Rebuilding the Past: 3053 Emperor's Stronghold

Is that guy in the black helmet the Emperor? I always though he looked a little young for an emperor.

I really like the color scheme of this set. Black, blue and tan work really well together. And the red ninjas fit in nicely. Plus it really looks and feels like a high mountain fortress, which is a very nice contrast to the more lowland feel of the first ninja sets. The brown baseplate helps with that a lot and I would love to get my hands on about a dozen more of them.

The little treasure chest carrying thing is simple but neat. I really like these little accessories. They add that extra touch to make the set come alive. I wish Lego would include more such things in their sets nowadays.

As to a bit of a commentary on the building: the middle tower part is very nicely done. Its interesting how Lego can used a bunch of different colors in a wall and still make it work. I'm going to have to try that some more, I tend to use a very limited color scheme in my structures.

Rebuilding this set, I was struck by how such a tall structure could be built out of such a small pile of bricks.

And, I can't skip the white ninja. I don't consider her to be all that special of a figure, beyond her rarity and gender. Her torso is just the standard ninja pattern on white. It seems her price has come down since her rerelease in the vintage collection.

Rebuilding the Past: 6083 Samurai Stronghold

Not much of a stronghold is it? Seems more like a shrine, which would still be alliterative: Samurai Shrine sounds good, doesn't it?

I really like the white long panels here. Its a nice change from the usual brown. The black pirate pistol is a nice piece too. Not sure what else there is to say about this set. I'm mixed on the little rock trap in this set. Its not obtrusive in the design, but I'd have rather had some little living area instead. I really don't like the falling axe trap. Those halberds seem very non-ninja-esque to me.

And I'm not sure what they're going for with those spears on the side. They don't stay in place real well and don't seem to be there for any reason. I took them off from mine. I also removed the falling axe trap.

I also feel this set makes the Flying Ninja Fortress look all out of place up on those brick-plates.

Rebuilding the Past: 6089 Stone Tower Bridge

This set was released in 1998. I was out of high-school, living rent free with my parents, working full-time and attending a community college, which meant, for the first time, I had money to spend on Lego, which was lucky for me. Otherwise I would likely have passed on this set and that would have been a shame.

At first, I was not impressed with this set. I had never been into ninjas, and the ninja line did not really impress me. And looking at the box, it seemed like merely a copy of the Royal Drawbridge from just a few years earlier. But, for some reason, standing there at the Toys R Us in Yuba City, CA (for some reason I remember where I bought this set, though not much of that first build), I decided to bite.

As I alluded to earlier, I don't remember much about the first time I built this set. But I do remember I was pleasantly surprised. The construction was much more substantial than the Drawbridge and the trap door actually worked well. And the cart was (and still is) one of my favorite carts ever designed by Lego.

But there are still some downsides. First, the bridge is build on blocks, rather than plates. I did not like that method at all back then. Now I'm more ambivalent about it. The blocky plates are nice to have for landscaping MOCs, but I feel they take away from the final official model (Does anyone know why Lego went this way, when baseplates or regular plates seem like they'd be cheaper?). Also, and this still grates on me, the printed pieces on the rock wall and wall panel, are only printed for one side and seemed really like a cheapskate way to go. I guess cost-cutting started clear back in 1998. Still, its better than stickers.

The set held up well overtime, though one of my rotating panels is hanging a bit loose. The set was a fun build, though the modular method seemed unnecessary in this set, and the ninjas have really grown on me in the past 12 years. I'm still not much of a fan of bridges, since its hard, without building massive train-head style landscaping to raise your playspace three to six inches off the table, to have any real chasm for them to pass over.

So, how do I conclude this ramble? I guess I'll make an exception, in my distaste for bridges, for this set and call it the best bridge Lego has produced.

Rebuilding the Past: 6033 Treasure Transport

Another ninja set to reminisce over. I don't remember much about this set. I do remember not liking the little glass dome part and that I was not impressed when I saw it in the box, but eventually decided to pick it up anyway. But I'm glad I did.

Two robbers and a ninja are a nice selection of figures. The strong-box is nicely constructed too. Though I do think the handles for it are too long. And I'm not really sure the blue antenna piece was necessary...

Comparing this set to some of the more recent sets of similar size is interesting (7040, 7090, 7950). They all seem to have similiar piece and figure counts. And really, with the exception of the dwarf thing, the prices have stayed nearly the same over 12 years.

Though, the comparison makes the recent sets seem somehow lacking. Its not something I can put my finger on. Maybe some of it is nostalgia, even though I don't have a great deal of nostalgia for the ninja line. I think some of it is that this set is unique. Its not another catapult or goofy shooting vehicle. And its not a prison carriage. Its more of a slice of almost civilian life: two guys carrying a strong box. Though of course, there is still the potential for conflict play, with the ninja lying in wait.

One other thing I'd like to mention. I'm very disappointed with how easily the leaves break off the bamboo pieces. Both of the ones in this set lost leaves and nearly half of the ones from this line are broken. While I like the piece for landscaping and texturing, I'm not sure Lego did a good job designing this piece.

Rebuilding the Past: 6040 Ninja Surprise

I wonder what the surprise is... That the robbers have taken over the cave? That the flying ninja is dropping from the sky? Or the axe cutting off the greedy gem thief's hand? Or that Lego did not go with their usual alliterative name for the set?

Anyhow, this was one first ninja set I picked up. It had everything: a ninja, a hanglider, bamboo pieces, a light grey axe and a trans-flourescent-yellow gem (I think this was the first color it came in other than red).

Not much to say about this set. I've covered most of the highlights. I'm still not sure what Lego was going for with this set. Is it a shrine? Is it a cave? It is a cave-shrine?

But since this is a short post, I'll do some padding and talk about another issue I have with the Ninja line: all the traps. But I'm not going to complain about the idea of traps, that's been done a lot. I'm going to complain about how they were executed in the Ninja line. Specifically, I don't like how all the pins that hold the traps in place are so prone to falling out. It is nearly impossible to move any of these sets without the pin falling out. I've got big pins, small pins, some as big as your head (oh wait, that last bit is about coconuts) laying all over my Ninja shelves.

Maybe that was the surprise: falling pins.

Rebuilding the Past: 6093 Flying Ninja Fortress

Looks like we're going to go through the Asian section of memory lane first. The Flying Ninja Fortress (I wonder why Lego goes with alliterative names on some sets, but doesn't bother on others) was released in 1998, though I didn't acquire my copy until a few years later on ebay. Though I don't recall the exact year, I can tell you that tt was a happier time for the used Lego buyer; the AFOL community hadn't fully exploded on the internet and ebay sellers were letting go of Lego dirt cheap. I snagged this little gem for less than half MSRP after shipping (that was my cut-off for Lego on ebay back then). The instructions and box were not included, but I've never been much of a box man and peeron had the instruction scans, so how could I go wrong?

This is a great set, though it has some flaws. The one tower seems a bit too big and open in places, but in other parts its nicely solid. Also as discussed before, I'm not a huge fan of the blocky plates its build on; it really makes it stick out from other more traditional baseplate models. Then there is the modularity, which I'm not sure I like. And, its really only a flying ninja half fortress.

The set also has some little details that I like. The lantern/sculpture things on the corner are an ingenious detail. And the little yellow sword stand inside has a simple elegance. Nine figures is also a nice touch, though three ninja's seems a bit overkill (did feudal Japan really have armies of ninjas running around?). Not to mention that the whole thing is, at least to my mind, a very accurate reproduction of a Japanese fortress, even more so than most of the Castle sets.

I don't have much else to add on this set. I wish I'd have bought a second one to see how it would look fully enclosed, but the price for it has gone up so much, I don't think I'll make the investment... I wonder if I could MOC out some back wall modules for it from spare parts.

Old Sets by Athos

I've been playing with Lego since I was four years old, in 1983. Unlike many fans, I never had a dark age, though throughout my higher educational career, I kept most of my Lego stored away in a shed at my parents' house. In the past year, however, I was able to move into a house with a basement that I am planning to transform into a den of all things Lego.

So, with that in mind, I recently recovered all my old Lego Castle sets from my parents' storage. After washing the dust and dead (and some not so dead) spiders from the sets, I disassembled the sets (several of them had not been taken apart since the day they were built). I packed them approximately 400 miles to their new home and am currently in the process of rebuilding them (with a bit of washing out the missed spider carcasses).

Throughout the years, I've been fortunate enough to acquire nearly every Castle set from the Kings Castle released in 1984 to King Leo's Castle, released in 2000. And many other sets in between (I'm a particularly big Adventurers fan)

So, I thought it might be interesting to blog a bit about each set as I attempted to rebuild the past. Just to clarify, this isn't a review blog. Enough people have reviewed these sets and I don't want to hassle with taking a ton of pictures. Though that doesn't mean, I won't tell you what I like and dislike about the sets. What this is, is, a hopefully coherent, stream of consciousness writing about my thoughts and feelings on each set, with maybe a bit of comparison and contrasting with other themes and sets and a dash nostalgia and historic context thrown in for flavor.

I hope it is interesting for you.