The Modular Knight's Castle

In the days of old

Like many of us adult fans of LEGO, I really miss the good old days when the LEGO knights proudly ruled over the land (or just the carpet) guarding their mighty castles, fighting tournaments and setting out on an endless number of adventures.

But fond childhood memories and sheer sentiment are not the only reasons for me to miss the old Castle series. It is also the fact that these old sets included many features that made them really fun to play with, provided good flexibility and extensibility and also (like most of the LEGO sets back then) sparked our imagination by including pictures on the boxes and in the instructions booklets showing alternative things that you could build with the parts from your main set. With all this you had a feeling that you can rebuild and reconfigure your castles, make them bigger or smaller, or of a different shape, and just create something new to play with every day.

Let’s build a castle! (And then let’s build a different one!)

With this Modular Knight’s Castle project I attempt to bring the spirit of the old Castle series back to life by creating a set that is easily reconfigurable and can provide many play possibilities.

While designing it, I was doing my best to follow these four simple requirements:

• It had to be modular, i.e. composed of fairly generic modules that can be built once and then be easily rearranged to create different shapes and looks of a knight’s castle without the need to completely disassemble it and build it again from scratch.
  
• It had to provide flexibility to shape the castle quite freely, not just by using straight lines and right angles. This implied designing walls with hinges – similar to those that we all know well from classic LEGO Castle sets.
  
• It had to be sturdy enough even for the younger children to play with without damaging it (at least not too much…). The system used to connect the modules together also had to meet this requirement.
  
• It had to be as playable as possible: include all the play features that you can expect from a toy castle, such as a working drawbridge and/or portcullis, and have enough space on the walls and inside the towers to easily place all the knights who are defending it.
  

The modules

The castle can be built using these six basic types of modules:

• Hinged walls that let you create different shapes of the castle. They have enough space on top to easily place your guards. (Set includes parts to build 3 of these)
  
• Tower bases with windows and plenty of room inside. (Set includes parts to build 4 of these)
  
• Half battlements that can be placed directly on top of the tower bases to create short towers. (Set includes parts to build 2 of these)
  
• Middle tower segments for creating tall towers. They also have lots of room inside for the guards to hide. (Set includes parts to build 2 of these)
  
• Full battlements to crown the tall towers. Perfect for placing your archers. (Set includes parts to build 2 of these)
  
• Main gate with a working portcullis and a drawbridge operated with a windlass. (Set includes parts to build 1 of these)
  

The knights

I’ve chosen two of the most classic LEGO Castle factions of knights (at least for me) to be included in this set – the Crusaders and the Black Falcons. Each of these factions is represented by three soldiers, two archers and a mounted knight to lead them.

The main castle gate and the towers can be adorned with emblems (shields) and flags used by either of the factions in order to define the current castle owner. If the castle is captured by the opposing faction, the flags and shields can easily be replaced. The set includes all the spare parts to accomplish this: each faction is given 4 additional shields and 8 flags (red for Crusaders and blue for Black Falcons).

The number of modules included in the set is actually enough to build two small castles or outposts – one for each of the factions. Of course only one of them will have a proper gate.

Additional features

In addition to all the modules, the set also contains all the parts to build a single siege tower that can be used by the soldiers who attack the castle. It is fitted with a folding bridge that reaches the top of the castle walls and has enough space inside for the soldiers to hide from the enemy archers.

Join me on my quest to breathe new life into the good old LEGO Castle and bring all the fun back!

Your support is greatly appreciated!