Every LEGO theme has a specific goal. Ninjago and Star Wars promise action and cool vehicles and characters. Creator Expert brings complex builds and classy display models. Technic offers working functions and interesting machinery. The Creator line’s niche is in providing an old-school build experience, for people who want sets with a load of potential but not a lot of exclusive or specialized elements. And in that vein, 31120 Medieval Castle is a rousing success. Sitting at the top of the new lineup of Creator sets available June 1, this 3-in-1 set comes with instructions and parts for three unique medieval-themed models (one at a time), including a large castle, and yes, a trebuchet. The set has 1,500 pieces, making it the largest Creator set to date, not counting bulk brick buckets that don’t include instructions. It will retail for US $99.99 | CAN $TBD | UK £TBD. It will be available June 1 in Europe and elsewhere, while North America will have to wait until August 1.
The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
The box and contents
1,500 pieces is massive for a standard Creator set, and more in line with what we’d see from a Creator Expert set. The previous record-holder for the theme was 6753 Highway Transport. Released in 2009, that set had 1,294 pieces. Of course, that’s not counting the bulk brick buckets such as those carried by retailers like Costco or Walmart around the holidays, which also get the Creator branding. But those sets primarily contain only the most basic bricks, plates, and slopes in a wide variety of colors, and they don’t include the instructions to build any specific models. So it’s easy to justify calling the Medieval Castle the largest traditional Creator set to date. The front contains the primary castle model that uses all 1,500 elements, while the back shows the alternate builds, which are a castle wall with a windmill, and a tower with a trebuchet.
Inside the box you’ll find nine bags numbered across seven steps, plus a large tan 8×16 plate loose. As with most Creator sets, there are no stickers.
Most of the elements in Creator sets are common and relatively non-specialized, and that’s certainly the case here. However, there are still a few interesting bits. There aren’t any new molds, but several pieces appear here in new colors. The 4×6 plate surprisingly hasn’t been available in dark azure before now, while the 2x2x3 and 3×1 slopes arrive for the first time in olive green. The new 3x3x2 corner window frame made its debut in a couple of Friend sets earlier this year in white, but here it picks up a second color with brown. It will also be in brown in some of the new Harry Potter sets.
The build
The castle is modular, made up of three primary sections that rest on large plates. The first and largest section is the castle gate with the drawbridge. The front of the castle sits on a little hilly mass of bricks and slopes that’s made of a variety of greens (dark, olive, and sand). It’s a nice nod to the classic LEGO castles of the past that were usually built on a big molded baseplate with the entrance between two hills. There’s a little bit of landscaping with some vines, and scraggly tree, and some mushrooms.
The completed model
I’ve built a lot of LEGO castles from the many castle themes LEGO has produced over the last 30 years. Whether or not this is the largest depends a lot on how you count. There’s no question that this one contains the most pieces of any medieval castle that LEGO has ever made (unless you count Löwenstein Castle), but I think it’s unlikely it has the largest footprint.
However, if you compare it to previous LEGO castles it’s immediately apparent that this one is more detailed on just about every front. I have a lot of nostalgia for classic castles like 6086 Black Knight’s Castle from 1992, 6074 Black Falcon’s Fortress from 1986, or even a relatively modern one like 7946 King’s Castle from 2010. But if you can set aside your nostalgia for a moment, it’s clear the Medieval Castle is better in just about every way.
However, no need to set your nostalgia too far to the side. LEGO may be improving the design of the castle, but that doesn’t mean the classic themes are tossed to the street. This castle bears the emblem of the Black Falcons, that fan-favorite theme that debuted in 1984 and has been popping up here and there ever since.
As I mentioned during the build section, the castle comes apart into three segments: the gatehouse, the blacksmith shop, and the tower wall. While the three base pieces can’t really be arranged differently in a way that makes sense, it would be easy to devise your own segments that extend this castle out further.
What they can do, however, is open up while connected, letting you have full access to the interior by simply disconnecting the blacksmith shop and tower wall segments from each other and swinging the walls around flat.
The main gatehouse is empty except for the second-story room on the right, which has a small Tudor-style structure jutting out from the exterior wall. That room is a primitive toilet that opens straight to the moat below, so watch where you swim outside the walls. The center room above the drawbridge contains only the drawbridge mechanism, including a locking mechanism to keep the drawbridge up. I do feel like the gatehouse is missing a portcullis, and it seems like there’s room enough for LEGO to have included one with only a slightly modified design.
As I mentioned before, the drawbridge is activated with a crank on the side of the gatehouse.
Around back, there’s the waterwheel and a small archery range, along with a few chickens and a rooster. Bonus: if you miss the target, you just might end up with roast chicken for dinner.
The animals
If the Creator theme is about old-school building experiences like I mentioned at the outset, there’s no better example of this than with its animals. Although LEGO produces a huge variety of molded animals that are often key selling points for sets, the Creator theme goes out of its way to show you that you don’t need to have specific molded elements to enjoy a whole menagerie. Almost every animal included in a Creator set, from dog to dragon, is brick-built. This set includes seven such creatures: two chickens, a rooster, a black bird for the weathervane, a hawk, a wyvern, and a mouse. They’re all delightful, even the tiny mouse which consists of only four elements.
The wyvern is the true standout, though. Here again I have a lot of nostalgia for the classic LEGO dragon and even the newer dragons from the early 2010s, but this little green monster charmed me. Not only is it highly poseable, but the face reminds me of Olli the dragon or the LEGOLAND sea serpent.
The minifigures
Creator sets are not known for their minifigures, so it’s with some delight that I found these minifigures actually quite nice. The two soldiers are kitted out in Black Falcon livery, and they share designs with the soldiers from 21325 Medieval Blacksmith. I think it’s not a stretch to assume a headcanon that these are the younger versions of the figs from that set, as there’s a grey-bearded male soldier, a female soldier, and a red-haired blacksmith.
The alternate models
The two alternate models didn’t call out to me as much as the main castle did, and I decided to forego building them. They look excellent, but I didn’t relish the thought of disassembling and hunting through 1,500 unsorted pieces twice to build two more models. However, I made one exception. I can’t have a LEGO set that includes a trebuchet and not build the trebuchet. Even though the trebuchet is relatively small, it stole pieces from all over the castle and even the wyvern, so there’s no having both built at once. However, it also uses readily available or easily substituted parts, so if you want to build both you could probably cobble the trebuchet together from your existing collection.
The key to a trebuchet is, of course, the large counterweight. This is accomplished with a dense pack of bricks, mostly 1x1s, to add as much weight as possible.
Conclusion and recommendation
The Creator line takes us back to our roots with a simple build that’s simply excellent. There aren’t many fancy techniques here, and there aren’t many specialized pieces, but that doesn’t mean too many compromises on quality. It’s true the interior could use more detailing, but $100 seems like a sweet spot for a LEGO castle. I would have also loved to see more minifigures and animals, but that’s not really the point of the Creator line. Adding more detail or figs would have increased the price on this set that’s a bargain at less than $0.07 per piece.
And if you’re a castle fan who’s been waiting on your favorite theme to be revived, don’t be put off by the label Creator on the box. This is a phenomenal castle, one of the best LEGO has ever produced. Plus it’s a Black Falcon castle.
31120 Medieval Castle contains 1,500 pieces and three minifigures. Starting June 1 in Europe and elsewhere, and August 1 in North America, it will be available from LEGO and other retailers for US $99.99 | CAN $TBD | UK £TBD. It may also be available on Amazon and eBay.
The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.