This is a good time to be a LEGO Castle fan. The past few years LEGO have released several Castle-themed sets and it seems like this is a continuing trend. The newest set is the Medieval Horse Knight Castle. This is a Creator 3 in 1 set, meaning that there is three different models you can build. Only one at a time of course. The main model is a large castle, the other two are a jousting arena and a medieval town with a windmill.
With this set we are introduced to two new Castle factions, the Horse Knights and the Serpent Knights. These are not official faction names as far as I know. It’s just the most logical thing to call them. But more about the Minifigures later.
The Castle
The main model that you can choose to build, the castle, is much bigger than it appears on the box art. The castle is made up of a dining hall, a smithy, a stable, a bedroom (the Kings I presume), a scriptorium in the main tower and two balconies. All this is in the main building, the keep, as I choose to call it. Connected to the keep is a castle wall with a smaller tower and a movable drawbridge. This creates a rather large courtyard with plenty of room for the subjects of the realm to gather. The wall can be disconnected from the keep and made into a smaller fort as well if you want to modify things.
The main balcony is one of the details that I really like. It’s a great place for the King to stand and wave at his subjects. I also really like the stairs in the main tower. When I was a kid and I would build LEGO castles I would always build lots of stairways. Underneath the stairs there is also a hidden hollow to hide the treasure chest. The dining hall is also a very nice place for for the King and his Knights to gather. The throne is a nice little build and the King can sit in it even with his cape and crown on which is excellent. The chandelier, the tapestries, candles and the other details makes the dining room the most detailed and coherent room.
The Jousting Arena
The second model you can choose to build is a jousting arena. This build is quite similar to LEGO Kingdoms Joust 10223 from 2012 but I believe it is also a hint at the legendary LEGO Castle Knight’s Joust 383 from 1979. So I imagine many will build this model for nostalgic reasons. This model also has an alternative build for one of the brick-built horses with different colours than the one in the Castle model.
The Town
The third model is a medieval town with a windmill, a two story house and a bakery. There is also a neat little cart and a cute brick-built sheep. The most interesting thing in this town in my opinion is the two story building. It has a hidden door in the back and the top floor is really cosy. I would guess this is where the Serpent Knight lives. One hint to this is the hidden door. The Serpent Knight is a shady figure and would surely need a hidden door in his home. Another hint is that the Serpent Knights helmet is placed on stand right outside the house.
The Minifigures and the horses
The set comes with six Minifigures. Four Horse Knights, including the King with a fancy version of the Horse Knight attire. One blacksmith and last but not least, the shady Serpent Knight. These Knights really increase the appeal of this set. With the Horse Knights comes three classic shields with a horse emblem.
My favourite is the Serpent Knight. The colour theme with black, yellow, silver and purple details looks great. He has a new type of shield with a black serpent on. I’m always happy to see antagonists, anti-heroes and villains in LEGO sets as I believe they make the set and the options for stories more interesting. Of course, one of the great things with LEGO in general is that you are free to choose and modify your Minifigures and decide for yourself if they are a villains or a good guy, or something else. I’ve also been thinking about if this Serpent Knight could be inspired by some character from pop culture. The TV-series Black Adder with Rowan Atkinson from the 80’s is a good bet I think. I watched this series as a child. Another character that came to mind is a villain in one of the episodes of the 2008 TV-series Merlin. This villain looks a bit like the Serpent Knight, and he also has a shield with serpents that magically come to life to attack an opponent.
My first reaction to the blacksmith torso was that it was a bit to simple compared to the other Minifigures. However when I saw that for the Town-build this torso had been used for a baker Minifigure instead of a blacksmith I realized that it can also be very versatile and used for all kinds of different characters in a medieval setting.
The brick-built horses are a great and fun aspect of this set in my opinion. It’s fantastic how detailed you can build things with LEGO now. These horses also gave me ideas on how to build other creatures based on this design. How about a skeleton horse, or a unicorn. I also think the horses are very suitable as this set reminds me of the legendary yellow 375 Castle from 1978, which had brick-built horses as well. I did not have that set myself but a friend of mine did and since I saw it as a very young child it is forever etched into my memory.
Summary
A great set for many reasons. For me the best thing about it was the Minifigures and shields with two new Castle factions and a new versatile torso for a towns-person. It would have been great to have more than one Serpent Knight shield though but hopefully it will soon be available on LEGO Pick-a-Brick. All three different models are fun in their own way and If I could I would build all three of them at once and connect them. What I will do however is to build the custom book nook MOC by The_Astral_J that you can find on Rebrickable. This beautiful design can be built using only the parts in this set and I imagine it will look fantastic in my bookshelf.
The retail price for the set is $129,99/139,95€/£109,99 which is what you’d expect from this type of set. The set was sent to me as a gift by LEGO through Brickcentral which I am very grateful for.