Castle and Tolkien sets for 2013

[Username]

A little juniorized, but I think it's a good counter balance for younger children versus the darker LOTR.

Is that armor a lighter shade of dark pearl grey, like the Series 9 Knight?

Hopefully we will get some more pics soon.

[petturik]

Here's another picture :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61839591@N08/8431768421/

[andhe]

Here's another picture :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61839591@N08/8431768421/

And this one http://www.flickr.com/photos/61839591@N ... otostream/ shows the front.

Not quite convinced how that equates to a 'mountain'...? But seems like it's a return of the fantasy era dragon. I can't see any pictures of the smallest set, I think it's just to the right of one of those. The Tower raid (or whatever they're calling it this time) looks the most attractive to me with the baddie mounted knight. I'm just hoping for battlepacks like the Fantasy/Kingdoms lines.

[Aeridian]

Here's another picture :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61839591@N08/8431768421/

And this one http://www.flickr.com/photos/61839591@N ... otostream/ shows the front.

Not quite convinced how that equates to a 'mountain'...? But seems like it's a return of the fantasy era dragon. I can't see any pictures of the smallest set, I think it's just to the right of one of those. The Tower raid (or whatever they're calling it this time) looks the most attractive to me with the baddie mounted knight. I'm just hoping for battlepacks like the Fantasy/Kingdoms lines.

Yep, I'm pretty sure the crossbow thing and the dragon soldier carriage makes up the smallest set by the looks of it. Mounted baddies sounds great! Maybe the outlaws will start raiding by horseback or better yet, dragonback!

[JCool]

I'm a bit split on the new sets. On the one hand I really like the figs and the variety of sets and the playability it suggests. On the other hand the sets are aimed at a younger audience (a direction which makes sense given LotR and Hobbit) so there's not much 'new' in terms of parts or design.

The shield / flag design though is interesting as it mashes up both the Crownies and Lion Knights. I kinda like that

[RichardAM]

So much recycled stuff from the last line. Ugh.

[mencot]

This is a bit juniorized but it fit with the target group. The sets don´t look as "bad" as I tought, okey like "Andhe" said what "mountain" is that and the kings castle is builded up by big parts but the minifigs and accessories look really good but I don´t like the baddies so much. And I really like the "good guys" ballista and catapult a bit towards real look, compering to the riduculous and childish (KKish) the "bad guys" have in the big set.
The heraldries don´t look so good, remainds of the KK ones. Is that crown the same as on the CMF9 hero knight, the Lion on is ok but what is up with the dragon logo, in the set images it looks like a wrong colored and badly faded Wolfpack shield.

So much recycled stuff from the last line. Ugh.

Yea TLG took every bad thing from all 2000 castle themes and came up with this
No there are some good things

[ffilz]

What is the bad guy heraldry? The black and red looks like it will go well with the scorpion knights.

While the castle clearly makes a lot of use of panels, I think it looks pretty decent, and panels are the only reasonable way for LEGO to produce a set with the overal size of the castle.

I will be finding room in my LEGO budget for this series...

Frank

[mencot]

some kind of a red dragons face on black is the baddies logo

[Knight Man]

Hmmm....
Dislikes:
As expected alot of BURPs in King's Castle
The new Barding
The new horse head armor
The use of dark bley rather than bley on the Lion Knights
Likes:
Minus King's Castle the sets actually look pretty good
Slotted black helmet used
The baddies look like they might turn out pretty epic and compatible with Shadow Knights
Pointy long sword used for the baddies
Archer(?) torso for the Lions looks great

So to sum it up I will probably end up buying everything but King's Castle and depending on the figs possibly multiples of the Ambush set. Bah LEGO you like my money all to much....

[AK_Brickster]

Hmm.... Not really sure how I feel about these yet. I'll need more up close pics of the other sets first.

First impressions:

GOOD:
- Minifigs look pretty good, with several generic torsos and the print on the bad guys looks like it might be pretty neat. Also, the black "slotted helm", as mentioned earlier, will be nice, as will be the metallic silver visor on the great helms. Shadow knight helm also returns, which is awesome.
- New King and Queen figs are always a welcome addition.
- Return of the large dragons is great, as the old ones are crazy expensive, and they are more usable than the old retro ones (even though I have a special place in my heart for those)
- A few new elements, including the tall double convex slope in dark bley (lower right corner of the castle when facing the front), which is always a good thing.
- Tan spiral staircase parts in the main bad guy fortress

BAD:
- Terrible parts selection in the main castle. It looks to be 75% panels - more pictures needed to decide on the rest.
- Sigils are terrible. The lion one is not good, though the flag on the castle is kinda neat, and the bad guy one barely resembles a dragon, in my opinion.
- Good guy barding design looks very childish. I'll be passing on this one for sure. Can't tell with regard to the dragon one yet. Head armor for horses looks bulky and weird.

UNDECIDED:
- Most figs have black hands. I don't know about you guys, but I prefer to use mostly yellow hands on my troops. I guess the black could be good just because I have so many yellow and not many black, but I have a feeling I'll be switching out a lot of these for yellow.

All in all, not a terrible line at first glance, but Kingdoms was far superior. I'll likely be picking up several of the small set for figs and maybe a dragon and King/Queen. Other than that, it looks like this summer might be a little easier on my wallet than last year.

[TeufelHund]

Well, I was looking forward to some more Castle but these sets ae pretty underwhelming at first glance. The castle in particular lacks appeal with lots of big, chunky parts (although better shots of the other sets are needed before judgement can be passed on them) and the Lion Shields look like rehashes of earlier generations of products which is very disappointing considering the great, authentic medieval heraldic look they achieved with the Lion motif in Kingdoms. The castle also look seriously undermanned - a couple of bowmen, a knight and the King only in defense? At least they gave the attackers a siege weapon this time unlike in the Kingdoms castle.

On the bright side some of the torsos and armour look nice, but in general it looks like a bit of a letdown after Kingdoms.

[OverLoad]

Hmm, I'm a bit dissappointed at the fact that it appears all of the torsos are "armoured" in nature (IE Not tunic torsos ala Kingdoms and the quartered Crownie Torso) which is a bit of a letdown for me. But, I do like the use of the black nasal helm and perhaps I'll be able to work in some of the minifigures. Interested to see what the black wizard (I could have worked an Emperor reference in there!) looks like, assuming he's got some sort of unique arrangement and isn't just the typical LEGO wizard.

The sets look like a mediocre arrangement of parts, but considering I just buy sets for minifigures and spare parts, I'm not complaining much. The dragon looks interesting, could this be the same mold we see for Smaug later on in the year?

EDIT: It appears the Lion King (what sort of moniker will these factions get?) is holding a pearl gold longsword. Finn's sword, pre-"Dad's Dungeon", anyone?

[wallgorn]

At first glance, the sets look interesting. They do look like KK & KK II combined with Castle. I like the new swords. I'm glad that the "knights" have breastplates. Its nice to see that they've brought back the visored helm (my favorite design), the grille helm, and the great helm from Kingdoms. The kite shield has always been my favorite shield design. The new bardings look interesting along with the new head armor piece for the horses. I'll probably add these Lions and Dragons to my army.

[andhe]

Interested to see what the black wizard (I could have worked an Emperor reference in there!) looks like, assuming he's got some sort of unique arrangement and isn't just the typical LEGO wizard.

If you zoom into one of the pictures the wizard is visible (albiet from a side angle and slightly obscured). It looks like he's the standard wizard set-up with a black hat and beard. I couldn't see if the hat had printing.