Random set of the day: Jayko
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 8783 Jayko, released during 2004. It's one of 24 Castle sets produced that year. It contains 49 pieces, and its retail price was US$8.
It's owned by 987 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you should find it for sale at BrickLink, where new ones sell for around $46.70, or eBay.
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23 comments on this article
Ancestor of Jay from Ninjago?
@Maxbricks14 said:
"Ancestor of Jay from Ninjago?"
Wrong shade of blue.
We already know that Lord Vladek is the ancestor of Ogel.
Double Constraction! Double posts are back!
These guys made such great statues for the parks and streets of my Lego city.
As I recall my Knights’ Kingdom lore, Sir Jayko was the youngest of the four heroic knights and was mentored by Sir Danju, Sir Rascus, and Sir Santis. Despite this, it would be he who faced the usurper Lord Vladek and drove him from Morcia, allowing King Mathias to reclaim his rightful place. Jayko would then join his comrades in pursuing Vladek to a lost kingdom where he had established a new power base. After this victory, Jayko was named King of Morcia in Mathias’ stead. He would then be called upon to lead a new generation of knights against the resurgent Vladek-seriously, the guy was as bad as a comic book villain-and his Rogue Knights.
Going from Tahu to this is a bit of a whiplash. Nothing personal Jayko but you’re a bit of a proof of concept
Just realized...isn't the series name 'wrong'? I mean 'Knights' don't rule Kingdoms, Kings do...and 'Kingdom Knights' sounds proper grammatically...thoughts:)
@Maxbricks14 said:
"Ancestor of Jay from Ninjago?"
Yes. Also, related to Jayce Talis.
@Zordboy said:
"These guys made such great statues for the parks and streets of my Lego city. "
True. I had 8790 King Mathias and did just that, since I didn't have any other use for him. He was comically large compared to a minifig, like Colossus of Rhodes.
Both of today's Randoms remind of one of my grandparents - I got a beat-up, helmetless Insectoid in a bin of mostly-Mega Bloks from my paternal grandfather, and my maternal grandmother used to read Knights' Kingdom stories to me, and made up more when we ran out.
KNIGHTS KINGDOM!!!!!
My second after Vladek. The medium blue color looks really good on this one, especially with the warm pearl gold sword. My original had discolored, but my replacement is actully nice and bright again :)
@Norikins said:
"We already know that Lord Vladek is the ancestor of Ogel."
And also may have some connection to Johnny Thunder, as suggested in the comments here: https://brickset.com/article/100406/random-minifig-of-the-day-cas291
@MCLegoboy said:"Double Constraction! Double posts are back!"
Not Constraction, if you define "Constraction" as "figures using the Constructable Character Building System." https://brickset.com/sets/tag-Ccbs
@brick_r said:"Just realized...isn't the series name 'wrong'? I mean 'Knights' don't rule Kingdoms, Kings do...and 'Kingdom Knights' sounds proper grammatically...thoughts:) "
It's a plural possessive, so it just means "The kingdom in which the knights live." An American would say that the United States of America is "their" country (there's even a song called "*My* Country 'Tis of Thee (which uses the same tune as "God Save the King/Queen"), that doesn't mean that the American has any claim to ruling the country.
I would like to raise the suggestion that Knights' Kingdom II shouldn't be counted as a subtheme of Castle, but as its own theme that just happens to also feature a castle. This is the way that the official Lego Builder app categorises it, and I think there's some merit to the decision since KKII is aesthetically very different (more of a medieval-fantasy-with-superpowers world) than the generally more grounded lands of the rest of Lego Castle.
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I may be in the minority, but I enjoyed these guys a lot when I was younger. Jayko (or at least, the alternate European version of the set, 8771, which was identical except for not including the game cards) was my joint-second along with Vladek (after Rascus was my first); Woolworths' Buy-One-Get-One-Half-Price toy offers were fantastic back when that shop still existed...! I loved that they were system-built but on the same scale as Bionicle characters, and I definitely remember trying to imagine what other Lego minifigure characters of the time (Johnny Thunder, etc.) might look like if they were scaled up to this style too!
...I mean, clearly the idea didn't catch on, but I thought it was fun... xD
I feel like Jayko may have been also the first time that I encountered the medium blue colour in a System set? I had some Bionicle parts in that colour, of course, and I guess a Brickster henchman minifigure; but I don't recall any other actual brick-adjacent parts until this guy.
I also think it's a little bit of a shame that they didn't do more with the customisability of these guys, the way it was possible to build off the studded surfaces on the knights' torsos and limbs. Could have built some incredibly unique designs out of them for subsequent waves, even while still maintaining the base of a human-ish figure... but instead, the later years' Knights did away with the buildable surface on the torso in favour of unique moulded designs for each character, and covered up most of those surfaces on the limbs with large armour plate pieces. There was a contest in Lego Club magazine that encouraged building on the basic knights to make unusual designs, but I think it could have been neat if that feature had been used more in official sets too.
@TheOtherMike said:
"Not Constraction, if you define "Constraction" as "figures using the Constructable Character Building System." https://brickset.com/sets/tag-Ccbs"
I know “Constraction” is their internal term, but is it specifically tied to CCBS, or does the term extend backwards to include Throwbots, G1 Bionicle, Ben 10, and these guys? And is CCBS their term or did it come from the fan community?
@ThatBionicleGuy:
Trying to match TLG’s categories is futile, since their system allows a set to exist in as many different themes as they deem appropriate. None of the fan sites appear to be set up to handle that, except by way of Tags. The most egregious instance of mis-theming sets is how Bricklink lumped all of DC and Marvel into a non-existent “Superhero” theme, along with TLBM, but not Batman I (not sure about Spiderman I), nor any related items like CMFs. So you’ve got two unrelated companies combined into one theme, with splintered chunks of both scattered all over the catalog.
But there are a lot of subthemes that got linked because they made sense to fans, and not necessarily because they had any sort of official status. As far as I know, Town, World City, and City might be three completely separate themes according to TLG, but they clearly feel like the same thing to the fan community. Fantasy Castle is closer to this theme than it is to the Yellow Castle, but it’s also a lot closer to Dragonmasters than that theme is to Yellow Castle too. But you wouldn’t suggest splitting off Dragonmasters, would you?
Regarding medium-blue, the oldest use of the color supposedly predates the first primary blue parts, but got purged when they reduced the color palette to the Mondrian Five. Offhand, I can’t recall encountering it before Throwbots (pretty sure it was used on Scuba), and I have no idea what System set I first found it in. I don’t recall any specific SW or HP sets from the early aughts, but I’m sure they must have used it _somewhere_ before releasing the first Rebel Fleet Troopers in a battle pack.
@TheOtherMike: Well...there is one/that...'guy' (yeah, let's go with that:)) who's currently laying a "claim to ruling the country"...but "history" has shown time-and-time again (hmmm...irony?) that never wines up going well...but that's not for here/now so...how about "Kingdom's Knights":.)
Still need to do that Knights' Kingdom II jokey anime genderbend fanart starring Jay-ko... everyone loves a good pun...
While the KK buildable figures were rather samey, they each featured a lot of exclusive prints on the armor pieces they debuted, no stickers-- so they're still pretty appreciable even with the leaps and bounds System-based buildable figures have had since then.
@PurpleDave said:
" @TheOtherMike said:
"Not Constraction, if you define "Constraction" as "figures using the Constructable Character Building System." https://brickset.com/sets/tag-Ccbs "
I know “Constraction” is their internal term, but is it specifically tied to CCBS, or does the term extend backwards to include Throwbots, G1 Bionicle, Ben 10, and these guys? And is CCBS their term or did it come from the fan community?"
I'm positive the term was used before CCBS was even a thing. It's just a combination of 'construction' and 'action' after all. It was especially useful when lego was bringing out many concurrent themes like that at once and in rapid succession in the early 00s.
To me 'constraction' will always be anything that's a constructable action figure that isn't built up out of regular system parts. So that includes Slizer/Throwbots, RoboRiders, Bionicle, Galidor, KKII's action figures, Ben 10, Hero Factory and the later CCB themes such as the Super Heroes figs, the Star Wars Constraction figs etc.
But not mechs. I would also hestitate to call the more recent Super Heroes large scale figures as them because those feel like current-day lego to eschew anything the constraction lines tried to do; use specialized parts for a streamlined build experience of action figures. Because the whole point of these themes was to make it easy to build large-scale figures without having to build up the minor details of each limb with teensy tiny elements that make you never want to take them apart again. 31152 was a chore to build in that sense.
Btw, the same goes for the two large scale Toy Story figures: except for the heads, helmet and cape those were deliberately built out of system pieces for the most part. (The hands, joints and Zurg's blaster blur the line a bit though).
@Norikins said:
"We already know that Lord Vladek is the ancestor of Ogel."
Headcanon: 8704 Sir Adric the Bull is a descendent of Cedric the Bull, sent by his province to Morcia to make amends for his house's transgressions against 8796 King Mathias's grandfather Leo.
@Binnekamp:
I just can’t recall when I first heard the term, is all. It’s pretty openly a portmanteau (unlike, say, the word “portmanteau”), but if it didn’t pop up until the CCBS system debuted, it could indicate they coined the word for that system specifically.
The large Zurg really stretches the term “action figure”. There is zero articulation below the shoulders. You’ve got neck, shoulders, elbows, and hands I think. Buzz at least adds hips, ankles, and I think waist (plus the wings and helmet). The Minions and SpongeBob probably fall outside of the definition, since they’re all playsets inside. But I don’t think I’d count Roboriders, on the basis that they’re vehicles (do Ep1 droid fighters count just because they can convert into walking droids?).
I have the big figs in a blue Lego tub, just waiting to be played with like the crew in Toy Story 3. :-(
@PurpleDave said:
" @Binnekamp:
I just can’t recall when I first heard the term, is all. It’s pretty openly a portmanteau (unlike, say, the word “portmanteau”), but if it didn’t pop up until the CCBS system debuted, it could indicate they coined the word for that system specifically.
The large Zurg really stretches the term “action figure”. There is zero articulation below the shoulders. You’ve got neck, shoulders, elbows, and hands I think. Buzz at least adds hips, ankles, and I think waist (plus the wings and helmet). The Minions and SpongeBob probably fall outside of the definition, since they’re all playsets inside. But I don’t think I’d count Roboriders, on the basis that they’re vehicles (do Ep1 droid fighters count just because they can convert into walking droids?)."
Some of the Robo Riders had weapons that could be swung forward,, but 8514 is really the only one that had articulation.