Ok, here are a few notes of clarification:
The Categories are:
Ballista
Joust
Catapult
Prisoner Wagon
Tower
Castle Siege
All entries need two opposing factions. These factions should be some version of good vs evil. Feel free to create your own unique factions or use classic ones from the past. Just make sure we know which soldiers belong to which faction. Ideas for bad guys include skeletons, undead, giants, dragons, bad men (such as Shadow Knights) etc. Good guys should be some form of heroic knights/soldiers. Have a minimum of one figure from each of your factions in the creation.
For example you could make a shadow knight siege ballista attacked by a group of forestmen.
Where did these criteria come from?
CC Contest categories are always based on the prize being given away. In this case the prizes are new 2007 Castle sets. Creations should not be direct copies of the sets or themes, but they should be influenced by the concepts found in the sets.
does this mean the winners get the sets before they even come out?
Yes. Winners could quite possibly be the first fans to get their hands on a new set.
Is this the final box art in the pictures provided? The pieces we see are the pieces we'd be getting?
Yes.
So just to clarify - anything that could fit under the title of say "Joust" can be put into the joust competition - for instance - two dragons jousting?
Yes if one dragon was good and another bad.
Also, I take it there are no scale restrictions at all (eg a siege scene taking 10 baseplates would be equaly considered to something micro-built? )
Creations should feature minifigures or be in minifigure scale (if you are using mythical creatures). Creating very large entries could harm your score since we will have a hard time seeing all of it in 3 800x600 pixel photos.
I too would like a bit of clarity. Specifically, does one of the factions involved in the seige have to be an army of the undead?
No, it just has to be an opposing faction.
Ben
CC Contest Admin
P.S. I will work on updating and clarifying the contest pages this weekend before we start accepting entries on Monday.