[REVIEW] 75945 - Expecto Patronum

[makoy]

Oh dear! I can't believe I am reviewing a set with a new creature mould again. Quick disclaimer: this is my very first Harry Potter set, excluding the CMF series. Therefore, I can't make a direct comparison with the older minifigures as I don't have any.  

Now that it's out of the way, think of your happiest memory. With all your might, focus on a single, very happy memory.

 

Ready? 

 

This is my 24th Eurobricks RA review, set number 75945 - Expectoooo... Patronum!!! 

 

Overview

Name: 75945 Expecto Patronum
Theme: LEGO System / Harry Potter 
Year: 2019 (2H)
Pieces: 80
Minifigures: 4
Price: USD 19.99 / EUR 19.99 / GBP 19.99 

Quote

Transport fans of Harry Potter™ aged 7 and over to a magical world of wizards, Dementors™ and mythical creatures with this LEGO® Harry Potter 75945 Expecto Patronum building set. Kids will love the details in the Great Lake Forbidden Forest scene, firing the Expecto Patronum spell at the 2 Dementor minifigures, and summoning Harry's Patronus charm—a new-for-June-2019 stag figure—to ward them off his godfather, Sirius Black™. With 4 minifigures and endless magical possibilities, this Harry Potter LEGO set will conjure up a magical world of imaginative play.

• Includes 4 LEGO® Harry Potter™ minifigures: new-for-June-2019 Harry Potter, new-for-June-2019 Sirius Black™ and 2 Dementors™.
• This LEGO® Harry Potter™ set features a forest scene with a small lakeside build and 2 buildable trees with a spell-cast shooting function, plus a new-for-June-2019 semi-transparent glittering stag figure with room for a minifigure on top.
• Also includes Harry's wand to cast the Expecto Patronum spell, as used in the Harry Potter™ and the Prisoner of Azkaban™ movie.
• Larger tree measures over 5” (13cm) high, 3” (8cm) wide and 1” (4cm) deep.
• Stag figure stands over 2” (7cm) tall.

 

Introduction

This set is based on a very iconic scene in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry saved his future self and godfather from Dementors using a defensive charm called Expecto Patronum. The back-end time travel that took place towards the end of the movie is one of my favourite sequence in the entire HP series, save the final battle of Harry and Voldemort. I rewatched the movie late last year and it only cemented my opinion that Prisoner of Azkaban is one of the best directed movie in the franchise. 

Enough about the movie. Let's talk about the LEGO set.

 

Front panel

The front panel shows the roster of minifigures at the left corner. Something that sticks out immediately is the abundant glow effect especially on the stag.

 

Back Panel

At the back, the usual action features are illustrated. There is nothing much happening there except the radar dish being shot at the Dementor. More about the play features later.

 

Content of the box

These are the immediate contents from unboxing. There is 1 small instruction booklet, 3 plastic bags containing bricks, 1 plastic bag containing the stag and 1 paper box with the capes.

 

 

And here are all the parts unpacked. I am happy to report there is no stickers!

 

 

 

 

Minifigures

Just like what I did with my previous review, I will focus on the minifigures (and creature) first because this is the most important aspect of the set, at least for me.

The stag is included in the line up for scale comparison purpose only.

 

Front view with hairpiece/headgear and armours

Everything is new to me in LEGO Harry Potter theme so I have no preconceived notion what has changed or what has improved. All the direct comparison that I can make is between this set and the HP movies. However, looking at the pictures of previous Sirius Black, all I can say is that it is a huge improvement over the old one. The re-coloured Luke Skywalker hair looks good in dark brown and it fits the gritty character design very well.

Harry Potter sports a new torso and he uses the dark tan medium legs that is first paired on Justin minifigure in set 75810 The Upside Down (Stranger Things). Harry Potter in this set is a decent minifigure. I can't complain about this protagonist.

Moving on, there are 2 Dementors included in this set. It is exactly the same one in set # 75955 Hogwarts Express that was released last year. Interesting enough, if you look at the average selling price of these blind dark hooded creatures in Bricklink, 2-3 of these is already worth this new Expecto Patronus set. Crazy, right? How could 2 of these minifigures be worth the entire set? One could hope that as more set 75945 is parted out that the average price of these minifigures would go down. But that's not my point. My point is, if you have been wanting to get the new Dementors, this set will give you so much more value than buying the minifigures in the secondary market. Think about that again.  
 

 

Back view with hairpiece/headgear and armours

The back printing for the human characters are very minimal but this is not problem for me. The Dementors use the tried and tested cape with tattered edges. For someone who didn't own the older Dementor minifigures, I think they are just fine. Do I like a better cape like previous Dementors? Yes, but I will not trade the marbled black ghost lower body part because they look terrific on these ghostly minifigures.  

 

Front view without hairpieces/headgears and cape

Without the cloak and cape, we can see more details of the Dementor. One could say that the Dementor's face is nothing but a ... hole... A black face with a hole. A hole? They don't have eyes because they're blind. So that's just their mouth sucking all the happiness of their target. Whatever. That's the new Dementor minifigure for you.

 

Back view without hairpieces/headgears and cape

Sirius and Harry has dual face print. I always expect  major characters to have dual face print so I am very glad that TLG didn't cheap out on these two.

There is no alternate face for the Dementor because it will be covered by the cloak, always. It has no back printing also because the capes will cover the back anyway. Totally fine.

 

Corporeal Patronus

As the only defence against Dementors, Expecto Patronus has to be one of the most famous spell in Harry Potter. It has 2 forms: non-corporeal and corporeal. The set is all about Harry's Corporeal Patronus which takes form of a stag.

In the books, Corporeal Patronus is supposed to be silvery in colour. In the movie and games adaptations, the Corporeal Patronus appears to be predominantly bluish so when I saw the first picture of the stag in glittery transparent light blue, I am not surprised at all. I think people remember what they see in the movie so I am not going to complain or argue that it should have been just transparent with glitters.

I almost forget -- the stag's horns are made of softer material, likely done to prevent injuries. It does not have glitters unlike the rest of the stag's body.

 

Comparing the stag with other 4-legged animals

Next to the City feline mould and NINJAGO wolf, the stag is taller. There is no leg or hind legs articulation likely because it makes the production of these special moulds cheaper and easier. 

Unlike the recent animal moulds though, the deer/stag mould follows the same design approach of LEGO cows as it has a space for bricks and a plate in the middle of its body so that you can fit a saddle or a yoke for a cart. I can see this mould being re-used for Santa's reindeer but that's purely my speculation.

 

 

Stag top view

 

 

 

Build

 

All parts laid down before building

There are lots of good parts included in this set and the build is not shabby, too.

 

Forbidden Forest Trees

The trees are not identical but it is using the same trunk and base. They are not as big as I wanted but knowing this is a relatively cheap set, I cannot complain. I am even thankful that we get 2 trees instead of 1. 

 

At the back, all you see are anti-studs so it is not pleasant to look at. I think the intention of the designer is to always face the beautiful side of the trees to make the build simple and less bulky. 

If you put the trees back to back, it could make a good stubby medium-sized tree. It's possible -- but I don't want to go in details because you need to do some modifications.

 

Sexy back... NOT!

These side of the tree is not camera friendly... but it's okay for the price.

 

Tree deconstructed

The build of this tree is simple and efficient because it is using the relatively new part (#41682) Tile Special 2x2 with 1x2 Vertical Plate to erect the trees upright.

Glad that this part exists now. It's definitely going to make more interesting stud not on top building techniques.

 

 

Completed build 

 

The completed build is small but effective because the trees add a lot of depth to the scene. My only gripe is that the lake shore is very small, and the "Great Lake" isn't great at all. TLG is really banking on kid's imaginative play to make this work. 

 

"I'm so sorry Sirius, there's not enough space for us to re-enact the scene properly"

 

Parts

I like the all brown and green parts included. These parts can be easily used for other purposes and if you buy these set in bulk, you can keep all the parts to make a bigger forest. I hope smaller sets can be like this set -- the parts are really useful and the minifigures are very desirable. Not many sets fall in that category.

Excluding minifigure parts, the new mould in this set is none other than the stag in transparent light blue with glitters. The other parts that were re-coloured in transparent light blue with glitters are: 1x2 brick and a dish 4 x 4 inverted (radar) with open stud.

     

 

The tattered cape included in the set comes in just 1 small paper packaging with numbered "6270340" -- don't panic if you see only one of this paper packaging because there 2 capes inside.

 

2 capes in 1 packaging

 

Extra parts

For reference, here are the extra parts. Note that I didn't use the wand from this set because I have a spare dark brown wand lying around somewhere.

 

Conclusion

It's not hard to land a good score for this set because a lot of the pros outweighs the cons. See below:

Pros:

• New stag creature mould is exclusive in this set
• New Sirius Black is also exclusive in this set
• Two Dementors are included - an excellent way to get more of these ghostly creature easily
• The parts used on trees are very useful for MOCs

Cons:

• Very little studded area to put the characters on the lake shore which makes the plates almost useless. Beside, there are only 8 studs of "lake" included. 
• The trees are only meant to face forward as all you see at the back are the anti-studs 
• If you bought all the sets in this HP wave, you'll end up having 3 identical Harry Potter minifigs. Great if you like to make an army of Harry Potter..

 

So, to wrap things up --

Review summary

Playability: 7/10 - the stud shooter seems to be forced just to add additional play feature. As advertised, there are endless magical possibilities with 4 minifigures included -- but it's mostly for role-playing the minifigures only.
Design / Building Experience: 8/10 - The trees efficiently use the bracket part but the tiny space on the shore is so little that if the designers just get rid of the plates they could have reduced the cost or allocated more parts on the trees.
Minifigures: 10/10 - Sirius Black is my favourite minifigure in this set but one cannot deny that the inclusion of 2 Dementors make this line up  perfect.
Price / Value for money: 10/10 - Excellent minifigures, exclusive creature and very useful parts included in the set give this set tremendous value   
Overall: 8.75/10 - A little set every Harry Potter fan should get. Excellent value, great parts and excellent minifigures all in one set.

 

 

EXPECTO PATRONUS!

 

[Pchan1983]

Nice review.  I really like the stag in this set. 

ps: apology if I also submitted the same review topic cos when I searched there wasn’t any 75945 in any thread title.  Would have replied here.

[Graupensuppe]

I really like this set. With its two dementors it's the closest we have gotten to a battle pack in the HP line.

[makoy]

12 hours ago, Pchan1983 said:

Nice review.  I really like the stag in this set. 

ps: apology if I also submitted the same review topic cos when I searched there wasn’t any 75945 in any thread title.  Would have replied here.

Yes, I like the stag too but the main reason I bought these are the 2 Dementors. 

No problem with the same review sets. It happens a lot so it's no big deal.

9 hours ago, Graupensuppe said:

I really like this set. With its two dementors it's the closest we have gotten to a battle pack in the HP line.

I agree with you. 

[Aurore]

Thank you very much for the review! It confirms my decision to buy it (my very first LEGO set purchase since...decades??)

I was reluctant to buy it just for the stag, but now I see that the minifigs are nice as well, and that I'll be able to re-use all the other elements.

[makoy]

18 hours ago, Aurore said:

Thank you very much for the review! It confirms my decision to buy it (my very first LEGO set purchase since...decades??)

I was reluctant to buy it just for the stag, but now I see that the minifigs are nice as well, and that I'll be able to re-use all the other elements.

Wow. That's a very long time. Glad this review help your decision. Go get it and enjoy the set. 

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

I've just seen the third movie from the saga, nice set!

[Thedarkmaster2]

On 6/6/2019 at 2:38 AM, makoy said:

Oh dear! I can't believe I am reviewing a set with a new creature mould again

It''s cool dude, New Lego animals are always amazing to get

 

On 6/6/2019 at 2:38 AM, makoy said:

But that's not my point. My point is, if you have been wanting to get the new Dementors, this set will give you so much more value than buying the minifigures in the secondary market. Think about that again. 

Well to be fair the secondary market always raises the price up. It's not something unique for the Dementer.

As an aside I like these dementers, but I don't know the face mold doesn't really work as well as the previous version did, that one was far more blank. As a pro, that leg ghost tail molded in black is amazing. Kinda like The Overlord's one but with more clearness.

You do amazing reviews, I intend to get this set as well. here's hoping that they one day print that stag in a normal color. I could then add it to the zoo MOC I'm making

[makoy]

20 hours ago, LEGO Train 12 Volts said:

I've just seen the third movie from the saga, nice set!

Indeed, it is! Doing a marathon of old movies is a great pastime. 

19 hours ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

Well to be fair the secondary market always raises the price up. It's not something unique for the Dementer.

As an aside I like these dementers, but I don't know the face mold doesn't really work as well as the previous version did, that one was far more blank. As a pro, that leg ghost tail molded in black is amazing. Kinda like The Overlord's one but with more clearness.

You do amazing reviews, I intend to get this set as well. here's hoping that they one day print that stag in a normal color. I could then add it to the zoo MOC I'm making

Agree. Of course I didn't say it's unique to the Dementors because it happens to a lot of sets. That why I weigh the value the of set is not just by pure price alone. Some people are willing to pay X amount of money for the minifigures. So, a higher price in secondary market could mean it is either highly in demand (very desirable to collect) or the supply is limited that scalpers take advantage of the situation. Either way, this set is more valuable than any of the Bricklink options at the time of my review.

Hopefully the stag gets an opaque colour next time. It's very likely it will be re-used for seasonal sets.

[Thedarkmaster2]

19 minutes ago, makoy said:

Hopefully the stag gets an opaque colour next time. It's very likely it will be re-used for seasonal sets.

we can only hope

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Hey I've just realized that Harry's legs are bending despite being short! 

[ToaIruini]

Great Review! This is one of the summer sets I'm looking forward to most. The new stag is what sold me but then I saw the Sirius fig... instant buy. The real downside for me is tree backs but it's not that bad. For such a compelling part of the movies I'm surprised they didn't make a set like this sooner, I suppose it'll sell very well

[Tariq j]

Really good review. As mentioned above this set has a “battle pack” feel to it which I like. Although I do kind of prefer the 2010 dementors as they have more of a skeletal look closer to the films. That said I adore the stag . I’m hoping we see more Patronus animals in the future. 

[makoy]

14 hours ago, LEGO Train 12 Volts said:

Hey I've just realized that Harry's legs are bending despite being short! 

Yes, that was introduced with the Harry Potter CMF series

11 hours ago, ToaIruini said:

Great Review! This is one of the summer sets I'm looking forward to most. The new stag is what sold me but then I saw the Sirius fig... instant buy. The real downside for me is tree backs but it's not that bad. For such a compelling part of the movies I'm surprised they didn't make a set like this sooner, I suppose it'll sell very well

Yeah. I think the priority of the sets are bit messed up. How can you blame the designers? There are so many great sets to be referenced in the movies.  

10 hours ago, Tariq j said:

Really good review. As mentioned above this set has a “battle pack” feel to it which I like. Although I do kind of prefer the 2010 dementors as they have more of a skeletal look closer to the films. That said I adore the stag . I’m hoping we see more Patronus animals in the future. 

Not that I am biased to the new Dementors. I can see the advantage of the old vs new ones. What I really like about the old ones are just the cape. Everything else, I like about the new ones more. I guess we can mix and match to get the best Dementors we prefer. 

I am also looking forward to more Patronus. Luna's bunny is easy as we already have a bunny mould. Ginny is also easy as there is a standard horse mould, too.

[Holodoc]

Nice review of a perfect HP set!

I was looking for a set to fill my 85€ shopping bag at S@H to get the small rocket man for free - and your review guided me the way to do it.
The stag is really extraoridnary - besides new Patronus/Patroni/Patronusses I'd like to see a minifigure all in transparent parts, but that propably will never come true due to articulation problems with the kind of plastic used.

17 hours ago, LEGO Train 12 Volts said:

Hey I've just realized that Harry's legs are bending despite being short! 

Welcome to the new medium articulated legs in 2019!

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

8 hours ago, Holodoc said:

Welcome to the new medium articulated legs in 2019!

I feel like when the Lego created the first minifigs and I had already accumulated dozens of old characters (see the style of Lego set 148)

But finally I can give agility to Yoda 

Edited June 10, 2019 by LEGO Train 12 Volts

[zoth33]

Very nice review.  I like your in depth analysis and comments about the books and movies comparing the set to both.  The set is a great little set for $20.  I'm  definitely picking up several of these.  Nice set to army build and the Patronus is just great.  

[Vindicare]

Oooh, new face prints for Harry as well! Uuuggghhh....hurry up & get here July!

[Shroffy123]

Love this set! I wish the elk wasn't transparent though 

[Cylo]

Great review! I feel like the build is ok but the minifigs definitely are the highlights of the set.

[WhiteFang]

Outstanding review, Makoy. This small set completely appeal to me with its minifigures selection and the useful parts. I am looking forward to pick it up as soon as I can. Thanks for sharing with us.

[Herky]

When is this set on sale in the US?  I see the Lego Shop at Home has it as coming soon.  Never mind replying, I found out it is July 1.  

Edited June 16, 2019 by Herky
update

[makoy]

On 6/10/2019 at 8:17 PM, Holodoc said:

Nice review of a perfect HP set!

I was looking for a set to fill my 85€ shopping bag at S@H to get the small rocket man for free - and your review guided me the way to do it.
The stag is really extraoridnary - besides new Patronus/Patroni/Patronusses I'd like to see a minifigure all in transparent parts, but that propably will never come true due to articulation problems with the kind of plastic used.

Glad to be abel to help you :)

On 6/11/2019 at 9:48 AM, zoth33 said:

Very nice review.  I like your in depth analysis and comments about the books and movies comparing the set to both.  The set is a great little set for $20.  I'm  definitely picking up several of these.  Nice set to army build and the Patronus is just great.  

This is my favourite set from the new Harry Potter theme so far. That's why I bought it.

On 6/11/2019 at 11:04 AM, Vindicare said:

Oooh, new face prints for Harry as well! Uuuggghhh....hurry up & get here July!

Oh, is it? I think it's new for this wave. I am also not aware it's not yet available in US.

On 6/12/2019 at 8:54 AM, Shroffy123 said:

Love this set! I wish the elk wasn't transparent though 

If it wasn't transparent, the set would have not been called "Patronus" haha. Just wait for LEGO to repurpose this mould for something else. They will be crazy not to!

On 6/14/2019 at 2:26 PM, Reaper said:

Great review! I feel like the build is ok but the minifigs definitely are the highlights of the set.

Thanks. Build is not fantastic, but the parts and technique used are excellent. So-so.

Surely, the minifigures are the centre of my attention as well as the stag when I bought it. Cheers!

On 6/14/2019 at 4:31 PM, WhiteFang said:

Outstanding review, Makoy. This small set completely appeal to me with its minifigures selection and the useful parts. I am looking forward to pick it up as soon as I can. Thanks for sharing with us.

Thanks WhiteFang! Always welcome.

7 hours ago, Herky said:

When is this set on sale in the US?  I see the Lego Shop at Home has it as coming soon.  Never mind replying, I found out it is July 1.  

As mentioned about, I wasn't aware this is not yet available in the US. July 1 is just around the corner! Coming soon. 

 

[ShishOK]

This set is boring I think, but it has got brilliant minifigures. Your review is good, thank you!

 

P.S.

I think Harry should use his patronus like transport in regular life :)