I couldn’t give you an exact age of when I got my first Lego set, but I they were some of my earliest toys. Looking back among my early sets, I can tell you I’ve always gravitated towards the Castle theme. Sure, I had some City and Space, but I always ended up with more Castle. As an adult collector, not much has changed. Although I was a fan of the Fantasy Castle theme, I couldn’t be happier to see the classic Castle return under the new marquee of Kingdoms.
The new Kingdoms sets are more in vain of the Castle sets of the 80s. In recent years the Castle themes leaned heavily into fantasy for inspiration, creating a world where humans, dwarves, undead skeletons, and trolls all battled for control of the Lego realm. Now, it seems we’re back to the more realistic medieval themes of kingdom vs. kingdom. (So far it looks like the Lion Kingdom vs. the Dragon Kingdom, but hopefully we’ll get some Forestmen and Wolfpack in there.) Along with this also comes the more realistic architecture of the sets themselves. In this first review I’m going to talk about three of the cheaper sets in this theme, eventually working my way up to the more expensive ones.
We’ve seen the Court Jester before. His hat originated from Harley Quinn, from the Lego Batman line. They later made a male Jester for the fantasy Castle theme. He looks basically the same, except his colors are red and blue instead of red and white. This set is an impulse buy and consists of only 22 pieces.
I’m actually pretty happy with this set. Even though it’s small, it really gives the Jester more of an area in your Lego universe than he’s had previously. Sure, you can have him parade around in front of the King, but we all know that gets boring. This Jester wants to take his act to the masses. Entertaining and bringing smiles to the common folk. What better way to do this than on his own little stage? Our Jester also comes with two sets of red, white, and blue studs to use as juggling balls. But, we all know show business is hard. So when the crowd is particularly rough on our funny friend, he has an alternate sad face with a little tear. Not too bad for $4.
The second impulse buy in this new theme, the Wizard only comes with 19 pieces. Like the Jester, the Wizard is also only $4. But he can’t be bothered by cost. He’s busy trying to discover the secrets of… something.
One thing I found interesting was the lack of a printed shirt on the Wizard. I understand not wanting to waste money since his beard is going to cover up most of it, but I also like detail. So I would have enjoyed seeing a new clothing print for mage. Besides, who says all Wizards have to have long beards?
Wizard comes with his wand, a workbench, two mysterious potions, and a green baby dragon. The scroll he is studying reads, “You are far more powerful than you would ever imagine”. A cryptic message indeed, but who is it referring to: the Wizard, the baby dragon, you?
While I understand that this new theme is going in a less-fanciful direction, if you wanted to, you could easily combine Castle with Kingdoms (as you have with the Jester being in Medieval Market), so in a way this is a sneaky way for LEGO to continue the theme past the normal retire date. I love the Castle theme too (even though I’m more of a LEGO Pirate man, myself), so this is nothing but good news to me.
I completely agree. There’s nothing here that excludes the Castle theme. In fact, the Wizard having a baby dragon makes me wonder if we might still see some of those influences.
I just finished assembly of my 1980s Castle collection so Pics will be up soon. These look like a great continuation of Castles of years past. I’m guessing that the Catapult will be for breaching the Prison Tower Rescue (7947) since all the other buildings in series 1 seam to belong to the lion King.
I think you may be right. I’m hoping the Dragon Knights get more than just a prison in the next wave of sets.
Awwww, poor widdle Lego Clown crying. 🙁 That’s the saddest picture ever xD
*Just add a spotlight from above to make it super-dramatic, haha
lol, now I’m going to have to find a spotlight.
I like the fact that these are not “war machine” sets, but rather fun sets. Hopefully they’ll start including things like the grocers and taverns and blacksmithy in future.
Yarrr, as much as I don’t like Harry Potter, I loved the potion shop because it’s such a neat neutral set. It’s not for waging a bloody war, it’s just a shop where every has to be nice to get the powders and goo they need…to wage a bloody magical war, haha.
Yeah, I’d love it if they made more medieval town stuff. My wallet wouldn’t like it though, lol.