Just came back to see the timeline on this! Seemed pretty close together in my memory. I guess they were! Insipid comments for the algorithm! I'd be happy to let the commercials run for ya, but I've got premium. Dunno if that helps you at all 🤷♂
Thanks for featuring my build! This was really fun to watch. I'm honestly quite unfamiliar with Fright Knights, so it was great to have all this info so nicely packaged into a short video. Awesome work!
These were the first Lego Castle sets I got, they will forever be my favorite faction.. the castle was top notch.. 2 stories plus a tour, I used to rebuild it in my own designs, endless fun..
I got the big castle as a gift part of bulk Lego in like 2003 or so. I am so bummed I can rebuild almost everything but I don't think I have Basil at all
Being a massive Lego Castle collector from the mid-to-late 80's through 90s, Fright Knights is when it lost me. I was down with the wizard and dragon, that worked for me, but dragon hot air balloons and dragon wing helicopters were just a step too far. I could totally do fantasy themes, but this just got too goofy, resembling things my toddler cousins would make with Lego. I couldn't get behind it. And yet, I distinctly remember Basil's helmet being the coolest helmet I'd ever seen and having to have one. He stood out as awesome and the witch by herself was pretty cool too, but the sets just really lacked. I'd really altered my focus away from Castle during Fright Knights and onto Adventures, Aquanauts (which I still think is among the most underrated themes ever), and eventually, Ninja came out (original Ninja, not Ninjago) and I got all of wave one.
I have my frights knights be the neutral Basil and Willow is evil. Their goal is just to be scary and spooky like Halloween world from night mare before Christmas. They are necromancer who use skulls in jars to power war machines, them the dwarfs and forest men are the only factions to use mechs. The mech are all powered by dead bodies like a warhammer 40k dreadnought.
Funny you say 1996-2004 was bad era for LEGO, as kid I always thought it was the golden age lol. Didn't grow up then just liked them in the encyclopedia's you'd buy from school book fairs that would come with minifig or something.
Thanks for manifesting the new basil !! Already have pulled three ! Now buying bulk of original soldiers to make a full fright Knight faction for my new table build vs ? Idk what faction should they battle you guys tell me also the red drags are going to be Allies for the frights just fyi when suggesting factions !
The big Fright Knights Castle really is underrated. It is unique for a castle in that it is taller than it is wide, and it is surely one of the tallest Castles that Lego has released, perhaps excluding the Disney and HP Castles. It can also be reconfigured to be wider and somewhat shorter - trult modular in ways that earlier castles weren't. Too bad about the gaps in the walls, but FWIW the arch-focused architecture is aesthetically appealing. The basic soldiers also have excellent torso printing.
I think you are correct with them being Eastern European. I always thought of them as Greek - Basil is a Greek name and they have flame-throwers which the Greeks of the Middle Ages has - Greek Fire.
I was OBSESSED with Basil the Batlord as a kid after playing Lego Racers. A shop that sold lego near me happened to have set 2848 and 2872 in the early 2000s and I was so excited to be able to own my own minifigs of him and Willa. I actually didn't realise there was a whole range of kits featuring these characters and theme, back then I didn't really search online for lego so I assumed that the characters were unique to the Lego Racers game and had come out in these small kits afterwards. It was only a few years ago that I looked up the character and discovered there was a whole range associated with him!
@@Goldfyre Being born in '95, my first encounter with Basil was on the battlefield now known as 'Knightmare Athon'. Even better is that the set 'Witch's Windship' also makes an appearance here, being the final hazard on this circuit as the racers drive under the winship while the constantly cackling witch aboard throws explosives down all willy-nilly.
The small sets are a FEATURE, not a mistake, so that people would be able to get Basil and his dragon without buying the big sets. And the "worst castle ever" has FIVE minifigs (plus dragon and skeleton), while allowing for imagination to build up the interiors (for example, mixing it with the promotional WIlla's lab set, or using your own additions for the manor's interior). I WISH today's Lego castle sets were as good as those "worst" sets.
I love this sub theme. I had the fire breathing fortress but gave it to my nephews a few years ago never to be seen again. Doh. I made a Halloween MOC on my channel if you wanna give it 90 seconds of your time. Keep up the great work
I missed out on Fright Knights, but I wish I had bought a few. Lego needs to remake this theme since they haven't made any magic-based castle sets in years.
Set 6037 was part of the lore when Willa discovered UFO’s in the night sky once believing them to be “shooting stars” once she had her telescope, she was able to clearly see they they were other worldly flying machines which inspired her to conjure up this whacky abomination. This all took place in the Time Cruisers comics!
3:08 They were impulse buys, yet not featured in (most*) consumer catalogs (also 6004), like the smallest, square-boxed sets usually were. *the Polish 1995 catalog had the last page dedicated to these impulses, but the respective sets weren't featured on the theme pages.
It would be really neat to see some more Fright Knights going forward. I get the feeling that Fright Knights were meant to be the new villain faction for the Forest Men and Royal Knights, since the Dragon Masters were down to acting as body guards for tax collectors and operating toll bridges. They just didn't, you know, make any sets featuring fights between the Fright Knights and anybody else. Maybe Time Twisters are to blame? Also, Willa probably has halberds on the front of her airship to act as a deterrent against dragons attacking her ship.
I look back at this theme with a bit of childhood nostalgia, but I really disliked this sub-theme as a kid, although I did have a couple of the smaller sets from it.
Traitor Transport is the earliest Christmas present I can remember! I remember thinking that little dragon cave was so cool! I still have the dragon, though he's missing his upper jaw 😂 Basil's helmet is a core memory for me.
i found a black dragon with weird tail and gold prints, googled it to see where it was from found it was from orient expedition but also from that theme was the set where the dragon was from but it used basils helmet in dark gray 7419 dragon fortress is the set
I think modern Lego needs more BURPS and LURPS personally. Nowadays while the sets are very detailed there's just WAY too many pieces in them driving their price up.
My favorite Fright Knights torso is that light gray one with red arms and all those little red birds on the front. The birds also look like crosses, so I combined it with light gray legs to make a priest minifigure. I think the only Fright Knights set I actually got was the Trader Transport, with the big cave piece.
This whole video feels like it is made by someone who really dislikes 90s legos style. I would argue that sets today have too many peices because half the parts are 1×1 sized.
As a kid in the 90s I had 6004, 6007, 6027, and 6037... and maybe 6028/6029. I loved that series! And say what you want about Witch's Magic Manor but back then I wanted that set pretty badly 😆Especially for that dropping boulder and hidden skeleton 😅 Thx for that video, nostalgia hit hard 🙌
How I got introduced to Fright Knights: Lego Racers (and how much of a pain Basil was) There was a US Lego Mania magazine which had a small story in it which had a little more detail about Basil and Willa which said Basil was once a knight of unknown origin (I like to think he's an ex-Dragon Master), he was lost or something and ended up at the castle to shelter from a storm, gets terrified by several things in the castle including a swarm of bats and a skeleton touching him before Willa appeared and used her magic to turn him into the Bat Lord. Most of the story is told in Basil's POV as he's remembering what happened so it does leave you wondering how much control/influence does Willa have over Basil. Is he really brainwashed/under Willa's spell as her puppet leader or does he actually like what Willa has turned him into and leads the Fright Knights out of his own free will with him and Willa both having equal control? There's definitely a sense of ambiguity. Lego Legacy Heroes Unboxed went with a sort of mish mash of the US and European stories as there Basil and Willa are enemies with Willa being evil and Basil is good (as this was the actual case in the European story) but its mentioned Willa had mind controlled Basil in the past. Oh and in that game there is this thing about Willa and Majisto were once dating. The game was out before the whole thing about them being cousins so it either wasn't established as canon yet or the game can be seen as a different universe where they're not related.
I had the Batlord Castle for my first communion and the Witch Castle for childrens day from my mom. I loved them both. I know they are not great but I remember them fondly
1:29 the brestplate torso on the right was one of my favorites. Reminded me of one of the warriors from the movie 13th Warrior. Overall I thought the sets for the theme were pretty bad while the minifigures had some uniqueness too them.
This video was great!, especially hearing YOUR history with the theme and how you thought it should’ve come a couple years later!. And interms of a set id like to see you remake, I think the one you said would make a good GWP 😂 have a great day Goldfyre
It's possible they're supposed to be German since Basil's headpiece looks an awful lot like Kaiser Wilhelm II. His mustache is too close for it to not be a coincidence.
Edit; For me the mini figure designs and concepts of the medium-big sets can tank the fact that the sets were released in one of Lego’s worst time periods.
I hated them when they were releas in 1997! After great Lion knights wit perfect casrtle from 1995 LEGO gave us this chaotic and ugly things! I was soooo disappointed that I still remeber till now this feeleing ;) Asspecialy castle and other construcion were poorly designed just like pirates from 1996. IN 1996 lego had it dark time. Some idiots started to force very simple, made of big pices construction. And stickers every were ex lights and gril on cars in city. When I was 4 and parents gave me firs Lego car I was soo happy that EVERYTHING is made of small pices! This is idea of LEGO to BUILD something from pices with your imagination.
