Weekly Set Review: Skeletons' Prison Carriage

[architect]

Join the weekly Classic Castle set review discussion. Please post your opinions on the set play ability, piece selection, design, etc. Which sets stand up to our catapult of critique and which ones crumble in shame!

This week’s set is 7092 Skeletons' Prison Carriage.

Skeletons' Prison Carriage was released in 2007 for the Skeletons. One good knight attempts to rescue a fellow soldier. A black skeleton drives three skeleton horses while two white skeletons defend the wagon. Various accessories such as weapons, torches, and a whip are included.

[DerBum]

Like most recent Lego wagons, this one seems a little large for the number of horses pulling it. I suppose being so big adds some play value if you are a child, but it looks out of place to my adult eyes. As some may know I dont like the skellies as a faction, so a lot of the appeal of this set is lost on me. The gray wheels are nice, as is the whole harness set up linking the "horses" to the wagon. Overall... 5 (at best).

[Old_School_Fan]

I personally enjoyed this as part of the line-up of the new generation of Castle sets. The number of figures is good, the number of horses is great, and there is a lot of playability right out of the box. The set design works well with the theme, in my opinion. I can very easily see a taller, almost lopsided wagon being ruggedly pulled along by a team of skeleton horses with the torches blazing in the night. While I am not an over the top fan of the Fantasy theme, I do feel this was a good installment in the sets offered.

[outcast]

This was the set that introduced me to castle. When I bought it I thought it was absolutely brilliant and I still do now. It was a great beginners set with a high amount of people for both sides and some excellent pieces for not just a cart but a tower or castle. Thanks to this set the skeletons are my favourite faction.

Outcast
(ps: maybe I just got a bad set, but I think the knight is supposed to have a grilled helmet, not a visored one)

[Tycho McKorley]

I really enjoyed this little set. After a two-year involuntary dark age, this was the first foray I made back into Lego Castle. I particularly enjoyed the screaming face of the imprisoned crown knight.

[domboy]

I accidentally got this in a small lot I bought off ebay, and I'm really glad I did. I think this carriage is great!! The design looks very foreboding, and having three skeleton horses pulling it just adds to that feel. It's also nice that instead of giving the Skeletons a siege weapon, they gave them a prison carriage instead... I guess when you have dragons perhaps you don't need siege weapons as much. Also it seems there haven't been many carriages released of late. On a side note, I can't think of another carriage that has three horses pulling it... the most I can remember is two.
Also call me crazy, but I like that the knight is riding a horse without a barding... those seem to be almost overused now... and I like that it's a brown horse, as all the other horses 2007-present are white. I also like that the knight has the really old grill style helmet... not the one show in the picture, but this one:

http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/x167

All in all, a really good set. But then, I really like the Skeleton faction...

[Crusader]

This is a great cavalry builder for your skeleton forces. And as other have noted, it's hard to get a brown horse these days. My only complaint with this set is that all the little horns as well as the torches are really fragile. It's hard for my kids to play with this set without constantly rebuilding it. Lego really like to deck out their bad guy structures with horns and I just wish they would stay together better.

But it's still a decent set with a lot of play value. A solid 8 out of 10.

[Teherean]

It's an average set, It's the first Fantasy Era set I got.
It's got some nice figs and parts, but not many. Also, the horses seem a bit too boney to be dragging along a cart like that.

Not much better than the carts we've recently seen in other castle lines.

6/10

[Heir of Black Falcon]

Well the skellies are not my favorite faction but I think they are pretty cool, perfect baddies.

I think this cart is by far better than most out in the last few years, especially in horses to size of the wagon.

With three skellie horses, 1 horse, and the minifigs included I'd give this a high 8 or so.

Heir

[CastleLord]

To me it's a ok set, but it is kinda lacking stuff. Like a weapon for the guy in the cage.
If we look past that it's a ok set. From me: 7/10.

CastleLord.

[Robin Hood]

Ah, a new one! It's been awhile. So lets get a going.

Parts.

Definately a worthwhile set for the parts, if you are at all interested in the skeleton theme. With three skeletons, three skeleton horses, two dudes, and a horse it's certainally worth the buck. The big wheels that come with are also unique and possibly cool. I know I already used them once. Nothing much else to write home about for parts, but certainally it's decent in that area.

Design.

I'm a little more hesitant on the design. This isn't the first prison carriage Lego has made, and the whole concept behind it is a bit silly. Still, the designers of this set did good and stayed well within the look they were giving the whole skeleton theme. The method used to hitch the undead horses to the wagon is a different design, and I'm still uncertain how well it works, but it's at least fairly stable, a problem that other wagons have had. I don't remember correctly, but I think the prison the comes off the cart? That's both kind of useless and annoying. A point in favor of it though, NO catapult. It would only be too easy for Lego to have added one of those small "pot" catapults up on the tower.

Playablity.

On the note of the removable prison, the playabilty is somewhere in the middle. It has a decent ratio of bad guy to good guy, and the knight having a horse is a very good idea, as it will allow the youngster playing with it to be able to have his knight keep up with the wagon. As I said, the detachable prison is iffy idea. On the one hand, having it detach is an obvious attempt by Lego to add more playabilty to it, and it may work. A kid could indeed have a bit of fun with removing it. The said kid could also have not so much fun with it, as it makes the whole wagon a little less stable, and more prone to loosing its cargo in mid-flight. I guess it depends on the kid and what he thinks make the game better.

So all in all, a worthy buy if you did. And even something worth getting second hand. Good piece selection, moderately good desgin, and fairly decent playability. (Ain't vague grading systems great?)

Dan

[Username]

I like this set. It has the creepy feel of the skeleton faction, good amount on minifigs and accessories, and it's just a fun set for kids to play with.

[Evil Ben]

I quite liked this, more than I thought I would from the box art. For the size of set the number of figs and horses is good. The main model kept me entertained for a while trundling it around, though I'm not a huge fan of the horn-bedecked style of this and some other sets. As a prison wagon (another odd obsession of TLC) it was better in my view than Vladek's (8874 - OK technically 'battle' wagon, but it still had a cell, as well as the obligatory KKII catapult), though not as cool as the crusaders' 6055 (I might be prejudiced by the lack of a peasant, but I dimly recall the way the door opened was quite neat). Probably more important, there are actually enough pieces to make a variety of alternate models; obviously all kinds of carts and wagons, but you can also just about get a small ship out of it, and I also made a microscale spaceship of which I was quite unjustifiably proud...

[domboy]

... but it is kinda lacking stuff. Like a weapon for the guy in the cage.

The skeletons took away his weapon when they put him in a cage! One skeleton has two weapons, so perhaps the Halberd(?) was originally the soldier's:

http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/6123

Just a random thought...

[Athos]

Its a nice looking cart; very skeletony. That picture really doesn't do it justice. Though it is a little big...

That being said, I don't like the tower part much. And, really how many prison carriages do we need? I think a skeleton catapult (or other siege engine, if you're sick of catapults) would have been quite cool. Say like a skull faced battering ram... or a bony handed bucket on a catapult...

Steve