LEGO Mountain Fortress Review - BDP Finalist Set of Series 1

This is the first Castle themed set from the Bricklink Designer Program. Designed by AFOL Sleepless Night, the castle sold out within hours of its release. I’ve broken the review into several parts to highlight different aspects of the design.

Theme

The Mountain Fortress is intended to pair with the Lion Knights’ Castle set #10305 and it does this perfectly. The scale of the building, its minifigure selection and castle design mirror the Lion Knights’ Castle and inject narrative into the theme with the Lion Knights’ king imprisoned in the dungeon. A micro scale model of set 10305 suggests an upcoming siege (is that the intent behind the designer's Bricklink Designer Program series 4 set #910045-1?)

Design

The set injects some much-needed everyday life into the castle series with cellar stores, an oven, beds and stables, and the queen’s apartments. The hinged design makes the castle very much a playable set with smaller spaces accessible through removable walls that preserve the overall look and stay in place. The castle’s layout is internally consistent too. Every room is accessible to minifigures – an impressive achievement when there are five balconies.

Like the Lion Knights’ Castle, the Mountain Fortress can display as either a tight tower or a longer castle shape, depending on whether you keep the build closed or open. Both look great to display depending on your available display surfaces.

Instructions

Bricklink designer sets do not come with printed instructions. This was my first time using the Lego Builder App, which uploads the instructions by scanning the included QR Code. For best results use a tablet-sized screen, but despite my preference for prints, the 3D rotational design makes it so much easier to get pieces in the correct spot. For a set like this, a welcome addition to the build experience. I also enjoyed the little exploding bag animation when a new bag was required.  However, for an adult-oriented build, there were a lot of steps with only 2-3 pieces, which definitely feels like it slows down building as you keep swiping the next step.

Construction

If you ever get sick of the impressive display element, the parts selection will have you building almost any stone-based design you can think of, with dozens of grey masonry pieces to add texture to your construction. Theres a few nice techniques that deliver amazing detail. My personal favourites being the central tower balcony, and banners built into the tower using SNOT design. The colour usage brings a nice level of realism to the castle, with snow-capped crenelations an obvious choice, but don’t overlook the olive greens for moss texturing.

The castle’s footprint is delightfully asymmetric. Hinges provide the bulk of the varying angles for walls while floors make great use of angled plates to create a stable foundation. A few jumper plates are used to create uneven texture on the wall and these come late in the building process, so initially feel out of place, but once you step back to admire the whole structure, you can appreciate the unifying detail they provide.

Overall, I give this is a 9.5/10, but I’m being picky about the instructions and some of the repetitive stacking that can’t really be avoided in a set this size. Such a great design makes me excited to see what later series Bricklink Designer sets look like.

- Review and photos provided by Chris Golding

(click on photos to view a larger image and see more of the detail)