There are some keen reviewers active in this forum, and I don’t buy all that much new stuff, so it doesn’t often happen that I have the chance to contribute something new to Report & Review. And now I better hurry, for while the following sets were only released in June 2016, they have already been discontinued at PM’s German web shop and might soon disappear from the shops. So why the delay? It is because the 2016 Novelties Catalogue justifiably stirred quite a bit of enthusiasm, but when it comes to the classical knights theme, spirits were downcast. Basically, what is shown here are the
only mainstream new items in the catalogue, and they are essentially repeats. So why the bother? I got them - at a fair price, I must say - because of the Blue Eagle Knights, and a lovely bunch they are.
Just too bad it had to come with a lot of baggage.
Having the preliminaries out of the way, on with the review. We are looking at 6627
Drachenritter-Bastion/Dragon Knights' Fort as well as 6628
Adlerritter-Angriffsturm/Eagle Knights` Attack Tower. This is the box art:
And this is what was inside the boxes (not too empty):
On to the assembled sets:
In 6627 the fort baseplate, in slightly different colour schemes, is familiar from
earlier releases, and the Barbarian Assault Tower was seen before in set 4439 (2005), albeit with different wheels, plastic colour, and without printing. As a siege engine, it is useless (the ram has no velocity), but I see its play value and suppose it is good to see the item return to the shops after 10 years. The new ladder is definitely an improvement.
Not sure what the pole with fire on the fort is about
:
The bowl isn't fixed to the platform.
Having the big parts out of the way, we move on to the interesting bits, the figures:
I’m not at all keen on samurai kit on knights
, so I’ll ignore the two gents on the left entirely, but am VERY fond of their four colleagues on the right.
Blue Eagle Knights had hitherto only been known as family men (though bad at shaving) from the 6324
Knights Family, as well as from the SuperSet 4012
Knights Fort. It is good to see some variation, in particular with Mr. 2nd-from-the-right with the inverted colour pattern of the body. And Mr. In-the-middle was the first to sport this FANTASTIC beard in that colour, meanwhile seen elsewhere, too (9209).
Rounding up, the shooting gear:
The support for the catapult on the right was only seen once before, in the US exclusive 5860, so very nice to get this back in the shops.
And finally the horse, Animobil's
Horse Vers 2 Left Foot Black with Grey Mane, a rarity too:
I like the saddle cloth with pegs for hanging items.
Rounding up: Is it any good?
Yes, if you are a new customer wanting to play with Playmobil knights.
Perhaps, if you are a collector, and then only so if you are into Eagle Knights, and particularly those of the Blue kind. I happen to be one of those, so am actually quite pleased. Just too bad they come with all those huge parts that need to be accommodated somewhere.
Best wishes
StJohn