Classic-Castle.com

..I really don't like the new castle sets. It's all fighting and fantasy. Yes, there was fighting in the middle ages, but there were commoners too. And I'm just not liking the skeletons and orcs and I don't really have an opinion on the dwarves. The new castles don't seem like castles to me. There's too many pearl/metallic pieces for my liking and too many big specialized pieces.

I much prefer sets prior to 1997. Anyone else with me?

well first i dind't like the new castle sets eighter but after a short time i started to like them.
now they are my favorite.

Comparing this line to KK2, its vastly superior. They are using more basic brick, there are normal soldiers, no rainbow knights, and the Kings castle siege does have resemblance to a real castle, unlike KK2s awful "castle".

Of course, many will prefer the older sets, I really like the Forestmen, but all in all, this series holds up well to the older stuff I think. Now, of course many dislike the Orcs and Skeletons, but building wise, its quite good.

I agree with you. I dislike the new Castle sets. Although, Foamrider is right. I can't say the same towards KKI though, as I prefer them to any other theme released after 1997.

As for the old sets, I think I've stated before that my favorite time period of Lego Castle is the Dragon Masters of '93 to the Fright Knights of '97. I have (nearly) complete collections of both of those themes, as well as the Dark Forest Fortress (but sadly, no Royal Knights stuff. ). I do like the sets in the early 90's though second best, as I have the King's Mountain Fortress, Forestmen's River Crossing, and Forestmen's River Fortress, as well as Guarded Inn (the re-lease) and several other random accessories from the same general time (and I think Forestmen's Hideout). Those, as well as all of the KKI, KK2, and Majority of the Fantasy Era sets are my complete Castle collection. Again though, my favorites are:

Dragon Masters of '93 to the Fright Knights of '97

Foamrider wrote:Comparing this line to KK2, its vastly superior. They are using more basic brick, there are normal soldiers, no rainbow knights, and the Kings castle siege does have resemblance to a real castle, unlike KK2s awful "castle".

I must agree with that! Who wants baby blue armor anyway?

I like the new castle system, but not the form the sets take. I am not in love with the whole orc, troll, skeleton, etc bad guy thing. They are interesting though and I bought several of the 2008 sets just to display them.

The Castle line would improve (in my opinion) if normal life were the primary theme and the bad guys were secondary and not present in every set. I know that Lego believes that boths sides should be present in each set, so that kids (with limited budgets) can experience the theme as a whole, but I think that there is still plenty of room for civilian sets. Even if these civilian sets were smaller, someone could assemble them into a more cohesive collection. Those are my thoughts, but a civilian impulse set would be a great start and appeal to AFOLs on a pretty big level. Frankly, I only ever see impulse sets at SAH and every once and a while at Target during holidays, so AFOLs are probably buying more of them than kids anyway.

The perfect match would be to blend classic castle and current castle and thus move slightly away from fantasy while keeping the orcs and whatnot around for the kids and adults who like them.

I'm a little torn on this one. My childhood occurred during the golden age of System castle sets like Black Falcon's Fortress and Black Monarch's Castle, in addition to the forestmen, etc, so I have a lot of that stuff.

In comparison, the newer sets are largely fantasy-driven, and heavily involved with factions and faction warfare. My take on it:

Pros:
-I don't know how many times when I was a kid I would have loved having skeletons, trolls, or other more obvious baddies than just a generic "black knight" or Blue-vs-red armies.

-Much cooler theme-specific pieces. Now instead of a brick-built portcullis with a flat black studded drawbridge you get a special portcullis piece that looks like steel that's protecting a drawbridge that might have brown timber-colored studless plates raised by tiny CHAINS instead of just some piece of nylon thread. Also we now have crossbows, more than three helmet types, armor (woot!), big banners for the trolls, and of course the occasional dragon or giant troll. Also, there are now shiny metallic armor pieces that glint a little and add some flash to the important figs like the kings, knights, etc.

-Ubiquitous crownies for human knights. This is good and bad. Bad because if you want humans vs. humans you'll need to get some older sets for non-crownies. Good because the crownies are just about the best looking castle minifigs ever.

Cons:
- Not as many minifigs in each set. Black Monarch's Castle came with 12, King's Castle Siege has only 9 and half are skeletons.

-Sometimes not enough shields/helms/weapons.

-No peacetime sets.

-Very few/no peasants or other human factions.

-An oddly high number of technics pieces included in the sets. They move and do interesting things now, but technics are pretty useless for regular MOCcing.

i agreen with Gomur on this point.

An oddly high number of technics pieces included in the sets. They move and do interesting things now, but technics are pretty useless for regular MOCcing.[/list]

i've noticed a lot of technic elements in past sets. not only Castle but even as far back as the western theme.

my 2 cents has to do with TLC trying to give us what "most" of us have been crying for; fantasy.

so, of course you can't please everyone all the time, but they have been listening.

i also believe that TLC is still marketing to kids, so that is why they don't make non-fighting sets. i'm not saying that kids are violent, but i remember when i was a kid. i wanted high adventure and excitement, and to tell you the truth conflict is a big part of that.

sure you could have minifigs battle against something non-sentient like weather but how do you make a selling Lego set like that?

I was just thinking more along the lines of a Wizard's tower, or a medieval jousting festival set that would have both knights and non-combatants.

I think you'll find that many fans share your opinion on this subject. While I love the new Crown figs, the sets themselves are rather lackluster and the inclusion of skeletons, orcs, and dwarves really doesn't do much for me either. That being said, I think the line is a significant turn in the right direction when compared to KKII.

Well I don't have any of the new castle sets but from what I've seen in pictures I agree that I like the classic castle sets better.

As a kid, I deffinately would have loved the fantasy theme with the orcs, skeletons and dwarves mixed with humans (though I did like historical medival things as well). I don't think I would have been a fan of the actual sets though. While an improvment over kk2, there is still alot of non-standard brick pieces and mildly schitzophranic choice of colors. Even as a kid I found alot of the big specialized pieces to be very lame. (I actually liked having to build the portcullis for example). I stopped collecting castle when the frightknights got released and castle became rather... rediculous.

Actually I consider the harry potter sets to be the best "castle" since the royal knights- and imo some harry potter sets surpass even those in quality.

I'm actually lovin these castle sets and hope they stay a while longer. It would be nice to have some non-violent sets but lets see if that ever happens. Anyway, I don't know if this is common or what but I've noticed that these sets seem to have brought a lot of people out of their dark ages.

Have to say I absolutely love them. I was fortunate to come out of my dark age right about when Lego released the new sets, and I think they're fantastic. Love love love the orcs.

Well, my first castle as a kid was King's Castle (6080), so I am probably a bit biased in that the new King's Castle Siege is similar in being four walls around a floorless area, although KCS does have the fantastical structure at the rear (but also cool doors and pillars).

The Skeleton Tower is only a facade (no real interior or rear) but it is absolutely awesome. Even without modding it's an amazing entrance to one's own custom black evil castle.

Dwarves Mine is the platforms and pillars arrangement, but it works. It gives the feel of a structure built against the rock face, and certainly has the impression that it could be expanded. Absolutely fantastic figs and accessories.

The Troll Siege Tower is really impressive - kind of warhammer-ish or something. While I don't entirely agree with having both factions in all sets, it is nice to have a little tower. After all, the old siege tower set (which I also had as a kid) had a little section of wall.

The little sets from 07 are mostly well thought out and a nice variety - the catapult is flawless (down to the cute little barracade), the joust is great for the two knights, the skeleton prisoner carriage is fantastic value.

Mostly all the sets now are a well balanced mix of tiny parts, ordinary bricks and slopes, plates, custom parts, and large parts (rock, pillars, etc.). The prices we pay haven't gone up in years - indeed you get more parts than ever. Lego was hideously priced when I was a kid, no matter how awesome it was.

Folks may complain about the technic, but the "features" are pretty neat. Fun for kids, and inspiring for ones own construction. I think really people should just give it a go to make their own features in MoCs. I think it is far better to have a bit of technic in ordinary sets than to rely on technic sets. I never liked plain technic, but I like being able to use some bits for operating mechanisms and features in my constructions.

I think people overly mysticise the old sets - they had their charm but they were just as unrealistic in other ways as recent sets. They may have had less large pieces than new sets, but on the other hand they were a bit more basic with less detail than some new sets. In many ways the newer sets are more of a challenge - both in building and MoCing. Maybe AFOLs don't like huge instruction books that have just a few pieces each step, and modular construction, but those have allowed Lego sets to become more complicated and detailed again, as anyone can build them without Lego having to resort to juniorisation - it will just take some people longer.

I like the new stuff. I don't think I bought any castle legos since KK1. I was a bit skeptical when I saw the silver helmets and new colors, but I bought a few sets and like them. Can't wait to get some more!