Out the front is this insanely beautiful arched window, as well as the Lion Knights shields on the wall. Features castle with 6 detailed rooms with lots of accessorie and 2 knight’s tents with weapon holders! The great castle on the horizon is home to the Lady of the brave Lion Knights. As a firm but just ruler, the Lady has established her stronghold as the natural gathering place for people from near and far. It serves as a place of trade and treaties, as well as a haven for those in need. EDIT TO ADD! Turns out I’m the one who’s full of it. Thanks to Jamin Hoyle for pointing out in the comments that the toilet actually empties outsidethe castle walls – and there’s a brown “frog” on the ground to prove it.

Open the set up and you’ll find a beautifully detailed dollhouse-like interior, with more than ten rooms This set comes in a massive, tab-sealed box. Like the 40657 Forest Hideout, the styling leans heavily into retro theming and colors. The 90 years of play logo in the lower right is one of the few immediate indicators that you’re not looking at an actual vintage set. Well, that is if you ignore the glaring upgrades to this castle from the 1978 “All Yellow, All the time” concept. As a build(and as expected for the piece count and scale of model here), 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle demands a lot of time and patience to put together, spread as it is across 26 sets of numbered bags. It is also best considered as two separate builds, each with one of the two booklets of instructions dedicated to them, each as one half of a completed, final castle. In many ways when considering the cost of this beast of a LEGO set, it’s a curiosity to know if releasing the castle in two halves was ever considered, particularly for how strong each half works as its own fortified structure on the outside and snapshot of medieval life on the inside. There are also plenty of instances of Nice Part Usage (NPU) to be found. For example, this small water feature/cistern uses a minifigure energy blast for the falling water. As we start the second book of instructions, we begin the other half of the build we steer away from the living quarters and start building up the main militaristic base of command for Lion’s Knight’s Castle. Just like the first half of the castle this castle is built in a dollhouse style such that you can open it up to see all the details hidden within. Bag 14 – Dungeon foundationsBeneath her bedroom is a banquet hall, with a large dining, and most importantly, printed shields on display. If these sigils and logos look familiar, you might recognise them from 375 Castle, which is a lovely nod to the heritage of LEGO Castle.

And, yes, that’s the bathroom. The Wizard pretty much confirms it, even including a meta-joke about how his minifigure doesn’t have bendable legs. There are a number of ways to display the castle, with the most impressive being the “fully open” view where all the sections are unfolded to show off the interior and exterior features. The trade-off is that this takes up a LOT of linear space. Fittingly for a medieval castle, there is also a privy! Love that there’s even a roll of toilet paper, suggesting that they aren’t really that barbaric. Part of the appeal, though, is admittedly in the sheer quantity of them – line up nine of these in a row and that’s a formidable defence of such a formidable castle, just as you’d want it, and just as it was in the LEGO Castle sets of 30 to 40 years ago. Anyone missing? Perhaps a ghost would have really capped off the line-up.Build [5]– So many cool techniques, and you’re constantly building different things, keeping it fresh

That aside, this is some line-up of Castle-themed characters, fittingly unrivalled – just as the castle is – to anything that has come before in the theme this pays tribute to. Because the build is split into two books, you can build this together with someone else, with each person focusing on one build. Once both halves are complete, you bring them and snap them together to create the Lion Knights’ Castle. When you’re finally ready to start taking parts out of the box, you’re presented with a number of loose part bags, a second white tab-sealed box, and a small paper flier. Lego appears to have based the Lion Knights’ Castle on structures from the late medieval period and the gatehouse in particular reminds me of Bodiam Castle’s iconic frontage. The castle walls and turrets really look the part with a plethora of period details including ramparts, arrow slits, a working drawbridge and a portcullis that slams down in an instant, thanks to a clever Technic mechanism. I am also delighted to see the return of horse barding, and I believe t his horse is also a new colour – appearing in dark orange for the first time.

Stage 1 – Farmer’s stall and wagon

Again, attention to detail and geometry comes into play, as the roof features a gapless join along that odd angle. And from any angle, 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle is imperious and impressive to take in, serving as both a one-of-a-kind tribute to LEGO castles that have come before, and very much reminding you that nothing like this has actually ever come before. Joining up the two halves of the castle completes the build. The connection here is a bar-and-clip type, which is enough to keep things snug without making things too difficult to disassemble. But eventually, there’ll be a knob you can turn to raise and lower the drawbridge. This play feature works well, but I do kind of dislike the smooth tile used for the surface. This is a spot where some wood grain would have helped the look a lot. At one point, you’re asked to lay down a whopping 42 1 x 1 tiles, with only a single diagram for reference

Even the size of the latrine, squeezed as it is into the third floor with little room to fit between, is accurate to how toilets were generally designed in castles, when space was at a premium. Arguably, the only room missing is the biggest – a great hall of sorts. Something for customisers to create as an add-on build, perhaps. Far and away the most challenging building technique is the drawbridge, which uses Technic axles, gears, and chains to create a neat winching system. However, setting the drawbridge in position took us a few tries, since the diagram could have been a little clearer. Not all of the castle is made from grey stone; the upper story features a bit of woodworking. SNOT connections create a narrow patterns of lines that closely resemble classic LEGO wall elements. Lion Knights’ Castle will go on sale on 3 August 2022 for LEGO VIPs, and 8 August for everyone else, and will be available exclusively from LEGO.com or your local LEGO store. Lion Knights’ Castle is an outstanding LEGO experience where money is not the object at play. It may take many months to save up for 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle, but the reward for doing so is so very special and unique to you that there’s no need to think twice when you come to that moment to spend hundreds on just one LEGO set. The mortgage can wait. — LEGO ICONS 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle pictures —

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Time to highlight another wonderful bit of construction wizardry! The square balcony area outside of the kid’s room is built on the hinged section of the larger castle, so it has to go through some contortions when changing display modes. The magic happens thanks to this heavily hinged bit of masonry. And on the towers, fly flags bearing the Lion Knights sigil. So glad to see these make a return too. Lion Knights’ Castle has instantly become one of my favourite LEGO sets of all time. I’m a big fan of Vintage LEGO (I get so much more satisfaction from my vintage collection than my modern collection), and a big Castle fan, so this in essence is my dream set. My favourite minifigure in the set has to be Queen Lionne, the warrior-queen of the Lion Knights. Unlike other monarchs, she isn’t content with reigning from the throne, she’s clad in armour, wields a sword and is the first to charge into battle.