Are the New Castle bad?

[Lord Lego 436]

For me, It was mainly that the Castle was really fun ot build, and the Ghost was an immediate win.

Yea ghosts seem to be disappearing from the line, but why did it have to have yellow hands in this set I guess it was those kind of details that I was annoyed by.

Yeah, that was annoying. But it isn;t that hard to switch 'em out for white hands, after all.

[Sleepy Hollow]

I'm talking about the mountain fortress and the Castle Siege. They don't contain baseplates! Even the hated Morcia Castle had a baseplate. I think that TLC is cheaping out, and that All the castles should have baseplates.
What do you think?

For me, currently the mountain fort is not good. I think that because, a big ratio of the pieces are of no use, and the colours seem off. For the Castle Siege I can fairly say it's great! It has some awesome figures, as well as a nice amount of useful pieces. All in all I think we can all agree on one thing:
The old sets were the best! No doubt!

[Mörs]

As much as I like castles raised on (elevated) baseplates, I think that for a real castle maniac -- and I believe most of the people here are ones -- official LEGO castles are too small, anyway. So I think a castle like the first Black Knights' castle work great as a way to build a big and strong wall (for a bigger castle, for instance). Or even better when it's a castle with a closed wall built on plates, like the Castle Siege from the Fantasy Era Castle.

But overall, yes, I would like to see baseplates back (elevated or not).

[CodeGeorge]

I love this Fantasy theme. That said some of the sets are "meh" though some are great.

I do wish we'd get more giant plates. I was abusive to my legos when I was a kid and sadly none of mine survived. Since I've only just started again (about a year ago) with Lego stuff I'm lacking good plates and I don't have enough pieces to build one myself (not enough green!).

[quaraga]

I like the baseplated* castles better, you can set up scenes inside. however the goblin** fort wouldn't be baseplate compatable due to its trapezoidal*** shape. the goblin fort sucks anyway though so not that bad.

*is that a word?
**trolls are always depicted as bigger than humans whereas goblins are generaly human size (the big dudes out front are trolls)
***is that a word as well?

-T.R.

[Mörs]

I think the NEW Castle, I mean, the new [CENSORED] theme, is NOT going to be bad! Sorry for a little spoiler for people who have not seen the leaked pictures, but it looks like the first classic-looking Castle line in 13 years (since the Royal Knights went bye-bye).

If I were to give an advise to you Castle maniacs (who are so virtuous, they probably don't even know a new theme is coming!), I say forget the Fantasy Era Castle for now, and gear up for the real thing!

[Count Blacktron]

More 10193 Medieval Market Village, 7036 Dwarves' Mine, and 7091 Knight's Catapult Defense would not have been bad, I could go on with those for quite a long time, but the line gets stale if it's just conflict between the same sorts of characters (little changed over 3 years) and few additions to the parts and places categories. They cannot go on the same without change. There were a lot of good sets and designs. I really was delighted with 7094 King's Castle Siege, 7029 Skeleton Ship Attack, 7090 Crossbow Attack and the Impulse sets (5614 The Good Wizard, 5615 The Knight, 5616 Troll Warrior). I've been 90+% pleased with everything.

It was all great, and the whole line will forever hold a treasured part of my Heart of Brick.

But it is time to move on. New characters and factions. New colors and parts. New locations and places. I need expansion for my own creations to flourish. I cannot and will not simply build the same designs and Castles over and over again. What I really would like to see if the line were to continue would probably not be possible at regular retail levels; more shops, defensible internal Castle-support buildings, more farms and peasantry, places for errant knights to quest and fall victim to sorcery, more forests and seaside/lakeside locations. You can get plenty of conflict out of those ideas, if TLC sees that as a sales gimmick, but I'd be happy to see a proper peasant farmer cart, grain windmill, raunchy tavern, seaside port, haunted forest and church with graveyard and nothing else for three more years from Castle. Like I said, I can make those, and the new/old product is where I will pull my parts and populations from.

I really am looking forward to the 2010 product to enhance my creations and populations. The same happened between 1997 and 2001 as we went from Fright Knights to Ninja, Adventurers to Star Wars and into Knights Kingdom and Harry Potter. All parts and sets add to the Great Sorting.

Play well indeed.