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Subject: 
Re: Ultimate castle theme..
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.castle
Date: 
Thu, 28 Dec 2000 01:43:28 GMT
Viewed: 
882 times
  
In lugnet.castle, Ed T. Toton III writes:

Hey there everyone! I was just curious as to what everyone's thoughts
are as to what they think would make for the ultimate castle theme. I've
got some opinions on it myself, and a lot of it stems from the frustrations
of starting out only with the current theme, and having the older stuff only
available on ebay, rather than already having stuff from collecting it
all along...

It helps but it is still expensive.  My first castle set was the blacksmith's
shop.  I also got a lot of the smaller early sets. but I only had a few
lt. grey castle walls.  in fact the only castle section I have right now, a
back gate/entrance used all 11 of the castle walls I had. (I swear I had more)
and untill earlier today (when I saw a bunch of them on brickbay and purchased
20) that was the the extent of lt. grey castle walls.  I have a few black
castle walls the ones from the seige tower are rather dull tho.  I was really
hoping that the castle expansion pack would include a few wall pieces. what
good are arches and roof if there are no walls.

I think for me, what I'd consider to be a fantastic lego castle theme
would be one that takes some of the best ideas from each of the
castle lines we've seen so far. I love Knight's Kingdom for the detail
and some of the styling. The siege engines are neat, the minifigs
look good, and there's a wonderful abundance of weapons and
accessories.

I like the minifigs more and more (I love the new pan helm) the bulls are great
(with flair and bullet helms and not the dragon helms).  I don't like the type
of accessories. I have about 60 of those big grey halbards that I'm not using.
I don't use the silver swords (too big) and I've got a ton of them.  plus more
cross bows than I know what to do with.  (2 in each 4801/4811).  But at least
each of my Knight's kingdom or bulls has a shield (I even have a bunch left
over cause of archers) which is more than I can say for my crusaders and black
flacons. (untill recently)

What I don't like about this theme is that simple things
like standard fantasy stuff are missing (such as decent-looking
dragons and wizards and the like.. I mean really... a dragon with
transparent red wings that's only available in a hard-to-find
promotional set??  Auuugh!),

I call those baby dragons and have given them all black wings.  I am working
on a large dragon (inspired by that great dragon I saw here, but can't find to
give proper credit, with out the search capibility)

and it's hard to put together a
good castle. Basic castle walls aren't even in the current sets, for
instance (except maybe king leo's castle, but it's expensive to
get multiples of, and right now is hard to find, and besides how
many of those green bases etc do you need??)... And heck, they're
not even offering accessory service packs, or minifig packs for
this theme yet.

agreed

I looked back at some of the older sets and saw some neat things
and got some interesting ideas.  Some of the sets from the 80's
had a "simple but functional" sort of look. Nice small fortresses with
those castle wall pieces, and hinged in some cases (such as 6073,
6075, 6080) and there used to be a drawbridge/gatehouse set
once upon a time (6078).

I think one thing that's been lacking all along though is modularity
and scalability. So here's what I think would be really awesome:

1)  Sets that consist of maybe a section of castle wall and a tower
that snap together with pin/socket joints. Each one could come with
a catapult or some other siege engine, some good guys, and some
bad guys. This would allow you to build a castle or fortress as large
or small as you want, depending on how many of the sets you buy.

this is what I loved about the early 80's sets.  The black smith shop (6040),
the armor shop (6041), the wall section that cam with the siege tower (6061),
the peice that came with the battering ram (6062) and the Knights stronghold
(6059) all had the pin and 1x2 with hole so that you could combine them into a
castle (I think that the large catles of this era also had the pins at the ends
but I still haven't gotten one so I don't know.  This ability made them
expandible and the feeling that you were part of a larger thing.  you knew that
if you were to purchase a new wall you could just pop it onto your existing
castle and continue.  I think that TLC should do that again.

2) One or two different gatehouse sets, with portculleses and
drawbridges. Also modular.


I love this idea for the reasons above.

3) Seperate fantasy packs that have dragons, wizards,
skeletons, ghosts, the like. That way you can add as much or
as little of a fantasy element as you want.

4) Peasant/village sets, so you can build an outlying village around
your castle (or in it) if you want.

I don't see TLC doing this.  It is kinda a cool idea but if you as a 9 year old
boy (the aproximate audience of the castle theme) had a choice wouild you
choose for the one lego set your mom got you one with a guy with a peasant with
a pitchfork and packet on his back or a solider with a big axe? (clue: I have 2
pitchforks and 60 some big axes) of course mom choosing on her own would
probablly go the other way ;)

5) Service/expansion packs with soldiers or peasants (extra
minifigs), or dungeon trappings, or packs of weapons and
armor and horse trappings, etc.

service packs/minifig packs are one place that I think can use improvement (the
collectable mingfig from last year went a long way but were alittle expensive)
but please no silver swords, no cross bows and no big d. grey axes in the
expansion packs.


Thoughts? Ideas? Comments?


--
-Bones-
= http://www.necrobones.com/        = NecroBones Enterprises

John

Sorry about the spelling (I'm an architect not an english teacher)



Message is in Reply To:
  Ultimate castle theme..
 
Hey there everyone! I was just curious as to what everyone's thoughts are as to what they think would make for the ultimate castle theme. I've got some opinions on it myself, and a lot of it stems from the frustrations of starting out only with the (...) (24 years ago, 27-Dec-00, to lugnet.castle)  

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