Retro Brick Reviews

Since the sweater doesn't have any skin tone showing, it's possible that it's a leaked torso for a different character, not necessarily Cho. Hermione's torso does seem to be a match, which just raises the question of which scene it's based on. Not the Battle of Hogwarts, as she had her jacket then. Hmm...

I'm pretty sure these leaks are fake. Hermione looks believable, but Cho definitely looks like an existing sweater print just turned around. Not to mention that this would be the third different hairpiece for her, and one that doesn't fit particularly well. Not buying it.

Not entirely relevant to this forum, but two new Batman sets were just revealed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure these two sets are coming in June, which would mean that the Summer Reveal Season has started.

Potential market if it's a full chess set that can connect to the back of the castle wall: LEGO Harry Potter fans who are collecting the Anniversary castle LEGO Harry Potter fans who aren't collecting the Anniversary castle but still like the set on it's own Chess fans Casual Harry Potter fans LEGO fans who don't own a LEGO chess game Potential market if it's a small cutoff chess area in an Anniversary castle section: LEGO Harry Potter fans who are collecting the Anniversary castle LEGO's not stupid, they know that one of these will sell much better than the other. Not to mention that the whole idea of the August wave seems to be different styles of sets to appeal to new audiences. They wouldn't have all these different 18+ buildable gimmick sets, and then one Anniversary playset.

Wowee, just like a CHESS BOARD. I don't know why people have decided this'll be a Hogwarts expansion with a little chess section. That makes little sense and likely wouldn't sell well. Now, if only people would realize that 3x3 is too small for each square...

My idea for the chess set is as follows: TL,DR: The chessboard will be 32x32, and include an 8x8 Final Challenge castle section as a sidebuild, which can be connected to the Forbidden Corridor to form a wall with all the challenges behind which the chessboard can be attached. (All speculation) I think it's extremely likely that it will be 32x32 (a full board with 4x4 squares), and not inherently have any walls (more on that momentarily). After all, anything less than 4x4 would be too small for minifig scale, and 6x6 is way too huge for a 900-piece set. I could see them introducing a 4x4 jumper for the spaces, which would both be a useful piece and significantly cut down on the amount of pieces needed for the board, allowing more to go into the playing pieces. For the pieces, the Knights will likely be horses with (unprinted) minifig statue riders and the rooks will be statue minifigs atop buildable towers, while the kings, queens, bishops, and pawns would be brickbuilt figures, albeit potentially with some minifig elements, such as helmets. The set would also include a sidebuild of a small 8x8 castle section, based on the Final Challenge room, which could attach at the far end of the chessboard. Due to the small size, this entire build would be sub-100 pieces. My idea for how this hypothetical set could incorporate into the Hogwarts system: Well, the chessboard would be 32x32, as mentioned prior. The prelims show that the Forbidden Corridor is 24x24, and the aforementioned Final Challenge sidebuild would be 8x8- a total width of 32 studs. My idea is that, if you had both sets, you could connect the walled modules together to make a 32 stud wide wall, and then the board would be able to pin in behind the wall. Presuming that the Devil's Snare is at the bottom of the tower section of the Forbidden Corridor and the Winged Keys are in the wide section, this would allow one to have every challenge connected together, albeit with inconsistent scaling between areas. It would also be a really neat display to have from the interior, of course.

While the latter is likely, DA is pretty much the only D2C to have gotten such a late reveal. If I remember correctly, the D2C Hogwarts was revealed over a month before release, so there aren't any patterns here. Not to mention that DA still had advertising and buildup before the reveal.

That's not necessarily the case, there have been D2C expansions released one year after the OG set before. Ninjago City Docks comes to mind (in addition to the Modular Buildings, of course).

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Here you go! I couldn't find the exact piece counts, though I know they were leaked. If anyone has them, it'd be appreciated if you could update this list with them.

I take it this is why FalconFan asked in his story if people like Chocolate Frog cards. Curious if this'll be a separate inclusion as an accessory in addition to the golden figures, or if the golden figures will each have a buildable CF Card-style display. Either would be amazing imo.

No need, I have a spare brown top hat. He can have it.

Wow, that's some unexpected info. First, the Chess set. I'll admit I'm a little disappointed that the Chess set will be sub-1,000 pieces, but at least we are still getting it at a good size. Looking back to LEGO's most recent generic chess set, that was about 1,450 pieces, but a significant amount of that went into the base. I suppose that a good chess set of that size at 900 pieces is still feasible, especially if not all of the pieces are brickbuilt (i.e. if the Knights use the standard LEGO horses, and the statues on the Knights and Rooks can definitely be minifigures. The Queen, King, and Bishops should still be brickbuilt, even if they do use minifigure headgear). My worry is that other builds will significantly take away from the already somewhat low piece count. If this set is structured as an expansion, I hope it just has a simple back wall with some keys attached to it (If you detach the chess board, the room becomes the chamber of winged keys. If not, it just adds to the display), and a small 8x8 section off at the far end of the board with the Final Challenge room (essentially the same size as the 2001 version). I'm still a little apprehensive now, but I'll be cautiously optimistic for the time being.

...Okay. So if neither the Chess set nor the figures are the D2C, then it must be something else entirely, something we know nothing about. If after all this it actually turns out to be Gringotts...

I'mma be real pissed. Then again, the $120 set has over 1,700 pieces, so I suppose they could do the chess well at that price point as well. Still very disappointed.

The Slytherin torso is the same from DA. Only the Gryffindor one is new.

While most of the figures last year had great torsos, that's pretty much where it ends. The sheer amount of awful face reuses pretty much ruins most of the 2020 figs, and that's completely ignoring other issues like no leg printing, some inaccurate hair colors, etc. This year, we haven't seen any of that yet, just accurate new prints. The only real issue so far is that Hermione doesn't have a skirt, which you didn't even mention.

My prediction for the Polyjuice set is that Harry and Ron will get the DA robes, while Hermione will get just a jumper. That would match up with the CoS, where it seems as though Harry and Ginny will get robes, while it seems to me that Colin might just have a jumper to match Justin, who will most definitely have a jumper to finish off the set for the Moments style. That way, across the Anniversary line you get 2 robes and 1 jumper for both Gryffindor and Slytherin.

It is a new print, you'll notice that the robes are parted at the bottom to reveal the jumper, unlike in DA when they were fully closed.

Minilegogo just updated his insta story with a post featuring the new Ron and Hermione, the Monica... and a new Harry variant with a new Gryffindor robe print. (It's essentially a Gryffindor version of Draco's robes from DA.) I think this confirms that at least Harry will get robes in the Chamber, since I don't see where else these could pop up. Great to have, both for scene accuracy and because robes just really need to be more plentiful. I imagine Harry and Ginny will have robes, while Colin and Justin get Moments torsos. That way, we get scene-accurate attire for our leads and all four houses will have the new jumpers.

Also known as the Golden² Trio.

There's no way. A brickbuilt wand would literally be a noodle of 20 2x2 round bricks with a little handle, they'd have trouble pushing that up to $10, much less $30 or $40.

Wow, that new McGonagall looks fantastic! Easily my favorite figure they've made of her thus far. Glad to see one of my favorite characters finally get her due this year in Hogsmeade and Moments, after the subpar 2018 figure.

That would make sense, though if that were the case you'd think they'd put Harry with some other character (Hagrid, Luna, etc.) and then pair Ron and Hermione together. Now we're just down a ginger.

Considering that the new Great Hall seems to be only eight studs deep (including the exterior wall), I think this is fairly likely, simply because I can't see how they'd fit a full dining hall into the space. We'll probably get two adjacent long tables with a play feature to make them able to flip over, knocking off the minifigure- something much like what was featured in the prototype Great Hall shown off at NYTF 2018. Well, in 2010 that was just because of LEGO wanting to have an equal amount of Rons and Hermiones. Ron came with the Ford Anglia in the Express, so he's absent from the castle with Hermione- similar to how last year we only got 2 HBP Ron's to 3 HBP/OotP Hermiones, because they shoved Ron and the car into Privet Drive. That said, him being left out of the statues is unfortunate, and I do hope they include spare pieces to rebuild Harry into Ron.