Classic-Castle.com

Good idea to use the Brodie Helmet as kettle helmet. It' maybe looks really great together with the grey viking head

I know its unpopular but I don't like crome items in castle themes. Chrome is a metall composition of the 20th century. I know TLG does in some sets but I don't will order this chrome blades. But that's your own decission. I got some regular metallic and black Claymores and it looks fantastic too.

With Castle so exceptionally well-represented at BrickCon every year, Will Chapman of BrickArms wanted to design a few special new prototypes for them to enjoy. With BrickCon 2011 now a fond memory, Will wanted to ask the entire Castle community what they think of these new prototypes!

Halberd






Naginata








Both the Halberd and the Naginata are designed to plug into any grippable post, allowing builders to pick the color and length of the post as well as the color of the accessory to match!


Cimmerian PickAxe






Killstrike Saber






Havoc Blade







Castle isn't a theme that BrickArms generally explores, so in terms of these new prototypes, Will is DEFINITELY very interested in any feedback this community has to offer. Are these accessories something you'd like to see from BrickArms in the future? Do you think you'd want to add them to your Castle armory? Is there anything you'd want to see changed in terms of a particular design? Anything constructive you have to offer will be helpful to Will in his process of developing these items and considering if they're something he should put into mass production!

I like all of them but the Havoc Blade. it seems a bit short for its' breadth.

They're pretty cool. Nice to see more of a LEGO style in these items.

The Havok blade is super cool. The blade shape is fun stuff. I think it would be more versatile without the holes though. Any particular inspiration?

Shadowviking wrote:The Havok blade is super cool. . . Any particular inspiration?

Glad you like it! In terms of inspiration, Will drew from the Gears of War 3 butcher blade

I'll have the lot...

Seriously, though, these look great. The Cimmerian pick axe is my fav as I have been waiting decades for LEGO or someone to make it. The Killstrike saber is a very close second as an assassin's blade. Nice goodies.
-Tower

I like them all, especially the Cimmerian pole axe. The havoc blade is a little short on its own, but used on a pole it is particularly nice.

I gave feedback in person to Will as he was packing up on Sunday, but now that I see this thread I just have to post on it.

I LOVE THESE WEAPONS.

In particular, I love the pluggable blades, which allow me to use different haft lengths to create one-hand, two-hand, or cavalry versions of these weapons, as well as to customize the colors of the hafts that I use. (My big bad guy can use a black haft with a dark metal color, while my hero guy could use a brown, tan, or even white haft with a really shiny blade color.) I love that idea for customization, as a great improvement over the classic LEGO axe, where the whole thing was brown (including the blade?!), black, or gray (including the haft?!). Love it, love it, love it.

Will also asked what we thought about the size of the weapons, and I generally have two basic approaches for this: line troops, and heroes/villains. The big bad guy always gets a huge, epic-looking weapon, maybe with banners or radical colors or huge size, because I want to draw a viewer's eye to that guy. Sauron (as shown in flashbacks) in the Lord of the Rings movies was enormous, with armor that was ridiculously distinctive. So when it comes to that type of guy, you can't possibly have a weapon too big or too outrageous. As for individual troopers, I want something that looks good in scale, and which lends itself to having large groups of troopers literally lined up in rank and file. In that regard, my initial feedback to Will was that the halberd and pickaxe might be slightly large; however, in looking at them more (and posing some guys with them), I want to amend my feedback. Now I think they work pretty well.

The only one I'm a little meh about is the saber. For one thing, I don't really look at that shape and think "saber", but maybe that's a bit pedantic. (I do try to maintain enough perspective to realize that this is all molded plastic, and that the whole notion of "realistic" with small toys has to be taken with a grain of salt.) I think my bigger problem with it, though, is that its shape doesn't strike me as really distinctive. It's not curved enough to be a proper saber or scimitar, nor does it have the distinctive straight-then-curve of a khopesh, or the convex-to-concave curve of the LotR elven sword, etc. Its current design looks like a single-bladed, slashing sword, but to look really fierce to me it needs to have more material/mass toward the striking end of the blade along the lines of a Roman sword or a falcata/kopis/kukhri.

This is getting long. Key takeaway: I really hope that Will gets into this space, and I like what he's done here so far.

Feel free to PM me for contact info if you want more feedback, a researcher, or a participant for focus groups with additional prototypes.

I like the looks of these blades. My favorites are the halberd and pickaxe, but I hope as many as possible of these will reach production.

The halberd and naginata are beautiful. The choice to make these pluggable heads is smart and with Will's exacting standard should not be a problem for fit.

The Cimmerian axe is IMO a masterpiece. The two-colour overmolded design is brilliant and useful for a lot more than just Conan MOCs. I would not be pleased to see this as a single-colour design however.

The remaining items I cannot really comment on too much. I am not a big fantasy fan but they are up to the usual quality standards with nice grips and clean shapes.

I was lucky enough to receive a complimentary batch of these at BrickCon, and I have to say that I was floored by them! They are terrific, and I immediately armed my orc horde with the majority of them over at the mass-fig battleground.
I would definitely be interested in purchasing more of them, though I would say the Naginata is my least favorite, but probably because it looks a little oriental to me, which isn't my thing. I would rather have it be more of a spear tip with an edge on both sides.
The only other thing was that the fit was a tad snug, but Josh said that's typical with prototypes. I'm sure the final versions will fit like a glove.

My favorite was the "pluggable" halberd and the havoc blade. The havoc looks great with the orcs, and I love the pic in the original post here that shows it on the end of the shaft. I'd almost prefer something like that to the Naginata.

Anyway, thanks for the freebies, and keep up the good work!

The Halberd is by far may favorite. I would need at least 20 of them. I also really like the pick axe. The other are real cool too. I wish LEGO had a longer haft in line with the Little Armory pikes. but these are great ideas. I would love to see more handle topper style weapons.

I really like all but there are two or three that caught my eye on.

I like the halberd, the firts picture axe and the Killstrike saber

Thoriun

The Halberd and the Cimmerian Pickaxe really caught my eye. I love the idea of having this clip onto the end of poles so that the length of the weapons can be customized. Plus, I would finally have a use for these. If these were put into production, I'd definitely be placing an order. They look gorgeous.

A BIG thank you to Will for sponsoring the castle display and the goodie bags!

That said: I love these love designs! They all would be "must-haves" except perhaps for the Killstrike Saber which might be to similar to the Dadao BA already makes.

The Halberd and Cimmerian Axe are my favorites but the cleaver style Havoc Blade is great too!

Thanks guys!