Castle and Tolkien sets for 2013

[Knight Man]

Hmm.... Not really sure how I feel about these yet. I'll need more up close pics of the other sets first.

First impressions:

*snip*

UNDECIDED:
- Most figs have black hands. I don't know about you guys, but I prefer to use mostly yellow hands on my troops. I guess the black could be good just because I have so many yellow and not many black, but I have a feeling I'll be switching out a lot of these for yellow.

All in all, not a terrible line at first glance, but Kingdoms was far superior. I'll likely be picking up several of the small set for figs and maybe a dragon and King/Queen. Other than that, it looks like this summer might be a little easier on my wallet than last year.

Almost my thoughts exactly, if they didn't have yellow hands I would prefer brown over black.

EDIT: It appears the Lion King (what sort of moniker will these factions get?) is holding a pearl gold longsword. Finn's sword, pre-"Dad's Dungeon", anyone?

I didn't notice that, but that would be epic to get the long sword in gold!

EDIT:
Another thing that I really hope to get out of this castle series is this in black, along with this and this.

[Aeridian]

I think that'd be great also, however it seems kinda unlikely. If you notice in the second picture you can see this helmet in black, and the great helm seems to be in the place of this helmet... as for the broad brimmed helmet in black, that would be cool, not sure if it'll happen though, the shadow helmet seems to be the baddies other option.

[footsteps]

I suppose I'm in the minority, but 70404 brings back fond memories of 6080 (my first castle set) and 6073. I like it a lot.

[dyntar]

I'm quite liking the sets. The castle is the only set I'm not completely happy with why has it got a Crown above the gate and Lions on the flags? They could have been better but I really like the figure designs. The dragons knights barding and oval shield are very nice looking from what I can see. I really like the Fleur de lis being used as the dragons flame.
Theres another bonus to these sets - the black and white pose able horses are only available in these castle sets outside of the Lone ranger sets. So they will be cheaper to buy.

It's a nice little place holder castle range until LOTR's goes away. Then I guess we will get back to the standard and detail of sets that we got in the Kingdoms range.
We weren't expecting any castle sets at all while Lego was making Lotr, so I'm happy with the 5 sets that we are getting.

[peggyjdb]

I'm particularly disappointed with this range of castle and can't see myself getting many (if any) of the sets. It hails back to the Kingdoms 1 sets, which helped me lose interest in the castle range. Like some others here I was hoping for some nice new shields echoing real medieval heraldry.

Having read comments I agree that this is junorised and has possible been done so it doesn't compete with LOTR.

[Kev]

The heraldry is awful. I can't believe they recycled such a cruddy design as that lion head.

I want to see a shot of the ambush set with the dog & 4 figs. Hopefully there will be some good stuff there.

[Medieval Guy]

I like some of the torsos (though I wish there was a heraldric one, like this one) although the heraldry itself is pretty lame. I'm not a huge fan of the set design either.

[OverLoad]

An interesting point (courtesy of Lordofdragonss on Eurobricks) is this:

"Guys someone on Brickset noticed that Dragon army have... White, Draculish faces! And now when I look at the pictures in big zoom... They indeed are white!"

Now, this could just be due to the angle of the photos and whatnot, but it's an interesting thought, and a very interesting one if proven to be true. We shall see.

[Lord Mercat]

I don't think they have white faces, you can quite clearly see from the photos of the box that the dragon forces have normal, yellow faces. They might have draculish expressions, as I can't really tell what the actual faces look like, but the color is definitely yellow.

[OverLoad]

I don't think they have white faces, you can quite clearly see from the photos of the box that the dragon forces have normal, yellow faces. They might have draculish expressions, as I can't really tell what the actual faces look like, but the color is definitely yellow.

It appears that I was misled. My apologies.

A few clearer images of the Toyfair have shown up: http://www.spieletest.at/pics/bericht/1 ... go2013.JPG

[Kev]

^ Thanks, that little ambush set looks pretty good. I was hoping for a helmet in a new color, but 4 figs & a dog for hopefully $10 or so would be pretty hard to skip. It has the new sword design. Sigh. Too bad they are getting rid of the classic sword for such a poorly designed substitute.

[Medieval Guy]

Ugh, a closer look at the baddie heraldry reveals that it's worse than I thought. I guess it sort of goes with the CMF Evil Knight though, and the CMF good knight matches the good guys.

[rogue27]

I am not impressed by the set designs or the heraldry, but it's good to see the new horse in more colors.

[Eklund]

I like some of the torsos (though I wish there was a heraldric one, like this one) although the heraldry itself is pretty lame. I'm not a huge fan of the set design either.

Well, the one to the right in this picture looks decently heraldic. I really like that they are continuing the crown heraldry, I think these guys will fit in great with the crownies I already have.

[Azaghal]

I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but there's a video that shows all the figures in that circle. Of particular interest is that wizard, who's beard turns out to be a black version of the Sensei Wu/Merking beard.

From what I''ve seen so far, I think that overall this line is a half-step back for TLC - I like the minifigs OK, the set design seems a bit more juiorized than is preferable - but of course, that's much more understandable if this is intended for customers considered not quite old enough for the Tolkien sets.