Lego story #086: Horse knights, unite (Part 1): The Visitor

31168 Creator 3-in 1 Horse Knight Castle. The castle is astir . . .

The king of the Horse Knights returns early from his hunt to prepare for a historical event. 

The guard is doubled, though the foreign visitor comes alone. A Serpent Knight has never crossed this drawbridge, not till today. 

A great feast is prepared for this guest of dubious reputation. While the lords feast, their horses are cared for. The Serpent Knight is invited to stay. 

One day, while the Lord of Horses is preoccupied in his royal quarters . . . The guest snoops around the castle! 

He locates the treasure chamber his spies were paid to discover. Alas, he finds nothing but mere gold and jewels. More elusive is the legendary horse shampoo that he sought! Perhaps he should have snooped around the stables instead?

* * *

What a great lineup of minifigures! And no less than two new knight factions: the Horse Knights and Serpent Knights.

Not forgetting the brick-built horses. On first glance, I wasn't keen on them. But after finally building them, I appreciated how the pieces came together. Now I think they look great. I was simply used to the old horse minifigures; it takes time to embrace something different.

Below are close-ups of each minifigure.

We have a king, Serpent Knight, swordsman, archer, spearman, and farrier.

The main build (or A-model) of this 3-in-1 set is the titular Horse Knight Castle. It's made of six sections.

A gate section and two corner sections form the castle's front face. 

These sections can be folded into a mini-castle.

Meanwhile, the castle's back face has a feasting hall and stable/smithy.

Sitting atop the feast hall and stable are a bedroom and small tower room. The latter contains a writing desk.

The completed castle looks decent and is a good playset for kids.

Its pentagon-like shape makes this new castle more interesting than the old 3-in-1 castle (set number 31120). 

Unfortunately the monotonous light gray makes it less striking than the old castle's bright primary colors. Also, the old castle had walls with occasional masonry bricks, which gave it a more detailed look. 

Overall, I'd rate it a good set for the minifigures and three decent models. Unlike the old castle, I liked all 3 models of this new castle. Will post about the B-model and C-model in the future, plus one alternate build I found on Rebrickable.com. 

I enjoyed displaying all the builds in our living room cabinet before letting this set go. By selling the minifigs separately from the castle, I recovered 90% of the set cost, which was 15% discounted to begin with!

If you want a kids' castle and can't get the older version (31120), you won't go wrong with this new one (31168).