MaxHeadroom

Compare that to the last few years of small sets: 2023: Cho polybag and that’s it for anything under $35 2022: Dumbledore polybag, and the Carriage with Harry and Luna if you’re counting $20 sets. Surely Draco and two different options of sets for Harry+Ron is a better offering for kids with low budgets than the last two years? Looking at the distribution of Ron/Hermione in general in recent years: 2022: 5 pairs (2 in one set), 1 standalone Ron ($120), 3 standalone Hermiones ($30, $50, $80), plus two more standalone Hermione figures in the trunk and GWP. 2023: 5 pairs, Hermione in the RoR ($50) and Ron in WWW ($90) 2024: 3 pairs, plus two solo outings for each (Ron both $15 and Hermione both $38) It’s the first time we’ve had a set with Ron under $45 since 2021 and the first time we’ve had a set with Hermione under $45 since the last wave of Hogwarts moments in early 2022. 3 different options for both characters in sets $38 or less seems pretty good to me compared to the last few years, even if Ron’s solo sets are cheaper than Hermione’s this time for the first time since… 2018?

It’s an 18+ set so that’s not the intended audience for the set anyway

That’s an interesting idea. I was imagining it just being like a floor + decorated interior wall that could slide in and out of a hollow rockface based on the “pulled out” part of the description. Fully swappable and interchangeable lower parts of the castle could work too though, and keep individual sets a bit smaller if they don’t have to include both above ground and underground parts in all the sets.

Interesting news. I’m very happy that the carriage is small since we’ve already got one and I’d like to see as many parts as possible go towards the ship. Ideally the carriage would be no larger than the Grindewald one for example. Not sure how I feel about the Howarts news though. The potions class is just an alternate room then and is not needed to make the full exterior? That’s actually a good idea and keeps costs down for people who just want the exterior. The list of rooms in the Great Hall is interesting. Looks like it’s just the Great Hall and courtyard with no tower which is what I was expecting. Interior is a bathroom, a dungeon with secret passages (so… a hallway with the common room entrance?), and the Hufflepuff common room. I do hope they include the chamber of secrets and stone challenges somewhere under this castle eventually, although if the swappable rooms continue to be a thing I guess they could just release them separately from the actual castle interior sets.

I miss trying to piece those mini figure leaks together.

This was my first thought reading through this convo. I don’t need to see that onscreen, and I certainly don’t need Lego sets of it. Although Lego has been liking their poop in sets in recent years haven’t they? Maybe five years from now we’ll get a hogwarts set with a few of part 6275030 placed on the floors with a disappearing cleaning feature. I really shouldn’t be giving them ideas like that, they did make a buildable Dobby’s sock after all. Not everything a creator makes is gold, and even the original HP books could’ve benefited from a more ruthless editor (especially GOF and OOTP). The Star Wars prequels at least were so new that some of it was bound to be good and of course they made for great toys. Outside of some random throwaway lore details what is a remake trying to stick as closely to the books as possible really going to add, and how much of that is going to make good toys? Plus the books and movies are products of their time and without substantial changes they can’t do much to update that aside from making the extras more diverse which we’re already seeing Lego doing anyway in the trunk sets and apparently Ollivander’s shop. All they can really do to make fresh Lego sets with this show is hope for substantial design changes which I’m not really sure they’d want to do since it would affect brand recognition. Outside of new actors what will change visually that will change the Lego sets? Will the characters just be wearing robes over their casual clothes like in the early art and merch before the movies? Will the hogwarts roofs be a new color? Will any of that do much to refresh the Lego line? It’s possible the current Hogwarts’ aim to be the most detailed and accurate version ever is based on the threat of a new series and redesigned Hogwarts, but I think it’s just as likely that it’s only based on negative reactions to the last 3 years of Hogwarts sets. Let’s not forget how Lego has tied in with other recent Wizarding World content. They did nothing for the Hogwarts Mysteries game and they announced some unrelated sets to celebrate the release of the last FB movie. Same honestly. We’ve already gotten a bunch of PS based figures in the boathouse, I assume we’ll get more in the Great Hall, and then even more in the Potions Class set. Hopefully we get some figures in robes from the later years. How many of those did we get with the sets from the 2021-23 castle? I can only remember DH2 Blaise.

Also I’ve only just realized that the clips are seemingly not only the same for Hagrid’s Hut + the forbidden forest but also the Hogwarts sets. Cool that everything can be connected.

It’s odd that the flying car finally introduces the 1x2 slope tile without grills, and then the boathouse uses the old version with grills anyway. Surely they could’ve found the budget to recolor the new piece?

Totally agree. Harry Potter’s expanded universe isn’t half as popular as Star Wars’ is in general and the LEGO HP collectors aren’t even slightly as invested in the EU as Star Wars fans are. For example I’m someone who has bought most of these sets and probably made hundreds of posts here and elsewhere about this line and honestly I still haven’t watched that last FB movie and wouldn’t really care about a figure from it. Taking young Dumbledore as an example, he’s really just a guy in a suit. Most of the missing characters/variants I can think of are just normal looking people in normal clothes that wouldn’t really be cool for people not interested (unlike the Sith and special clones from Star Wars). And for those of you who are interested, will you buy for example a $100 downgraded remake of a set you already own just to get whatever that figure is?

Gabrielle is a very niche character. In 2019 I remember many casual fans not remembering who she was until reminded that she’s Fleur’s sister who went under the lake. I didn’t remember what her outfit for the second task looked like before seeing the image and I’ll be honest and say I have no recollection of ever having seen that arrival outfit. It must’ve been onscreen for like 10 seconds or something (revisiting the scene, it’s actually onscreen for about 9 seconds and half of that is just her arm visible on the edge of a closeup, followed by it being kind of visible in the background of a 2 second shot of the Durmstrang kids entering, so my guess was close). Meanwhile the jacketed look isn’t particularly distinct from the outfit represented in the last set which featured her. What most people remember about the scene in this set are the main students entering in the uniforms we saw in 2019. I’d bet that even being generous, 90% of the people who are in the market for this set won’t remember that Gabrielle had a different outfit from the rest of the students. I’d like to see Gabrielle’s arrival outfit represented but just look at everything else we need for this set. A new torso print for Karkaroff, possibly a new head, and possibly a new hat. At least one new torso print for the Durmstrang students and again possibly a new hat. Madame Maxime has been out of production for a bit or they might want a new variant so that probably means a new dress, torso, and face print. I would guess that the old Beauxbatons torso, legs, and hat have been out of production too. All of that stuff definitely takes priority over Gabrielle. They may also want to use this opportunity to make a specific face that looks more like Fleur which was a criticism of the old figures, just like they made a new specific face for Krum last year. This could also be their opportunity to make a Gambon Dumbledore for the first time since 2019, which would require a lot of new prints. So I’d be down for a scene specific Gabrielle but it’s not something I’m expecting to see and I won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t happen. There’s too much other stuff in the set which is more important for Lego to focus on than a minor variant with less than a minute of screentime for a minor character.

Do we get set descriptions anymore? I don’t remember any since 2021 (hard to forget those dark days) but maybe I’m forgetting. Feel like they used to be a February thing.

The Great Hall could’ve been based on any movie honestly, and with the Boathouse already being year 1 based (and probably the potions class too) I would’ve liked to see the Great Hall based on a later movie. However, if it’s based on year 1 because it includes the stone challenges then I’m all for it. Only problem is where would they fit fluffy and the trapdoor, assuming the set is just the Great Hall and maybe the courtyard. I’m still not 100% certain the rocks are Lego though, and if the set doesn’t end up including the challenges or anything else that would really make it year 1 specific then I’ll be very disappointed to have yet another set full of short figures and Harris Dumbledore.

I prefer gray looking exclusively at the castle itself but the big benefit of sand green is that they can then make the rocks underneath the castle dark gray and have the rocks, building, and roofs clearly stand out from each other. The 2018 solutions to that problem weren’t ideal. The dark tan rocks in the micro castle blend in too much with the castle itself and remove a valuable potential accent color for the castle (IMO dark tan is a better accent color than nougat). Avoiding a rock layer for the minifig scale sets in 2018 isn’t a perfect solution either. So far we’ve seen mixed results from the 2024 IMO. The colors all work perfectly in the Boathouse with the olive and light gray breaking up the dark grey rocks but the Owlery is lacking a bit and there’s not really enough to make the roof and rocks looks different in terms of color. The snow is probably a big part of that since both sections are dark gray with some white, but it could also be down to the rocks being steeper requiring exclusively large dark gray pieces instead of the mix of dark and light gray we see in the boathouse. It’ll be interesting to see how the other steep rocks around most of the castle will turn out. Hopefully being snow free and including colors not present in the roof like olive for patches of grass will make it more distinct.

Inaccuracies with scale are very different from inaccuracies with color. Lego can usually change the color of pieces relatively easily so wanting accurate colors is not seen as a particularly unreasonable criticism. Meanwhile constructing a boat that could seat four and still have a relatively correct shape, be sturdy enough to be constructed and played with by an eight year old, fit inside the boathouse, not look out of scale, and be within a $37.99 USD price point is a much more difficult task. Plenty of people here have modified the 2021+ sets to include gray roofs to illustrate their point and show that it is possible. I would genuinely like to see you illustrate your point with a boat design that could fit all of LEGO’s requirements for them and fit four figures. I’m sure the designer and LEGO themselves would like to see that as well, as I’m certain they would’ve designed the boats in a way to fit four figures if they thought it was possible. Also, none of us ever said “they shouldn’t have paddles” because if you simply watch the films, you’ll see that the boathouse does have oars on the walls just like in the Lego set. Oars are on the walls and are very clearly visible in the boathouse’s scenes in The Deathly Hallows Part 2. The inclusion of oars makes the Lego set more accurate, not less. If you have a problem with the Hogwarts boathouse having oars, that’s an issue with the film set, not the Lego set which accurately represents them. It’s like complaining that the roofs are gray instead of neon yellow. The change you want would make the Lego set less accurate to the films.

I’m not sure about that. Doesn’t it usually take 2 years for most lego sets to get made? At this point LEGO knows they will get another three years out of the theme so why not actually think ahead and plan things out for once? I’d guess that what we’re seeing in the image outside of the Great Hall and/or the staircase tower are at least prototypes for what’s coming later.

Totally agree. I really doubt the wheelchair figure would be replacing Narcissa. Assuming the wheelchair figure reuses existing prints then I think it’s safe to assume it’s far cheaper for Lego to include this figure over Narcissa who would require at least a new hair print/dual mould and a new torso print. If we’re going to be getting a random extra just to populate the shop, it might as well be one which makes the figure lineup in this theme a bit more visually interesting than just the endless black torso/legs and light nougat headed figures standing around.

Also, another forbidden forest only six months after the last set? I assume the Aragog set will be including some bit of landscape to connect to it.

I wonder if the Great Hall will include the staircase tower and/or the courtyard. I wouldn’t say either is guaranteed.

Wow that Hagrid’s Hut really looks small for a $75 set. I can see a lot of parents and kids being disappointed by it. It’s been made as dense as possible to try and make up for it but let’s be honest, it did not need to be that dense and detailed. The boathouse doesn’t look like great value for money to me either. If that’s $38, I don’t know how anything from the rest of that castle could fit in any of the summer prices aside from $200. I’ll definitely be waiting for sales, which seems like the only way to buy most Lego sets at all anymore. That Hogwarts Castle though, wow. Remember just last summer when some were saying the M̶i̶n̶e̶c̶r̶a̶f̶t̶ modular style was the only way we could’ve ever possibly gotten a large castle large with a silhouette that looked like the actual castle? That didn’t last very long did it. Glad to see that it looks like we’ll be getting rocks/underground stuff too. Im very optimistic for the exterior of this system now, although I’m not getting my hopes up yet for the interior. The sets we’ve gotten from it so far are based on small buildings with pretty empty interiors which works there, but remembering this is the same team (afaik) that gave us the empty hallway collection known as The Battle of Hogwarts last year and The Room of Requirement with bonus empty hallway/sink, I’m keeping my expectations low. Alright leakers, bring on the proper summer set list now XD

Not surprised in the slightest. It’s a very obvious building to do, at least before QQS or the bookstore. I’m still not sure if I really need these when I already have the DA. The builds are definitely worse but the new figures and side buildings are nice to have. Glad to see this confirmed but it felt like a bit of a given that we’d get another playscale DA building. Hopefully we’ll get news about the rest of the sets soon.

Not sure I’ve commented on these so I’ve got to say, these are leagues better than the chocolate frog cards. The chocolate frog cards could really only go in a figure’s hands and that’s about it, and there’s only so many figures you want holding big purple tiles. These can actually be used in MOCs and can kind of get used get used in sets although they’ve mostly been awkward so far. I just hope theyre included a bit more often in future sets.

2020 was also boosted by fake leaks and riddles. A major part of the dropoff recently I haven’t seen anyone mention is that the structure of the theme is gone. Before the 2021 soft reboot we could easily speculate about what Lego would make for the next two movies and even after the soft reboot it seemed like they’d be covering a couple movies each year in chronological order since 2021 was Stone/Chamber and a bit of POA. Now that the structure is kind of gone (2022 I guess focused on POA-OOTP and 2023 was kind of HPB-DH) and it’s all a bit too general to do as much constructive speculation. The majority of sets now are also either remakes of recently made sets or buildable creatures/objects. The remakes just aren’t as exciting to discuss in general and it’s not too difficult to figure out what is going to be remade, when, and what those sets will contain. The buildable creatures/objects inspire even less discussion. We have an unrevealed buildable mandrake coming and even if we don’t all know every exact detail of what it’ll look like, from the title alone I think we all know exactly what it’ll contain. Only question is if the figure will be our third Sprout since the 2018 reboot or our third Neville in herbology gear since the 2018 reboot.

I think it’s unlikely but possible Lego may start this new line with the astronomy tower or the clock tower as the first big castle set since both of those are off the market. Might be worth considering. At the same time this Hogwarts line is aimed at a slightly different market than the 2021 sets and considering the great hall was only a small part of the 2021 set, I don’t think it would be a huge deal to have both on the shelves at the same time. When it comes to the great hall I agree that it shouldn’t be more than $150. Ideally for me we’d get the Great Hall, courtyard (if it can get 2 sets in the last system it can get one here), and the staircase tower as their own separate sets all on top of 6-8 bricks of rocks. The problem would be that the Great Hall wouldn’t look great 6-8 bricks up in the air with a missing courtyard. I think it would be fine if the set photos were just angles from the other side (with the large window) but I can see LEGO wanting to have those doors be a feature on the front of the box. I guess the solution would be to either try to fit the Great Hall and courtyard in the same set again or ditch the rocks, which I really hope doesn’t happen.

When it comes to social media posts combining the sets, I’ve also seen plenty of people combining them and also had fun combining them myself. With that said I’ve also seen plenty of people not really know what to do with them once they’re combined and I don’t often spot them in AFOL collections like I did the 2018-20 castles. Theyre fun to put together but the need to have all the sets look different on the shelves and try to make the rectangles interesting leads to a lack of unity in the exteriors which doesn’t make the castle appealing to display once you’ve had fun putting the modules together. It’s also wrong to say I wasn’t fond of it just because I called out its flaws. I was very fond of the 2021 line when it occasionally focused on what it did best. Polyjuice Potion Mistake is probably my fourth favorite Hogwarts set of the 2018+ reboot and it’s definitely the best Hogwarts set under $50 ever made. I also love the interiors of a number of other sets. I don’t think calling the line unfocused is really much of an opinion though as these sets just weren’t very focused on an objective. You’ve said they focused on interior but did they really or is that just the marketing line we were told when it started? Look at what we got in terms of significant rooms each year excluding GWP: 2021- 4 sets, initial USD retail $210: Girls’ bathroom, Fluffy’s room, Devil’s snare room, trophy room, Astronomy classroom, Lockhart’s office, Lockhart’s classroom, CoS slide, main CoS room, and the Great Hall 2022- 3 sets, initial USD retail messy because of price increases but around $180: Hospital wing, Sirius’ prison, the library, two Dumbledore’s office rooms, and a spiral staircase room if we’re being generous 2023- 2 sets, USD retail $130: Room of Requirement It’s pretty clear to see LEGO lost interest in interiors. If you think the rooms I excluded are all worthwhile interiors and that it’s all just my opinion, check out the marketing. In 2021 PPM’s interior was displayed on the front of the box and the Chamber of Secrets’ interior is the main product image for that set on Lego’s website. Interiors would never be at the front of marketing again and in 2023 they literally didn’t use a single photograph of the Battle of Hogwarts’ interior on the box or in the product images. Interiors were so important to the 2021-23 line that they literally did not photograph the interiors of the second largest set in the system. Doesn’t seem very focused to me.

Yes I’m happy to see the new reboot as it’s clearly what the designers/lego have been wanting to do for the last year or two. I was sad to see the 2018+ version go because it was still going strong in 2020 and it felt like it was only a few rooms away from being complete (Hufflepuff/Slytherin dorms + library). Meanwhile the 2021+ castle is missing so many key features (common rooms outside of a GWP, potions class, greenhouses) that when combined with Lego only bothering to make one notable interior last year with the ROR, I can’t say I’m surprised or particularly sad to see it go. I just wish three years wasn’t a rule because when Lego is doing a good job with a Hogwarts line, I’d prefer to see them stick with it for just a year or two longer. As for design tastes if the blocky exteriors with endless accent colors and window designs are your thing then more power to you. Same for all the fans of the interiors during the later waves who love empty hallways, little sinks, and whatever’s on the inside of the Battle of Hogwarts (LEGO couldn’t even be bothered photographing those interiors for the product images). Personally I think Lego should’ve stuck to what this line could’ve done differently compared to the 2018+ and now 2023+ systems, good large interiors and underground modules. Instead they tried to please everyone and as a result comprised the best parts and from what I’ve seen still disappointed a lot of the fans who preferred exteriors.