TeriXeri

While I do prefer to build in daylight, I do display my sets away from a bright window. If your sets are mostly on display I'd get a good lighting option rather then putting them at a window. Also depends if windows are on the South or North for example, because in NL, a South window does get a lot more direct sunlight on it.

Now that summer set info is slowly coming in officially (like the Harry Potter reveal) , next on the radar in terms of Space/Sci-Fi would probably be the Space Shuttle 3-in-1 set. Creator 31117 Space Shuttle Adventures - €49,99 | 486 parts , which has been known for a while but hopefully pictures soon. That's larger compared to the 2017 Shuttle set, and about equal of the 2020 31107: Space Rover Explorer Rover set. It's also listed as Space Ship Adventure at some other sites , so might not even be a traditional shuttle , considering the 18+ Nasa Shuttle just released, and 3-in-1 having the more silly side of things with Aliens in recent years (including spaceships in the 2018 Caroussel), I do hope it's a fantasy build rather then just yet another Nasa earthly design.

Ok now that pictures are official, this is just genius with how it can customize from a wall, to a tower set : If there was something like that in the near future for Generic Castle or even Pirates/Soldiers themed but with 2-4 generic knights or maybe 1 horse, that'd be amazing. The idea is clearly there, modular, expandable castle design with this Harry Potter wave.

I was surprised that the 2 Nexo Knight Castles had actual beds, also the bathtub in Jestro's tower was quite unique, Fortrex also had a lesser kitchen (Chef Eclair bot) and a Round-Table when stationary, and still had extra space for weapon rooms and the usual jail cell. The Merlok Libary set was nothing more then just 1 book and a small wall/tower however (or the book vault in Jestro's Lair), so no true library, but in recent years, there also were the Hidden Side School/Castle, which also had books and food areas. Castles certainly are more then just combat areas, and while Harry Potter obviously leans towards the school/magical rooms aspect, I still would love to see a kitchen/dining area/bed in a traditional in-house Castle set. Certainly agree that more Magical Creatures would fit into Castle themes, looking at Warcraft, there have been many Gryphons, Wyverns, Hippogryphs, and many others used as pets or battle/travel mounts. (If there's one Licensed Fantasy theme I would not be opposed to, it'd be Warcraft , but more in the traditional sense, maybe with some of the steampunk, but none of those nearly Sci-Fi type of airships and Mechs, also has a distinct art style between races, factions and worlds) Forestmen got some teasers in recent years but that's about it. But there's still a chance with Castle in the Forest Bricklink Designer Program : https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/designer-sets-for-adult-fans-of-lego/215665/The-Castle-in-the-Forest

I think it's not uncommon to see 10-15% off IDEAS after a while once they aren't exclusive to LEGO.com anymore, same thing happened to Barracuda Bay, but I never really have seen huge discounts on those sets either. 2 LEGO specific webshops in my country have the blacksmith 15% off as a preorder promo right now, with the date stating May 1st, so it's probably planned all along by LEGO to have secondary stores sell those after a couple of months, but it's not as widely sold as a regular set. That said, even with 15% off, the set is only €5 cheaper then the "regular" retail price in Germany , somehow the set is €169,99 here instead of €149,99

Harry Potter sets do almost bring back the Castle vibes for me, but I'm not interested in the theme/figs at all. I can see how an expandable Hogwarts is probably more collectible compared to a 80s style wall section pack, even moreso with being helped by a series of books/movies and named characters for a collector's audience, but personally I do hope the Blacksmith Shop and 3-in-1 Castles sell high enough to signal the want for more unlicensed Castle type sets as well. Also Hogwarts being traditionally Tan walled with Sandgreen roofs, and enclosed towers, would still be different from more traditional Grey/Blue or Grey/Red or even Black/Red Castle sets. I loved the designs of the 2 big Nexo Knight Castle (Jestro/Knighton (even with the Darkblue color scheme)) locations, and even the Fortrex had a nod back to the Yellow Castle-inspired foldable design with towers at corners and a drawbridge, and having enough ramparts/combat towers does still set it apart from current Harry Potter which is very focused on certain rooms/closed towers instead of knights/archers/catapults etc. I'm not someone to buy a set to sell figures off etc, so I'm not planning to get Harry Potter sets, but sets like that Flying Lesson do invoke parts of 1980s simple Castle sets, if it would be for example grey or black, and had 2-3 knights and/or horse instead of licensed figs. Think of something like this minus the siege wagon (could be a small battering ram instead if it has a door gate or small breakable wall action feature) But then again, being realistic, having a larger Castle set like 3-in-1 is probably the only viable way to go right now, as shelf space/set numbers is already much much larger compared to the 80s and castle walls could be niche enough so they might not sell if they had like multiple variations of smaller unlicensed sets. Mass producing 1 larger set, still with technically 3 official designs, and usually more generic pieces, is logistically much easier, and 3-in-1 theme is generally widely distributed. Of course, again with the IDEAS blacksmith set and 3-in-1 being focused on Black Falcons LEGO does seem to target partly of a nostalgic audience as well, so maybe there's a chance to get a few sets of different "Classic" factions every 2 years or so.

True, I'm not saying to do away with short legs 100% of the time, but I do hope the appearance of medium in City instead of just mostly Harry Potter is a sign of wider useage. That said, I do hope eventually that City People Pack type sets will re-appear , seems to be perfect opportunity to have mixed usage of more short/medium legs in varied colors.

I should probably have mentioned that I meant unnamed characters like City/Creator instead of Licensed etc.

I came back to LEGO after 2016 so never got one of the older 2000s Castle sets , but certainly will be watching at the upcoming 3-in-1 Castle, and if the pieces are nice, looking at getting more then 1 set.

Recently got a Snake Rattler (City) minifig, and thought it would be an interesting head for a Pirate, then I looked it up and the same head is actually already used in the Barracuda Bay set (difference from brickset source pictures seem to be actual photo vs render)

I rarely buy City sets at LEGO.com unless they are somehow end up exclusive to it (varies per country) like the 2020 mail plane was for a while.

In future sets, I'd like to see LEGO greatly reduce the amount of figures using short legs with medium legs, medium legs finally appeared in City this year, so hopefully will expand to more themes (like 3-in-1 for example) and more frequently. While short legs still have a place, they are just less useful imo.

I prefer those roads over baseplates on smaller displays like shelf or small table, but to me, the main flaw is the lack of extra tiles. The possibilities are much greater compared to baseplates but at a much greater price as well, especially since if you wanted to make more lanes you'd need extra printed tiles to fill them, or replace the stripes with 2x4 white which would look too wide. But for small purposes, they work great with 3-in-1 scale buildings, most of which have 1 plate high sidewalks to connect to. Would like it if LEGO would expand within the Xtra/City theme for road tiles and/or signs. Xtra has done lamps and traffic lights before after all. I would not make a table town out of those roads though, as I rather would spend the budget of roads towards sets, especially if it's a nice 3-in-1 build, getting some building variations is nicer then more roads. I have some of the cardboard playmat roads from a couple years ago if I wanted to have a quick floor town, but those City roads work great on a smaller shelf where baseplates would be too wide. For a Kid's room/shelf there's the road tape but I wouldn't use it myself.

I don't build big cities but I do think those road sets lack tiles, and too much slopes, especially combined with a set like the House and Skate Park, you'll miss tiles to extend the actual road with those sets as they lack (printed) tiles. As for a road, they aren't bad on a straight section, for like a Shelf with 3-in-1 sized buildings, but once you want multi-lanes or more crossing you gonna need more tiles and printed tiles for lanes. Still think they are much better compared to those Xtra Playmats or Road Tape though.

If anything, I wish LEGO would make some smaller sets with horses again, taking the last 5 years there have barely any horses in regular non-licensed sets (some white horses in Harry Potter, and Brown in AFOL designer program in 2019, and then a big gap) Medieval Blacksmith did include a new color horse which is good, hope it's a sign for more.

After recently building the 2020 16+ Barracuda Bay, and then some City 5+ 2021 set, the instructions on those small city sets are just so simplified nowadays, especially something like adding 1 small piece per page. I know City set cannot really be compared to IDEAS , and 5+ is just barely up from Junior(4+) , so I cannot fault LEGO here, just was very noticeable after building sets back to back. As for logistics/storage, sets having multiple booklets, sometimes of different sizes can be annoying, but I do know part of the reason is to build together from different bags at the same time, but when it's 2 (different sized) booklets to build the same vehicle, that becomes silly. Still, I do prefer having paper manuals over fully digital.

The review did convince me to get it couple week ago when I saw it for around €22 (down from €35). Certainly loved the little details like the sink using this piece sideways : , or one of the flowers looking like a Protea imo, and the other flower using sand green hotdogs. The printed elephant tile was interesting as right now, it's only in this set, and the elephants actually have studs on them, which are different from the recent Friends elephants, wonder if there would be new LEGO elephants in the future (since there was a Lion safari City set recently as well). Alternate builds I have not built myself but the variation is good making a sailboat or airplane out of a tree house build, instead of just 3 treehouses using less parts. The croc is the weaker point in terms of movement but still decent, I like the scale better then the croc from the 2020 Houseboat. 3-in-1 still my favorite theme , just looking forward for summer sets.

I wonder how many "panel" pieces it would have compared to more standard bricks. 3-in-1 usually has more basic bricks/plates, for it's alternate builds, but it'd probably has some panels for quick filling since the alternate builds are probably Castles as well. Those were in the 2020 Mario Bowser set so still in production . That said 2013 Castle had under 1000 pieces and was big due to panels 2012 Joust had 1500+ pieces and pretty much fully brick-built, so piece count alone won't be an easy thing to go by, not to mention a lot of pieces in a set like the Pirate Ship were 1x1s.

was it https://brickset.com/sets/40358-1/Bean-There-Donut-That ? that was a 2018 Target Exclusive set with a yellow box and a snack stand. (not a LEGOLAND set tho)

Loved the Wildlife safari set as well, interesting parts. Certainly overpriced at €35 retail (not as bad as 2020 Caravan though) but 3-in-1 does tend to get pretty big discounts usually. As for Summer, beside the rumoured Castle, I'm hoping for at least 1 more shop or house to add to the 2019/2020 range of "Townhouse (Pet/Toy)" series, or a standalone house akin to 2017 Park Street Townhouse / Modular Family Villa . City does have a family house this year since a long long time, but it's a bit simpler, due to lower age range (5+) .

After having some 2021 City road plate sets, I'd like an Xtra pack with 1x4 and 2x4 darkgrey tiles (and some printed mid-road stripes), and maybe some other pack with more glow in the dark street lights + traffic sign options.

I had a period from 2001-2016 where I didn't buy any sets at all. I did buy some bricklink parts back in 2015 to try and partially restore 20-30 year old sets, but eventually I just decided to do a "reset" and just collect current sets since 2016. Old LEGO is still seperate from the newer. I did buy a few Creator 3-in-1 2015-2017 buildings sets when I started to collect themes other then Nexo Knights (around 2018), before they retired, but now I move forward.

3-in-1 Castle certainly will be my most anticipated set of the year, and the benefit of 3-in-1 are usually good price/discounts and alternate build options adding more value, among more generic pieces to build with, downsides could be the lack of animal moulds/horses. Looking forward to see if this will be worth getting multiple sets. Wonder how big it'll be, compared to some more recent Castles (Hidden Side / Elves / Nexo etc)

I'd love a large location set with a full team of ninjas again like the 2019 Monastery.

There's even a Ninjago Lloyd hoodie figure + Ninjago Kai video game sticker ,and a katana in the Family House set as well, so yeah, City certainly has a "crossover" there. Also Xtra has a Chinatown themed polybag So yeah, City (or Creator 3-in-1) having asian influences in terms of a Shop/Food stand would not be that weird imo.