Alexandrina

I definitely wouldn't like to argue that what Space has had in the past decade has been satisfactory. In my opinion the Core Five themes (Castle, Pirate, Space, Town and Train) should have sets every year. But if Lego would only pick one theme to bring back, they'll probably see Star Wars and the Lego Movie sets as representing Space better than anything has represented Castle in the last few years. Honestly, though, I think the Ideas vote might be a wake-up call. Castle and Space are both highly popular evergreen themes - they're bound to return eventually, and I think the appetite is there now for both to do well.

I've long held a suspicion that resemblance to actors was at best a secondary consideration for the designers of the 2001-04 Harry Potter minifigures. While there's still loads of gaps from the films, you're probably right. If the theme is still going strong in five or six years and they're running out of unplumbed depths, a few prominent figures - Peeves mainly, but maybe also characters like Ludo Bagman - might squeeze in. I'd also imagine a few book-only students will get made eventually, especially for the two houses (Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff) with a dearth of prominent film characters. There's already people talking about a possible Roger Davies figure, and he's in all of six seconds in the films. I can see Lego picking a random extra from one of the films and saying "this is Terry Boot" or "have yourself a merry little Morag MacDougal"

That doesn't mean they won't turn up in minifigure form. Peeves was in the original series, and there's precedent for Lego exploring non-movie source material for sets in popular licenses, when they're running out of things to do (see the amount of Expanded Universe Star Wars sets in 2007 and 2008, before the Clone Wars/sequels came along). Admittedly Andromeda Tonks would be one of the most surprising minifigure inclusions in perhaps any licensed set ever, but Peeves isn't impossible.

But it's only a curse if series are fading away after two series. Disney and Harry Potter are still in the window of possibly having a third series, it's not like Valve being allergic to third games in a series for nigh on 20 years now

All I meant was that Guyon being disappointed by the August wave only tells us that the sets aren't what Guyon would have wanted - it's possible that for many people, they will not be just as requested.

Is it really a curse? Has any license got to two CMFs and reached the point where a third would be expected? HP is obviously only just passed S2, Disney S2 is only just out of shops. What else has there been?

At the same time, though, Guyon might have got sets he wanted in the June wave but not the August wave - and they might not be the same as the sets you want.

Ah, of course. Back to the speculation, then!

Likely one or two, but they'll almost certainly throw in Harry or one of the other main characters. That surely confirms that the August sets are anniversary wave. If they were back to normal, Guyon would know whether the grey roofs were coming back or not.

I was in my Dark Ages at the time, but looking back at the EB thread, the end of the Lord of the Rings line was known about before the final Hobbit wave even came out, so I would assume it was Lego's decision to pull the theme. I don't think that's anything you've ever said. There's been talk of lowering our expectations, the set choice being unexpected, etc. but nothing bad about the actual sets themselves iirc

Don't forget that the latter-day Hobbit sets are panned even now (and possibly the cause for the theme's discontinuation) and they were all playsets. It's possible for Lego to mess up which sets they make, and at which price points - for instance, if Gringotts was the cheapest set, I think people would be less than enthused.

I think this sums up why Castle is the most likely of the three to return. Pirates never established itself to the same extent, and Space has had more bones thrown its way through Star Wars, etc.

Now you've got me worried that you've cracked it. Surely Lego wouldn't, though... would they?

I like this. It's a clean and simple design, not too bogged down in complexities, and it looks great. To me, in fact, it looks like it could have been a Lego Space set, in a world without Star Wars. Colour scheme aside, it seems like a natural evolution of the Space sets of the early 90s, transported to the modern day. And the colour scheme works a treat!

The only question mark with your theory is the £129.99 set. Nobody is paying that for a build able figure, and if it were lots of characters it would make more sense to release them separately. But then, nobody ever said all the sets are bad. A wave of build able figures and, say, a Bell Tower set would meet all the criteria for what we know.

I've not heard anything, but blind optimism is giving me hope - and for that reason, I don't want to be spending £50 or £100 on torsos from Bricks and Pieces only for a full Black Falcons range to be announced for next year. I wouldn't have thought we'd have heard anything either way by now, though - there's still a long way to go until next year.

You might have a pretty long wait, to be honest. It's snowballed into a 1600-minute project split over forty episodes, and I'm not going to be in a position to even start filming for a few months yet. And that's assuming I'm able to get hold of enough Black Falcons!

The wording from those in the know definitely implies that the August sets are more a continuation of the June wave than a return to last year's. To be honest, that makes more sense than having half a year be anniversary and half be regular, and ending up doing neither justice. It's better imo to go all-in on the anniversary sets, in August too, and then give us a return to normality for the whole year next year.

Lots. I'm planning on using the design for one of the primary factions in my brickfilm project, and there's more than a few large-scale battles in my plan. I doubt I'll buy too many straight away - probably half a dozen or so when they're back in stock, to complement the two from the Blacksmith - but I'll also be picking up the 3-in-1 and any future sets to include the Black Falcons, and I'll probably bolster my forces with a few more towards the end of the year when the line-up for 2022 starts to become more clear. I'm assuming that they're not going to be permanently removed from sale while they're still in sets that are actively on the market.

It's a horrible situation to have to be in, but unfortunately I'm not really sure Lego have much in their arsenal. A lot of these Chinese companies have demonstrated that they're not going to play ball regarding copyrights, and Lego can't even stop their own in-house designs being reverse-engineered and sold. As much as it sucks for designers who put all that time and hard work into a build to have it stolen, while Chinese companies are continuing to profit from the designs and not be sanctioned by their government, they've got no incentive to change their practices.

I didn't even realise there had been a werewolf in 2012, let alone a replacement for the original werewolf head. If it is the same part then I'm not sure it would work for werewolf-Lupin - the Monster Fighters head looks too cartoonish, so I'd be worried it wouldn't fit with the minifigure lineup of modern Harry Potter sets.

The thing is, licensed themes can only do so much - especially if your medieval scenes are yellow-head. Star Wars had some very good torsos in the early days - Jedi robes, young Anakin, etc. - but those parts are long out of production and only going to go up in price as time goes on, and there's not going to be more any time soon. Early Harry Potter never had any good torsos to my recollection, and I believe every other potentially useful license has been flesh-tones only. There's occasionally some good torsos without the fleshie collar, so a hand-swap is all that's needed, but the confluence of "medieval civilian-appropriate torso" and "no flesh-tone on the torso" is too rare really. There are also no useful parts in the Lego Movie sets (unlike, say, the Western series, which saw a few civilian gaps filled) and CMF representation for the period seems to be either knights or nobility. Legs are a different issue, though I'd argue that they've never really been a problem. In particular, the dual-moulded legs with reddish brown boots are very helpful indeed - and I'm glad they're being included in more sets, licensed and otherwise, now.

If Vidiyo is anything like the CMF series (in terms of budget) is it possible that Lego are using it to get moulds like that for future use in other themes, so they can save the budget for later? I don't want to lean into wild speculation, but perhaps Lego are planning a bumper year next year for Harry Potter figures with new moulds.

In an ideal world Lego would have new faces for every character, so if they have the budget free for a new face for Justin then what face they used for Viktor Krum should have no bearing on the decision That to me just comes across as gatekeeping Lego Harry Potter - especially since there are plenty of Harry Potter collectors who like the new sets, and plenty of people who collect other licensed properties as well. I'd also argue that we can't determine the build quality from low quality prelims.

My point is that the original Lion Knights figure is not some powerhouse icon of Lego Castle. The Kingdoms minifigures, beyond being knights with a lion as heraldry, aren't really the same thing. And if I might make an assumption, your son - as the son of an AFOL - is going to have a different experience growing up to the average kid whose parents maybe had some Lego as kids and chucked it out. You say yourself that you would welcome an update to any faction. That suggests that it's not the Lion Knights specifically that need to be remade ASAP.