Arstotle

There are plenty of characters left to do - certainly enough for another CMF line. And I always wanted that Android's Dungeon rumor to come true.

We started getting official teases from TLG in the last week of August 2018, with the official reveal on September 9th. Hopefully that means we'll start to get some official hints next week. Maybe even get a look at the holiday GWP's.

What I mean is that the secondary build may be more significant than usual. If we look at the builds in the three Winter Village sets with piece counts over 1000 Cottage - 1490 pieces - Large, elaborate cottage (IMO out of scale with the rest of the winter village), a vehicle, a small shed Market - 1261 pieces - Moderately sized carousel, and three minor stands Fire Station - 1166 pieces - Large building, vehicle, pond In the descriptions, I've omitted the tiny side builds - benches, igloo, tree, etc. I'm assuming that Lego is going to do something remarkable for the 10th anniversary set (this may be an incorrect assumption). With 1400+ pieces, I'm guessing we see one of two things: 1) A very elaborate Gingerbread House, which would hopefully still fit in with the rest of the winter village, along with 1-2 minor builds 2) A Gingerbread House more in keeping with the caliber of the toy shop, bakery and post office, along with a secondary build more significant than we have seen before - perhaps even another building that would be nearly the same size We haven't seen a winter village set this big in over five years. We saw last year that Lego can do quite a bit with 1100 pieces, so unless they go overboard on the gingerbread house, I'm betting we get something like option #2, maybe with 1.5 - 2 full scale buildings - along the lines of Assembly Square.

If this does turn out to be a gingerbread house, instead of simply being a house where gingerbread people live, I hope it's more of a sweet shop with a gingerbread facade. The gingerbread figures we've seen could be thought to be employees in costume, or even some sort of mannequins, as opposed to being real gingerbread people. I still think that, with 1400+ pieces, we could very well get a second, smaller build that will add to the village nicely.

These leaks are interesting. I know that Series 19 has already been revealed, but I've often thought that a CMF series (particularly one released later in the year) dedicated toward winter would be a really good seller, and 2-3 gingerbread people would have been good choices for such a series. I will say that the baby is pretty weak if it's just a printed tile. They've got a nice baby mold now. 1400+ pieces is still an awfully big set. I know the cottage was that big, but I've always felt that building is out of scale with the rest of the line. It's just a bit too big compared to the rest of the Winter Village buildings. Perhaps the set will include a couple moderately sized buildings - maybe a gingerbread house and a candy store? Those would kinda go together.

I've often thought that a large gingerbread house or carousel would make for a good employee holiday gift. Similar to the elaborate nutcracker they did a couple years ago.