LOTR: Weathertop

This is my favourite LOTR set so far. It is rather small, but nicely self-contained... except for the side piece on the right. It looks the way it should and is not a disjointed bunch of walls like the Moria set.

The set swings open to reveal small interior sections.

Sometimes the simple stuff is so much better. This may be small, but it is very aesthetically pleasing to me. Maybe it could have been a little bit taller? In any case, this will be a fixture on my desk for a long time I suspect.

Medieval Village Combinations

Here are some pictures of the various Lego castle sets together.

Living room display

The Uruk-Hai wall can be seen on the far left side.

Bedroom dresser display

Oxford mixed with the Mill Village and LOTR Weathertop.

LOTR: Uruk-Hai

 

More LOTR stuff. I bought this for the minifigs, honestly :P


This set consists of a wall section (which connects to the much larger Hornburg fortress) and a ballistae-like weapon. There's not much to say really. It certainly gets its job done...

Currently this set serves as part of a larger purpose, being a back wall of my Kingdoms-Black Knight castle combo.

Classic Castle: Black Knight's Castle

The Black Knight's Castle, released in 1992, is my favorite among the old Lego castle theme sets. To be honest, many of the castles from the 1980s and early 1990s do not appeal to me as much as the newer Kingdoms sets (the old Pirate stuff on the other hand...)

Anyway, this castle alone I deemed worth getting. That raised base plate got a lot of use in many other Lego sets from that era, and it works quite well with this design. I always felt that the Black Knights had a "cozy" home compared to the other factions. It has a great imposing entrance tower at the bottom of the path, and the rest of the walls connect from there to wrap around the whole base plate. There are a couple nice towers, a prison/storage area in the base plate's central hole, and a neat side building with space for eating and drinking.



The color scheme is great too, having a mix of black, gray, and red, as well as a Tudor-style wall on the aforementioned side building.




The set comes with a decent number of minifigs, including the ghost. It is worth noting that none of these older sets had an actual "king". They were always just factions of knights and not "kingdoms" per se.



This particular set was missing a couple pieces, most notably: the ramp behind the gate and the table for the interior room. I just improvised. Looks good enough to me :P

Castle: Medieval Market Village

The Medieval Market Village was part of the Castle series from a few years back, a theme which had a lot more fantasy elements than the usual Lego fare. This village set does not have any skeletons or trolls to worry about, but is a wonderful collection of civilian buildings and people otherwise going about their business. It is made up of two main buildings which are a blacksmith and a tavern, a tree, and a small market.

This set has a large number of pieces and the two buildings take quite a while to assemble. But as you can see from the finished work, they look wonderful.

The above pictures were taken during assembly. Since I only recently started collecting Lego, I did not realize that earlier sets did not have clearly numbered and sorted bags... so I suppose I shouldn't be so critical of Oxford eh? In any case, it was quite awkward and messy trying to get the pieces sorted for easy access.

And now, bask in the greatness that is the completed set!

Love that tree!

Lovely interiors!

Sharpen up your weapons at the smith!

Have a drink after a hard day of defending the realm.

This is certainly one of Lego's best sets ever. I really can't recommend it enough if you want to make a great castle town!