sammy_zammy

All this has certainly made me feel less disappointed about missing out on the CNY sets because I waited for Black Friday! Gonna be a lot to buy!

Perhaps we could get Captain Nemo to add all this to the front page like he did last year?

This sounds pretty awesome! However I’m not sure how to feel about Chamber of Secrets being locked behind a set i already have... ah, oh well, I know I’ll buy it anyway! (Dangit, I said I wouldn’t buy any remakes but I’ve walked right into Lego’s trap!)

I think it depends how they approach the extra size of Gringotts. Gringotts is probably a single hall, so an extra “floor” could only be 100-150 pieces since there’s no need for extra stuff inside except empty space.

Lol but I bet if it’s what people want to hear they’ll gain tons of followers. I would say “like a certain someone” but maybe it IS a certain someone, resurfacing under a new alias ?

Maybe we could have a tiny bit of street, just a short wall that goes round a slight corner, like in the Lego game.

Yeah I wasn’t entirely clear. I don’t think they’ve made the changes just to make it more marketable towards children (although I’m sure that’s a Partial factor). But many people seem to think that’s what these changes are doing, exclusively i.e. replacing marketing towards adults

Lol I just ventured there. I had no idea people would get so upset over a Lego set! “Not realistic”? “Like Duplo”? I can understand preferring the original, but people are just acting like children (ironically, a children’s toy being made more marketable for children is what they’re complaining about). I think people see what they voted for as really good (which it is), ans anything different as automatically terrible. I don’t know about the AFOL community sometimes, I really don’t...

I know right. I was thinking about getting The Burrow to get the MBoM GWP, then thought to myself - what’s the better deal for me, full price with this freebie or wait for a discount (come on Smyths please discount it eventually lol)? I came to the conclusion the latter was preferable to a GWP that I don’t really care about! That’s outrageous, I didn’t know they could do that ? I’d quite like that (I seem to remember saying the opposite before And that a stand-alone B&B would be weird, but that was before Gringotts was missing from DA lol). I was always one who was for B&B in DA; this is as I’d love them to stuff a set with tons of random creepy artefacts. I wouldn’t see them doing any other KA shops though. In fact, we didn’t really have a “dark” set last year did we? closers was Grawp but Grawp is a nice giant ——— Also hey everyone, been a while, hope we’re all doing OK :)

Quite surprised to see such positive opinions here after the bashing this seems to be getting on Brickset. Glad to see as IMO it looks awesome. A lot of people seem to confuse “noise”/“randomness” with “detail”. The original design has lots of random detail, like the roof, and the walls. However there’s not much individual detail to particular sections. From a distance, this probably looks bland, and close up, there’s not really anything contrasting in particular to look at and be surprised by other than an overall effect. Not to mention much of this randomness is probably super tedious to build and very fragile. The official set on the other hand has tons of detail - the sign over the forge, the doorways, the various roof tile colours/gradient, the tree. I can’t wait to see the interior. It has plenty of contrast to look good from a distance but also plenty of interesting details to go “aha!” “Ooooh!” When up close. It just feels so full of life and charm. A lot of people are also complaining that it doesn’t fit with other castle stuff since it’s bright and colourful, not the worn-down “nitty gritty” original. And then they go on to complain it’s shrunken down in size - the original idea would’ve been bigger than half the castles and wouldn’t have fitted at all either! I prefer brightly coloured sets but can understand people preferring the muted colours of the original. There’s a number of subjective things and I can understand people being disappointed especially when compared to the original (although the overall design is exactly the same apart from the scaling down). But for me? No way am I disappointed; the new model is better IMO and won’t hurt my wallet so much.

About this becoming an evergreen theme: I wouldn’t mind this, and then rereleasing sets would help my wallet a lot! As long as they don’t improve too much so that it’s not Bricklinkable. However as awesome as these sets are, there are certainly amazing sets with bits they could end up drastically improving, such as the Great Hall’s Tower.

The Dursley’s with wands in 4 Privet Drive say hello Having said that, there must be someone/something that genuinely does that and puts them in minifig hands for the books and Bricktober packs. They must have an extreme case of Lego fingers!

The Third Floor Corridor is one of the most requested sets here I think, along with Chamber of Secrets. Hopefully they’re saving them!

I can’t seem to see it on Amazon UK... But sounds like you’re getting ripped off. Kids’ Books like this almost always come down much cheaper than that... Then again I guess you can cancel.

Aha, I See. Sounds exciting! I hope they do a good job with it. It’s quite big from what I remember so I wouldn’t mind if they made it a little smaller and cheaper but we’ll see! I don’t think we do. But retirement wasn’t anything to do with my comment, it was just a pattern I noticed about Hogwarts Castle’s prices and I was hoping DA will follow the same sort of pattern and go for £50-£80 off in a year or so’s time. :)

Perhaps you could have a crack at making your own? You can get some small LEDs on wire fairly cheaply that are probably suitable.

Me too! Hoping there’s not many sets from other themes that appeal too much - as long as there’s no double whammy of Barracuda Bay and Treehouse! Think I’ll get Diagon Alley next year or the year after, based on Hogwarts Castle there’ll maybe be some decent discounts in a year or so’s time at other retailers. By the way, is the Blacksmith confirmed for January?

Ah, so is that why they introduced the 18+ range?

So, as our current leaker @Guyon2002(although my pitchfork is sharpened - nah, kidding, we know you here and you said take it with a grain of salt so if it’s not right we know it’s not your fault), I’m curious whether you knew anything about this year’s HP Wave? (Damn if you knew anything about Diagon Alley, that would have been annoying with everyone going after He Who Must Not Be Named lol)

I would like a vault though. It wouldn’t have to be correct in terms of the films/books and could just be through a doorway in the back that leads to some rocky path and a vault. But I’d like a little something.

Yeah I was just messing about tbh. Personally I’m not sure I’d want Gringotts to be that huge, and think they could get plenty out of a $120 set. Still, exciting to get info this early so thank you :) Do you think a Hogsmeade could be microscale?

Ever feel like we’ve been in this situation before? ?

If @Guyon2002’s price list is accurate, maybe I shouldn’t be disappointed that the latest Ideas results was naff... sounds like they’re continuing to go all out with this theme. Also sounds like there’s too many sets there to just be Deathly Hallows plus FB3 - so hopefully they’re really going back and filling in the gaps. I’ve got Clock Tower and Beauxbaton’s Carriage left of the 2018/19 HP sets (excluding Hogwarts), and Room of Requirement, Hedwig, the Burrow, Diagon Alley and the Advent Calendar of 2020 still to get. But I think even if next year is more expensive, it’ll be much less than what I’ve spent in total over the last 9 months! (I haven’t spoken on here for a while. I am currently building the Treehouse, which I finally caved and bought, and am totally loving all the details! I also think it’d make a better Whomping Willow than the existing one

Apart from the Build your own Adventure book, no. That book has been known about and available for a while.

Do they not normally, like, announce these things? It looks really nice! Love the interior, now that we’ve got to see it - there’s so much detail! Also love the oval shaped door, and the way the roof leans forward is awesome However, having seen the interior for a proper sense of scale... is it me, or is it a bit small? Considering it’s the same price as the Gingerbread House... or maybe I’m just thinking that because of the outside fenced off area?