Alongside the famous yellow Castle, the brightly-chivalric Knight's Joust, the blue-roofed Blacksmith Shop, and the amazing Medieval Market Village with its gorgeous blue tavern, this set adds the earthiness of peasant life to your classic castle scene.

As many have said, there is a limited amount of material for fans of non-military medieval Lego to enjoy. The Medieval Market Village is justly famous, but this set works so wonderfully in contrast to it. It's country versus town. It's muted versus bright. It's nature versus civilization.

The windmill is definitely a storey too low, so it's worth adding another floor out of whatever beige bricks you have to hand. Once done, this is the perfect evocation of medieval rural life. Even the little cart with its flared out sides really looks the part.

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This was a set that was sadly under appreciated at the time of its release. Which is a shame. It is amazing. Oneof the most distinct Castle sets ever released. A true civilian setting of a farm and mill. With a full barn structure and a host of animals. You get a full family of Castle era civilians, 3 Green Dragon Raiders Goats, Pigs, Chickens, a Horse and Cart. Produce. A nicely working windmill that spits out white round "bags of flour".

As a standalone set it is amazing. The build on the barn alone is worth it. So many great parts and techniques. The Windmill is a bit technicish and not as nice. But as a compliment to the over the top Classic Medieval Market Village, this set is a must have.

I just "rediscovered" my old love for Legos, and this set got the "honor" of being my first new set in probably 15 years or so, as despite Kingdoms starting to get very rare - unfortunately, what with Castle being my favorite theme back then as well as now - to find in stores, I managed to find this set at a discount. And a great first set it was even discount notwithstanding, as you'll see if you read on.

Box/Instructions

The box looks nice. The images portray the contents well, and in funny situations (apple, meet head - and a gluttonous little pig!). It's oversized for the amount of bricks inside, but that seems to be the norm these days.

Instructions were very clear and easy to follow. At times I actually wished there would've been more pieces per step, but I suppose it's better this way with younger builders in mind.

Parts

This set isn't the biggest there is in terms of both amount of bricks as well as physical size, but it's still actually quite nice in both respects. Even having seen all the pics, I was still slightly surprised by the size. The windmill and the barn together are basically as large as my old and beloved Black Falcon's Fortress!

What's also nice is that there aren't that many large, "exclusive" parts, and most of the buildings are actually made up from a lot of smaller parts. This is obviously a good thing if you want to use the set's parts to build something else.

Minifigures

There are six minifigures included. You get your three villagers, as well as the three soldiers intent on harassing said villagers. When I played with Lego sets as a kid, I was always combat-oriented, but the villagers do add a lot of possibilities for playing with the set.

I must say though that I'm not a huge fan of the "skirt" female minifigs seem to get these days. They make the minifig quite inflexible in terms of posing it and such, and honestly they don't look that good. Similar problems abound with the "short pants" of the other male villager - I assume it's meant to be a kid. The short pants can't be adjusted to put the minifig into a sitting position or lean up/down, and therefore two out of three villagers are a bit inflexible. But the third villager is good, and the soldiers also look very nice.

In addition to the human minifigs you also get a bunch of animals. They add a nice touch to the set.

The build

Building the set was straightforward enough. At times I got a bit confused with having three bags of parts for one building, and had to look for where the part I was looking for is lurking. Would've helped if I had a larger area to work on so that I could've just poured all the contents of the bags into their own piles, which would've eliminated the problem and made the build a lot faster - now it took me a good 2,5 hours.

There's nothing really difficult about the build technically, but it was still a fun set to build.

The completed model

As mentioned earlier, the completed set is surprisingly sizeable. It also looks very nice - quite colorful compared to my old, worn sets. Being civilian buildings, they're also a standout from other newer Kingdoms sets, almost all of which are "military" in nature.

I also really liked the mechanical functionality found in both the windmill and the barn, something that wasn't really there with old Castle sets in my youth. With the mill you can turn a crank to make the sails/blades turn, as well as rotate the container at the bottom to take out what I assume is meant to be flour, represented by white cylinders. As for the barn, you get a functional winch for the apple basket. Trying these out made me smile - oh the fun I would've gotten out of them as a kid!

Summary

Overall I can't really say anything bad about the set. I must admit that I can't really compare to any new sets from personal experience, but it was a fun experience to build this. Quite a contrast to building my old collection - which is what I've been doing for the last week - with very loose and often even broken parts, not to mention very worn in general. The set feels very solidly build, looks good, and the functional winch and windmill crank are very nice additions. The two civilian minifigs were indeed slightly disappointing due to their inflexibility, but given that the set gets just about everything else right, can't really complain.

In short - highly recommended! If you can still find one, that is :)

When I first saw this set I became very excited. It looked really good with all the new elements and the general design of the set and so I decided to get it as soon as possible.

Box/instructions

The box has the standard kingdoms box art which looks quite good. The box also happens to be quite big. The instructions look the same as the box and comes in two booklets.

Minifigures

There is quite a good selection of minifigures in this set. The three villagers all have double sided faces showing different expressions and have some nice printing. The three dragon nights are the same as all the others except the helmets aren't glossy like the previous years sets but are nice all the same and they have some fresh faces that weren't around in last years sets.

Parts

There are many new parts in this set as well as good use of existing ones. I really like the animals, especially the chickens. I also like the pieces used for the blades of the windmill. The colours in the set are really nice with a combination of brown, tan and darker tan and it really feels like a medieval farm with thatch roofing.

The build

The completed model

Looks really good. It is of a good size and fits in well with the size ratios of the other kingdoms sets. I really like the winch for the bucket which is the bird on the roof, it is an ingenious idea. The barn can open up and it looks like two barns and both sides look decent enough. The windmill looks really good but the back is open but it lets you see the gears on the inside. You can make pretty cool scenes with this set especially if you combine it with the Medieval market village.

Summary

It seem LEGO has of late heard the call toward throwing in more civilian-style sets - this one being in the Castle/Kingdoms theme. I must say this is really such a well-designed and executed set with a plethora of qualities, it's really difficult to find much to criticize here.

Pros

• Plenty of animals - pig, horse, 2 goats, rooster, 2 hens
• 6 minifigs - farm family (dad/mom/boy), and 3 raiders (archer/sword/axe)
• Well designed buildings with great play features

Cons

• Maybe the price? Not much else to complain about really

Let's start with the windmill - a rotating crank turns both the windmill arms and the grindstone located on the inner lower level area. There's even a little level that dumps the full hopper of ground "flour" out of the grindstone area. Pretty neat and no wasted space or parts here.

The barn is about twice as big as the windmill, and comes with a hinged opening for play, a well-camoflouged crank that raises and lowers a big basket full of apples up to the loft of the barn, a level-activated trap door, and stylish looking doors and windows.

Both building comes with flip open roofs for easy access, but they are well designed and look pretty good closed as well.

A simple cart behind the horse, complete with barrel of gold finishes off the set - along with the livestock of course.

Playability here is top notch with all the people as well as animals, moving cart, action featuers on both buildings, etc.

And the topper in all of this is that it just looks fantastic. Unlike many sets designed more for play, this one looks fairly realistic and like a complete set of building - no front shells with open backs, or mash-ups like the infamous Home One, Cloud City, or the upcoming Echo Base.

This is really a top notch set, and I can't say much more about it other than well done LEGO.