ava's blog

23.04.2023

Me and my girlfriend finally built the base castle! It took us roughly 18 hours to actively build, 20 hours with the breaks we had. I can really recommend doing this project with another person! It saved us a lot of time and trouble and it's nice to have some help. She usually sorted the bricks I'd need for the next step and I put them in, plus sometimes I needed a break and she took over. At points where it worked for the project, we worked in parallel, like doing one side of the roof each, or her doing the trees while I was working on some other stuff, me working on the fence while she put together the entrance house.

I have to say, some steps in the handbook were unnecessarily "tiny", while some other steps asked you to place like 30+ pieces in one go, which did not really make sense to me. Also, I sometimes wished for a different order; like putting the furniture in before we raised the walls. It sucked a bit placing stuff inside the rooms when the walls were already built. Same with the greenery! I REALLY recommend not placing ANY greenery (no flowers, no shrubs, no matter what color) until the very end. Those fall off like crazy every time you have to lift the castle, put something on, reach around to support it while you press something on in the front. There is absolutely no reason why they should be added throughout the building process. Save yourself the trouble of always reattaching them all the time during building. Your sleeves will definitely get caught on them all the time too. I think we always reattached ours randomly where it just fit, so in my images, they might not be where they are supposed to be.

Also, if you're planning to expand the castle anyway, it might pay off to build the trees, but not put them in. They are extremely fragile and don't hold that well; fitting them next to the building and the rocks together with the dreaded shrubbery and flowers can be a huge challenge. But they are needed for latter expansions, so keep them.

Lastly: Some areas are really narrow and don't allow for much deviation, so when attaching the big mountain pieces to the side (they're all built separately and then attached via pins) or setting the roof onto the kitchen, you may need a lot of force and violence. This is normal.

Facts:

• Package weight: ~4,6kg
• Castle weight: ~4kg
• Pieces: 5250
• Building time: ~18 hours

Some images:

The Packaging of the base castle and the Castle Keep

Girlfriend hid a secret message below the castle for us to find one day.

Chill building time with snacks and music.

The base of the castle is done. One mountain wall and the kitchen.

Interior view of the kitchen. Pan and a pot over the fire, plus a few vegetables and cheese. On the lower right, you can see a chest that actually holds something. Behind it, there are little pots of herbs in shelves that are integrated into the wall (not visible here).

Building on top of kitchen begins. The red stuff is supposed to symbolize wall curtains.

Finished the room on top of the kitchen. It has a fancy window there, and flowery wall paintings. On the right, you can see the door and the stairs.

Furnished room with a stool, a chair, and a table. They can be deconstructed and stored underneath the stairs.

This is the room above, where the stairs lead to. It holds the bedroom and the toilet. Can't spot the toilet? The door for it is exactly at the bottom of the image. Behind the door is a little squat toilet. There is actually a little hole there and the excrement flows down on the outside of the castle. Yes, really. The black spots you'll see later. Also, the stairs there lead to a little attic in the roof.

The tower is almost done. The roof still needs to be built. The hole down there to the left is where the well will be.

Here's the finished castle, frontal view. We currently haven't attached the little black strings yet that let you control the well and the castle bridge, because we will be replacing them with something that looks more like rope.

Here's the side view.

This is the back view. Notice the little toilet cubicle up there sticking out, and the black stones representing the poop underneath it. Also, the little entrance there within the rocks is a secret entrance/escape. Inside, there is a door to the kitchen.

Last side view. I really love how smooth and layer-y the mountain sides are, and how they melt with the building.

06.05.2023

Continued building the castle! Unpacked and built the first expansion set, the Keep (Bergfried). It was fun. Something I didn't quite like were the Technic pieces at the upper part of the tower that kept repeating, I think they were a bit weird, but it was doable. The advice about building the modular backwall at the same time as the other walls definitely paid off. This was suggested because otherwise, the three walls will be finished and then you're stuck building the removable fourth and having a hard time fitting it into the building. Building it alongside made sure it fit easily, and also gave my girlfriend something to do :P The next one after this is the Outer Bailey expansion set, which I haven't bought yet.

Facts:

• Package weight: ~1,5kg
• Total castle weight now: ~5,4kg
• Pieces: 1958
• Building time: ~10 hours

Some images:

The preparations are being done. Some flowers, trees and roof bricks are removed to make space for the tower. It's important to keep all pieces and not use them for other things, because future expansions rely on them.

The beginning of the tower.

The first floor has a little trap door which is the so-called "Angstloch" (seems like "fear hole", but probably from the Lat. angustus "narrow" and German Loch "hole"), which is a hole that leads to a room or basement below.

This is the little bucket being let down the hole. The castle comes with black nylon strings, but we always replace those with linen string for a rope aesthetic.

If the trap door is open, the bucket can be let down and retrieved with the little rope.

The stairs and the stair guard rail. The planks are added in the next steps. You can see the bucket in the background.

Here's the side view of the tower when you build all walls at the same time and don't leave the modular wall for later. There's a line you can see where it sticks out a little (you can push it in further so it isn't visible) which shows the part you can remove. The Technic element between the upper gray and beige brick in the middle corner is responsible for snapping it in and holding it. If you build it according to the instructions, this element wouldn't be there yet.

This is the floor on top of the bucket hole. It has stairs down to the hole, features a fire, and in the end has a bed and stool (not included here yet).

This is the final floor, the floor directly under the roof. Here you can see how tall the tower has already become.

The keep has this nice feature in which you can actually leave the roof off and it still looks nice and castle-y. So if you like this optic, you can leave it that way. You can also see a little ladder down to the bedroom.

You build the roof separately and then set it on top. This was very difficult to build and attach to each other, but I appreciate the detail and design.

Here's the full view of the tower insides with the modular wall removed. Hole, bedroom, upper floor. The figurine in the bed is Sabine from Star Wars.

Closeup view of the rooms.

The view of the full castle. The trees are extra now, on their own plates.

Other view.

Side view.

Back view.

October 2023

Long time no see! I am actually updating this in March 2024 :) I did build the next extension of the castle in October 2023, assisted by my girlfriend and one time, an additional friend.
It required taking some buildings off of the existing castle, modifying them, and building a new and wider base for the castle. The extension added more area around the base castle with additional buildings, a gate and a wall, and moved the trees. My girlfriend also independently built a little crane for it as a decorative item to signify that it's a work in progress <3

I will show you progress images from the building phase:

Us three building the larger base the current castle will be sat upon.

Picture of the base castle without roof set aside, together with my girlfriend's little decorative crane (not part of the castle expansion).

Slow base progress.

Base details are being added. You can see the outlines being set for the different buildings.

Base castle is set upon its new base for the first time.

The palisade and front entrance are added. Gaps in the main area are closed.

The wooden tower got added, the building next to it which has blacksmith items and weapons is slowly being built.

The stone wall with most of its archway has been built. What's still missing is the wooden gate that you can pull up and down via a crank.

Outside view of current wall progress, the wooden buildings are now complete.

The wall now got its battlements. You can also see the chains holding the gate in the archway.

Closeup of the crank mechanism and chains holding the inner wooden gate. The front entrance still has its wooden drawbridge with rope.

Sideview of the wooden buildings and front entrance with drawbridge.

Finished frontal view of the castle. The trees are now positioned to the left, the gate got a little roof, the palisade is closed.

I am currently trying to get the next expansion, but it is sold out. It will add even more space and an amazing way to flip open a part of the castle to reveal a big and intricate king's hall.

May 2024

I actually got pretty sloppy updating this! I built it and forgot to update this page. I am now writing this in January 2025, but this was actually built in May 2024. I sadly have no stats for you, aside from the fact that it took us all weekend. But it was super rewarding! This is now the king's hall (Saalbau).

A few things had to be built back and removed for this. Here are some pics:

The beginning of some true new buildings, after removing things and adding more base.

Building up the different layers and doors of the king's hall.

View from the other side. I love this intersection of wall and rock, and how clearcut the build is. My favorite part.

You can already see how the little doors flip open to reveal multiple floors of the inner castle.

Top view of one of the floors. Cozy.

View from the outside. What is being added is truly massive and a big part of the castle.

It's finished. One side of the castle now.

The full interior.

How it sits on the table now.

December 2024

I'm also writing this in January 2025 :^) At least this one wasn't too long ago! This one is the weir walk (Hurde) expansion. It was fairly quick to build and didn't add too much. I am not a big fan of expanding the base rock, so my fiancee mostly did that. One thing to know: You have to build a looot of roofs in this one, and building the roofs is infuriating at times. But we got through it. It took us maybe a little over a day. It's hard to say, because we were slower and with more breaks because I was feeling unwell. This one was perceived to be the final one when I started this log, but more expansions have since released. That means it will be bigger than the originally specified 21.868 pieces, a size of 70x70x70 (centimeters) and a weight of roughly 18 kilograms, which it now has.

Basically, what was added here was additional wooden components to the exterior and the towers, a few changes to the inner gate, and a ramp for the external gate.

What the top of the tower looked like during partial disassembly and reassembly, vs. the wooden top added.

The full tower top.

One such roof to build.

The wooden weir walk added.

The top view. Here you can already see some changes, like a higher inner gate with a roof.

The new ramp.

The full castle.

Coming soon, hopefully! This will add a coin tower (Münzturm) and an outer, bigger palisade.

Coming soon, hopefully! This will add a stable and a forge.