Favourite Sets: 1491 Dual Defender

Rounding out the Black Knight theme that has occupied my thoughts around here of late, is a "favourite" set, 1491 Dual Defender, which was also the fourth LEGO set in my collection, and since it was a Christmas present, it rounds out my first year of LEGO, which began the year before, at Christmas 1992.

Dual Defender is a catapult set, one of MANY the LEGO company has made over the years. I'm not at all sure how realistic it would be considered, but it's more aesthetically pleasing than my most of the catapults that were released in the decade of the 2000s, and because it was my very first catapult, I'm more fond of it than of pretty much any other.



A reader familiar with the set will note from this picture that the minifigs have been slightly modified. That is, instead of having blue legs with black hips, they now have white legs with black hips. This is a post-Great-Take-Apart decision. In light of their honoured status in my LEGO collection as the first two Black Knights--indeed, for close to a decade, they were my *only* Black Knights, and the soldier on the left who does not have a re-glued sword was the first Black Knight king in my collection. The white legs is an honour, because it ties them into the colour-scheme of the knight from 6086 that I've designated the king of the Black Knights.

The set also differs from its original form in that the extra pieces it came with are long, long since gone. It's a pity, too, since those extra pieces were another sword and a light grey clip, like the ones holding the spears to the back of the catapult. However, I suppose I shouldn't complain; presumably the extra pieces served their purpose: that's why I still have two clips and two swords with the set, because I had an extra one of each to lose.

Back around the turn of the millennium, this set would have looked significantly more cluttered, as other elements were added to my Black Knight collection, mostly from 5135 Castle Accessories, including the crown, the dragon plumes, the red flag on short flagpole, and the oval Black Knight shield. They also eventually picked up a black horse and red saddle from 5394, the horse and saddles accessory set. Add to that a homemade cape not unlike the one currently worn by the current Black Knight king, and this set was as suped-up as I could make it, and these two swordsmen were as prepared for battle as any ten-man army I had.