Accio Lego

I mean, ‘picked over’ can be very different depending on who’s doing the picking over. You might have someone in your area who really wants an army of pink space babies (or maybe lady androids - the nice thing about the space nanny is that she’s got a very interesting design but nothing on her specifically designates a childcare purpose), but don’t give a flip about Ice Planet and robot penguins.

Technically it’s a double bass and not a cello, although with how minifig proportions work you could probably make it work as a cello if you wanted to. And the double bass isn’t always played with a bow, jazz players often just pluck the strings - as seen in the Jazz Club and Jazz Quartet sets. In a classical orchestra you’ll see them played with a bow, but since lego just uses the Harry Potter wand piece for a bow, it’s really easy to get ahold of (pretty much any Harry Potter collector has a massive stockpile).

There’s a few more shots up and I’m now 100% sure that it’s the small owl in a new color, but it’s not shown close up enough to see if the eyes are minifig system compatible. The same set also appears to introduce beavers, albeit in the Friends style.

This is such a weird selection of images to leak together. A shot of the back of the Great Hall, the minifigs close up, and a weird little close up of Quirrel in the set. The back of Malkin’s with the front lifestyle shot of Ollivander’s (which only show 4 of the 6 characters), the mandrake in and out of its pot, and a posed shot of Buckbeak that doesn’t show the full set. No shots of Triwizard Arrival, Potions Class, or Aragog at all. I know I was saying that we had a chance of getting getting leaks when a 3rd party site uploaded them early but geez. My first observations are that the slide out modules look very useful for play - that was a big drawback I noticed with the last system, reaching in the little rooms to move things around was cramped and fiddly - some room modules would let you pull off the front crossbar for slightly easier access but that did very little good when everything was assembled into a larger castle. The new slide out modules can be removed and replaced easily, and their lack of high walls makes it easy to play with them when they’re out in the open. The Great Hall Minifigs look good, as does the new Troll. Great to get the Fat Friar but I can’t help but notice that he uses the bowl cut hair piece instead of having a proper tonsure. The Great Hall also has 5 visible Collectible Portraits from what we can see in these photos. Four in the small hallway module and one in the Hufflepuff Common Room. The Diagon Alley shops look fun, I really want better shots of them. And there’s a signpost with Gringotts Bsnk on the left and Quality Quidditch Supplies and Flourish & Blott’s towards the right – a potential clue for next year perhaps? The Mandrake and Buckbeak both look rather disappointing right now, although I’ll reserve judgement on the latter until I see him in a better pose with his base. But there’s a high chance I’ll skip those two like I did with Dobby last year.

New summer camp Friends sets have leaked. Most of the animals are in the minidoll style, but one has a purple butterfly (pretty sure that’s a new color) and the other seems to have a small owl in dark tan??? I’m not sure about that one since the current picture quality is low and it’s a small part, but there’s definitely something perched in the tree there that’s smaller than any of the normal Friends birds.

It’s not new info at all - we’ve known that the Buckbeak set will contain some brick built pumpkins and ‘a bird’ since before the Dreamzzz sets with the new ravens were revealed. It’s been debated since whether the bird is brick built like the pumpkins or not because the grammar is just ambiguous enough for that kind of speculation.

Yeah, I’ve already seen people speculating about a possible Odin/Allfather character in the future CMFs thread. For that matter, Valkyries were often depicted as being accompanied by ravens (since Valkyries are supposed to escort the souls of slain warriors to Valhalla, and ravens also tend to swoop down on the corpses left on the battlefield for more practical purposes), and so far as I can tell, while Lego did a Viking woman in a cmf awhile back (long enough for her to be less than impressive next to the Viking Village figs), they’ve never done an actual Valkyrie. So that would be cool to see as well.

Yeah, it’s a shame that Hidden side isn’t still around - I feel like it and Dreamzzz could have a lot of fun using the new parts the other spawned in different ways. It sucks that Lego just can’t seem to handle doing themes with a digital tie in game these days, I’m not into the spooky aesthetic, but I know it’s popular enough that it was the focus of the very first themed CMF back with series 14, and Hidden Side was like a spiritual successor to the old Monster Hunters theme. Still, at least Dreamzzz is making good use of thier villains to partially fill that niche.

The side builds are an information plaque like the ones the Discovery set has and an in-scale Orion capsule. I’ve seen some people calling the latter a ‘satellite’, presumably because it has solar panels, but it’s definitely the Orion crew capsule. There’s also a little base for the Orion capsule so it can float in space (as opposed to the Apollo capsule in the Saturn V set which was displayed in its splash down configuration).

It’s in ‘Castle Nocturnia’ - the biggest set of this Dreamzzz wave. That set and a second one that leaked today also have the ravens, so our total number of them is up to 8, while there are currently 3 total sets featuring the red panda (counting the as yet unseen City set).

Dreamzzz is a Lego in-house property so there wouldn’t be a problem with any new molds they introduce either way. There’s been no chatter about the theme ending anytime soon, and while I wouldn’t blame anyone for skepticism after both Hidden Side and Vidiyo were scrapped with little warning after barely having any time on the shelves (and both with planned sets that never saw the light of day if I recall) - Dreamzzz isn’t trying to pair itself with a phone app as a major part of its play features. Instead it’s got a tie-in cartoon series, which is a strategy that’s worked well for both Ninjago and Monkey Kid, so I don’t think there’s any risk of it getting axed in the immediate future. Which is nice, because the designers have been introducing all sorts of fun new molds (still waiting for Izzy’s hair in a natural color).

Good catches, I had a feeling I’d seen the tuxedo before, but it’s fairly generic so I wasn’t sure where. I don’t keep up with Ninjago so I didn’t spot that one. Either way, the more interesting offerings from those two figs in my opinion are the rarely seen double bass and the new cowboy chaps printed legs for those who like those archetypes. Personally, I’ve had the double bass on my list to grab from PaB next time I do an order for a while, so I’ll be checking my local store’s BaM tower next month when I’m in.

To be fair, there’s that grey period where third party retailers will either upload photos early or as metadata and we’ll get ahold of the before lego does the official reveal. There are some Dreamzzz sets that just leaked which I’m pretty sure happened via that method since there’s only shots of the box art so far. It’s far from the first time we’ve gotten lower quality pics of sets just a little while before lego puts the more detailed high res shots on their own website.

For those not interested in the City style Space suits, it looks like there’s also a new cowboy (complete with chaps), a construction worker, and they’ve put out a (new?) tuxedo torso alongside releasing the double bass accessory - which I believe has only appeared in the Jazz Club before.

It also looks like all the Dreamzzz sets this wave include those mystical ravens (we’re up to 6 now) so that set is perfect for anyone who wants both new animals.

Since the diorama sets often include quotes, we’ve essentially already gotten a 4 in 1 diorama set with the Collectors Edition Hogwarts Express. That said, other prime candidates for diorama scenes would be things like Hagrid giving Harry the album at the end of SS or the patronus scene in PoA, and those have both been made into sets already. I think the reason that Star Wars can make dioramas work is because playsets have to favor the various vehicles, while dioramas largely get to put those vehicles in a setting (the only SW diorama I can recall that wasn’t like that was the trash compactor, which physically has to be built as a diorama). In contrast, the only Jurassic Park diorama I can remember features the T-Rex in a pose that the molded animals that come in the playsets just can’t be positioned into. In contrast - Harry Potter has far fewer vehicles, and the ones it does have don’t engage in combat. And there’s a limited number of large creatures - most of which don’t take any iconic poses that would be difficult for their playset versions to replicate. The Horntail chasing Harry could count, but that’s already been done very well as a kinetic sculpture. The only thing in that category I can think of that fans might want is the shot of Harry standing on top of the Slytherin statue in the Chamber of Secrets with the Basilisk looming over him preparing to strike - since modern playsets won’t have clearance over the statue or a basilisk capable of balancing on the end of its tail like that.

Don’t forget the caroling ghosts from Sorcerer’s Stone (they pass by Hermione in the scene when she’s leaving for the holidays). Now that I’m thinking of it, I wonder if the ghost in the advent calendar might be one of them - they appear right before the shot of Flitwick levitating ornaments onto the Christmas trees in the Great Hall, and he’s in the advent calendar too.

The ghost and professor from the Great Hall are definitely of interest, and I’m also eager to see the three as yet unnamed students in that set. There’s a good chance they’ll cover the other three houses, but since Susan and Draco appear in this year’s advent calendar there’s actually a chance we’ll get some variety on that front for once. And speaking of the advent calendar, there’s also an unknown ghost there too. I’m also looking forward to the new parts in Potions Class. There’s apparently a new flask piece but we’ve already got an Erlenmeyer flask in lego form, and there are only so many flat bottomed flasks out there. Then again, maybe ‘flask’ is just an over generalization - perhaps lego is taking a cue from the ‘crystal phials’ on the student supply list and has figured out how to give us a test tube piece. Harry Potter summer waves are also pretty good about giving us new animals - if not new molds then at least new colors and prints. We know about the troll, but that’s more of a character like Kreacher, who had a new color of cat appear in the same set as him, so I’m hopeful we’ll see something else new pop up.

Excellent, the sooner people start finding them in the wild, the sooner we start getting data on this set of data matrix codes.

American here - sister is a horse girl so I spent most of my adolescence riding as well as a result. The term foal is still used for newborn horses here. And those of us with basic knowledge will still use the term pony only for adult horses under a certain size (which is actually 14 and a half hands officially, which might be bigger than some people realize). That said, there are still plenty of people out there who don’t know enough not to use the two interchangeably (terms like turtle and tortoise suffer similar fates), and the problem is compounded by the fact that older lego animals can be a bit more ambiguous than modern ones. I forget which site it was, but I found the old shepherd dog (which I have two of from the 2004 Harry Potter sets) referred to as a wolf. Mix ups can happen.

‘Tales of Beedle the Bard’ and ‘The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore’ are both top of the list of books I want simply because they’re both significant to the plot of Deathly Hallows. I’d also love to see some of the specific textbooks make an appearance - like ‘Hogwarts: A History’, ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’, Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean’, etc. MinaLima did an amazing job with the graphic arts for the film and I would be nice to have those designs to properly stock the Hogwarts library even if some of them are just stickers.

Ugh, posting on my phone - sometimes the autocorrect decides I’ve typed in something wrong even when it’s still a word -_- There's so many fun costumes that haven’t been made yet though, aren’t there? There’s a whole list I didn’t even mention because they wouldn’t use new molds, but Narcissa’s hair in that scene really needs a new mold (her hair from DH could really use one too, but that variation has an actual chance of turning up in sets).

There are still plenty of characters missing. Not a whole lot of major ones, sure, but still plenty of new characters that could be done. And of course plenty of outfit variants for characters we already have. For instance - a quick example list just using examples from the original movies (disregarding FB and games for now) 1. Harry Potter (will reading outfit with snitch and resurrection stone) 2. Ron Weasley (will reading outfit with dilluminator) 3. Hermione Granger (will reading outfit with Tales of Beedle the Bard book) 4. Rufus Scrimgeour (with Dumbledore’s will) 5. Firenze the centaur 6. Narcissa Malfoy (unbreakable vow scene outfit) 7. Marge Dursley (with Ripper) 8. Draco Malfoy (with white ferret, featuring printed Slytherin robe mid legs) 9. Fluer Delacour (2nd task bathing suit with Grindylow and neck attachment for bubblehead charm) 10. Victor Krum (Bulgarian Quidditch robes) 11. Albus Dumbledore (horocrux cave outfit with grey hand, armed with spellcasting wand in tan with flame whip spell attachment) 12. Frog Choir Student (with 2x2 jumper plate cushion and new giant toad, featuring Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff robe printed mid legs) I’ve specifically chosen outfits and characters that are unlikely to feature in sets for various reasons, as well as anyone who could theoretically appear in an advent calendar or book because they don’t need new molds/dual molding/bulky accessories. And I still managed to put together a list of twelve with just a few minutes thought.

As much as I really want the natural black version to come out soon, it is pretty nice that our first look at this mold is the half trans version. It lets us see a lot more detail that simply wouldn’t be visible in the marketing pics if the piece was fully black. Like, I love the fact that it actually has claws.

I saw that too. If nothing else, when it finally does come in straight black I’m going to need to get a murder of them to populate the 2019 Hagrid’s Hut.