Lego Castle Toy Fair Coverage

[Staff]

First up in our non-licensed theme coverage is a classic favorite. This is sure to be good news for fans who've feared we wouldn't get any new medieval sets thanks to the Lord of the Rings license shouldering in on the action.

   
   

We still have plenty of photos to sort through and upload and a slew of demonstration videos in the pipe too, but we're thinking we might not be able to get through it all tonight (it's been a long day here after all). We'll do our best to keep the coverage rolling until we pass out or crash the hotels wifi again.

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Permalink: http://www.fbtb.net/2013/02/10/lego-castle-toy-fair-coverage/

[kibosh]

Very underwhelming. Forest Ambush looks to be the best, and only because it has 4 minifigs, and some foliage for $12.

[WillyWampa]

The castle sets are rather disappointing. If they look familiar they seem to be remakes of the Duplo castle sets that were out a few years ago, #'s 4776, 4862, 4863 and 4864 seem to be the most obvious.

[Ibiscribe]

My thoughts exactly... and to some degree, the same is also true for the dragon. Just giving him a passing glance without knowing where the image was from, I wouldn't immediately recognize him as being new at all; he's only a slightly different color from this fellow. I would say the new color and pattern is an improvement... but still, they are quite similar.

[ufjason]

I agree, other than the Forest Ambush as a troop builder set, the only other nice set is the King's Castle. The castle seems to have a more functional design instead of the usual facade. The inside is very well done and I don't think I've ever seen the second floor extend so far. I wish they'd get away from that blue and grey combination. Overall I'm very disappointed as Space and Castle were my favorite themes as a kid and I'm fairly happy with Galaxy Squad so far. It seems they put the worst designers on Castle of late. The dragon and carriage sets remind me of juniorized crap we saw in the late 90's. Where are the buildings? The gate isn't bad but why do you need a gate when the entrance goes nowhere!

They need to get back to modular castle wall building from the 80's and flesh the Castle world out. Tons of possibilities for remakes from the 80's with a blacksmith shop, armor shop, guarded inn, gate, simple hinged wall that can be connected by technic pins. They can also incorporate siege engines like catapults, ballista, battering rams again with walls that could explode or breakdown when hit. The cool thing is overtime you can build a large walled castle by adding onto different sets.

Now just add the different factions for the conflict and you're done.