Chess Set Review

Legoist · Post by **Legoist** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:17 pm

The set clearly looks stunning, but for me it wouldn't be a reasonable purchase.

I do play chess, but you don't need a massive 200$ thing to play chess. There have always been massive marble or metal chess set produced that could be sold for literally thousands of dollars, but most of the times they are not really bought by chess players, but they're bought by people who want them as a house decoration. If I want to play chess, I'd rather keep using my simple ol' wooden small chess set... So definitely the fact that it's a chess set makes it for me at best nice to look at it once, and then it's over.

What is useful of this set is the sheer amount of parts. Almost 2500 parts including 32 minifigs and lots of weapons/shields for 200$ is a good deal IMO. I personally prefer stacking up minifigs and parts from smaller sets rather than getting as many in one big purchase, but that's just me who feels generally uncomfortable in buying sets over the 100$ range. What might be actually less useful is the bulk of pieces for the board itself: I guess that the tiles can always be used for floors, but anyway the board takes actually a massive amount of bricks to be built.

Well I don't know what to say... It clearly looks beautiful. If it was a MOC, I'd definitely praise the author. As a set on sale, when I first saw it I thought very few people were going to buy it. Good to know that at least a bunch of people on these forum got it, however I cannot see it anymore in S@H... considering it's been on sale for only 1 year, maybe I wasn't completely wrong.

outcast · Post by **outcast** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:17 pm

IMO many of the pieces that build up the board are quite useful. Most of the supports under the tiled board are wheels which are always handy and and theres a lot of slopes and 1x2 bricks

Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion.

ELMAS · Post by **ELMAS** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 8:43 pm

Well,
Being the lucky owner of one of these puppies, I can tell you this is in may all-time top 5 sets.
It looks better in person than any picture I have seen.
It's also a pleasure to play in such a board.

outcast · Post by **outcast** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 5:09 am

Did you find strange things with your set?

Many of my dwarves beards were backwards, my evil queen was holding here snake upside down, everyones hand were upside down (that might not be a fault, but done to make them take up less room) and many of my flags were the opposite wave pattern, mostly the blue ones.

strange...

ELMAS · Post by **ELMAS** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:10 am

outcast wrote:Did you find strange things with your set?

Many of my dwarves beards were backwards, my evil queen was holding here snake upside down, everyones hand were upside down (that might not be a fault, but done to make them take up less room) and many of my flags were the opposite wave pattern, mostly the blue ones.

strange...

Nope, not really. Everything was just fine. Maybe someone at Lego was in a rush to get the box out

KingDavid · Post by **KingDavid** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:22 pm

outcast wrote:Did you find strange things with your set?

Many of my dwarves beards were backwards, my evil queen was holding here snake upside down, everyones hand were upside down (that might not be a fault, but done to make them take up less room) and many of my flags were the opposite wave pattern, mostly the blue ones.

strange...

Go back to page three and read my post. I said pretty much the same thing. My minifigs were put together all kinds of weird. So yeah, I found something strange, if that's what you mean.

MarioDAlessio · Post by **MarioDAlessio** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:19 am

I have this and all other chess sets and I think that chess seems a pretty obvious AFOL castle orientated set choice.

Because I like human factions fighting each other and I find the over the top amount of decorative detailing to this large chess set distractive when I play chess, my favourite Lego produced playing set is still the Viking chess set because of its simplicity and human factions i.e. blue vs. red.

I would have preferred Lego to have produced a smaller fantasy era castle chess set with a new human faction vs. the crownies even if was just a black version of the crown knights vs. a pearl grey for example.

Alternatively a Harry potter castle chess set with late medieval armour as per the set from the movie.

I purchased 4 of the smaller sets for my own personal use and will modify one accordingly (black Crownies), as well as making another one a KK1 version (redux Bulls and lion knights all together) Vs the Crownies.

I still very much like this set but to me it seems more of a decorative she piece model than a functional chess set compared to the smaller sets.

Mario