4865: Lion Castle review.

[Rhalius]

As promised, here's the review of the Lion castle.


I was very happy when it arrived this tuesday, though a certain lion prince might have been even happier than me. (now theres other clickies complaining that I never buy them anything.)
As you can see, its a huge box. About as big as the 3666 box, but quite a bit higher due to the large rock piece.

Here's the content of the box.

Sadly a lot of loose pieces inside, this is exactly how I found it all inside. There was a smaller tray on top to seperate the pieces a bit though.
All pieces are in perfect condition however, so no complaints there. Not from me at least.

Generally the castle is not that hard to assemble.. this is a review and not a walkthrough, so I didnt make pictures of all the steps involved.. since there doesnt seem to always be much sense in whats put in each bag, I advice to just open them all up and lay the pieces together in what makes most sense to you. This took a little time, hence the lightning is different at this point.

The tower is nice and sturdy, its a little bigger than a steck tower which can have its advantages regarding space.

The picture in the book is a bit unclear about how this part needs to be placed under the rock, so I wanted to provide a picture to help with how it's done.

Seems to be a mistake in the manual, causing the rockpiece to not appear correctly in it. Didnt take me too long to figure out though.

Moving on, its shaping up quite nicely..

The round tower took a bit longer to build up due to the lift inside.. its a nice system with the rope however, no knot needs to be tied even.

At the side of the walls, you put the yellow connectors.. luckily, you can take out the piece you put the connectors in to put it easily into the rock piece. It seems impossible to get it to click in the rockpiece when attached to the wall, and this way you can easily attach the wall to it.

[Rhalius]

With the castle fully build up, lets look at the clickies and accesoires first.


The queen seems to really stand out, her dress pattern is made up of blue lions, in the spirit of the faction. A beautifull figure that makes me wish she wasnt the only woman released in the theme.
The king is alright I suppose, he can easily be used as a knight as well. Just give him different headgear and he is no longer a king.
The falcon clicky is nice, its amusing that he has such a friendly smile despite being the attacker. The soldier looks less friendly.
I'm not that fond of the knights and soldiers in this set though.. a single knight would have been enough, and I'm not too fond of that metal chestpiece being used for common soldiers. One knight and two soldiers might have been better.. perhaps a herald instead of the falcon clicky as well.
There are plenty of weapons in this set, plenty to fill the weapon rack with and arm the clickies.

And here are all the accesoires that come with the set.

Some nice items here.. I'll get back on the use of these stones later. With two horses and a parrot there seem to be quite some animals in this set.
The furniture and silverware is nice to have as well. Note that there are five seats and five cups.. precisely enough for all the lion clickies. No expense is spared to ensure that falcon clicky feels unwelcome here.
Theres also some food for the horses which is always a usefull addition, and the ball and chain will be handy as well, being an object thats not seen that often.
There is gold in the treasure chest, but just the usual amount. I really think it deserves more gold though since its never that much for such large chests.

And here is the castle in all its glory, with all the accesoires and clickies placed.

It's quite sizeable, easy to move around in. Plenty of space for additional sets as well.

Speaking of which, I already had all the additional sets that go with this castle.

Four different sets of lion knights are available.. with more stuff from DS and an advent calendar knight as well.
I'm not a fan of the ballista, but I did get it due to the common soldiers that come with it. Other sets are all a bit heavy on knights and I got a package deal when buying the three sets together. The cannoneer I bought seperatly, and twice to even out the ratio of knights and soldiers a bit more.
If the set containing only troops had one knight and three soldiers instead of two knights and two soldiers, it would have been a perfect army builder set.

And here is the castle again, with all additional sets added to it.

It fills up nicely this way, plenty of room for all the troops.

The gold transport fits nicely under here, so can be used as storage space for it.

[Rhalius]

There are many neat features in this castle that they executed very well.. I'd say they are nice usefull features and not simple gimmicks.

Here is the mechanism used to open the gates.. both doors open simultaniously when turning this mechanism around.


Which allows further reinforcements to enter the castle.

As mentioned earlier, I bought the cannoneer twice. I also ordered the set of three lion soldiers from direct service last year. To further improve the ratio between knights and soldiers.

To show the features of this castle, the falcon knight is here! along with two friends wo come from a small falcon themed set.


By pulling this lever towards himself, soldiers can let the porticulis drop down pretty much instantly.

A very nice feature, and as far as I know its the only playmobil castle released so far that has this included.

And to further hinder the attackers, you can drop the earlier shown stones on them!

By moving the lever the clicky is pointing at forwards or backwards, you can let the stones drop either in front of the gate or behind it. Quite a clever system and I can imagine similar devices may have been used in medieval times.

Such large rocks will surely slow down any attacker!

[Rhalius]

The porticulis however, can be "broken". A piece of it can be removed, handy when a battering ram is used.


Seems like a good moment to hide the treasure chest in the elevator. (and to show a better picture of the queen.)


The elevator can be moved up or down, using the mechanism the soldier is using.

While the elevator itself is great, I am not too fond of where the mechanism for it is placed.. clickies need to be on the roof to "use it" and wouldnt be able to reach the handle when its all the way up. It's too big to fit in their hands by the way.

As the falcons move forward, they knock out a piece of wall as well. Another place where the castle can be breached.


Due to the tower's lenght, this is as far as the elevator can be raised.

I suppose its mostly intended to go down instead of up, either way this can create a pitfall for attackers.

When they fall in this pit, they land here, in the dungeon.

[Rhalius]

Using the stone mechanism outside at the rocks behind the castle, you can flip the wooden board the falcon knight is laying on...


.. Causing him to end up outside.


There is a rock piece to put over the gap to hide this secret.

It can be used as both an exit or a secret entrance, quite a nice feature actually, and well hidden into the set.

At the top of the tower, a chain can be pulled..


... To pull the stairs up, keeping intruders from entering the interiour of the castle.


If attackers can climb on the stones however, the residents may still be in trouble.

[Rhalius]

There might be some safety up the tower, there is a ladder and a hatch there to get up there.


And a trap door under the ladder!


Though this just ends up here.. it would be up to you to put something under here.. maybe a prison?

To me this trap door is a bit confusing.. why have it inside what may be a prison? why is there not a prison under this trap door? I think this feature could have been left out.

While the back is open, I think the interiour of the castle is still quite nice.. there is enough space to place clickies and interiour there.


The lowered lift is also seen here.. the queen now stands above the hidden treasure in the elevator.. it closes up nicely and creates a wooden flooring that way. In total theres quite some living space this way, the top of the tower is also quite accesible.

I hope this review has been usefull, with this set disappearing already from stores and going on discount at online stores, I presume they wont be around much by the end of the year. Personly I took the opportunity to buy it at a good discount since I prefer to buy things new instead of second hand when possible.

I am very happy with this purchase, while this castle obviously lacks the versatility of the steck system, for what it is, a castle, it is something beautifull in both appearance and in its design. All interiour rooms can be easily reached  and the wide towers are nice features, and all the special features seem to really add to the castle. Aside from the oddly placed trap door but thats a minor flaw.

If I where to compare this castle with the 3666, I would say that the basic castle is actually better.. I mean when you build this castle up like this, and build the 3666 up in its original state. You can reach inside the towers easier , the size is about the same and I must say that the entrance to the 3666 could have used a gate or a porticulis.

However, the basic setup of the 3666 is only one of many possibities, and the castle can easily be expanded in whatever way you want it to. This lion castle lacks that luxury and can be expanded only in very limited ways.

So in the end, I would say that a Steck castle is a better buy if you dont have that much steck.. however if you already have quite some steck to work with, this castle can be a fine addition to have alongside of it. It is a beautifull castle in its own right, and I think it might be too easily ignored by many people simply because it is not steck.

Also, in medieval settings the castle tends to be the focus.. its the seat of power, so its easy to put to use in stories and dioramas. So this castle can be very usefull despite its limited possibilities. The standard set up is a very good one after all.

As for storage.. this is a little tricky. I suppose if everything is taken apart it will fit back in the box, but it might be quite a hassle to build it fully up from the start again.. it does take some time to build. Personly I put everything inside the box aside from the round tower on the stone base. All clickies of the theme and their siege weapons and the cart fitted in there easily enough with room to spare.

I'm sure this castle will make many clickies happy however, its a castle fit for a king!

Now my clickies just need to figure out who it is that will rule it however..

I have tree clickies that can claim to be the leader of the lions..

On that note, it works quite well with these other black lion factions.. the symbol seems similar enough.

[Pynedor]

Great review, Rhalius! It's very thorough and shows a lot of the features of the castle. I hadn't realised there were so many cool little things to this set. I like the portcullis! And the picture with all of your Lion Knights together in the castle is a cool one. It is too bad that the castle doesn't seem very customisable though.

[Birdie]

Yeah thanks for the elaborate review, I didn't know about the secret spaces and details either 

I really like the queen's dress. The 'inside' of the castle is better than I expected, but I still miss actual rooms... 

[Erik]

Great review, but the only thing I REALLY liked in this set is the Queen, I ordered her a few times from DS, together with about 30 yellow lion soldiers when this set first appeared.

[Georgeag1972]

It looks great!! Many thanks for the very nice Review!!!

George.