REVIEW: 75956: Quidditch Match

[VBBN]

Set information

Name: 75956: Quidditch Match
Theme: Wizarding World
Year: 2018
Pieces: 500
Price: $39.99, GBP xx.xx, xx.xx€
Resources: Brickset, BrickLink

 

Hello Everyone and welcome to my review of the Quidditch match! Before we begin I want to thank LEGO for providing these sets for our review and to clarify that all opinions in this review are of course my own.

Quidditch is a difficult thing to portray in Lego; Minifigs can't exactly fly, and the Quidditch field is a rather large scene to try to fit into a Lego set.

How has Lego tackled this in the past?

 

The good news is, I don't think we can go down from that, so let's see how this new set stacks up!

The Box

Front

The front of the box of course shows us our Harry Potter cast of characters as well a the very nice Quidditch scene. Box art has the advantage of showing our players riding broomsticks in the sky, though the final display won't be quite as dynamic.

Rear

From here we can see the multitude of features to be found in the set, which we will take a closer look at soon.

Minifigures

Quidditch Players

First we have 2 Gryffindor and 2 Slytherin players:Oliver Wood, Harry Potter, Marcus Flint and Lucian Bole. The figures all look nice, though I do wish we had been given some Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff players, though perhaps in a future wave of Collectible minifigs. Draco is not included here, however there is a Quidditch-themed Draco in the Wizarding World collectible minifigures series 1 to be found.

Accessories wise, it is worth noting that new Snitch mold. That is certainly better than the chrome gold 1x1 stud we saw in the yellow-figs years!

 

Rear printing

As you might expect, even under the capes we have some nice back printing here.

Broomstick issue

Lucian's broomstick has this little built to allow you to shoot a quaffle with the stud shooter, adding to the "gaming" element of this set. For some reason the brown clip that I had in my set broke the second I put it on, so I had to replace it with something from my own collection for the purposes of this review- so please note that is should be the brown clip, not black.

Snape and Hermoine

Next we have Snape and Hermoine (alternate faces can be seen elsewhere in this review.) As per usual with these new sets, the prints here look very nice and there is no questions to who these characters are.

Back printing

Other Accessories

We have a trophy, an extra quaffle, and 6 extra 1x1 black studs which are supposed to be the bludgers.

Towers

Generic Build

Here is a vague idea of how each tower is built, though each has slight variations to allow for their various functions; It's mostly just an arrangement of 1x2 bricks and 1x4 plates.

 

Gryffindor Tower

 

Here we have a Gryffindor tower built in red and yellow. The towers definitely are not nearly as tall as they are in the films, but for the sake of price and giving us four instead of only one like previous sets, it's an understandable compromise. 

Rear

Here we can see a rear shot of the tower, something you may have seen now is that there are a variety of bricks with technic pin-holes laid out around the base. We will see how those come into play later.

Top of Stand

Each stand can hold a figure up here, but otherwise there isn't much seating space.

Gimmick

Each tower has it's own sort of gimmick, in the Gryffindor tower's case it's this flag that can be pushed outward.

 

Ravenclaw Tower

 

Ravenclaw is the least gimmick-y of the 4 towers, the only thing truly unique about this one is that there is a megaphone mounted at the top.

Rear

The back does have some storage for whatever you might want to place in the base of the stand.

Slytherin Tower

From a first glance, the Slytherin tower looks similar to the Ravenclaw tower as they both feature a similar flag build in the front. 

Back

Spinning it around however we see a gear for a small but simply play feature- also note that again there is some space at the bottom.

Gimmick

Like in the film, Hermoine can cause a distraction by igniting a small flame in front of Severus. Again it's very simply, but a neat unique touch to make the build seem less monotonous. .

Hufflepuff Tower

The Hufflepuff tower serves as the scoreboard for the two competing teams. The color scheme is also very striking, and in fact this is the only tower that wasn't represented in some way in the previous Quidditch sets.

Rear

Flipping around to the back, we can see that in the lower section there is storage for the four different team tiles.

Scoring Tiles

The "points" are 1x1 round tiles with the silver circle printing on them, a very versatile piece. You can store them in the center compartment (you get 7 in total though you of course only need 6.)

Tiles

Here we see all 4 teams represented

Goals

The final element of the set is the scoring hoops which are made using an older thin tire element recolored in gold.

Features

The first function is a small twisting axle that allows you to rotate a keeper to change which of the three rings he is blocking. This feature works pretty well and once again lends itself to the "gaming" element of this set, which I will touch on soon.

Bludger

Another stud shooter is mounted down here to fire off bludgers.

Mounting towers

With those Technic connections I noted earlier, you can plug a tower into each side of the goals and secure it with another beam.

Connected

Here is the official configuration, which uses the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw towers.

Overall

Now we get tot he rather lengthy part of this review where I talk about my thoughts on this set- it's certainly a mixed bag. 

First, I think this set is aimed more at being a "gaming set" than a display model, many of the gimmicks here such as shooting a quaffle and blocking the hoops seems like action features that would warrant two people to fully utilize. Additionally, this set of course does not truly take the massive scale of a Quidditch field into account, there should be a second set of goals and ideally many, any more towers. 

At $40 for 500 pieces even, this is one of the better deals int he harry Potter range when it comes to quantity of parts to price, however as you will find this build can get monotonous due to the repeating designs of the towers, something that the set is not at fault for but rather the design from the Movie. I think Lego did a good job at putting some gimmicks in here to mix up the build, and I especially appreciate how much more effort was put into making this a proper portion of a Quidditch field than the older sets which only focused on one tower and some small little goals.

Would I like to see an expansion set with players from the last two teams and more scoring hoops? Certainly. I think you may also need to pick up some clear pieces to make it look like these guys are flying to really make this a dynamic display piece, and I would perhaps like to see a new Rolanda Hooch in a collectible minifigures series at some point. But for the money, if you are a fan of this harry Potter sport then you really can't go wrong with this set, it's much improved over the older sets and you do get a lot for your money here in terms of what has been built overall. But if you have limited money to spend on this line, I think perhaps there are some other sets in this wave that should be your first priority.

(On a side note, with the recent reveal of the Micro-Scale Hogwarts, who would like to see a microscale Quidditch Field?)

 

[VBBN]

Dear Eurobricks, this review is now live for your viewing!

[WhiteFang]

Nice review! I am looking forward to pick this up especially for the towering iconic areas. It will be nice to have this in my collection and it can complement with my 2010 set. 

[Cylo]

Great review! I agree with you and this set should have more players and it does make a nice playset for kids but I would probably take out the stud shooters because they look kind of awkward.

[LegoFjotten]

Thanks for the review!

This is the best looking Quidditch set so far IMO, and it's nice they included a tower for each of the 4 houses. The build for those towers looks very basic though, and it's a bit disappointing to get repeats of Hermione and Snape. Hopefully I'll be able to get the TRU Bricktober pack to get a new Madame Hooch figure.

I'll probably end up getting it at some point even if it doesn't have the same appeal as most of the other new HP sets.

[zux]

I suppose there are two Technic beams in Green in the back. What are the lengths please?

[HistoryMan1987]

I would be interested to see what people can create with 2 or 3 copies of this set. 

[meepinater]

looks good, a microscale would be interesting. I don't like the brooms... they make for difficult and incorrect posing... a broom with a really skinny part for sliding on the legs would be better.

[zoth33]

Nice review.  Its a solid set.  I like all the towers and all the new pieces probably will wait to get this until it goes on sale. 

[bigginsd]

On 7/29/2018 at 5:25 AM, zux said:

I suppose there are two Technic beams in Green in the back. What are the lengths please?

From checking the Parts list on Brickset and Bricklink they are 13M. Interesting MOC you have in mind?

[Miss Feklista]

Thanks a lot for the review!

Though I prefer the previous version of the Quidditch Match (with Madam Hooch), I think the new set is great for the fans of the Wizards' sport. ;) The new towers are colorful and detailed. 

[r5-j2]

Really like this set , agree with MIss Feklista , that the towers look great (and it would be easy enough to make them taller).

Thanks for the pics and a nice review!

Edited August 5, 2018 by r5-j2

[Legoginge]

It’s a good set but I have one issue. The flag on the Hufflepuff tower should be yellow for me. Black makes it look out of place. 

Also it’s the only flag that does not match the jumper plate at the base of the flag pole. 

[Roebuck]

One small issue with the stickers; why do ravenclaw have what looks like a raven in the house emblem, it is suppose to be an eagle