years before, had more <insert that tiresome argument> building techniques... but also served us the best Castle minifigs the world had seen at that time. LEGO could easily have kept this subtheme going, with elves and halflings and a white wizard tower and stuff like that. And then... we are here, with Kingdoms. Which, except for a very cool wizard, has no fantasy elements (so far). It has, especially for the Dragon Knights (which, as you may have noticed by now, is my favourite faction ever) GREAT colours and equally great minifigs. I'm not such a big fan of the Lion Knights, as I find their red/white colours semi-dull (which is ironic, since I'm Danish)... but they are still among the best of the Castle factions. The sets here are not all great, but much more like the classic sets of my youth than any recent subtheme... while still retaining <insert that tiresome argument> elements, which are obviously here to stay. This is the best subtheme in many many years, as I'm sure most of you agree. A step in the right direction for sure. So what is my point with my long ramblings? Well, it's to cast a light on the evolution on LEGO Castle. When I first came out of my "Dark Ages", I was all "oh my, the classic castle from my youth is FAR superior to this new stuff from recent years" - and I set my mind on tracking down old sets, preferebly NIB (hard, I know). And I did get a few, to my great joy. I even went as far as buying 6087 Witch's Magic Manor from the Fright Knights subtheme for no other reason than it being available MISB and it being a "classic". When I got it, of course, the package dissapointed me enough to postpone opening it (which I still haven't done)... because it really is a crappy "castle". I then got myself some of the smaller sets from the new Kingdom line when it appeared, and that's when I started to realize something: I had been idolizing the classic castle sets and subthemes because of nostalgia, not allowing me to properly see what was in front of me. Sure, the sets back then had more bricks and a less <insert that tiresome argument> build... but they were also much more simple, with less attention to detail. They had much less interesting pieces. All the faces were the same, boring old smiley face. The torsos were overly plain and primitive, not holding a great deal of variation. There weren't as many interesting pieces back then and they really used some insanely weird colours for their non-castle builds, far inferior to the colouring of the last two Castle subthemes. Yes, I'll agree that some of the Castles from back then with their higher brick count were more interesting builds - and I do love the old raised baseplates, those were awesome! But the castles lacked the detail seen today, though several of the castles from then could still hold their own today. And there were a few cool civilian sets as well, which seems to be coming back now though. So yay. But most of the non-castle related sets weren't as good, varied and interesting as today imo. And even if I managed to get my hands on one of the awesome old castles/castle walls/etc, I'd probably be wanting to spruce them up with some newer parts and accessories here and there... because by today's standards, most of them are semi-boring on their own. Yes, I know many of you will disagree... but now I said it! To sum up my point: LEGO Castle is overall greatly improved these days as a whole, with only modularity being something I miss from back then. So when people, like I did myself at first, talk about how everything was much better in the old days, I think it's mostly nostalgia speaking. LEGO Castle is in 2011, imo, in a great place - and I see little reason to complain. :) Writing this, though, I did get an urge to buy new torsos and faces to use with my Crusaders and Black Falcons, to make them 2011-stylish... has anyone done something like that?

Thanks a lot guys, that helped immensely! But now some new questions: 1) When in the shop, there seems to be several versions of the same brick, just with some different code at the end... and for different quantities and prices. For example, I saw 8 seemingly identical versions of 3036... what's that about? 2) Is there no way to just autofill what you need from the wanted list into the cart?

I'm eagerly waiting for a friend to bring me back 7079 Drawbridge Defense from London. I've been wanting that set since I first saw it, but it's hard to get new here nowadays... at least for a reasonable price. It looks to be an awesome set, and I can't wait for her to come home with it so I can build it.

Hi I'm new to Bricklink and is considering buying some pieces there, but is finding the system there quite cumbersome... can it really be that it's not possible to find out which shop has the most parts on your wanted list, or is it just me who fails to see it? I'd rather not have to manually, piece by piece, have to search for the vendor that happens to have the most of the parts I need... naturally, I would like this to be taken care of in as few orders as possible, due to shipping costs. Also, is there no easy way to mass-change the colour of several pieces at once in your wanted lists...? Thanks in advance. :)

So do I, but I don't understand the skull's hint. And yes, this quiz is amazing. Challenging, fun and addictive - and extremely well-made. Kudos.

Yes.