10275 Elf Clubhouse

[JintaiZ]

We've got images of 10275 Elf Clubhouse thanks to brickset news:

Edited December 28, 2020 by JintaiZ

[MAB]

I have most winter village sets but won't be buying this. It is yet another North Pole fantasy setting, rather than a winter village, very similar to the Gingerbread House and incredibly boring minifigs if you have older sets, especially the workshop. I can see the appeal if someone is new to the series but otherwise it doesn't add much. 

The reindeer is nice, but will clash horribly with the brick built ones they already did.

[JintaiZ]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

I have most winter village sets but won't be buying this. It is yet another North Pole fantasy setting, rather than a winter village, very similar to the Gingerbread House and incredibly boring minifigs if you have older sets, especially the workshop. I can see the appeal if someone is new to the series but otherwise it doesn't add much. 

The reindeer is nice, but will clash horribly with the brick built ones they already did.

I feel the exact opposite. I'm not a huge Winter Village fan but this set looks so good!

[deraven]

I suppose I'm in the middle- as its own set, it looks nice and I will most likely pick it up.  As a Winter Village set, I don't care for it at all (same with the other "fantasy" ones).  Again, as their own little seasonal theme, sure, but it basically feels like we're not getting any Winter Village sets and that's disappointing.

As mentioned above, this is even worse if you already have the earlier sets as more elves is uninteresting, and they're wasting more parts on yet another big tree.  And what's with the computer?  That's neat and all, but why do the elves have it, and exactly what era is the Winter Village (or Fantasy Land) supposed to be at this point?  I'm sure there's some narrative to this set I'm missing that a designer video may clear up.

Lastly, while I don't really care how things are labeled for myself, how is this an 18+ set?  The build doesn't look advanced at all, the theme does seem like something that would jump out to an older buyer, and that packaging and positioning seems to further separate it from the Winter Village line in general when that might be a draw for completionists (or other folks just looking to pick up this year's set as has become traditional for them).  Seems like a strange choice to me.

[JintaiZ]

4 hours ago, deraven said:

how is this an 18+ set?

LEGO is just trying to appeal to adults.

[LettuceBrick]

I like the set, but don't collect winter village. I'm glad to see the recolored reindeer; I just hope it will be available elsewhere.

[deraven]

10 hours ago, JintaiZ said:

LEGO is just trying to appeal to adults.

Let me be more specific, then:  Why would slapping an "18+" on the box for this specific set make it more appealing to adults?  The subject matter just doesn't seem like it fits, and the build is neither elaborate/technical nor is the scale particularly eye-catching, while at the same time having the more "adult" branding making it potentially less appealing to younger audiences.  I just don't get it for this particular set.

I'd have much rather seen something closer to the scale of a modular building (or perhaps a scaled-down build in the style of the new Diagon Alley) that would fit in with the rest of the Winter Village sets as an 18+ addition to the series vs this one.

I'm really disappointed that we have a fantasy set for a 2nd year in a row (in my mind that means we've has no WV sets for 2 years).  With this and the year they just re-released the Toy Shop, it seems like they're out of ideas which is just nuts considering how much potential they have here!  How about something that works for the Modular line, but includes snow and holiday decorations that you can add to tie the themes together instead of this thing that's so much more of a stand-alone seasonal set?

But there's still an 85% chance I'll buy it regardless, so I guess Lego knows what they're doing.  

[JintaiZ]

On 9/5/2020 at 6:33 PM, deraven said:

I'm really disappointed that we have a fantasy set for a 2nd year in a row (in my mind that means we've has no WV sets for 2 years).

I agree, but since it fits so well with the other ones I think it's excusable.

Edited December 28, 2020 by JintaiZ

[Myprecious]

I’ll probably get it right when it comes out.  I prefer the reindeer builds in Santa’s Workshop.  Those were cool.  I wish LEGO would bring out a Thomas Kindade inspired build for the Winter Willage collection.  Maybe something like an old mill house with a little bridge.  Typical Thomas Kinkade Christmas card.

[JintaiZ]

On 9/6/2020 at 2:51 PM, Myprecious said:

I’ll probably get it right when it comes out.  I prefer the reindeer builds in Santa’s Workshop.  Those were cool.  I wish LEGO would bring out a Thomas Kindade inspired build for the Winter Willage collection.  Maybe something like an old mill house with a little bridge.  Typical Thomas Kinkade Christmas card.

It's a great idea, but I'm not sure if it'll appeal to fans as it's something totally different and won't fit with other sets well...

Edited December 28, 2020 by JintaiZ

[deraven]

1 hour ago, Myprecious said:

I wish LEGO would bring out a Thomas Kindade inspired build for the Winter Willage collection.  Maybe something like an old mill house with a little bridge.  Typical Thomas Kinkade Christmas card.

Yes!  This is pretty much what I was getting at: so much material out there to work with for WV in general, but we end up with "Elf Clubhouse?"  I understand that Lego might not want to put out just house after house and instead want sets with some kind of playable theme, but then they could still do a mill, a schoolhouse, a cafe/pub/restaurant, a police station, church/chapel (though they generally stay away from that), a general store, etc..

I will say that, looking at it again now, this set isn't as distinctly fantasy as either Santa's Workshop or the Gingerbread house and could more easily fit in with the rest of the WV... I'm just still stuck on why they're not doing deeper on all the great stuff that they could still do for the proper village part of the theme.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[MAB]

On 9/4/2020 at 10:52 PM, JintaiZ said:

I feel the exact opposite. I'm not a huge Winter Village fan but this set looks so good!

Yes, it deviates from the traditional village again which is why some people have stopped collecting the series. As a one off set it looks nice. But it has no real connection to the original series. But then they've done it with the workshop and the Gingerbread House. It has turned from a traditional winter village into a theme park / fantasy series.

[ShaydDeGrai]

The fantasy aspect doesn't really bother me.  I live in a neighborhood where _some_ people go all out with the lights, the lawn ornament reindeer, plastic sleigh and Santa on the roof, etc. (and make the Gingerbread House model (10267) look tame by comparison) while the house next door doesn't even bother to shovel their front sidewalk, so I'm comfortable mixing the fantasy winder village sets with the more traditional ones and just save excess elf minifigs for some other display.  If you're willing to assume that a candy cane sign reading "North Pole" is a tacky lawn ornament and not a USGS survey marker, these sets mesh well enough to live under a Christmas Tree for a few weeks a year.

As both a build and a display piece I like this a lot better than the Winter Village Market (10235) from a few years ago (too piecemeal for my tastes, felt like an advent calendar set on steroids) or a rehash of the Toy Shop (10249 - great for people who missed it the first time 'round, but a bit of a disappointment for collectors of the entire line).

[JintaiZ]

55 minutes ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

The fantasy aspect doesn't really bother me.  I live in a neighborhood where _some_ people go all out with the lights, the lawn ornament reindeer, plastic sleigh and Santa on the roof, etc. (and make the Gingerbread House model (10267) look tame by comparison) while the house next door doesn't even bother to shovel their front sidewalk, so I'm comfortable mixing the fantasy winder village sets with the more traditional ones and just save excess elf minifigs for some other display.  If you're willing to assume that a candy cane sign reading "North Pole" is a tacky lawn ornament and not a USGS survey marker, these sets mesh well enough to live under a Christmas Tree for a few weeks a year.

As both a build and a display piece I like this a lot better than the Winter Village Market (10235) from a few years ago (too piecemeal for my tastes, felt like an advent calendar set on steroids) or a rehash of the Toy Shop (10249 - great for people who missed it the first time 'round, but a bit of a disappointment for collectors of the entire line).

Personally, I really like the 10235. It was like the best Winter Village set ever! Only if we could get more sets like that

Edited September 9, 2020 by JintaiZ

[Toastie]

@JintaiZ,

there is a bullet missing in the second poll: "3) I could not care less about the XY+ number on the set"

Best
Thorsten

[JintaiZ]

3 minutes ago, Toastie said:

@JintaiZ,

there is a bullet missing in the second poll: "3) I could not care less about the XY+ number on the set"

Best
Thorsten

I'll remember next time!

Edited September 9, 2020 by JintaiZ

[MAB]

42 minutes ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

 

As both a build and a display piece I like this a lot better than the Winter Village Market (10235) from a few years ago (too piecemeal for my tastes, felt like an advent calendar set on steroids) or a rehash of the Toy Shop (10249 - great for people who missed it the first time 'round, but a bit of a disappointment for collectors of the entire line).

I liked the market stalls, they make a nice traditional Euro style Christmas market. Although as a set it was a bit weak. It was like a combination of the GWP sets we used to get in late November about 2012.

[JintaiZ]

9 minutes ago, MAB said:

I liked the market stalls, they make a nice traditional Euro style Christmas market. Although as a set it was a bit weak. It was like a combination of the GWP sets we used to get in late November about 2012.

I don't think it was weak at all. It's a really fun set and offers surprisingly good value.

[Flippi01]

does it have a light brick ?

[Curbthetide]

This set looks like gingerbread house 2.0.  I think I'll skip this year's set, especially since there's so many other expensive sets out there this year.  

[ShaydDeGrai]

18 hours ago, MAB said:

I liked the market stalls, they make a nice traditional Euro style Christmas market. Although as a set it was a bit weak. It was like a combination of the GWP sets we used to get in late November about 2012.

I think I would have liked the Market kit better if it _had_ been a small series of GWP sets.  If I'd gotten just the merry-go-round as a Brick Friday, high threshold GWP I would have felt like I was REALLY getting something cool.  Even just getting a couple stalls in a polybag would have felt like a reward, but when I shell out a hundred bucks or more for a set I want to feel like I'm getting a $100 model, not half a dozen $15 dollar mini-builds with a common box.

This year's offering at least gives you a decent sized house that, give or take some imagination and/or minor mods, could fit into either a fantasy or mundane winter village.  The reindeer presents a bit of an issue  though, I suspect the brick built team from Santa's workshop will have to become a tacky roof top decoration as an in-situ explanation of how they could coexist with the molded deer in the same village (I've certainly seen enough cheesy approximations of reindeer as Christmas lawn ornaments to be willing to believe someone would put a team of chunky, cutesy, not-very realistic ones out for the holidays.

 

[lifeinplastic]

As others have pointed out am before, the one reindeer isn’t sufficient to justify buying this set at the estimated price. Also, disappointing the elf figures are all the same where it wouldn’t have been difficult to provide new coloured headgear, torso prints.

[Benny benny BENNY]

7 hours ago, Flippi01 said:

does it have a light brick ?

I think so Im sure I saw the battery included logo 

[MAB]

6 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

 

This year's offering at least gives you a decent sized house that, give or take some imagination and/or minor mods, could fit into either a fantasy or mundane winter village.  The reindeer presents a bit of an issue  though, I suspect the brick built team from Santa's workshop will have to become a tacky roof top decoration as an in-situ explanation of how they could coexist with the molded deer in the same village (I've certainly seen enough cheesy approximations of reindeer as Christmas lawn ornaments to be willing to believe someone would put a team of chunky, cutesy, not-very realistic ones out for the holidays.

 

Surely in a LEGO City the brick built reindeer are the real ones, the moulded deer is the cheesy rooftop decoration! :-)

[Flippi01]

3 hours ago, Benny benny BENNY said:

I think so Im sure I saw the battery included logo 

Cool what do we reckon another illuminated fire place ..!!