Mill Village Raid

The Lego Mill Village Raid Set (7189) is a beautiful set that accompanies the equally stunning Medieval Market Village (10193) released in 2009.

Mill Village Raid consists of two buildings, a barn and a windmill, set in a medieval farm environment and comes with six minifigures as well as pigs, horses and the first ever Lego system chickens and goats!

The set is part of the Lego Kingdoms Theme which is based around a fictional castle context. You can find the full instructions for this set online at Lego.com (see link below).

Lego Mill Village Raid Details

Lego Set Number: 7189
Pieces: 663
Minifigures: Milkmaid, Farmer, Stableboy and 3 Dragon Knights Accessories as well as 2 goats, 2 chickens, pig, horse
Price: US $69.99 / €79.99 / £71.99
Ages: 7 – 14
Released: June 2011
Theme: Kingdoms
Instructions in PDF: Available at Lego.com
Best Prices: Amazon I Amazon UK I ebay.com I ebay Aus I ebay.co.uk

Lego Mill Village Raid: A Little Background

The Lego Castle theme has been one of the toy company’s strongest and most consistent performers since it’s introduction in the 1970s. The theme has evolved over the years to move from the quintessential castle based sets to incorporate the broader aspects of daily medieval life.

Previous highlights of “non-castle” sets have included the forestmen series of 1988 and in 2009 the exemplary set, Medieval Market Village. Set 10193, Medieval Market Village is large set consisting of two beautifully designed buildings set around a market square.

The set was one of the most warmly received sets of 2009 and is high on many Lego collectors favorite sets of all time. You can still find this set available in 2011 for the retail price and it is worth tracking down-it is one of our family’s favorites.

Due to the success of 10193, it was only natural that Lego should wish to extend this civillian aspect of their Castle theme and Mill Village Raid, along with the accompanying set Blacksmith Attack (6918) is a part of this expansion.

Something worth noting in this set is the first appearance of Lego figures of chickens and goats. Prior to the Mill Village Raid set, chickens and goats had been figures made up of separate pieces of Lego.

While the one piece Lego horse has been around for decades and pigs, camels and even ostriches have more recently been graced with specially molded pieces, it is not until this set that we have our first Lego chickens and goats.

Our family used to own chickens and my kids (Brick Boy and Brick Girl) have developed a fondness for them so this set is a winner already!

Lego Mill Village Raid: A Closer Look

The box for the Mill Village Raid fits in well with other sets in the Kingdoms theme.

Overall the box design for the Lego Kingdoms sets don’t really “pop” as well as other Lego sets have, the colors seem a little bland, too faint amongst all the bright reds of Ninjago and Harry Potter boxes or the bright blue of Star Wars sets.

However this box has enough colors and details to draw attention, if you just look a little closer :0)

Inside the box there are seven plastic bags containing the main Lego elements, all numbered , as well as two green plates to sit the barn building on (the barn can open up as seen in the photo to the right).

The two instruction books are roughly divided into step by step instructions for each of the buildings, one for the windmill, minifigures and cart while the other details the construction of the barn.

Construction is straight-forward and kids ages 7+ should have little trouble if they have been playing and building with Lego for a few months. Sometimes Lego overestimates the minimum age for sets. That is, they regard certain sets as too difficult to construct for younger children.

We often find that our son can make most sets, regardless of their age recommendation but he has been building Lego for many years and is used to the instruction-book layout and can select pieces easily by their color and size while seeing where they are meant to go on the model, with little problem.

In the case of this set I feel Lego has their minimum age just about right and 7 years is an accurate starting age.

The set has a number of interactive and playable “action” features.

Kids can:

Rotate the windmill via a crank located in the back of the building
Raise and lower the fruit basket by spinning the rooster shaped weather vane on the barn’s roof.
Send the bad guys through a trapdoor
Ride the animals and minfigures around on the horse and cart

These are small but significant touches that allow kids to extend their play and get them thinking about mechanics to implement in their own future models.

The set can also raise some questions for discussion later:

How does the wind move the windmill
How does the windmill then grind the wheat into flour?
How is flour produced in a modern factory?
What was life like for farmers during the Medieval times?
Why were the knights raiding the mill?

Last but not least the set comes with lots of animals and this to me is the icing on the cake of an already beautiful set.

Lego Mill Village Raid Rating

5/5 Stars

Awesome design and great playability out of the box. Another candidate for the Best Lego Sets of 2011.

With two interactive buildings, six minifigures and a whole farmyard of animals this is a set that kids will love to build and play with. At $69.99 it is a fairly good deal but we recommend finding this set on sale if possible.