Bought all the Lion Knights (except the castle) yesterday, and I must say I am more than pleasantly surprised. I will still do some basic customising to get them in order, but I think they're still very nice figures for the most part.
I like the new cannons, which can look really good in a lot of knight-related dioramas all the way up to the late middle-ages (for eg the Great Siege of Malta), but I would've loved PM to give us some more spare missiles. Two is a little bit too tight-fisted for my liking, even moreso considering that 1) the sets are not that cheap to start off with 2) until a few years ago we used to have more stuff for our cash (the roman scorpions with 4 missiles being a case in point).
I like the new shields too, especially with the new handle mechanism. However I still think PM should be using the Egyptian shields more, the way you customisers do. Also, I would like to have seen more variety shape-wise. The 5 shields I got yesterday all have the same shape! What else?
Some figures are very very pretty even without having to customise them. For example the two footsoldiers that come with the treasure set and the catapult thingy set respectively are basically very well-executed updates of the old knights from the 90's. Others could have been much better done: for example I do not particularly like any of the armoured knights in these sets, with the standard-bearing one with the black legs being particularly vile. I also do not like the knight-logoed chestplate on the cannon guy ... looks like a medieval football shirt to me.
The spangelhelm with the nose guard is one of my favourite things about this set, and had been a long time coming. However I would've liked the nose guard to be a bit longer. It would've looked better.
That's about it for now. I will be buying the baddies at a later date. Yesterday I also bought the new crib, which I might review, and you know ... such buys can really make a dent in your monthly budget.
