That depends on how clever was the scholar. I’d say on top of an elephant with a big carabine will be better than unarmed and on foot in the jungle, and on the other side of a cage would top both of those as well.
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Build 3 is done! One wizard-y, guard-post-y, bridge-y building is finished!
The complete lack of a 4th wall is… a choice. I wish they had done the usual “it is opened easily or can be opened with minimal effort” thing, but I get how that is more difficult with a narrow structure like this.
Oh, and a catapult/trebuchet. Legit a neat little bit of engineering to make that work… wish it had a larger bucket, though!
That stated, I thought this would be my favourite of the three builds… but it is not. The original castle is miles beyond any of the other builds. So much so that we’ve already disassembled the whole thing and will be building the castle again shortly.
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Breaking the 4th wall seems pretty popular right now. So they might just have wanted to make it easy on you by removing it completely.
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So, I finished rebuilding the castle (it’s a really neat build, honestly!), and have started the Medieval Blacksmith, set number 21325.
When I ordered it, it was out of stock, and had an estimated restock date of 3-4 months. It took… 2 weeks? Much earlier than expected, which was nice and not-nice (it resulted in me having to pay for it now, when I have negative money, rather than in a few months when I have… a smaller negative amount of money).
Whatever! On with the build!
Thar’ she blows! 14 bags, I think? Only 4 Meeples and a dog, but that’s okay!
Here it is after Bag 3.
First floor is done after Bag 5… and look at that glowing forge! With a bellows as the button to turn it on! Shut the front door.
And the front door! I don’t think I got details on it, but it is surprisingly cool.
An apple tree! And little logs! Man, I love me some thoughtful attention to detail!
And the start of the second story (I think it’s 3 floors in total, but I don’t know if there’s an attic or not).
I am well pleased with it. My only complaint is that it’s gonna be bigger than my castle! 
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I must admit that what first caught my attention was…
Then I noticed the sword, they have improved a lot since I last dealt with Lego swords.
But yes, those logs are delicious.
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A bit more progress on the Medieval Blacksmith… we’ve done 12 of the 14 bags (and about 250 steps at this point).
You can kind of see the way the roof hangs there: there are sockets (not clips, just gravity held) on the floor around the window and where the chimney will go: there are little ledges on the inside of the roof that fit into them.
Amazing.
Like a glove. Really, really well done.
And, I mean, look at that nonsense. The bear rug on the floor. The pattern on the quilt. The little book that says “Once upon a time” with an ink quill! My gods.
And there it sits.
I think bag 13 will finish the roof and chimney, and then the last bag will be the horse, cart, and soldiers.
Can’t wait!
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I think I could eat that roof. You sure is not the witch from Hansel and Gretel that married a Blacksmith??
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And done. A little bittersweet… it was a great set to build, and I’m kinda sad it’s over (and that I definitely will not be buying any more LEGO until at least late-December).
Ah well. All good things…
The horse’s name, I have been informed by my partner, is “Vanilla.”
The roof on the side of the chimney doesn’t come off any more unless you remove the smoke stack first, but other than that, you have access to all the floors with a minimum of fuss.
And I still can’t get over that tiny little red light for the forge. Amazing.
So! That’s it for me for the next little while… I hope some others get their hands on some LEGO (or maybe Open Brick?) and build some cool stuff!
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That looks awesome. I would have loved that cart back in the day. Perfect to be raided by my Merry Men in pointy hats.
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I went through the clearance aisle at Walmart the other day, and saw they had a number of Lego sets, so of course i had to get one (really wanted to get three or five of them, but of course i have more self-control than that 
). There were other themes i would have preferred, but this one was the best discount, only $55 for a $99 set 
So here we are:
The “Friends” sets tend to rely much more on molded parts and stickers, but there are a few neat things, like the revolving door, and the exterior frames of the 2nd floor windows are ingenious.
The top floor doesn’t have a roof, which is odd, and there are a lot of stickers which reduce the usefulness of the pieces, which i ignored.
This arrangement is the spring/summer version, the set includes foliage for autumn and winter themes as well.
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My older kid has been on a LEGO Mario kick ever since he heard about it. So, for his birthday recently, he got the Peach’s Castle set. Of course, he needs help with it, so I was the one who assembled most of it.
It’s a pretty nifty set, but the coolest bit is the throne portion.
Then with Peach (or Mario, or Luigi, or your finger) you pull back and…
…the whole thing spins around, revealing the evil behind the throne.
The mechanics the LEGO engineers continue to come up with amaze me!
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Love the sun tile on that floor.
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For UK people, John Lewis currently have a decent offer on Lego:
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It really ought to say “Shown larger than actual size” on the front and then inside the box is a bonsai scaled for a Lego minifig.
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Still in 878 pieces, naturally.
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It’s a tragedy that the little Lego guys lack the manual dexterity to assemble Lego sets.
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It’s a really beautiful set though, I enjoyed putting together mine.
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