Crusaders

[Sir Vincent]

They are the same...I believe...

[Robin Hood]

It can be whatever you want it to be......


Hey I like that, I gota write it down.

[LEGOFREAK]

any set you get prior to the - oh - say the fright knights (in my opinion) you got to make up your own story line. There are a couple of threads here about made up stories that go with them, and each is pretty cool.
Lego USED to have a policy of letting kids use their imaginations, but apparently they think kids are too stupid nowadays. I guess somewhere in the nineties kids lost the ability to come up with stories of their own and needed to have it all prepackaged...
at least according to TLC's Marketing dept....


Freak

[Formendacil]

While you are able to do whatever you like, I think that the Crossed Axes is intended to simply be an alternative device for the Crusader/Lions. Basically, in those days, Castle had two factions: Crusaders and Black Falcons. Of course, if you want subfactions or more factions, they're yours for the making.

[TwoTonic Knight]

Does anybody know what the deal is with them? the crossed ax and the lions, are they together? I have kings castle, but I always thought crossed axe were bad, and were attacking the good lions. Does anybody know anything?

You are in command, you decide. Mine are currently one faction, but if I get enough maybe they won't be. Sibling rivalry.

There is no official line - I suppose you can look at all the pictures on the boxes and try and infer from there, but my advice would be to please yourself.

[architect]

Of course they are the same faction

Look at sets like 6080 King's Castle. The spearmen and axemen have the crossed axes (makes sense ) while the archers have the lion emblem. Other sets use this same system. For example on 6040 Blacksmith shop, the axeman has the crossed axe torso.

You will notice that non axe/spear guys usually have the lion emblem. This can be seen in the siege workers in 6012 Siege Cart. Of course they are siege workers and also have grey pants.

Ben E.
Sets Admin

[Teup]

I always thought of them of slaves of the lion guys, since they always had to do more nasty jobs than the others in idea books and sets (like this one), and they're not really dominating any set.

The guys with the cloaks on their chests were even lower in rank, they have to pull carts, carry rocks and stuff

[Robin Hood]

Of course, there is the fact that cruisaders have two differnat kinds of shileds any way.

[Webrain]

Form 1984 till 1987 all the Lion sets (I don't refer to them as crusaders) where combine from Lion and Axe Knights. In every single set from those year they are together and there is no reason to believe that LEGO intended that those 2 torsos will be enemies. From some reason since 1988 the torso of the axe long gone while the Lion will survive till 1992. 6081 got instead of the axe torsos, some of the chain torsos of the Blac Knights fiction instead.

[rogue27]

I always thought of the crossed axe guys as having some sort of special rank within the crusaders, but they are among the crusaders.

[Jojo]

Hello!


Their colour scheme (red torso, blue arms, blue or red legs*) marks the axemen pretty clearly as "Lion knights".
The two different torso designs were used to create many different individual figures while the parts still remained generic, other than these days. There are different figures in almost every set from that days.

*) Later on also black or grey legs.


Bye
Jojo

[JPinoy]

I always thought of them as auxiliary or perhaps heavy infantry guys.

Anyhow, I use my Crusaders as Hittites. The cross-axe guys are the infantry while the lion emblemed ones are on chariots.

[Sir Garth]

If I had an army of them they'd probably stick together. Their colours seem to match, so I guess Lego meant them as allies.