Accio Lego

I mean, at this point we’re going into the seventh year of the reboot and the original run had ten years of sets before that. At this point there’s only a handful of locations and things they haven’t done in Lego form yet, although if you don’t count the original run in the ‘00s it gets slightly larger. The fact of the matter is that Harry Potter is pretty static in regards to content, so we’re unlikely to get anything ‘mind blowing’ out of just set names anytime soon. We’ll just need to be patient and wait to see the actual builds being given to us before we pass judgement.

It’s not uncommon for us to not see anything official until the last minute. Especially recently. I’ve noticed several promos recently where I only heard about them ahead of time because the rumors went round in the leaker community, and the first time I saw anything from lego was when the promo went live on their site.

It really depends A LOT on the store you’re going to. I’ve never really had a problem with Harry Potter at my local store, but NASA sets often sell out day of here. It’s really going to depend on your local demographics. It might be worth calling up your store and just asking if they tend to sell out of new Harry Potter D2Cs on a regular basis and how quickly it happens.

Dang, and I thought getting roughly 1000 points off all my stuff (almost entirely Harry Potter) was impressive. I guess having a whole family of lego builders makes a difference. Interestingly enough, I noticed that sets in the 40XXX range don’t have QR codes. Which makes sense for the promo sets, but my sister has the Santa’s Sleigh set and I’ve got Everyone is Awesome, both of which are also part of that 40XXX range, and neither of them have QR codes despite being retail sets. Doesn’t really affect the Harry Potter theme (unless someone was counting on getting an extra 20 from a gwp) but still an interesting observation.

That’s what I’ve thought for awhile. Accept that you won’t get all the characters in and it’s got decent set potential and would be a good way to introduce the specialized parts needed for a Hagrid compatible motorcycle (the only on screen magical vehicle that lego has never made).

I remember seeing it on Cheetah from the DC cmf. I want to say it existed for similar purposes before that too, but I’m not certain. It’s definitely a preexisting part though.

It’s possible that the system scale Hogwarts Express was also pushed back a year (that would explain the hair choice for Lee) although I imagine they just don’t plan the regular wave as far out as the giant D2Cs.

Yeah, I honestly can’t think of another reason to have a head with two different masks as opposed to a mask and a face. Fingers crossed it gets used in something the lets it easily be army built for those who want the heroes to face a more substantial threat. There are $15 and $20 sets on the leaked list after all. Maybe one of them is a proper battle pack style set.

To be fair, series 25 being its own thing probably helps. When one of the numbered series is themed with something you don’t like, you know it’s going to be a year or so before another unlicensed series comes along. Since this is coming separately after series 25, anyone who isn’t a huge fan of unlicensed space themes can just skip it like they would a licensed series they didn’t care about, and it presumably won’t affect any future releases to their detriment.

Thanks for the tip!

Exclusive goblin is fun - although with the tuxedo torso he looks a tad too dapper to be driving a cart. I’ll be putting him behind one of the desks in the bank. The coin bank feature is cute. The seeming lack of an included option for lego vault contents is less cute, but as drawbacks go it’s a pretty easy one to fix. (I actually got the pirates VIP add on pack when I picked up the Hogwarts Express last year, so I’ve already got some pirate booty to throw in there. Plus some old chrome gold coins that I’m tempted to stash in there as well.) Definitely going to enjoy extending the track a bit. This is actually the first set I’m ever getting that uses the roller coaster track elements, so I’m probably going to spend the first week of September giggling like a little kid and shooting mine carts across the lego building table.

Plenty of people only collect certain types of minifigs from the numbered unlicensed series (historical/space/castle/fantasy/monster/costumes etc.). These people might be hesitant to do a truly blind pull from a regular series where 70% of the figs are for themes they’re uninterested in, but would be willing to take their chances with a series where all the options are something they’re interested in. That’s my theory anyway, I don’t exactly have the resources to confirm via focus groups like lego does. But I imagine Lego will be closely comparing the sales statistics of series 25 vs this ‘Space’ series.

You just sent me right back to the episode of Magic School Bus where they learn the importance of spiders and other predatory insects while fighting/trying to save the giant praying mantis attacking a town in an old black and white B movie (that the kids can obviously zap themselves into and affect the outcome of because Magic). I really need to find that episode online and rewatch it now, it was a fun one. Might give me some moc ideas.

Yeah, part of the problem is that most Star Wars characters they could put in a series that haven’t been done multiple times before would be either really obscure or from something extremely new and therefore less popular. And most of those new Star Wars shows are getting decent set representation - it’s not like the Marvel Disney+ shows that are practically only getting represented in cmf form. It’s just impossible to put together a series that would satisfy collectors while also having shelf appeal to casual fans at this point. And in the meantime, City has a number of space and aliens themed sets slated for next year. Add in the rumored Icons moments set that’s also Space themed and clearly lego is doing a big push for all things unlicensed space next year, even if we don’t take this cmf into account. Take into account that themed unlicensed series are probably a decent way to get around the inevitable slump of switching to boxes and, well, there are some licensed sci-fi themes I’d love it to be, but it’s most likely we’re looking at something unlicensed here.

That Obi Wan came with a buildable stand though - and stands are the favorite workaround of all the manufacturers when it comes to that licensing issue. (Several other Star Wars minifigure promos have also come with buildable stands, presumably for this same reason) And it is still an issue that would probably prevent a Star Wars series. Just look at all the Star Wars offerings from Funko. Every other license has its share of freestanding figurines - except Star Wars. ALL the Star Wars Funkos have a base of some sort - even if it’s super plain. Even the Star Wars Funko Sodas have little bases on them, and nothing else from that line bothers with any sort of base. All that is happening currently, so it doesn’t seem like the Hasbro contract has changed at all. So yeah, pretty sure a Star Wars cmf is still well out reach unfortunately.

Depend on what the purchase threshold is, you might not have to get Gringott’s unless it’s literally the only Harry Potter set you don’t have yet. Which also shouldn’t be the case since the Architecture style Hogwarts is coming on the same day. Which begs the question, what’s the highest gwp thresholds we’ve ever had for Harry Potter? $200, $250? And this one only has a single minifig. There’s a decent chance that getting the new micro Hogwarts and the advent calendar will be enough to clear the threshold - assuming it isn’t exclusively tied to buying the Gringotts set.

I’m just happy that we’ve finally got a specific start date from someone reliable. Sounds like it’s also going to be a generic vault that’s just got a little more space than the ones in the set - which allows for people to make it belong to whomever they desire (which is rather appropriate for lego). Hopefully the goblin includes a new print or two, or at least mixes and matches existing ones so it’s not a copy of any of the set goblins. Either way it’s nice to be able to beef up the Gringotts staff even more. With any luck we’ll also get a bunch more of the printed galleon tiles and whatever treasure-y pieces the designers can squeeze into the budget for this little set.

I’m sorry, but does that battle unicorn have a bare chested torso with a giant, full back rubber ducky tattoo? I mean, I’ve seen tattoos on minifigures before but that one’s rather… unique.

That thought had occurred to me as well. And lego can be rather stringent when it comes to model sturdiness, so adding the bases was probably required by whatever standards and practices department they have.

A lot of pretty reliable leakers seem to agree on the September release for the Gringotts Vault gwp. So it seems unlikely that it’s just a guess or speculation. Hopefully we’ll learn more in the next week or so.

The smowl is perfect. Here’s hoping the Harry Potter (and maybe City) designers have some sense and we see 2-3 new colors of this little nugget in regular sets next year, because right now it’s nearly impossible to deliberately get ahold of it.

It would probably depend on the kind of sets, I’ve never been interested in brickheadz but I’d absolutely have to collect any minifigure based sets and they could probably sucker me into buying a UCS Dalek or TARDIS if they made one.

10, 11, and War against zygons is already canon - with the added bonus of ‘Rose’ alongside Clara and the UNIT team. If that was made and sold well it wouldn’t shock me if lego was given free rein to be creative, and you know they like to beat a gimmick to death (gestures at superhero mechs).

Less anger, more overthinking all of it on my own and extra primed for an Internet rant given the right opening I’m afraid 😅 I personally think that if lego does do a full theme for Doctor Who an accompanying cmf sooner or later is a shoe in, simply because Doctor Who has six decades of characters backlogged to choose from, many of them being monsters that would need unique molds. The crux of the matter is if there will be a push for a renewed Doctor Who x Lego partnership. The Disney+ deal and certain interviews suggest an overall merchandising push coming so we can only hope.

That’s a pretty fun play feature, kinda a shame they went back to the handleless goblet piece for Hufflepuff’s cup, but it’s not like they took advantage of using the small trophy in the Banner set to print a badger on it, so if going back to the goblet makes an extra play element possible I’m all for it.