Alexandrina

I have to say it does sadden me that there is such prevalence of angry comments across the Internet. This set does two things: one, it provides plenty of useful minifigure parts at an affordable price, and two, it's a signal from Lego to its LGBTQ+ fans that we aren't forgotten. I don't see how either of these presents an issue. At risk of veering too far off course, I'll say that Lego was an important part of my life in the time when I was coming to terms with my own identity as a trans woman. The innate ability of these plastic blocks allowed me to "rebuild myself in my own image" (even if only my plastic avatar) and the wonder of Lego was an ever-present place I could go to escape. I never imagined Lego would release an official set in support of the LGBTQ+ community - but I only love them more for it

This is going to be a day one purchase for me. As a trans woman myself I'm more than glad that Lego have decided to recognise people like me officially - but as a fan of Lego, these minifigures are going to be so useful to have.

Love it! Is that a sneaky lil minikit I spy there in the corner?

I won't pretend that's not a pity - but I'll take the fascinating new insight into Lego's production process as a trade off!

It's for this reason that I'd personally be keen to see raised baseplates come back - but with studded ramps. At the moment I can't think of any technique to have studded ramps without some form of hinge mechanism, and it's very hard to do that compactly and have it sit flush with the flat base. But my pet peeve in the raised plates I have is how impossible it is to easily stick figures on the roads without using non-Lego elements such as BluTac. Not strictly castle, but I've had my share of frustrations with the car from Poolside Paradise sliding down the ramp - and that's shallower than the old baseplates were!

I'm just a single individual, but I don't see how the new road plates (or indeed the vintage baseplates with tracks incorporated into the plate itself) are really all that good for historic themes. I can see the appeal of blue ones for waterways, but the problem the road plates have - in my view - is that they're too smooth. To me, medieval and historical roads are uneven. I want bumpy surfaces, etc. and for my money the classic studs-up approach is the way to go - whether that be on a baseplate or a regular plate

The big stumbling blocks to Lego doing full re-releases of old sets as far as I can tell are the cost of recreating defunct moulds and the fact that certain colours have been discontinued. As regards the colours, iirc there was some reason they HAD to switch from the old light/dark grey and brown parts, and presumably that still stands as a prohibition towards bringing them back. Is the same true for other 'lost' colours? Are things like rust, pink, light yellow, etc. discontinued because Lego cannot physically make those colours any more, or are they discontinued because of the natural phasing out of certain shades over time? As for moulds (and prints) - Lego could probably amortise these costs if they planned carefully. If we take, for example, Fort Legoredo - and accept for argument's sake that the old greys and brown would have to instead be the new shades. Most parts are either still in production or have been recently. Things like the kepi or the rifle might not be brought out to play all too frequently, but afaik the moulds still exist. They resurrected the kepi for Indiana Jones, for instance. To re-release Fort Legoredo, unless I'm missing something, the only moulds Lego would have to remake are the log palisade wall panels, the large barrels and the bugle. (Disclaimer: I haven't checked every single part in the set, there may be other discontinued moulds too). Maybe it's too much to expect that one set to make back all the money spent to recreate the moulds and also make Lego enough profit to be worth their while, but it's easy enough to amortise these costs over a wider range of sets. Stick a bugle in a CMF, and boom - you're done. The palisade walls could also be used for a re-released Gold City Junction or Viking Fortress if either of those sets was in the pipeline for re-releases, or alternatively could be incorporated into a new design. Off the top of my head, set 60068 is a set which could have had some palisade panels had they been available at the time. Some parts it might be hard to find other uses for. But a lot of discontinued parts could be used in more sets, if need be. The problem is that a lot of the clamour for re-releases of old sets is from people who kind of want the THEME moreso than the set, or at least want the set for the theme it represents. And I'm guilty of this! I wanted Fort Legoredo from childhood because of the Western theme, and didn't even know what the build was actually like until I got the set. This isn't so much of an issue for sets that don't have too many specialised moulds, but lots of the most-wanted sets are very specific. I'm thinking here of something like the Black Seas Barracuda. Yes, they could 'reduce' the cost of bringing the old moulds back, by releasing a wave of new Pirate sets alongside the Barracuda that use the same parts. But to my mind, a large chunk of the audience that would buy a re-released Barracuda wouldn't buy it if there was new Pirate stuff on the shelfs too, or would buy it INSTEAD OF the new stuff. Lego obviously don't want to put thousands and thousands into sets that are just eating their own market.

At risk of straying off-topic, you bringing up those old panels has just brought on a wave of nostalgia in me! When I was a wee girl, my Lego consisted of a couple of small basic tubs from between 1997 and 2011, and for reasons I have never worked out half a dozen grey castle wall panels. They were always my favourite parts to build with - though at the time I didn't actually own any other grey bricks, so the castles I made were rather sparse. It mightn't be the most popular opinion in certain corners, but I do prefer those panels - a couple of them locked in by 1x2s feels so much more secure as a build than the modern equivalent. It's probably too much to hope that the old design ever makes a comeback.

I hope they're retiring them to replace them with new ones - perhaps a packaging rebrand, or even a different colour range - rather than getting rid of baseplates altogether. I've always personally been a fan of baseplates in sets - in fact I got a little giddy the other week when I found out that the Spring Lantern Festival set had some, as I assumed they were pretty much limited to modulars nowadays.

Wow... I have to say, I am enamoured with this set already, and (stock willing) it's gonna be a Day One purchase for me. It feels different to the usual casuals we get, and I much prefer that style of helmet to the one used in the Blacksmith (even if I did order half a dozen of the closed style from B&P!) It's too early imo to really judge the civilian minifigure, since I can't make out what any of the parts are - but no hennin, once again. Guess I'm gonna have to keep on hoping for a full theme with a nice range of civilian minifigures.

I hadn't considered that! My second dark ages are basically a perfect match for the period where brown was at its worst, so I often forget that was a thing. Gives me hope that we might see such sets in the not too distant future.

This is honestly such a good idea imo that I'm surprised Lego haven't already thought of it. Even if their internal research isn't solid on a castle theme, they're aware of the existence of the AFOL community - and a well-chosen bulk brick box in the right colours could leverage this community's desperation for good sets and bricks while also appealing to kids who just want some plastic blocks they can click together and don't care a jot about medieval settings.

Exactly. I think there's a decent market for a Castle theme that's generally your typical Castle theme with action-oriented sets, with the addition of an annual large-scale modular set which when combined makes a grand castle.

This is an issue I think all trans people of the Harry Potter generation have to grapple with. My personal boycott doesn't extend to Lego, though I obviously completely respect the many like you for whom even the Lego sets are a bridge too far. I stifle my completionist tendencies though, limiting myself to the Castle-related sets - because I see those Castle parts as a useful way of channeling my creativity into projects from a trans voice. In addition, I like to support the modular castle sets specifically because I want to add my voice to the chorus of approval for the style. A modular non-licensed Castle theme is in my opinion the perfect theme. I completely agree with you - we need more representation for the parts of a castle that don't concern themselves with knights and swordplay, and while I appreciate that devoting the big set in a conventional Castle theme to a great hall might not be too much of a hit with kids, having such a room as the key feature in one of a number of large sets would I think satisfy plenty of AFOLs.

I have literally zero stakes in whether Pepe Le Pew should be made or not, but Lola Bunny is almost certainly more well known amongst the generations that are going to be spending the most on these figures, AFOLs aside. Space Jam is twenty-five years ago now, and she's been a prominent part of the main Looney Tunes gang ever since. For my part, I grew up with Lola as one of the core six through Baby Looney Tunes, the better part of two decades ago. I'm not sure I could even tell you what creature Pepe Le Pew is, since I literally cannot visualise him. Am I misremembering, or did the first Fantastic Beasts wave have 22 because it was designed as a sixteen-figure Harry Potter wave and then something unexpected happened with Fantastic Beasts (either the release date got moved up or it was unexpectedly popular, I don't know what) - which is why that series has the main cast of Fantastic Beasts awkwardly shoehorned in, cause they were a last minute addition

I definitely hope so. Shops in the UK are due to open on the 12th, presuming there's not another spike in the meantime, so I might try and get to the Lego store in either Bristol or Cardiff and see if they have any kicking about.

Not sure actually, though I imagine so. I'm actually not sure how I'll get hold of it since it's not on Bricklink - it's two years old, so surely it would have been added to the database by now if it was forthcoming, and the sort of person who buys exclusive parts at BAM is probably not the sort who sells their entire collection on Facebook at bargain prices two or so years later

Yup, it's (Image stolen from Makoy's BAM parts index)

I've genuinely never seen a Smyths anywhere, so if I want the Burrow it;'ll be coming from Lego directly

That's the way of it. An explosion of info, five pages in about an hour, then back to the same cycles of speculation.

The latest development on Harry Potter suggests that the chess set - previously thought to be the £250 D2C - is actually a £70 set, likely minifigure scale. There's the possibility of some decent Castle parts to make up the chess pieces if that's the case, so fingers crossed.

If the chess set's not huge-scale, does that bode well for castle-related parts? The pieces, if minifigure sized, might be a good source of helmets and such

Nobody ever said the whole wave is changing though (or if they did, I missed it). Just that the big D2C and the chess set might not be the same. To be honest, a £250 chess set always seemed too expensive to me. How many pieces would that be? It certainly wouldn't work as the chess set the trio get through in PS, because the castle as a whole would have to be HUGE to accommodate it. There's no way the chess set is duplo or minidolls. No way at all. It doesn't fit the Harry Potter brand at all.

Scenes when the D2C is the Durmstrang Ship...

I buy plenty of old sets - too many, to be honest, if I think about my bank account. Often I find it's better value to buy a whole set than just a single out of production piece - for example, picking up the old Maiden's Cart for a tenner when I wanted the hennin; yes, I'd have saved money just Bricklinking a hennin, but a lot of the other parts are useful to have too. Never new though, and if the box comes with that's a nice aside. I want the bricks, not the cellophane.