Weekly Set Review: Yellow Castle

[The Hordesman]

The one castle to rule them all.

The horses are ok, but knights with individual heraldry, not just the kings or other superiors, tons of figs, nice "tabard" armors, and tons of bricks. Colorful and warm. I love it.

[ed_dotcom]

I finally got this set a few months back. It is everything I thought it would be... wonderful. It stands as one of the greatest creations within the Castle LEGO realm...


Life is Good.

[eNiGMa]

This set is ultimately the grandfather of this site and every castle creation we've ever built. Just because of that, I'm giving it a 10/10.

However, I'm not too fond of the armor. It's not really "Castley," even if it was part of the first castle. But maybe the sun's just getting to me....

[Draygen]

I understand everyone thinks this is the greatest set to ever live, but I don't feel the same way. Although I do agree, this set is wonderful in the fact you get such a wide array of figures, accessories and coats of arms. However.. the castle itself in the yellow leaves me never actually wanting to buy this.

All that yellow is just a waste to me. As was said before, making it gray or black would've really put this into my mind and stuck it solid. I just think the yellow is hideous.

Although the figures make it worthwhile.

[Mausul]

...sweet pain. it was my first castle and in the comming years i refused to use gray (so i never got one of its succesors...looking back - i must say unfortunately) all my castles were yellow (i bought a lot of yellow bricks ). yeah the following sets were cool but i only used the figures and horses (black falcons or lionhearts...they had to choice - go and defend your yellow castle!!!). what a great time - i have a tear in my eye. this set is simple and thats why it is lego at its best! at least bley is not a real problem for me .

[Formendacil]

...sweet pain. it was my first castle and in the comming years i refused to use gray (so i never got one of its succesors...looking back - i must say unfortunately) all my castles were yellow (i bought a lot of yellow bricks ). yeah the following sets were cool but i only used the figures and horses (black falcons or lionhearts...they had to choice - go and defend your yellow castle!!!). what a great time - i have a tear in my eye. this set is simple and thats why it is lego at its best! at least bley is not a real problem for me .

What's this???

The Gray-to-bley change isn't the first time a Castlehead has found his sets incompatible???

Hilarious, in light of the past two years.

[ottoatm]

I've never seen this castle in "real-life", although I do have a handful of the figs. I do like the figs, and this set comes with a LOT of them... with believable mixed heraldry. How cool is that?!

I do prefer the "new" horses compared to the horses in this set, but I like how this set illustrates the way LEGO used to build EVERYTHING out of bricks.

I also like the "playability" of this set. It's simple, strong, and opens from every different angle you could imagine.

I'm not the biggest fan of the stickers, as they don't age well at all.

Anything less than a 10/10 for this set? Not here.

[Graynar]

Hey guys!

The yellow castle. What made TLC chose yellow for the color any way?

Everything good has been said so I'll just say this:







Wish I had it.

[ottoatm]

The yellow castle. What made TLC chose yellow for the color any way?

Some castles were yellow

[Graynar]

Some castles were yellow

Lol, good reply.

[Infyrana]

Very funny Mausul. I had the same problem. At least when everyone else build spectacular castles in grey my castles in red and yellow gain an easy uniqueness.

That aside I still think the yellow castle is the best ever. Possibly it would have been even better in grey but grey bricks actually didn't exist at the time. However the nice deisgn, the great playbility, the huge number of knights and finally the ease with which it could be built into something else (castle or not) makes it a true legend.

[Flail]

Oh yeaaaaah baby!

I remember the extreme jealousy I experienced when my best friend aquired this set. God, I wanted this soo bad! THE best set ever for figs - 14 figs! And what variety too! I always coveted the white "crusader" knight - maybe my favorite minifig of all time.

This set had it all - figs, tons of bricks, great design - you name it. What a fun build too! I never minded the yellow castle - it had such charm. In fact, I remember seeing a gray version of the castle awhile back and I felt it just lacked something.

The only part of this set I never really liked was the horses. The moulded, one piece horse is vastly superior to the brick built version. Come to think of it, Iyou just don't see people using brick built horses anymore, despite the fact that nearly everyone bemoans moulded beasts.

Anyway, thanks to bricklink, my dream has finally come true! I am the proud owner of this castle. I don't quite have the complete set yet - I never bothered with the horses - but I have the complete castle and most of the figs. Sad fact: I spent more on the gray vests than I did on the castle! I probably spent about $20 on the castle, $6 of which was spent on the 6 1x1 red windows in the tall tower! There's a person on eBay who sells quite good sticker sets so all my figs look brand spankin' new. Note: I'm not a purist, so I didn't care if I used new vs. vintage bricks, all I cared was that it looked great. One nice thing about the yellow castle is yellow bricks are dirt cheap! I think I got around 100 2x1 bricks for $1.50. One more note: For those who may be considering the bricklink option be warned - the castle is cheap, the figs are NOT. I spent about $2.00 each on the gray vests! Fortunatly, I have a large selection of light gray helms and swords because they ain't cheap either!
In the end, I had to compromise with the knights because I just couldn't accept the $12+ for feather visors. Hmm... I guess that's the reason this set sells for upwars of $150.00 on eBay!

If you haven't guessed, I LOVE this set. I rate it 9.8/10 I took .2 off for the horses. This set would certainly be a leading candidate for Best All-time LEGO set.

Favorite memory of this set: My best friend was holding his castle and he said, "You know, one thing I love about this castle is how sturdy it is." The very next moment, something gave way, and the set slipped from his hands, hit the floor, and broke into more pieces than the death star. We spent the next 2 hrs. or so putting it back together! Famous last words!

[Jojo]

Hello!

The yellow castle. What made TLC chose yellow for the color any way?

I think they did it on purpose. It's not because of the lack of grey bricks back then (grey plates existed as well as grey accessories) because if they had wanted to make it grey they simply would have made the pieces. No, the Legoland in the old days was meant to be colourful. Most sets then consisted of the basic colours blue, red, yellow, black and white with highlights of green (baseplates, trees) and some grey. The Castle was sandstone. Since they didn't make shaded/graded colours like sandy/"tan" the castle had to be yellow.


Bye
Jojo

[Nick]

This looks very appealing as a historical set, desired for its collectable value, but not for the building value or for its appearance. I don't have the set, it seems too expensive now.
Is this the first castle set to be released by Lego???

This set associates with the Amber city in 'Amber Chronicles'
by Roger Zhelazny. The centre of the Cosmos. I grant this title only out of principle.
10/10 out of principle.

[Jojo]

Hello!

Is this the first castle set to be released by Lego???

Almost. It's the first minifig-centred Castle set. They did one before. A promotional for Weetabix, sometime in the early 70s. Unfortunately there is no year noted on the instructions.




Bye
Jojo