Weekly Set Review: Treasure Guard

[Nick]

The fright knights are my favourite faction, and this set is a wonderful addition to any fright knights collection. The cart is very well designed, even has special places for an old-style grey sword and a brown spear. There is also a grey bat, which is very rare. As far as I know, there is a grey bat in only two sets - this one and the large temple in the Egyptian adventurers theme.
The minifig and accessories are also very good and useful.
The treasure chest is well positioned on smooth 1*2 supports.
The only negative is that there's no shield.
I imagine this sets a tax collector and his cart. He goes through villages, putting tax money into the chest. The weapons are there for him to fend off from renegades on his way back to the castle with a full chest of gold coins.

[Graynar]

I see Nick likes the Fright Knights whole lot.

This set is great because I don't have it! Any cheap set with a good minifig is good for me. For I only have a measly 30 castle minifigs in my whole collection. Minus 20 jellybean knights.

I'd buy many of these, all those troops and cart wheels. Though, the treausre chest is something I don't really need.

Graynar

[Damien]

You know, it's really unfair to be comparing this set with the Black Knight- one of the most universally acclaimed sets of all time. Far better to compare it to a different set from 1992: Treasure Cart, which, to the best of my knowledge, has yet to be reviewed. It's all very well to decry the change of sets from 1992 to 1997 (or from 1992 to 2005 ), but in a case like this, it is more fair to compare equivalent sets. Now, if you compare with Treasure Cart, and find that you like the Lion version no more than the Fright Knight, well and good- but then you must, of necessity, compare the Lion one with the Black Knight if you are going to compare the Fright Knight one with the Black Knight.

Well firstly, just to be clear, I'm not decrying any sets in general. I like the Fright Knights very much (hate that particular torso, though).

But even if I were to compare this set to the older Treasure Cart, and then compare the older Treasure Cart to Black Knight, this set, in my opinion, would come out on the bottom.

Just my opinion, of course. But is that not the point of fan-based reviewing?


The older Treasure Cart has similar pieces, but it came with, if I remember correctly, more convincing treasure (the solid yellow onnies or gold coins, can't remember which), a helmet that I prefer over the newer Dragon-helm, a spear, a sword, same basic pieces, a shield, and an infinitely cooler torso design.

Compared to Black Knight - it isn't quite as good. But I consider them roughly the same value. The Knight makes a good cavalry builder, while Treasure Cart is a cheap, but excellent, infantry builder.

Fast forward to the currently-being-reviewed set. No shield. Worse torso design. In -my- opinion, worse helm.

Small differences, but big enough to affect its rating for me.

[Formendacil]

The older Treasure Cart has similar pieces, but it came with, if I remember correctly, more convincing treasure (the solid yellow onnies or gold coins, can't remember which), a helmet that I prefer over the newer Dragon-helm, a spear, a sword, same basic pieces, a shield, and an infinitely cooler torso design.

Well, you are entitled to your own opinion, of course, but I must again lock swords with you on the issue of a "more convincing treasure".

Treasure Cart (the Lion set, to clarify) came with two trans-red 1x1 round plates and two trans-yellow 1x1 round plates for treasure, whereas Treasure Guard (the FK set) came with a set of gold coins. Surely I am not the only one who thinks that gold coins are a more convincing treasure than some trans-coloured pieces, nice though those may be to have.

[Damien]

My mistake then. I had the two switched around. I thought the FK set came with the trans pieces and the Crusaders set came with the coins (or yellow onnies which used to serve as coins).

[Nick]

Surely I am not the only one who thinks that gold coins are a more convincing treasure than some trans-coloured pieces, nice though those may be to have.

Hehehe, no you aren't. This set has four nice golden coins, not coloured pieces. In fact, I've never seen pieces serving as coins in any set. That was probably so in the oldest sets, but I am not familiar with those.

[Jojo]

Hello!


First of: When you are using Set Numbers you don't confuse anybody with what sets you are referring to. It's so easy to look up set numbers in any of the set databases throughout the internet. Use Lugnet or BrickSet for example. Names are different in every country, numbers are universal.

Secondly: Both 6028/6029 and 1463/1695 came with transcoloured 1x1 round plates for treasues. So did 1736/1746.


Bye
Jojo

[Robin Hood]

Well, I can say from personal experiance that for such a small set, its pretty good.

For pieces, whats not to like? Great guy, chest, grey bat, few weapons, its not bad.

Design, whats to say? How bad a cart can one make?

From a child's eye, this would be a decent, if unknownticed set. I think that it wouldn't be too popular though, mainly because it doesn't have anything a kid would really notice.

Dan

[Damien]

Jojo, I don't think it was a matter of confusing the two sets - but rather confusing which treasure came in which set.

But if they're the same, then it's a moot point.



Nick: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemPic.asp?P=4073

That piece, coloured a plain yellow, served as treasure in a -lot- of sets, both prior to the advent of the coin piece, and afterward. I believe it was still being used as 'gold coin' even in the Dark Forest and Dragon Masters days, perhaps even later, but I'm not certain.

[Sir Kohran]

Whilst there HAS been some very interesting discussion here from the other members, I'm afraid that I can't say much myself. The fig is nice, so is the bat, but aside from that, there really isn't much to recommend this set, except the fact that it's in old colours.

5/10

[E of Alshire]

And we now return you to your regularly scheduled topic.

I like this set, but not much can be said about it. Decent fig [can't figure out why some people don't like the Dragon Master helm] with a weapon. Cart = wheels. Could do without the treasure chest, they could have switched that with barrels instead. i would like some <real> treasure though.

-E

[Nick]

That piece, coloured a plain yellow, served as treasure in a -lot- of sets, both prior to the advent of the coin piece, and afterward. I believe it was still being used as 'gold coin' even in the Dark Forest and Dragon Masters days, perhaps even later, but I'm not certain.

Thanks for the link, Damien. I didn't know about this, as i don't own any sets with them. Well, the time will come when I will buy one of these sets. The use of that piece is very good, but the colour doesn't match very well. It would be better off being the yellow equivalent. When I was a child, I used these pieces as currency, as i didn't have that many coins, but lots of spare pieces like this, in different colours. I assigned a value according to the colour.

[Damien]

Yep. Actually.. plain yellow worked well for awhile. When you're a young kid you're less likely to say "so... is the gold flesh-tone, or are people gold-coloured?"