Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Favourite Minifigs: Black Falcon 2.0

With a hefty balance of VIP points accumulated, and a healthy number of giftcard LEGO Store dollars in Christmas presents, I headed out to the LEGO Store a couple weeks ago, and I came back with 10223 Kingdoms Joust, which was very exciting. This post will not go into that excellent, excellent set, but will only look at one of the minifigs--a minifig that caused immense excitement on Classic-Castle, because of his shield.



Yes, my friends, that is a Black Falcon.

The Black Falcons were, with the original Lion Knights, one of the two original factions of Legoland Castle (1984-1992). As such, they are more than qualified to be considered "Classic" Castle, the Yellow Castle notwithstanding. Unlike the Lions, which saw their heraldic reincarnated at least three times thereafter (four, if you're willing to count the Morcia lion), the Black Falcons never really returned (again, unless you count Morcia--but no one *I* know counts Jayko's Talonjay as a Black Falcon province). What is more, while most redone Lions featured new colour-schemes and completely revisited shield designs (for example, the red-blue-white Royal Knight lion head has little in common with the classic lion, beyond having a lion), the Black Falcon shield here is very obviously a take-away from the original black falcon shield.

The reverse-image falcon in black/white (silver, in heraldic terms) has been retooled slightly, but the family image is unmistakable, and for simple nostalgic reasons, its bearer is currently one of my favourite figs. He's been very slightly modified, with his original dark green plume replaced with a white one. In the set, the dark green plume helps make the knight match his dark green and black tent, which I assume is that colour to make it compatible with the current Lion Knights' rivals, the dark green-flavoured Dragon Knights. Indeed, my Dragon Knight from 7187 Escape from Dragon's Prison has already moved in and taken over the tent. This freed me up to give the Black Falcon a white plume. I considered giving him a dark blue plume, in honour of the blueness of the classic Black Falcons, but white seemed more appropriate.

It's also worth nothing that while the barding of the Black Falcon knight here lacks any specific Falcon heraldry, it is still the first "Black Falcon barding" the LEGO Company has made, and the lack of definite heraldry only makes it more generically useful.

2 comments:

  1. Nice review and thoughts about the Falcons! Though, the Black Falcons are my all-time favorite castle faction, is a shame that TLC have not released some sets yet.

    Indeed I was waiting (and saving a lot of money) for them, assuming that the new Falcon Knights would be the next rival against the Lion Knights in the Kingdoms line, but into a civilian-kind of scenario (more like the medieval market village and the mill village raid, but also like the Guarded Inn and the Blacksmith from the 80s).

    I recognize the quality of the Lego trademark, but at the time, I saw some falcon knights being released in the chinese market that attracted my curiosity, so I ordered just a few of them to have a look closer... and just minutes ago I checked for a link but looks like are sold out... this is the link where I found them: https://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/0.html?orderId=81809979268371&productId=32735338263

    Anyway, I just began to build a legit vintage Black Falcons army, that will be expensive, but worth it :)

    Regards!


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  2. Just found:

    https://es.aliexpress.com/store/product/medieval-castle-knights-with-weapon-shields-building-blocks-brick-toys-heavy-armor-knight-army-rome-soldier/1046411_32793516616.html?spm=2114.04010208.3.198.KXOZHE&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_6_10065_10068_433_434_10136_10137_10138_10060_10062_10056_10055_10054_302_10059_10099_10103_10102_10096_10052_10053_10050_10107_10051_10106_10084_10083_10080_10082_10081_10110_10111_10112_10113_10114_5000000_10078_10079_10073_10070_10122_10123_10126_10124,searchweb201603_2,afswitch_1,ppcSwitch_3,single_sort_0_default&btsid=aa7d367f-db36-439f-82b7-5c28604b138c&algo_expid=6a40a970-c348-4452-950e-642566bf9cf4-20&algo_pvid=6a40a970-c348-4452-950e-642566bf9cf4

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