Accio Lego

Don’t forget a Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff Quidditch pack, with 2 players from each house. (I can put them on the scoreboard of the Quidditch set, now give me the actual players Lego)

While it would be cool if they all matched so the sets could mesh together and create the forbidden forest over time, I like the height and verticality on the patronus set trees better - they’re more imposing and properly tree like.

‘Facetious reduced head’ lol

I agree, it’s got to be $20, and compared the $20 price point set from last year’s Wizarding World wave it’s still an amazing value. (Double the minifigures and what looks to be a larger build) It’s kind of interesting that both had new large animal molds though, not something I’d expect, but if Lego wants to put amazing new large molds in low price point sets I’m not going to complain.

This is such a gorgeous set - I was already pretty sure these would be disappearing off the shelves quickly, but now that we know there are two dementors and there builds are so nice looking it’s pretty clear that this set is a day 1 purchase, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lego had the same problem of being chronically sold out on thier website like they were last year. Well our first look at Aragog last year did come from an instruction manual. Getting a glimpse of the other sets would be great.

Last year’s City advent calendar had a group of 3 small presents that were all in the same day. I might be able to see 4 house themed presents broken up into 2 days but not 4.

Does anyone know if there are any feel guides posted yet? I managed just fine putting together my own for the Harry Potter series, but I’d like too see other people’s opinions on what to look for.

Honestly, the Christmas sweater Harry isn’t really a surprise - it’s such an iconic part of the movies and an even more iconic part of the books. I do hope that the fact that only Harry’s torso will be a new print might mean we get some other new torsos in a similar vein. Hyped about more school robes instead of just uniform torsos. And I’m super psyched for a marauders map tile, since that means we might get one in one of the sets as well. It’s also great that we’ll be getting some set dressings for our Hogwarts castles (although I’m hoping for some microbuilds as well) which isn’t something you see a ton of in the Star Wars calendars, but I found pretty fun in the City calendar I got last year. Some of the reviews I’ve read from last year’s set of calendars were actually complaining about the number of spoilers on the box. Maybe Lego is reacting to the poor reception of last year’s offerings? In any case, the very first Lego Harry Potter advent calendar isn’t going to need to spoil to much of what’s inside to get people clearing it off the shelves.

Actually the Whomping Willow, Hogwarts Express and Quidditch Match sets were announced mid May, and Aragog and Newt’s Suitcase were officially released in mid June (although set pics of both were leaked before then). The Great Hall and Grindelwald’s Escape were both released much earlier, to coincide with Toy Fair and last year’s trailer release respectively. In any case, those announcements were all fairly unusual because it was essentially a new theme. The only product that followed the normal 1 month before schedule was the CMF. Given that we haven’t seen anything yet, I imagine that this year’s wave will be announced all at once in about a week or two.

Star Wars is weird because it’s changed a lot in the years it’s been around. I’ve looked over a list of the old advent calendars, and while the first several had a Santa variant as the exclusive, last year’s had a random normal character as the exclusive, with only a couple of Christmas themed builds. I also think it’s worth noting that last year’s exclusive had exclusive head, torso, and leg prints - so if we’re just getting Christmas sweater variants then there’s more of a chance of more than one exclusive if it’s just new torso prints. But if we get an entirely new character... I’m also rather fond of the idea that we might get all four uniform torsos in the advent calendar - so I think there could be a real possibility of combining existing heads and torsos in new ways.

Ooo... that’s probably the closest one we’ve seen yet - I’d actually be fine with this if the printing was new and well done (although new hair is still ideal)

Decided to remind myself what Hermione’s hair actually looked like in that scene, and it really needs a new mold and not some generic ponytail. Personally, I’m hoping the reason they went with old heads and hair on some of the characters is so they can do the most iconic Yule Ball look correctly.

I think with the right printing it could look pretty close. I think the biggest issue is the relative size (which might not be that much of a problem, but it’s hard to get a read on exactly how big the Horntail is in the movie), and the number of slots for horns (4 - which is better than the 2004 one). Honestly if this is the piece they end up using it’s going to be dependent largely on how well the printing has been designed. I think it could go either way so I’m going to reserve judgment until I see the actual set.

I don’t know, the Basilisk’s snout isn’t pointed like a beak like the Horntail’s is. Plus, I really liked the feature on the 2002 head that let you have knife pieces as removable fangs - pretty integral to recreating the movie scene.

I was referring to the 2 retailer exclusive sets from last year, and how the lack of any official information on them before the official press release was similar to the current situation with the August sets. But I can see how I might have worded it weirdly.

True, but it’s completely possible to get a couple of extra DA members - just look how we got Susan Bones and Seamus Finnigan last wave. Plus, while there will be other opportunities to get Neville, Ginny and Luna in other sets, there might not be that many opportunities to get them in Hogwarts uniforms - just look at this wave, no regular uniform torsos at all.

Honestly, after seeing how awesome Harry’s patronus stag looks - and just reeling from the fact that Lego made a patronus at all - the top thing on my wishlist for Order of the Phoenix sets is a DA room of requirement featuring the patronus lesson scene. It would hopefully have Ginny as well as uniform versions of Neville and Luna, and there are already molds for most of the patronuses you’d need (except Hermione’s otter but that wouldn’t be too hard). It would be a super cool way to get some characters we don’t have new or regular versions of yet.

The chances of there being another June release that we don’t know about is really slim. But two sets that we know exist but don’t have any official info on is essentially the same situation as the 2 August sets - so speculate away

We didn’t know what it was, but we did know that the 2 retailer exclusive sets existed, and the Quidditch minifigures leaked shortly before the official announcement. If we haven’t heard about any mysterious retailer exclusive sets yet, then we’re probably just getting the 5 in June and 2 in August. Which makes sense - last year we got knowledge of the original 3 sets from the retailer catalog which doesn’t include retailer exclusives, and this year we found out about the number of sets a different way.

Basically, the top preforming themes last year were the ones that have been around for awhile and have the largest inventory of sets to sell. Harry Potter will probably be higher up on the list this year, but at one wave a year it’s always going to be at a bit of a disadvantage compared to Star Wars and Lego’s in house themes. Now, seeing how this year’s advent calendars preform against each other - that could be interesting

I think it might be a matter of staying true to the source material. Yes, Emma Watson’s hair is a lighter brown and Daniel Radcliffe is a very dark brunette, but Harry and Hermione have black and brown hair respectively. The Hermione figure from the Dimensions packs had lighter hair closer to what would be screen accurate to the later movies, and it was an unpopular pack because it just didn’t look right. At this point they’ve been using the basic book accurate colors so long that nobody would recognize the characters if they changed it.

The battle of Hogwarts does seem the most likely other place to get dementors, and you’re right about them being fairly minor characters in the movies - or rather, showing up in very few scenes. (I think there are about 5 (more if you count Harry’s boggart) scenes in Prisoner of Azkaban where they actually interact with the characters. And they only show up in 3 scenes outside that movie). The frustrating thing for those who want to create scenes is that in most of the scenes they do appear there are a ton of them, and it will take some work for those who want to build up an army.

If I recall we didn’t get any real leaks from the Great Hall, because that had official pictures released way ahead of time. We miraculously didn’t get any leaks for the Hogwarts Express either, and there wasn’t much in the way of Fantastic Beasts leaks. That being said, new molds that aren’t part of minifigures don’t often leak, Buckbeak and the stag patronus are exceptions because they’re so big (and pretty). Last year we didn’t get any leaks for the new thunderbird and occamy parts, so I expect there are horntail pieces we won’t see until the official photos. There’s also supposed to be a new dog in the Hagrid’s Hut set. So there’s plenty to look forward to

Do new pieces that are in production for an unreleased set typically leak via the minifigure building stations? I don’t get to root around in my local Lego store often, but usually when I see new elements in there it’s after they’ve been released in whatever they were originally made for.

The fact that we got a Hufflepuff uniform torso was definitely an added bonus though, and might very well have contributed to choosing that particular character line up. Personally, I’m really hoping that they use the fact that all four uniform torsos currently exist (finally!) to allow themselves to put some ‘obscure’ Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students in the advent calendar (Draco and some combination of Gryffindors is basically assured). After all, from my understanding of the Star Wars calendars there’s only a limited number of exclusive prints in each year, so what better way to get people excited for the advent calendar with old prints than to release all four uniform torsos together for once.