Darth Shadowthrone

I did remember one of the biggest takeaways from one of the designer videos was that everything had to be approved by Warner Bros I think, with the studio approving every smallest detail that was rendered into brick form. This could make sense if the designers had some out-of-the-box ideas for how to represent things but were turned down. On the other hand, @Roebuck's point that they didn't have the budget for printed pieces like Pygmy Puffs is also likely I guess we were lucky with how many great details there were in Diagon Alley, Lego can't fit in every single thing and if this theme lasts long enough for us to see more repeats of sets I suppose every little thing will be included eventually!

I feel like Pygmy Puffs don't even need a new mould as the faces and fur detail could be printed on the round pieces which used to be used for Bludgers, just like the weird Nexo Knight ball monsters Though that being said I feel like you're right and that our best chance to get them was last year, when there were two Ginny minifigures from Half-Blood Prince AND Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, the shop which actually sold them! You'd think that with all the other details that filled that shop they could have fit a couple of printed pink balls in there

I'm pretty sure the legs will be dark grey with printing on like Grindelwalds:

Definitely good news that Tom Riddle's Hogwarts uniform will be much more recognisable! I'm not too worried about the leg colour as the COS Grindelwald minifigure had the same and look ok and even if it isn't that great hopefully his torso could match up to the black leg printed robes they've used for loads of characters in the last few years. Now if we could just find out if the Student minifigures of this wave will have black printed robes too...

Yeah one thing with the Basilisk and Fluffy builds is that at least they're not like the Jurassic World dinos and you can actually alter parts of their construction if you like. The same thing happened with the Horntail a couple of years back where there were a few edits people made on it that imo helped it look much more impressive. There was even one I used which was very simple with taking one of the tail joints and using it for the Horntail's neck, helping it look more snake-like and less like a bird. For me personally as long as the Fluffy heads and Basilisk head and tail are good moulds and have nice printing then I'll be happy, everything brick-built in-between can always be changed. I think in the preliminerary pictures the moulded pieces didn't even look printed so they should end up looking even better and more accurate (imagine seeing preliminary pics of the Jurassic dinos plain without printing!)

I reckon I’ll probably use the gold wands but only for particular side characters or other minifigures I am using for background characters. also dark red is a great naturalistic colour for a wand! I’d also like dark green or that light-orange colour from the 2010 Burrow and small parts of Hogwarts sets from 2018-onwards. That being said we’ve had a purple wand of all colours so I bet the next recolour will be something really out there!

You make a good point, I was certain the Harry Potter golden figures would be a mix of other anniversary figures with repeats of old minifigure designs from the original designs so seeing weird gold versions of figures that only came out 3 years old is a bit jarring. That said, I also agree with this. There's some great minifigures or magical creatures included in all four of the sets we know about for the June wave so the golden minifigures are just an interesting bonus. The golden heads and hair pieces will at least be useful somewhere, gold minifigure elements are rare enough that I would be happy having a play around with them (messing around with purist custom minifigures is something I like to do every so often). Also the BEST NEWS so far in like a month: a new wand colour! Am I the only one excited about this? Six wand colours were introduced in 2018 and we haven't got anything new since! In comparison the rod-piece wands of the original theme had loads of interesting choices like grey wands and stuff. Hopefully this will mean the designers mess around with the colours of wands a bit more even if its for statues or something, the wand pieces are so specialised I feel like we can only ever see them in the Harry Potter theme.

Maybe if the Fluffy set has the trio in uniform from earlier in the film there will be another set in August featuring the later Philosopher’s Stone challenges with the trio in their civilian outfits and maybe even battle-damage? I honestly can’t see us getting a golden Quirrell without a regular figure somewhere in the Anniversary mini-theme

So I just saw on Brickset that the Transfiguration Classroom has been reduced by a whopping 34% already down to £19, which certainly seems a lot more palatable! I'm definitely going to keep on eye on those sets now as I could see myself buying the Herbology and Ravenclaw sets eventually somewhere down the line if they drop down to that sort of price.

Maybe it's to promote the new Hogwarts system by showing a physical video of all the sets together in different configurations? Even with the leaked box images we haven't seen what exactly the sets look like combined, we haven't even seen the Bathroom from the outside. Plus this is the most modular system since the 2001-2003 castle with how the rooms can fit together in different orders (if we assume rightly). Seriously if there are more Hogwarts sets in this style in August too (there could be 4/5 compatible sets for all we know!) this could be a big investment / risk on Lego's part, especially since the previous Hogwarts sets in what could be the now-defunct style have had unnaturally-long shelf-lives. Considering this theme seems especially catered to AFOLS much more than others with the level of detail in the bigger sets I expect Lego will be wanting to put the extra effort to keep adult collectors onboard with this big change. I remember the Great Hall was shown off quite a bit before the other sets (and even using some prototype elements) so this could be the same sort of deal if Lego thinks it's a big enough deal.

Ah see I've already incorporated the new Hogwarts system in with my 2010 Castle so I'm more than happy to incorporate a third design! Also I tried to display my Hogwarts in a movie accurate facade with the viaduct in front but it was a really shallow and awkward display to move around so I've embraced the modular nature of Hogwarts and just mixed everything around depending on how I feel at the time

That set has an absolutely unbelievable minifigure selection as is - I never wanted the 2018 Great Hall so the re-inclusion of Dumbledore and Nearly Headless Nick is only a good thing in my book. Add on 4 students (Harry, Ginny, Colin Creevey and Justin Finch-Fletchley), Lockhart, Sinistra and Tom Riddle and its irresistible next to the new rock foundations for the castle and of course the moulded BASILISK . Also you bringing up the Tom Riddle minifigure reminds me that there was a time last year that everyone seemed close to giving up hope for a Chamber of Secrets just because loads of the characters present were being included elsewhere - Ginny and Lockhart in Diagon Alley, Myrtle in the CMF and Tom Riddle in a book of all things! It really seemed to fans holding out for it that Lego were using those minifigures to encourage us to recreate the CoS climax on our own because they had no intention of making such a set. So this Anniversary mini-theme being what it takes to get a Chamber of Secrets (and Fluffy!) means I will happily overlook any of this new Hogwarts system's potential weaknesses I hope he gets a new 'aaargh I'm getting stabbed with a fang' expression with glowing eyes or something haha

Yeah he is, he's one of the figures you can actually see clearly in the prelimerary picture as his minifigure is right under the Chamber entrance - in comparison I only just noticed that you can see Colin Creevey at the top of the tower with an oversized build for his camera We've already got a good look at what Tom Riddle's figure will look like from a book he debuted in last year too: Personally I'm hoping the figure in the set will have slightly different printing as it would be nice to see the Slytherin emblem on his robes be more visible - the torso looks a bit too much like a generic three-piece suit without it.

Speaking of which considering how McGonagall had tan hair with her hat in the Moments set could she come with a tan bun hairpiece in the Hogsmede set? Mostly asking because I already got two of that element from Build a Minifigure so have a vested interest in it being a recolour Edit: googled 'McGonnagal Prisoner of Azkaban' and this came up, it seems to be her most likely outfit just without the hat (in the actual scene outside Three Broomstick she's wearing this distinctive tartan hat so her pointy hat would have been inaccurate anyway.

This is why I never got really angry about the Kingnono stuff besides go like "well that's a bit annoying". At the end of the day although it led to us having the completely wrong idea about the CMF figures and some sets it led to us being entertained for weeks in what is probably the driest time of the year for Lego news and new releases (also known as Spring!) That being said I definitely don't want to encourage fake leakers, the whole "Fool me once" saying comes to mind. Just that the drip-feeding of information about what's coming isn't neccessarily a bad thing - that's why I like it when minifigures start leaking without us knowing which sets they're going to come in.

I would definitely recommend rewatches of Crimes of Grindelwald to everyone on here, because of all the subplots and small character details it's a film I've actually really come to enjoy going back to. Though going back on topic if the new Anniversary Hogwarts sets do indeed have more emphasis on interior space than the previous sets is there any rooms any of you would like to see in the Chamber of Secrets set? Personally I'd love to see Lockhart's Office especially considering the fun little details both Dumbledore's and Slughorn's offices have had in some pretty confined spaces.

I mean the first series had a standard 16 for Harry Potter and then an extra 6 tacked on for Fantastic Beasts so I can the see the same thing again. Let’s say 12 figures for Harry Potter (if that truly is the norm) and then an extra 4/6 for Fantastic Beasts so 16 / 18 figures overall. In an ideal world (for me ) the 4 Fantastic Beasts figures would be: COG Newt with recoloured Niffler, Leta Lestrange, Nagani and Nicholas Flammel. Obviously I’d prefer young Dumbledore to Newt but Lego probably feel oblige to include him as the title character

I’m definitely holding out hope for a third cmf next year with a group of figures tying into Fantastic Beasts - I feel like that’s honestly the most likely way to get some of the Crimes of Grindelwald characters

So I got the 2018 Clocktower the other day and I just had a thought: I bet the interior of the tower next to the new Great Hall will contain another version of Dumbledore’s Office and the Hospital Wing. Both make a lot of sense for the Chamber of Secrets-themed set anyway as the Hospital Wing can be where Justin Finch-Fletchley and Colin Creevey can be hospitalised and Dumbledores office to reenact the COS scenes and store the Sorting Hat, Sword of Gryffondor and even another Fawkes (if it is included in the set). Personally I liked the placement of both the Hospital Wing and Dumbledores Office (after I started modding it taller) in the Clocktower so seeing those rooms repeated again would be a tiny bit infuriating

Katie Bell is a good character to get, especially since she was so present in the Half-Blood Prince and even fairly prominent as part of the DA in the Battle of Hogwarts but she's fairly easy to mod - personally I think Fleur's hairpeice in brown is a good fit for her. On the other hand I really empathise with fans of Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, who are much hard to make as purist customs considering the fairly rare nature of black female minifigures - yeah we got a few thanks to franchises like Black Panther but it still feels like there's only a smattering of such minifigures every few years which makes it really hard when you like customising minifigures. I improvised an Angelina Johnson figure using Iden Versio's head from the Battlefront II battlepack which is fine for her portrayal in the books much is too light a skin colour to accurately fit her actress from Goblet of Fire. My point seems quite ramble-y now but what I was trying to say was I'd much prefer an official Angelina Johnson or Alicia Spinnet to Katy Bell because of how much harder they are to customise accurately

One good thing about the Golden Quirrel Leak is that it's shown us that the golden figures will have the new style of printing and pieces rather than the old so I doubt they will include Peeves because Lego probably won't want to reuse the old style printing, which wouldn't fit with the other figures, or update Peeves, where they would have to make it up his appearance because of a lack of official source material. Also a ghost figure in gold would probably be unrecognisable to most fans - it's not the printing or pieces that makes the Harry Potter ghost recognisable, but the greyed-out colours.

Oh my mistake, I completely missed where you said side builds! . Maybe more play features instead of display-worthy furniture: maybe a remembrall catapult, a broom rack or even a full-on minifigure catapult?

I think a Hogwarts tower in the middle where the binding will be and then the flaps on either side will have a flying background

As these books are based around lessons I would say it definitely won't have Quidditch-robed minifigures, it'll just have a couple of the first years in their school robes

Considering this set will probably only come with variants of existing characters which have already been made, some of the other sets should at least come with characters we haven't gotten yet? Personally the only things I could think I would like would be: a PS Forbidden Forest set, masked Death Eaters, some more magical creatures, Gringotts, or robed Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff figures. If none of those things are included this year I will breathe a sigh of relief because I'm already going to get the Chamber of Secrets set and my shelving space is becoming extremely limited