LEGO Kingdoms 2010 King’s Castle 7946 review - part 2

This part 2 blog post on the toy review of LEGO Kingdoms 2010 - King’s Castle set (7946) continues from yesterday’s posting on the same topic.  The following are the rest of the photos about the features and details of this castle set:

Stable – The interior of the front round towers is spacious enough for the king’s horse to fit inside very nicely!  The similar stable space on the other side can be used for the steed of the brave lion knight, who went out to rescue the princess from the dragon knights’ prison tower (7947)!

Portcullis mechanism – There are flat bricks attached to the back of the portcullis.  Pushing in that lever with the red tip will ‘lock’ the portcullis at the desired height.

Portcullis mechanism – There are 3 sets of brown axles along that long horizontal portcullis rod.  The soldiers work very hard to turn the 2 side axles so that the middle axle can ‘catch’ those flat bricks on the back of the portcullis with its ‘teeth’.  This facilitates the up and down movement of the portcullis.

Prison and guard duties – There is a small prison at the back wall.  The photo also shows a catapult defense machine on a front tower.  That lone soldier is in charge of guarding the entire side wall and that door to the treasure room in the rear tower.  If needed, he also has to run to the front tower to man the catapult, and he’s also the one to open and close the portcullis by helping to the turn the side axles (see previous photo).

This castle is very short handed!  The 2 bowmen can’t come down from the tall towers to help, so the 2 soldiers have to do most of the work.  They also have to saddle up the king’s horse, clean his armor, muck out the stables and groom his horse.  Wah, they are terribly overworked!

One of the soldiers tripping over at the drawbridge while rushing out to greet the returning king and to take his horse back to the stable.  That was a very poor design there!  The soldier had to take a day’s MC after that for a twisted ankle.  Can you twist an ankle from tripping!?  I think he’s finding an excuse to rest!!

Armor storage inside the left side wall – Doesn’t this part remind you of the 6041 Armor Shop set from 1986?

The other storage area inside the right side wall – There is a backpack basket containing a few pieces of square 1×1 yellow color smooth top flat bricks.  I wonder if those are meant to be cheese or whatever??

A flight of stairs lead to the upper level of the rear wall.

Rear tower 1 catapult – This bowman keeps watch over the entire rear wall and mans the large catapult too.  The other bowman stands on top of the main front tower where the drawbridge and portcullis are.

Rear tower room 1 – front view.  The door opens to a room with no wall at the back (???)

Oops, a large rat just ran past!  Let’s hope that it’s not a disease carrier!

Rear tower room 1 – back view.  I guess this makes it easier for the owner to play with the minifigs moving about in the rear tower.  I plan to add walls here.

Throne room in rear tower 2 – The king’s throne looks good and when seated here, he looks out towards the back of the castle.  If he’s not careful, he might have a fatal fall all the way down.  I hope he doesn’t have very young children!

Treasure room in rear tower 2 – The security here leaves much to be said!  The bowman on top of rear tower 1 is supposed to watch over this part of the castle and use his crossbow to shoot at thieves and intruders, if any.

Treasure theft at rear tower 2 – Hmmm, enough said about this.  I think this kind of burglary can take place at night.  No wonder the castle is filled with fire torches all over the place!  This castle has the most number of “lights”, except for along the rear wall, LOL!

Prison breakout – A very strong dragon knight removing the entire back section of the prison wall with only ONE hand!  My goodness, what have these dragon knights been eating!?  Or do they have superhuman strength from drinking magic potions given by the green wizard!??

Pointed roof of rear tower 2 – Just in case you wish to know, it’s made of solid bricks inside, hence there’s no attic under the roof.  Wasted space that could have been useful, too bad.

Instructions manual suggestions – As the various wall and tower sections of the castle can be detached, it gives versatility in arranging the castle architecture.  The instructions manual provide some examples to follow.

Spare and unused parts – I didn’t pose the king in his cape because wearing it will hinder him on horseback.  The white bricks are to ‘fill’ the horse’s body when it’s not saddled.

My “building” experience:  This set took me around 2 hours to assemble it.  Overall it‘s not as fun to build as my vintage castles.  Maybe because I was fuming over the missing part, and that I feel more attached to those vintage childhood castles, while I’m already an adult when this set came along.

Overall this is quite a decent castle set to own. It has lots of play areas, though it’s also severely understaffed.  There is 1 king, only 4 lion soldiers, 1 dragon Knight, 2 dragon soldiers, 1 white horse with exclusive royal barding, weapons & accessories, and some new and rare parts (mentioned earlier above).

Minus 1 point for the missing king’s armor. I will restore this point if LEGO replaces it for me FOC.

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

Minus ½ point for too few lion soldiers.  I’ll rather swop the 2 dragon soldiers for 2 more lion soldiers.  The dragon knight can be a prisoner of the castle held for ransom.  A lion knight with the new bucket helmet could have been included, together with another horse (with normal saddle is fine).

Minus ½ point for ‘incomplete’ rear tower walls design.

Minus ½ point for too much red color at the front of the castle, and too little red at the back.  The sticker drawings are very cartoonish, making the set look like Duplo for toddlers…

Minus ½ point for bricks that detach too easily.  It makes the set easy to dismantle but the castle walls break apart too easily when I just want to shift the set around for multi-angled photo shots.  This annoyed me very much!

Score: 7/10. 8/10.

Should you buy it?  Well it depends on when you started collecting LEGO castles.  If your collection started from the Fantasy Era series where the armor and helmets are shiny silver, then a Kingdoms castle fits in well with your collection.

If you are mainly a vintage LEGO castles collector, this overly red color set will look out of place.  If you collect for the minifigs only, then I suggest you buy them loose when the Kingdoms line is more established.

Do I regret buying this set?  Well not really, since I got it at discount.  I tend to feel most excited about toys that I don’t have yet.  After I get them and like them for about a week, the interest dies down and they get stored aside.  Then I find newer toys to covet and start the vicious cycle all over.  Sometimes I wonder what’s the purpose of collecting so many toys to clutter up my home?

Oh well, that’s my life.  Final suggestion for those who plan to get this set, buy it at no lesser than a 20% discount.  And please open up your sets to check the contents if any parts are missing or faulty.  Don’t wait till many years later when LEGO Singapore doesn’t have the parts anymore to replace for you!

Thanks for viewing!