Theme Review: Fright Knights

Spongey · Post by **Spongey** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 8:58 pm

Today marks, sadly, the last theme review until at least the release of Castle 2007. This week's highlighted theme is Fright Knights. Fright Knights were released in 1997, and sets included Witch's Magic Manor and Night Lord's Castle. Please feel free to review figs, sets, and the overall design of the theme.
Personally, I find Fright Knights to be one of the worst Castle themes, second only to KKII, and the set designs themselves were probably the worst completely. The figs were poor, including everyone's best friend Willa, and the set designs were shoddy. Compiling that with a weak theme construction, Fright Knights would earn a 5/10 with me on my best day.

Ser Loktar · Post by **Ser Loktar** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 9:33 pm

This is the theme that started my dark age. I bought all the RK sets with my allowance moneys and almost did the same with DF (missed the fortress) but when I saw that bat winged helm I figured that LEGO had gone off their rockers finally.
The sigil was pretty cool and I got a couple of the minifig pack for the shields but the sets themselves were terrible and after the uniformity of RK the many drastically different soldier torsos soured me on building an army of 'em.
Now I might get booed outta here but I gotta say I didn't mind Willa. It might just be because I didn't collect the whole series and didn't end up with 20 of her (maybe a dozen) but aside from her head (can you say UGMO?) the rest of her was wicked. Her cape, when flipped upside down, draped a red schemed noble or knight while the torso only had one tiny heraldric symbol which could be hidden to make many black schemed ladies from multiple houses. I just wish I bought the little set with the black cat. (still don't have one) Castle access packs have given me way too many of her wand and hat but her printed dress and torso can never be over bought.
Lastly, I really liked the DM dragon and when it came out black I thought 'how cool', though once I saw the FLAME colored WINGS I made an effort to replace all six of my black dragon's wings with black or red ones.
Overall, these guys just blew as a castle line though cut up their pieces and figs have helped me enough to wish I hadn't stopped buying LEGO in the store 'cause of them. (missed out on ninja too)
Sorry for the super long tirade, (don't get me started on bad castle lines)
Ser Loktar

P.S. These reviews were quite a good idea and I'm sad to see 'em go. Keep thinking up more topics this good, Spongey.

Patron of the lego · Post by **Patron of the lego** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:47 am

Hmm, this is the theme I have least of besides wolfpack. I wonder why.

Lets start with the sets. The castle 6097 has holes in it, not to mention the the idiotic fantasty design. Also 6087 the only other building in this theme, had a lack of pieces, poor design, and mountain is half complete since the other half is a huge hole or a one stud wall. Also a helicopter in the middle ages! I dare say that set had the dumbest design ever.

Next, the smaller sets. Some of them were okay, but there were sets that lacked weapons, some minifigures and some design, one was even a wierd jet thingie. 6004 crossbow cart was cool though.

This was a horrible theme, but better than kk2.1 mainly for actual soilders.

Rusty Brick · Post by **Rusty Brick** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:57 pm

I only have one FK set from an ebay purchase--6087. While I appreciate some of the pieces in the sets, I consider the theme to be a complete flop.
I imagine that the idea started off good enough--a group of dark knights in rough mountain fortresses led by a Witch and Bat Lord with special magic powers.
But what it turned into was very disapointing--ugly, disjointed sets. Completely unrealistic small sets. And most of all: frustrated lego fans.

All that being said, if the FK line were available side by side with KKII today, I would buy more FK for the pieces and figs.

leaf_of_lire · Post by **leaf_of_lire** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:46 pm

I like the Fright Knights faction, the buildings would be good for a worn out place type of thing. Some of the figs were good mainly just the soldiers, the theme did come with a lot of chrome silver swords though. I did not get any of these sets either though.

wunztwice · Post by **wunztwice** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 7:33 pm

Not a very good theme in my book. However they did provide me with one of my favorite torsos EVER! Fluer-de-lis anyone?
So, with that in mind I can't give it a horrible review, but overal not very good.

PunkRockCowboy · Post by **PunkRockCowboy** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 8:51 pm

Personally I think that this is an underrated theme. I like the Fright Knights because I was ready for this sort of thing after Royal Knights. Even if the Royal Knights had awesome sets their army looked way too dorky for my liking, like lego went to the extreme to prove that they were the good guys.

Anyway, I like a lot of things about the Fright Knights even if I dislike most of their sets. These torsos are amazing additions to the Castle Lineup, and much more useful than the dorky Royal Knight and King Leo torsos:

I think that there were two good sets in the lineup:
Crossbowcart

and Prison Transport

What I liked about Fright Knights:
A sweet, generic barding that can be used for almost any faction
Bats
Nice New Torsos
Black Cats
Witch Hat and Dress (bleh face)

What I didn't like:
Poor/weird sets
Translucent Orange Dragon Wings
Too many commanders (Basil/Willa) not enough soldiers
Overuse of great swords and great halberds

Hob Took · Post by **Hob Took** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 10:45 pm

Fright Knights had some just plain weird stuff in it. Lots of crazy flying contraptions, translucent dragon wings, crazy withches, and all sorts of things that pull away from it being castle. The soldier minifigs were pretty cool though. It had some good points, but most of the sets overused pieces. Large wall pieces were common for the Fright Knights' sets. I do say that this is better than KK2 though.
4/10

Count Blacktron · Post by **Count Blacktron** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:10 pm

wunztwice wrote:Not a very good theme in my book. However they did provide me with one of my favorite torsos EVER! Fluer-de-lis anyone?
So, with that in mind I can't give it a horrible review, but overal not very good.

Yep, the Evil French Knights, when you leave out the Bat Lord and Witch Willa. The main castle was great for parts, and there was the minifigure army pack, the minifigure accessory set and that prisoner wagon. Most of the rest felt lacking or missing the mark. Fun idea for a fantasy theme, but a poor execution. Based on availablitity, parts, colors and prices = 4/10

Chrislad77 · Post by **Chrislad77** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 5:03 pm

Fright Knights.... hmm a lot of mixed feelings. They were end of Legos 90's Castle Line. Compared with the newer lines FK's still bear some resemblance to the older sets. The 90's and their love of BURP's is on display with their bulidings. The figures looked alright, everyone has mentioned the best of them. I guess FK's were suppose to be the obvious enemies of the Royal Knights , that would have worked if you could actually find Royal Knight sets by 1998. The Bat helmet is digustingly useless. I got a couple of the items packs, I'm glad I did but I think the bat shields are really ugly.

Jojo · Post by **Jojo** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 5:45 pm

Hello!

The Fright Knights. Hm. I have to write two reviews in one, each of them coming to a different conclusion.

First I have to blame the FK theme for being ridiculous, ugly, farthest away from the golden age of grey castles – until 1997. That year looking in the catalogue almost made me puke. What were they thinking? A frowning batlord with a foolish batwing cap? Absurd. A toothaching witch in a dragon-propelled salad-bowl? A shelf on wheels that throws fire? Bats standing on the backs of horses? And this ugly magic manor comes with a dragonwing helicopter? Ouch!

Now for the praise. Praising the Fright Knights theme probably only is possible because we know what followed. However. I like the figs. I can find use for every single fig that came with the FK theme. OK, I don’t find a use for frowning Basil faces and onetoothed Willa faces, nor do I like the batcap. But the remaining parts of the figs are pretty cool, not only for Castle but for Pirates/Ancient/Renaisassance/Baroque themed creations as well. And Willa's skirt is a rooftile.

The bigger sets offer great parts in essential colours. I'm really fond of the big green baseplates; they are great for landscaping. In retrospecive even the design of the Bat Lord’s castle is growing on me. It's an unique shape that renders the feeling of some fantasy vampire castle pretty well. In the later days of the old Lego Castle line they (Lego) tried to create castles that looked different from previous castles, going away from square walls with two towers in the rear and one tall gate tower in the front, which was the basic design in the beginning of Legoland Castle. So they had to come up with new ideas, and this Bat Lord’s castle seriously was a new design.

So, in conclusion, for me the Pros outweigh the Cons by far. Who would have thunk that. Had you asked me a decade ago…

Bye
Jojo

zac_schmitt · Post by **zac_schmitt** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 6:45 pm

OK, I don’t find a use for frowning Basil faces and onetoothed Willa faces,

i can't really imagine a better take on your classic fairy tale witch, and she makes for fine ugly hag types of all varieties (medusa, for example, and try creating macbeth vignettes without her).

as jojo notes, the set designs are the weakest part of the them by far, which is a very bad thing. however, i have both witch's windship and bat lord, which nets me two dragons and two cool figs, which makes me very happy.

Post by **Athos** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 7:13 pm

I personally don't think this theme deserves the amount of ridicule it recieves.

The Good:
-The figures: the two soldier designs made nice generic warriors and had useable faces. The batlord and witch, while over used, are also good figures. The helmet is not as bad as people make it out to be. It makes for a good evil champion. And the witch, while her face is a little silly, still has a nice torso-skirt combination. They made a nice evil faction and bat hearldry is more medievally believable than Monkeys or Scorpions.

-The sets weren't all bad. I kind of like the tower thing, though I agree it had its faults (no doors down stairs).

-Bats. This is the line that gave up bat pieces, which are quite useful

-Black dragons. A nice addition to the fantasy creatures.

The Bad:

-Set designs were quite poor and juniorized, compared to previous lines. Especially, the Willa Witch Manor travesty (though even there you got a lot of BURPS and LURPS, which are useful for landscaping) and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, Windship.

The Ugly:

-Windship. I think the windship is what makes people hate this line so much. People focus on that and forget some of the positive aspects of the line.

Steve

P.S. Great avatar Jojo!

kelderic · Post by **kelderic** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:26 pm

Personally, I never got any of these sets, being too young. However, I do like many aspects of this line. The Black Dragons, and the horse barding are wonderful, and I like the fact that the faction had a cape. However, the set design wasn't that great, and some of the figs were slightly silly.

6/10

Kelderic

Chrislad77 · Post by **Chrislad77** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:51 pm

I remember going to a lego store intending to buy some Dark Forest but being told all they had were FK's so I bought the Manor thing because it had a Dark Forest figure in it. In retrospect the line wasn't all bad but too much of the charcter stuff for me to want to collect in bulk. Being the last castle line of the 90's it really fit the era, Lots of BURPs, good ideas not excuted well, and basic troops. I have like 6 FK's and have no intention of getting more unless I see those nice torsos cheap some place. Overall it was average in most respects.