LEGO Kingdoms 2010 King’s Castle 7946 review - part 1

As lately my online hours have been cut down a lot by my faulty regular laptop awaiting replacement parts and my old laptop being ’slow’ in speed, I’ve had time to build up some of my latest LEGO pruchases and review them.  Amongst them are the latest 2010 Kingdoms King’s Castle set (7946) that was just released this month at mass retail in Singapore.

I did the following review for our local LEGO forum before my laptop screen failed and have modified that posting for my blog.  This toy review has over 30 photos and here is part 1 of it:

Box - front view.  As usual for post-year 2000 sets, the box is actually too big to contain all the packaged contents inside.  I also miss those vintage 80’s and 90’s castle boxes which had a flap on the front to let you open and view the minifigs and main castle parts inside the box.  Long gone are those days!

Box - back view.  The oversized box not only takes up more space at home, it also gives a false impression that the set is that big.  The boxes of the vintage castles are way smaller and the castle photos seen on those vintage boxes are actually quite in scale with the actual assembled castles you’d get.

Contents – The packets are numbered and they swirl around freely inside the box together with the instruction manuals when the box is handled.  Packet no. 1 that contains the minifigs is not in the photo because I opened it before taking this photo.

And I wonder why some parts like those 4 octagonal flat pieces are not packaged into the bags like the rest of the bricks?  They could have slipped out and got lost if the sticker seal broke or got cut.

Minifigs – front view.  1 king, 4 lion soldiers, 1 dragon Knight, 2 dragon soldiers, 1 white horse with exclusive royal barding, plus their weapons & accessories.

Note:  My set is missing the King’s armor!  So that is minus 1 point for the set! Fortunately everything else is there.

Updated on 6 Aug 2010 - I received the replacement king’s armor from LEGO Singapore, hence 1 point is restored to the overall score for this set.

Minifigs - back view.  The Kingdoms minifigs tend to have prints on the front and back of their bodies. The dragon knight has the same torso print as the other bucket helmet dragon knights in the smaller sets.

New and interesting parts to note: Octagonal flat bricks, wooden stairs, wooden door and window, castle wall panel and castle corner wall.

Note:  These parts might have appeared in earlier Castle sets etc. but are new to me.  Although I own the King’s Castle Siege (7094) and Medieval Village sets (10193), I haven’t built them yet.  So I can’t confirm if all these pieces are new or not.

Nice portcullis mold.  Back in the 80’s, you had to construct your own portcullis.  Gradually we have readymade ones for fast installation.  This one looks very mean and solid!

There is a break in the gate wall which I didn’t notice during phototaking.  The current LEGO bricks simply detach too easily when I lifted the castle a few cm up to shift about for taking photos.

The little flags to drape over the front tower walls are printed with mirror images of the same design on both sides.  For example, turning the flag at the left horizontally will give you the reversed image of the rearing lion as seen on the flag at the right!

Instruction manuals – 3 books.  Actually they could have consolidated into just 1 manual.  If you could build vintage castles using very keen observation with your eyes to spot the differences in the drawings on the old instruction manuals, building this Kingdoms castle where they spoon feed you all the way by showing you what are the parts needed at each step, is a breeze!

Wall stickers – 1 sheet.  The drawings on the stickers look too “cartoony”.  I doubt they’ll look fantastic on the castle walls.  We shall look into that in the later photos.

Front view – The mixture of grey and red colors, plus some brown and a touch of gold colors look very contrasting on the castle.

Right side view – The enclosed castle courtyard does not have a baseplate.

Back view – The rear towers do not have back walls, making this part of the castle resemble a doll house.  It looks unfinished and disappointing, as if giving a few more bricks to this set will cause a massive cost overrun!  The red color is very under used here too.

Left view - The drawbridge mechanism works like the one in King’s Castle Siege (7094).

Top view – The overall shape of the castle is rectangular.

Castle wall and tower sections detached – The various castle wall and tower sections are connected by technic pins.  There are 8 detachable sections in all.

More detailed photos about this King’s Castle set (7946) review will be continued in part 2 tomorrow.  Be back for more!