Weekly Set Review: Siege Tower

[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 6061 Siege Tower.

Siege Tower was released in 1984 for the Lion Knights. It included a modular hinged wall section, a rolling siege tower with a drawbridge, a ladder to scale the wall, a knight, an archer, and two foot soldiers.

Siege Tower is an extremely useful set because it allows you to connect the castle walls if other sections like 6040 Blacksmith Shop are added.

The alternative models are also nice. Check out side gate instructions here:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=25602

[David Girard]

It's a nice set. The wall are a bit simple, but the tower is fantastic. It has only 4 minifigures. 6 could have been better, (like 6062).

The most interesting part of this set is the siege tower. It's a lot realistic. I can't wait to own it.

There a mistery on this set. Wich clan is the owner of the wall ? The Black Falcon or the Lion Crest ?

[Glencaer]

Hoy

Personally, I think four minifigs is a great amount for such a small set. This set, which I do not own, seems to me to be an excellent sub-set of a larger castle, like 6080, the BFF, etc etc. Yet, at the same time, it offers many possibilities for play by itself.

To me, at less than $20 http://guide.lugnet.com/set/6061 it is a great set for both army and castle building. The pieces are useful enough to be used anywhere within the Classic castle building scheme (ie, like the secondary set that Ben Ellermann made into instructions).

Looking at all of these classic castle sets makes me wish I was in 1986 again, so I could blow several years' worth of income. These sets are just too good!

-Lenny

[architect]

I think the "lion knights" own the wall because the Battering Ram wall seems to be controlled by the falcons. Of course with LEGO, you can switch sides and have anyone in charge. (I need to make a BFF version with a red tudor wall and lion knights )

As for my thoughts on this set:

I really like the set because it has an excellent piece selection, good quantity of minifigures, a bit of realism, and a lot of play due to the tower and ladder. This set is very nice to connect a larger castle and additional siege weapons are always nice.

[David Girard]

Why do you say, architect, that the siege tower seem to be own by the Black Falcon ?

It seem to me that it is inverse. Lions seem to attack a wall. The Knight on the horse is outside the wall with the tower. Lions are taking the a fortress.

But maybe they are practicing on their wall. That explain the knight on the wall.

[Jojo]

Hello!


This set is nice. The tower is great and looks realistic. Four attacking minifigs are a good force. The best piece of course is the brown ladder, that has been precious enough to get immediately destructed (Like every rare piece: 6067-sign, 6040-fork, 6041-flag...) :-(

I too wondered which faction owns the wall? There is no defending force, so maybe the wall belongs to the Crusaders.
On the other hand I always used it with the Knight's Castle 6073 because that was so small and begged for enhancement. (And I never get any eMails that offer me enhancement for 6073...). Plus wall-sections built on 1/3 plates don't fit well to 6080 because it's built on baseplates; a 1/3-plates add-on lifts the walls of 6080.

However, 6061 is a very good addition to your Classic Castle Country.


Bye
Jojo

[architect]

David,

I think that the Lion knights are in control of the siege tower and wall section. However, Jojo is right, you can use the wall in any of the original castles, such as 6073.

Ben E.

P.S. Jojo - that is an interesting point about 6080 being on baseplates and not plates. I of course put plates underneath my 6080 because I like that better

[ottoatm]

I personally have a soft side for the King Castle and all of these smaller sets that can be included into it, such as the Blacksmith Shop, Guarded Inn, etc... this set is a nice one because of the siege tower, as was noted earlier... both the tower and battering ram are timeless siege machines that lego put out.. I'd love to see them do it again with the other machines from castle times.

I actually had the King's men owning both the machine and wall... but if I had to chose one, I'd say give the wall to the King's men (include it in the castle), and let the Black Falcons do their worst.

[Bruce N H]

The good:

This set is awesome for a few reasons. First, and most importantly IMO, is the inclusion of this set as part of a series of sets from that time period that can all go together into one big castle, as Jojo shows in this gallery:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=29141
Isn't that exactly what the CCC standard is all about, making smaller units that all link up to make a huge combination? This set was cheap enough that you could get several to make your castle even larger.
Another fine point of this castle was that you got multiple figures from two different factions, so it was a great army builder, with attackers and defenders to give better playability.
The design of the siege tower is nice, and is a perfect blend between realism and Legoland design.
This set is also great for weaponry. According to Peeron there are 4 spears, two swords, the battle axe, two shields (including that round one--I don't have any of those ), four helms (of three different designs), and a bow and quiver. Awesome.

The bad:

Perhaps I am alone in this, but I really dislike the castle wall panel piece. I know these are a way to build a big wall quickly, but the even rows of windows, the lack of the lines of bricks (which look realistic in a castle setting), and, most importantly, the lack of flexibility in design are all big negatives to me.
One minor thing, the wagon wheels are a great element (I just bought a bunch from Troy's shop), but they look too flimsy to support the tower. I prefer the 4x4 round bricks as wheels for larger things as seen in the Bulls Attack set.

Bruce

[Bruce N H]

Oh, just one more thing. One slight improvement that this set could have had was to somehow include the horse hitching piece. That would have allowed for an alternate model to make some sort of wagon since you already have the horse and four wheels, plus various plates.

Bruce

[David Girard]

Just a small correction, Bruce N H. There is not 2 factions in 6061. The 4 minifigures are from Lion faction. Don't confuse with 6062.

[rogue27]

I always had the impression that both the siege tower and the wall section were owned by the crusaders. The highlight of the set really was the siege tower, the wall section was almost like an afterthought just to put more stuff into the set and to give people more modular wall sections so they could connect more things together.

I like the image bruce linked above... I just realized that I actually had everything in that picture, but some of it was costly on ebay...

Anyway, with regards to the quality of the Siege Tower:
The tower itself is nice.
The ladder is a good piece to have and hard to find.
Four minifigs is pretty good for a $20 set.
The wall itself is pretty plain and uninteresting, but it does have a hinge which is very useful when combining things like Guarded Inn (6067), Blacksmith Shop(6040), and Armor Shop (6041), because without a hinged wall, you would have to put them all in a straight line which is rather uninteresting.

If this set was available now for $20 (like as a Legend or something), I would buy a couple. Everything from 84-87 with wall sections is good.

If I was to improve this, I would have made the set come with two different factions.

[gerkenz]

Jep - this is one of my favorit "little"-sets of the castle theme.
It looks very authentic and I can't wait to show you the battle for the "white lion castle" with two of them involved.

[Magnus]

This is a terrific set; classic castle modular wall sections at their best. I got it for my birthday when I was maybe 7 or so. I remember being sick that day (on my own birthday), which sort of sucked, except that I got to build the set and play with it all day instead of going to school, hehe.

Looking at it objectively now, it is a great set, great play value. The wall section is a little plain, especially compared to the wall section that came with the battering ram, and it would be nice to have say 2 black falcons and 2 crusaders instead of just 4 crusaders. But if this baby came back now, it would be a great hit, to go with the BFF and everything.

They don't make them like they used to, that's for sure.

[Neverroads]

This set is own of my favourite sets ever released... perhaps not for the wall section (I used that one with all the other castle and wall sets to make a town; the Netherlands is country of towns, so what do I need a castle for?!) but for the siege tower which uses some some SNOT even.

It's highly effective, and it looks cool too.

Casper