Wizarding World 2024 - Rumors & Discussion

[Bugbot20082]

Assuming they have continued budget for new moulds for the theme this year, what are we expecting?

So far confirmed:

Baby dragon

Fang the dog 

new Sound box 

I expect: 

Hat/hair combo for Karkaroff

Edited February 3 by Bugbot20082

[BrickBob Studpants]

6 hours ago, Bugbot20082 said:

Assuming they have continued budget for new moulds for the theme this year, what are we expecting?

Pretty hard to guess since we have no clue what minifigs or creatures the sets could feature  New parts for the troll if they decide to include that scene in the Great Hall, as many are hoping for? Or maybe a new hair-hat piece for Prof Vector

[brickbride]

On 2/3/2024 at 6:41 AM, brickbride said:

Given that the hippogriff was only in the poorly designed and overpriced Sirius Black set, that part at least wouldn't surprise me at all.

 

17 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

I hardly doubt that. They have produced those Sets for a long time, so they also knew how good/bad it was selling and based on that they also would produce those creatures. Additional to this both the Thestral and the buckbeak Set were sold out at an early time compared to other sets which would speak against this theory IMO ;).

Do you mean you doubt that they have those parts lying around from unsold sets? Yeah, I didn't mean that literally and I'm sure the original poster @icm didn't either. It makes no real sense to imagine that some employee would sift through unsold Sirius Black's Rescue sets, taking out the hippogriffs and discarding all the other pieces. :-)

That said, if the Sirius Black set sold well, I'm sure it's solely because people wanted the hippogriff. The set doesn't really have anything else to recommend it. The Thestral Carriage is different. I don't own it because it's not to my tastes, but as I've written before - two popular figs, two large molded animals (including an entire new mold), and a substantial build for EUR 20? That ticks a lot of boxes.

When the Forbidden Forest set with buckbeak was announced, I called it right away that they'd use a Cornish Pixie and a baby Thestral as well, as they hadn't gotten all that much use out of these molds previously.

I find it weird, though, that the designer calls it a "battle-pack". For one thing, battle-packs usually have several of the same, not a random assortment of one each. For another, it's way overpriced for a battle-pack. Who's going to buy multiples of this? And if they are - for a herd of baby Thestrals with no adults, or a herd of hippogriffs that for some reason all look identical to Buckbeak -, what are they to do with all the Rons and Hermiones? Play Hogwarts: Clone Wars?

 

 

Edited February 4 by brickbride

[Clone OPatra]

5 hours ago, brickbride said:

It makes no real sense to imagine that some employee would sift through unsold Sirius Black's Rescue sets, taking out the hippogriffs and discarding all the other pieces. :-)

...

I find it weird, though, that the designer calls it a "battle-pack".

 

Replying to two of your points here:

1. That isn't how it works, as LEGO doesn't produce just the precise amount of a part for a set. I've never read any insight into how they decide how much of a part to produce in addition to what will be needed for a set it's going in, but they absolutely have bins of Buckbeak parts lying around. Perhaps it could be that they end up not doing an extra production run of a set that isn't selling so well, so have an overstock of certain parts.

2. Battle-pack has become a colloquial humourous name for any set that offers a fair amount of some sort of thing at a relatively low price relative to the contents. For instance fans call the recent $10 City sets with otters and seals the "otter battle pack" and "seal battle pack". It isn't meant to be taken too seriously.

[brickbride]

32 minutes ago, Clone OPatra said:

Replying to two of your points here:

1. That isn't how it works, as LEGO doesn't produce just the precise amount of a part for a set. I've never read any insight into how they decide how much of a part to produce in addition to what will be needed for a set it's going in, but they absolutely have bins of Buckbeak parts lying around. Perhaps it could be that they end up not doing an extra production run of a set that isn't selling so well, so have an overstock of certain parts.

2. Battle-pack has become a colloquial humourous name for any set that offers a fair amount of some sort of thing at a relatively low price relative to the contents. For instance fans call the recent $10 City sets with otters and seals the "otter battle pack" and "seal battle pack". It isn't meant to be taken too seriously.

1. Nobody disagrees.

2. Yes, I know. The point is that battle-packs contain MULTIPLES of ONE thing. The "otter battle-pack" has two otters, the "seal battle-pack" has two seals, Santa's Sled (also known as the "reindeer battle-pack") has a whopping four reindeer, and so on. The general idea is that you can buy multiple sets to build yourself an army (or a herd, or a colony, or a bevy, or whatever). But I've never heard of a "battle-pack" that contains only one each of several different creatures. And as you've said, battle-packs are supposed to be good value for money, which this one clearly isn't, either. The term just seems misplaced here.

Edited February 4 by brickbride

[Black Falcon]

13 hours ago, brickbride said:

Do you mean you doubt that they have those parts lying around from unsold sets? Yeah, I didn't mean that literally and I'm sure the original poster @icm didn't either. It makes no real sense to imagine that some employee would sift through unsold Sirius Black's Rescue sets, taking out the hippogriffs and discarding all the other pieces. :-)

Yeah, that seems unlikely, and surely they will have some of those creatures left over (and they will keep some for consumer support issues anyways) but I doubt they have such numbers lying around that they are making this set just to get rid of them.

13 hours ago, brickbride said:

That said, if the Sirius Black set sold well, I'm sure it's solely because people wanted the hippogriff. The set doesn't really have anything else to recommend it. The Thestral Carriage is different. I don't own it because it's not to my tastes, but as I've written before - two popular figs, two large molded animals (including an entire new mold), and a substantial build for EUR 20? That ticks a lot of boxes.

I don´t think it sold well compared to other Harry Potter Sets of the same line but I wouldn´t actually wonder if it still sold well all in all. The selling points of this Set surely were the buckbeak and the minifigures and surely many will have bought it also to have the wave complete and we also shouldn´t forget that it was part of the hogwarts layout they showed towards the end of this wave. 

The Thestral one surely was one of the ones selling very well, since you could easily get them for less than 15€ which is a low price that also makes them a great gift and you really get a lot in it - additionally to this it also was a set that some people might have bought several of to make more thestral-carriages for a display of.

8 hours ago, brickbride said:

Yes, I know. The point is that battle-packs contain MULTIPLES of ONE thing. The "otter battle-pack" has two otters, the "seal battle-pack" has two seals, Santa's Sled (also known as the "reindeer battle-pack") has a whopping four reindeer, and so on. The general idea is that you can buy multiple sets to build yourself an army (or a herd, or a colony, or a bevy, or whatever). But I've never heard of a "battle-pack" that contains only one each of several different creatures. And as you've said, battle-packs are supposed to be good value for money, which this one clearly isn't, either. The term just seems misplaced here.

Well, it depends what you see as same here. The seal pack also had two different seals, The new Star Wars Battle pack surely has several of the same but at the same time also has different things included. In the end this pack has several macigal creatures, and he also wrote in one pack like a battle pack. And surely there are better packs  to buy several of.

[Accio Lego]

So I was digging around and reports are that 40695 is this year’s Harry Potter GWP (no known threshold or release date yet). 
 

And 76438 seems to be the Advent Calendar with 301 pieces and the same price as last year’s. 
 

The latter is fun to speculate about - with the return of scene based advent calendars last year which movie/scene do we think the designers will go for this year? We’ve got:

1. Harry’s first proper Christmas in SS (mostly done in 2019 - with other elements appearing in 2018 and 2022 sets)

2. The polyjuice potion plot from CoS (mostly covered in the 2021 Polyjuice Potion Mistake set, although elements like Myrtle, the Slytherin common room, and the Hogwarts Architect’s Statue have appeared in other sets since then)

3. PoA Hogsmeade visit (2023 advent calendar)

4. Yule Ball (2019 Clocktower set, 2020 advent calendar, several characters/variants that could still be done)

5. Christmas at Grimmauld Place

6a. Slughorn’s Christmas party (2020 Astronomy Tower set, with the Ginny variant coming in that year’s CMF. Cormac McLaggen a notable missing character)

6b. Christmas at the Burrow (technically the 2020 set Attack on the Burrow occurs at this time, but does not feature any Christmas decorations)

7. Christmas in Godric’s Hollow 

Obviously 5 is a prime candidate since it hasn’t really been done before, but with the big Triwizard Tournament arrival set this summer a revisit of the Yule Ball wouldn’t shock me either. Ultimately I think anything between 4 and 6b is a possibility this year. 

[Seaber]

I would love Grimmauld Place or Christmas at the Burrow - neither are particularly fun but would have good figures. Fully expect Lego to go for a Christmas in films 1-4 and tbh as long as the calender is good I don't think it matters now if there are no new characters, as long as the builds are good and their are variants of exists minifigs. 

[Accio Lego]

4 hours ago, Seaber said:

I would love Grimmauld Place or Christmas at the Burrow - neither are particularly fun but would have good figures. Fully expect Lego to go for a Christmas in films 1-4 and tbh as long as the calender is good I don't think it matters now if there are no new characters, as long as the builds are good and their are variants of exists minifigs. 

The thing is, based on the last two advent calendars and what sets are currently on shelves I don’t think lego can go with anything from the first three movies in the near future. That leaves a new Yule Ball calendar - which, fair enough, it’s been four years since the last one and there are plenty of variants to work with - or one of the OotP or HBP scenes. The Yule Ball definitely seems likely, but the 2020 Astronomy Tower is still on shelves and a Christmas at the Burrow theme would pair nicely with this year’s D2C so it’s hard to guess what the designer would choose. 

[Jaromir]

7 minutes ago, Accio Lego said:

The thing is, based on the last two advent calendars and what sets are currently on shelves I don’t think lego can go with anything from the first three movies in the near future. That leaves a new Yule Ball calendar - which, fair enough, it’s been four years since the last one and there are plenty of variants to work with - or one of the OotP or HBP scenes. The Yule Ball definitely seems likely, but the 2020 Astronomy Tower is still on shelves and a Christmas at the Burrow theme would pair nicely with this year’s D2C so it’s hard to guess what the designer would choose. 

Was there any pattern in the advent calendar each year? Seems like they are themed with certain movies, but is there any connection with other sets that were released the same year?

[Huigberts Builds]

1 hour ago, Jaromir said:

Was there any pattern in the advent calendar each year? Seems like they are themed with certain movies, but is there any connection with other sets that were released the same year?

More so with roughly the year prior. 2019 was connected to the 2018 great hall, 2020 was connected to the 2019 clock tower (Yule Ball), 2021 was a bit more ambitious, focused more on Harry's entire journey to Hogwarts in PS, but also working complementary to 2020's Diagon Alley and in a way to 2020's Privet Drive. 2022 was an odd one out, focused on all movies rather than 1, in a way this celebrated the franchise like they did with the anniversary in 2021, but that might be reaching a bit, but what was also new for that year is that it had some slight ties to the Grimmauld Place set that released at the same time. 2023 went back to the old formula, although this time being complementary to the Hogsmeade set from 2 years prior, rather than 1. Maybe because 2022 kinda skipped over 2021, idk.

[Seaber]

8 hours ago, Accio Lego said:

The thing is, based on the last two advent calendars and what sets are currently on shelves I don’t think lego can go with anything from the first three movies in the near future. 

I was thinking of Fred and George's Weasley jumpers (Percy wears one too but it's barely seen) and Hagrid's fluffy coat from PS would make good new figures. 

[Huigberts Builds]

1 hour ago, Seaber said:

I was thinking of Fred and George's Weasley jumpers (Percy wears one too but it's barely seen) and Hagrid's fluffy coat from PS would make good new figures. 

That would be my favourite version of Fred and George to get. Closest thing to how they appeared in the old pc games.

[JeanGreyForever]

14 hours ago, Accio Lego said:

The thing is, based on the last two advent calendars and what sets are currently on shelves I don’t think lego can go with anything from the first three movies in the near future. That leaves a new Yule Ball calendar - which, fair enough, it’s been four years since the last one and there are plenty of variants to work with - or one of the OotP or HBP scenes. The Yule Ball definitely seems likely, but the 2020 Astronomy Tower is still on shelves and a Christmas at the Burrow theme would pair nicely with this year’s D2C so it’s hard to guess what the designer would choose. 

If they did redo the Yule Ball, there are still several characters we could get in their formal outfits. Like Ginny, Draco, Neville, Karkaroff. Not to mention Fleur's date, Roger Davies. Also a new Cho with a more accurate skin tone.

[Seaber]

7 hours ago, Huigberts Builds said:

That would be my favourite version of Fred and George to get. Closest thing to how they appeared in the old pc games.

Very much so! 

3 hours ago, JeanGreyForever said:

If they did redo the Yule Ball, there are still several characters we could get in their formal outfits. Like Ginny, Draco, Neville, Karkaroff. Not to mention Fleur's date, Roger Davies. Also a new Cho with a more accurate skin tone.

To keep them interesting, Harry and Ron take their jackets off later in the ball for a new variant for 2/3 of the trio. We got the jacketless Harry back in the old 2010 line. 

McGonagall and Moody too! 

[Mandalorianknight]

On 2/4/2024 at 7:14 AM, brickbride said:

Yes, I know. The point is that battle-packs contain MULTIPLES of ONE thing. The "otter battle-pack" has two otters, the "seal battle-pack" has two seals, Santa's Sled (also known as the "reindeer battle-pack") has a whopping four reindeer, and so on. The general idea is that you can buy multiple sets to build yourself an army (or a herd, or a colony, or a bevy, or whatever). But I've never heard of a "battle-pack" that contains only one each of several different creatures. And as you've said, battle-packs are supposed to be good value for money, which this one clearly isn't, either. The term just seems misplaced here.

This is absolutely not the case, we've had star wars battle packs-named as such-with four unique figures-not even just unique as in different from eachother, but as in characters there aren't multiple of in canon-as well as a ton with one repeated figure and two unique ones.

Edited February 7 by Mandalorianknight

[Accio Lego]

16 hours ago, Seaber said:

McGonagall and Moody too! 

Moody has one of my favorite Yule Ball outfits purely because of his white ferret sporran, but I fear that wouldn’t translate well into lego

[JeanGreyForever]

22 hours ago, Seaber said:

Very much so! 

To keep them interesting, Harry and Ron take their jackets off later in the ball for a new variant for 2/3 of the trio. We got the jacketless Harry back in the old 2010 line. 

McGonagall and Moody too! 

That's true, Harry and Ron variants would be perfect with their jackets off. 

Agreed about the professors. McGonagall's sleeves were distinctive but I don't know how they would translate in Lego form. Snape had a slightly different outfit as well that could work for a new minifigure.

[krimimimi]

15 hours ago, JeanGreyForever said:

Agreed about the professors. McGonagall's sleeves were distinctive but I don't know how they would translate in Lego form. Snape had a slightly different outfit as well that could work for a new minifigure.

BrickWarriors does a "wizard sleeve" that could conceivably work for McG, or they could go for a whole new arm mould. I'm sure they could get decent use out of it for the princesses, too. 

As for Snape, I thought the whole costuming gag was AR had weighed in and said the character only needed the one. Now I don't know if they meant that just for his classes and Alltag, and there's a different one for formalwear, or one absolutely. I'm not great at spotting those differences. 

[JeanGreyForever]

21 minutes ago, krimimimi said:

BrickWarriors does a "wizard sleeve" that could conceivably work for McG, or they could go for a whole new arm mould. I'm sure they could get decent use out of it for the princesses, too. 

As for Snape, I thought the whole costuming gag was AR had weighed in and said the character only needed the one. Now I don't know if they meant that just for his classes and Alltag, and there's a different one for formalwear, or one absolutely. I'm not great at spotting those differences. 

I looked those up and they're neat looking. It would work really well for any characters who wear robes, whether wizards or monks.

Looking at it closer, I think it's just his usual costume minus the cloak. Which Lego doesn't even give him anymore in the form of a cape, so the current Snape minifigure is more or less what his Yule Ball wear would look like. The one thing I never understood is why all the Snape minifigs have purple because I've never seen any pics of his costumes from the movie that even remotely look purple. Navy blue maybe but not purple.

[Huigberts Builds]

34 minutes ago, krimimimi said:

BrickWarriors does a "wizard sleeve" that could conceivably work for McG, or they could go for a whole new arm mould. I'm sure they could get decent use out of it for the princesses, too. 

I feel like something similar to the cloak that Storm has might also do the trick

Edited February 8 by Huigberts Builds

[Accio Lego]

3 hours ago, JeanGreyForever said:

The one thing I never understood is why all the Snape minifigs have purple because I've never seen any pics of his costumes from the movie that even remotely look purple. Navy blue maybe but not purple.

It’s a throwback like the sand green roofs I  think. The original Snape minifig had a lot of purple. 

[mark1991t]

It looks purple tot me. Very, very dark purple yes, but purple. LEGO tends to make colors more brighter than they appear on screen through..

[Bugbot20082]

I’m warming up to a revisit of the Yule ball too for the AC, I could imaging a line up of 6 figures being:

Draco (ball outfit)

Ginny (ball outfit)

Mcgnagall in a new dress?

Harry and Ron at the end of the night with just shirts

Igor Karkaroff (grey outfit)

7th figure if there was budget:

Rita Skeeter variant (dragon task for example), or Amos Diggory 

 

 

Edited February 9 by Bugbot20082

[Accio Lego]

2 hours ago, Bugbot20082 said:

I’m warming up to a revisit of the Yule ball too for the AC, I could imaging a line up of 6 figures being:

Draco (ball outfit)

Ginny (ball outfit)

Mcgnagall in a black dress

Harry and Ron at the end of the night with just shirts

Igor Karkaroff (grey outfit)

7th figure if there was budget:

Rita Skeeter variant (dragon task for example), or Amos Diggory 

 

 

The problem is that advent calendars only have so much budget for new prints. That’s why we’ve had at least two recycled minifigs each year (three in the original Yule Ball calendar when the new figs needed skirt prints as well as torso prints). 
 

That’s why there was a bit of a pattern those first few years - Harry Potter had only just been rebooted so there were limited minifigures to pull from for the repeats, so the designers tended to grab them from one of the larger sets from the previous year.