Are Non-Lego Parts for Castle Minifigs a Good Value?
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- Sometimes it's hard to find a good variety of parts for out of print Castle factions. Sure, you can try to buy used vintage parts, but even then it may be difficult. In this video I review 4 lots of non-lego parts--helmets, armor, weapons, shields--purchased from Amazon and Etsy. Let me know if you've done the same and if you have any other sources for parts you're happy with!
#lego #legocastle #legominifigs #legoknockoff #afol #seniorfanoflego
Isn't it interesting how quickly you've gone from buying Lego because "I thought this might be fun" to "I have an army of minifigs and they need everything to make them authentic so I can tell my epic story!" It all happens so fast.
Those axe-spear things are called a halberd.
Haha, yes, funny how that happens. But at least I am indeed still having fun. And thanks for the info on the halberd! Great word! Thanks for posting. Cheers!
I really appreciate you taking the time and energy to purchase these different accessories. It helps to know where to go to spruce up mine and my partner's fantasy area.
Glad it was helpful! Cheers!
I usually steer away from fake lego but those shields looked super high quality for that price. I might look into that etsy shop for my Bull Knight army!
Thanks for your post! I am very happy with this Etsy order.
Of course every one would prefer Lego original but trust me fake one now are really high quality and you can even find many different game of thrones or Lord of the rings factions that Lego will never produce. They are awesome!
Plus many accessories and knights from almost every Lego castle faction.
Best value to build an army
5:15 So relatable. Can't read to save my life sometimes. Praise the Lord that official LEGO instructions are mostly pictures lol! Fantastic video as always in any case.
Greatly appreciate the effort you put into this video
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for your support!
Glad you are finding the parts you need. There are a few specific sites that carry good quality parts - I can’t remember the specific site at the moment. However I have found that the quality varies and some are excellent and very near Lego quality - sometimes it is hard to know what type you are getting.
I agree. Having seen these lots I now have a source I would order from again. The others- not so much.
Really appreciate your comments and evaluation of the sets reviews. Never heard of Etsy, will be checking it out. Thanks.👍🇨🇦
Thanks for your comment! I appreciate your support.
Been enjoying your videos! Keep up the good work !
Thanks, will do! I’m having fun! Cheers!
Thank you for this! This is strategy I’ve been using for the last couple of years. I first bought fake Lego from aliexpress back around 2018/2019 because I was in high school with little money and wanted to get some Star Wars minifigures that were now super expensive or nearly unobtainable. Bear in mind that at the time, clones and mandalorians were nearly nowhere to be found. But what I found was that while they worked well enough for play, the look of the minifigure depended on what type you got. Mandos looked pretty close to their official counterparts, while clone visors never came out looking right. Also, all of the minifigures felt cheap. The arms were hard to move, the legs were easy, the legos could stand but not sit, the hands were either very tight or very loose and couldn’t grip accessories well, etc. In 2020 I did buy a fake set for my birthday because I wanted to build it to celebrate and didn’t want to risk not getting to build it at all due to supply chain issues. Ironically, I got a chance to buy the official set from Lego before the fake set came in, but while there was a definite difference in the quality of some elements, many felt just as good as Lego and I had no issues with clutch power. I also noticed that the accessories and even the animals included in the fake set were great.
Fast forward to 2021 and I’m getting into Lego castle more but the colors or armor and certain weapons aren’t available on pick a brick. I check aliexpress and find that they have kettlehelms in pearl dark grey, capes, spears, etc, so I began supplementing my army’s armaments with fake parts and like you said, with these parts they are indistinguishable.
A few weapon/armour terms I've picked up in my short love with castle lego:
The big spear/axes are types of Halberds.
The thinner cylindrical helmets with a flat top are Great Helms, good for knights.
The rounded helmets with a brim are Kettle Helms, I use them for my crossbowmen.
The pointy helmets that flail out at the base and have a guard between the eyes are Nasal Helms, I use them for standard soldiers or pikemen.
And then there's the Cheek Helms and Dragon Helms
Thanks for the education! Cheers!
Reddish brown and dark red pieces looking at each other after listening to the intro
:-)
Recently picked up lego again and boy was I surprised at the price of the 200$ Orthanc tower set. However what really surprised me and made me think about value was the Palantir. 150$+ for a single part is just too crazy for me, that 90% as nice 15$ knock off starts looking like an amazing choice.
6:15 - those are called kettle hats!
Thanks for the education! It’s a very good thing I’m just an old guy building Lego and not the curator of the Armor Collection at the MET, haha. I truly appreciate it. Happy building! Cheers!
Ive used Capes4minifigs, really great way to get capes for cheap.
They are the scratchy kind not the floppy kind but still great and come in every colour for every design
I’m very interested in some of that printed armour from Muse Brick Art
I’ve also found some knock off trolls (big blue one from lord of the rings) quality wasn’t great but I got 3 for like 30 or 40 AUD, much better than buying the Lego one which is like $100-200
Thanks so much!
I went for these packs of 4 Knights with the old English flag on the shields with the 3 lions, the printing is excellent, the printed armour and helmets with the gold highlights is just 10/10. At a $1 per figure with full kit out of weapons and armour and great shields you cannot go wrong, I would challenge anyone to tell the difference.
Thanks for your post. Happy Building!
I’m also a SFOL. I used to be a Lego purist (ok, except for BrickArms). That changed when I came out of my second dark age last year. I tried to source a second carriage for my Emerald Night from BrickLink. The tan train windows are $15 each, minimum. Forget that! I grabbed alt bricks for a fraction of the price. TLG pushing a collectors market, scalpers/resellers/prospectors, and overall escalating prices have fractured my loyalty to the brand.
Thanks for posting!
Those Fright knights armor pieces looks really good. Are they all printed or did you need to apply stickers? The shop on Etsy seems to be selling printed parts. Do you know if it's pad printed or perhaps uv-printed? The latter is the cheaper print technique and doesn't feel and look as good as the former.
I try to buy from Lego directly as much as I can. But if it's a piece they've stopped making I turn to 3rd party sites. I did that with my flag for the Fright knights. A seller from America had laser cut flags that were actually better quality then Lego and for a reasonable price.
Same thing can be said about offical Lego capes. Sometimes they charge 10$ on the PaB for a single cape. Getting 10 would cost a 100$(!!!!) for less fabric then a sock. There are other sites that offer good capes for a quater of the price. If Lego treats their customers that way they deserve it.
None of the armor pieces required stickers. The Etsy order were the sharpest, as you point out. Not sure how they are printed, frankly, but I like the way they look. Thanks for posting!
I was shocked to see Ace Hardware is selling off brand Lego sets from a company called Nova Brix, and I was genuinely shocked how close the parts looked and felt compared to Lego. Even the hair piece to the fake minifigure looked similar to Lego's, only with better detailing! Way I see it, there is no shame using off brand parts. It's like an artist and his painting, only the artist knows where the flaws are, while the onlookers see nothing but a masterpiece.
Thanks for posting!
I've always felt, that if purchasing Lego in the view of investment, that buying 3rd party products is a wasted investment. In terms of its brand name, collectability, and resale value, it'll be significantly more difficult to reclaim value. The secondary market for Lego products is often expensive, but that's a good sign too, and proves that original Lego products retain value. The way I think about buying some used Lego: if I buy a used Lego horse fig for $6, then if i wanted to sell it, it's still worth $6.
I accept that cheaper secondary products can hold non-financial value, especially items such as fabric capes/flags which are very expensive for official versions, and equally the Horse barding (coverings).
Keeping some stuff sealed is the best way to lock in value, especially on exclusive sets, however, what's the fun in that!?
Good points in the video though, i don't mean to be a negative critic
I detect no negativity, you make good points. I appreciate your post. Cheers!
I understand that it is a bit different, but in my childhood I had mostly Chinese Lego knockoffs and because of that experience I don't want to buy non-lego moreover to mix it with Lego. The quality control was bad, sometimes parts were too tight, sometimes too loose. Shields not only had stickers, but also a hole in plastic part near the handhold that was covered by that sticker and was easy to tear. Pieces that could be put ito hands sometimes were too thick and broke hands of minifigs (because of that I have a childhood trauma, sometimes I am afraid to put something into hands of real Lefo minifigs). Maybe nowadays the quality control is better and I am sure that pieces from Etsy could be awesome, but because of my experience I'd rather have a Lego tower with a small unit of 5-10 figures than a big non-lego castle with an army of hundreds of minififs, but would afraid that something brake or fall apart
Thanks for your point of view. I appreciate your opinion. Cheers!
Very interesting.
I think so too! I was surprised and curious. Thanks for posting.
Blue dragon bricks have fantastic flags, horse boarding’s, sails, capes on Etsy- they are currently on vacation now though..
theres better high end customs out there than the amazon lots. Maybe review Ktown bricks would be cool to hear your thoughts on their quality. great video
I appreciate the tips. Thanks!
Have you heard of Brick Warrior? They have their own custom designs. If you wish to give your commanders some pimped out armor.
I have not, but I’ll check them out!
@tbsince1954 there is Brickarms as well. I think they are mostly guns.
I would never buy fake, i.e. counterfeit, Lego products, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy sets or parts from the legit competitors. They're usually cheaper, often of equal or better or quality, and, as far as themes and complete sets go, more interesting.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Cheers!
I ordered almost the same thing as you from AliExpress and I muss say the spears and crossbows are almost like a form the OG Lego sets. I also got some shields which are decent, I mean you can tell that they are not OG lego's plus the various helmets that I got look good. So for someone who can't afford the new expensive Lego sets these AliExpress Lego's are a nice are a nice alternative version of it. But be also aware that there might be problems. I had ordered 3 skeleton horses with minifiugers and got only 2 so there good and bad sides of it.
Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.
There is a difference between horses of one era vs horses of an earlier era.. the posable hind legs are a newer feature and slightly different parameters than older horses. So that might explain the barding (horse coat) not fitting right
It could!
I don't buy any original Lego, only knock-off. From my experience it very depends on the seller. Some are exactly like original Lego with very good quality, but other may be really bad.
Yes, I even saw some differences in my little experiment!
But it is worth the price?
Hi Thom, I have ordered three crow knights, flag and a horse with barding from AliExpress for about £6 inc tax and delivery. These CMF figures are expensive and rare. Regards Dave.
Thanks for the tip. I'll look into that!
Bricklink - although there's a learning curve! You have to search first for the most expensive (or most desired) part at lowest price - IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY! And (over time) build a wishlist. Checking is easy to see if anything from there is also in the chosen sellers store. BUT the lowest price option is out so BEWARE. Never think of Lego online PaB as I have generally already spent a lot on an order and adding to it is out! We have NO Lego stores in Maine (that I''m aware of...maybe Portland but even that is a 6+ hour round trip from me). New Hampshire and Mass would be an all day or over night adventure I haven't talked anyone into. Yet.
Thank you, yes I am investigating. But yes- the learning curve.
This is the reason I never buy non lego things (the horses). I can understand the appeal of cheaper - but I am not going to cheap out on these things.
However, LEGO is really wasting their opportunity here, instead of making more castle remakes to sell us, they allow for this market to crop up. I for one laude it, it might make lego finally pick up the pace and give us Castle stuff at a better pace.
Thanks for your post!
I got 3 orders from Lego's Pick-A-Brick during their double GWP. Sadly only the bestseller stuff counts, but thankfully the horses and armor are bestseller items. I wish Lego's Pick-a-Brick was cheaper or had more rewards like maybe a default double reward points? Bonus random rewards when you order? I dunno but when you get the small bags and pay hundreds of dollars you can't help but think, "Wow- I could have gotten some huge sets for this same price!"
I hear you. I just wish for more variety. But I’m happy can get what I can get. Just put in a huge order on Pick a Brick!
You are so hooked on Lego . And in a short time .Why not type in your search bar non - Lego castle parts .There might be some stuff come up . A lot of people are in to castle's ,So you should have some luck . Good luck looking .take care .Oh cant wait to see your castle set-up when you get to that point .
Great idea, thank you! And I’m in the midst of the Lions Night Castle build- having a great time building it! Can’t wait to show you when I’m done!
Some people have their own laser printers that they make Lego compatible. That may be how many Etsy stores operate.
You may be right! Thanks for the post!
Hi Tom, try blue Dragon bricks from Massouri USA. Reccomended by Goldfyre. Mainly for flags, capes and the like.
cool
I'll purchase non lego mini figs \ weapons, other stuff like that. I use Bricklink alot, highly recommend using that.
I'll have to educate myself on Bricklink. Thanks!
Yes
I bought some fake lego minifigures from shop in UK once. The figures from horror movies so official lego dont make them. They were very high quality figures you wouldnt tell the difference with original lego. Makes me think that its worth to look for alternative brands for something that you cant find in original sets.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Cheers!
well, someone probably already told you, but yes all those cheap lego kcnockoffs come from china, but there a lot of producers so the quality may vary drastically, I personally buy all I need from Aliexpress, there are A LOT of options, including many unique minifigs, that lego never would produce
in most cases i would say those custom made minifigs are of great quality, and the ones that are direct knock-offs are of a lower quality, examples of great quality are Game of thrones minifigs and custom Lotr minifigs, they tend to have printings everywhere, even on the backs of the legs
the main problem with all knock-off minifigs in my experience are arms and hands that for some reason in many cases are not exactly compatible with lego and in between themselves, the other parts almost always fit perfectly well in any configuration
Thanks for all the good info!
the only things i buy are flags and capes
I’d like to pick some of those up too!
Ktown bricks and brickwarriors have alot bought some amazon and ali stuff got good ones
agreed with the below. I do love info on accessories. I will dnot do any of the clone brance from China because i don't wish to prop up the CCP and its war machine if at all possible. I do like Cobi. Wish there were more viable alternatives. hint hint to anyone out there who knows about injection molding and or 3D printing!
Thanks for your comment!
I dont know if it's snobby going for non-Lego, I got a few Marvel customs as there were characters that weren't available in Lego and loved them but really haven't like the non-Lego castle stuff as the arms and hands don't fit on real lego ones, so would prefer lego also
Thanks for posting. Cheers and happy building!
Amazon its not customs.. its aliexpress for 4 bucks.. its the same only you paid more
I have no doubt. Thanks for posting. Cheers!
Lego Castle knockoffs in the long run become trash. Unless it’s for your permanent personal collection or you have a whatnot show. It’s just the truth.
Thanks for your POV.
Bricks and minifigs is kinda the equivalent to gamestop but for lego. Trade in 50 games for 5 dollars store credit. Then they sell each of those 50 games for 10/ea. I try to stay away from them apart from maybe a white whale set you cant find anywhere else? 🤷♂️
In all fairness... review based on what ive seen from people online. Not personal experience.
Thanks for your point of view. I appreciate your post!
@tbsince1954 of course. Im hoping i get some engagement whenever I actually start my channel so I like speaking with smaller channels. More likely to get a response too 🙂 keep it up! I enjoy your content/perspective
I like them because they are my neighborhood hobby store, like when my kids were little. That's the vibe here at least. So far I haven't sold anything, don't think I will, so I can't comment on what they offer when they buy from my experience. My trade there has mainly been in minifigs, vintage castle sets, and some parts for my castle knights and builds I'm doing where I need a part. I managed to buy all my vintage dragon knights from them, which was awesome. It's a relaxing place for me to visit! Thanks for your comment!
No fake Lego, no custom stuff, great channel but stay away from that crap. Millions of original Lego Minifig pieces and accessories, use it !
Thanks for posting!
If you can manage to forget about the mini figures, LEGO is not the best choice on the market.
Look at Special and Pro sets from Blue Brixx. In terms of brick manufacturers Gobricks are said to be the best on the market. Mould King is also good. You find them also in Blue Brixx sets. Cada is great and Cobi as well.
If you are into castles you cannot get around Castle Blaustein for grown ups or Bear Rock Castle (Burg Bärenfels) for kids both from Blue Brixx. They are modular and massively extendable.
I've been getting a ton of Chinese stuff from AliExpress for dirt freaking cheap. The earlier purchases weren't amazing quality but worked, and a few times one or two things out of an order of anywhere from 10 to 50ish has an issue. Sometimes sellers don't respond or have poor customer service but often I've gotten a replacement or refund with no fight depending. I've bought figure lots, custom armor/shields/weapons, a few horse lots... And even unique castle sets not in the Lego roster but dreamt up and created by the company who produced them. None of it is Lego standards, but a lot of it comes more than just "close enough" for my needs.
And I have reasons beyond cost as to why I don't feel Lego needs all my money, or everything has to be official if it's second hand, but will not be getting into all of that. I'm not outright boycotting them but I don't go out of my way to support them anymore.
Either way, it gets me what I need, and my "army building" doesn't harm the aftermarket for people who feel a need for strictly Lego brand everything since I'm not taking stuff they need off the market for my 50ish soldier armies. Also, there's some cool custom gear you can get that isn't anything close to what Lego makes if you're really trying to make something your own. It's crazy what's out there. I also buy aftermarket official stuff from some resellers, and occasionally an official set at the store if I can justify the price for what I'll get out of it.
All of the castle minifig weapons and armour in that etsy shop are straight from aliexpress. I find the quality, of the weapons in particular, to be as good if not better than lego.