Random set of the day: Sir Rascus
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 8793 Sir Rascus, released in 2005. It's one of 30 Castle sets produced that year. It contains 44 pieces, and its retail price was US$9/£5.99.
It's owned by 921 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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17 comments on this article
Knights Kingdom: The ultimate chads of constraction
I remember I bought the red, purple and blue knights and use the figures as statues for my Lego city (they look quite good). The actual minifig-scale Knights Kingdoms sets were pretty amazing, from memory.
Had big plans for the shield. Big plans. Turns out they were too big.
Did he really need lime green eyes though
I love the metallic colored armor and weapons from this series, they're great for Bionicle MOCs (although with some of the colors it's hard to find a real match looking at you, Karzon's parts)
This knight's crest being a Monkey stands out the most to me, not seen that often in Fantasy/Medieval stories.
But looking at the box art it's clearly set in some Fantasy world with giant thorny vines.
Set 8778-1: Border Ambush from 2004 even has a tropical forest vibe to it, almost like a predecessor to Ninjago Jungle
Doesn't seem too crazy that Knights Kingdom eventually lead to inspiration for Ninjago.
^ I think the original plan was to have Rascus' crest be a fox but then focus testing with kids revealed that they associated monkeys as a kind of trickster-y animal more often.
so basically
he's monky
I like that both Rascus' helm here and Lewa's original Miru mask from Bionicle were supposed to look like big grins. What is it about the green guys that make people think jokester?
I had an older King Mathias. I didn't really like it, but I was grateful to my parents for every Lego set they got me anyway.
I used it as a statue in my Lego town and it looked nice.
That's so *weird*. I dreamed about finding a whole box full of these Knights' Kingdom II figures last night... what are the chances that one of them would turn up as Random Set immediately after that?
I'll admit, the second wave of these guys has grown on me recently. When I was younger, I had all of the first wave; but I wasn't really sold on the second, which seemed to me to basically be an inferior version of a Toa Nuva upgrade for the knights, only without even giving them new helmets.
In hindsight, though, the addition of the goldish and silverish armour pieces, and torso decoration, does give them kind of a more effective "knightly" look than the first wave had; add to that the moulded shields where their previous versions used cardboard, and the fact that each one had a unique action feature built into their torso, and they do seem like an genuine improvement over the versions of them that came before... if still maybe not one that was quite worth releasing only a year after the previous incarnation of the same characters.
I think I sorta like them now, though. They may not feel very 'Lego-y' in the traditional sense, but I can appreciate them for what they were ^^
Though I do think it woulda been neat if there'd *actually been some female characters* in the theme. According to the TVTropes page, supplementary lore stated that in the land of Morcia, women were just as eligible to become knights as men were... we just *happened* to have a story that focused only on male knights with no female presence at all.
I guess that's a result of being an action figure line marketed at boys; and again, I thought nothing of it at the time. But in hindsight it becomes regrettable.
Wave 2 of Knight's Kingdom was a pretty big step up from the first one: the molded shields, new armor pieces, and unique gear function to each set made them pretty great sets.
Even though we got the same characters twice, it was a pretty substantial upgrade, similar to the Toa Nuva from Bionicle.
MONKIE KNIGHT
Despite the overly specialized pieces this line was really interesting, I kinda miss the era when Lego was a lot more experimental with themes and specialized parts, nowadays they're playing it a lot safer which is understandable but the diversity of themes in 2000s will be missed.
The joints on these sets were extremely useful. Worth the money for those alone.
@Kamiccolo said:
"Despite the overly specialized pieces this line was really interesting, I kinda miss the era when Lego was a lot more experimental with themes and specialized parts, nowadays they're playing it a lot safer which is understandable but the diversity of themes in 2000s will be missed."
Lego is pretty experimental with themes these days, though, with Hidden Side and Monkie Kid.
I had Santos and Rascus growing up, but they were the more basic versions, not these more decorated "Sir" figures. They were pretty non-LEGO, and halfway decent action figures. Articulation was way better than Rescue Heroes.
I have to admit, looking at Bricklink prices for used complete figures, I ought to purchase the whole set.