MaxHeadroom

Look at the pricepoints though. $14.99, $19.99, $37.99, $74.99, $44.99, $29.99, and the 18+ set at $99.99. Four of those sets are under $40. There’s no way Hagrid’s Hut, Fluffy’s Encounter, or the Knight Bus would be released in 2024 for under $40. The Knight Bus could maybe be the $44.99 set with 364 parts. The $74.99 set contains 896 parts and we’ve never seen a 2019+ playscale set with Hagrid come in at less than 10¢ppp so that’s definitely not Hagrid’s Hut and probably not a Fluffy Encounter remake either. On the opposite end of things I’d say the 18+ set has too few parts for Hagrid’s Hut or Fluffy to be safe guesses and is probably something that would require a lot of larger parts. As for the final challenge and chamber of the winged keys, those aren’t really the kind of remakes we’d be told to not get our hopes up about. Safe to assume ‘remakes’ means stuff that’s already been made since 2018. Aragog and the Ford Anglia seem like safe guesses, each as their own individual sets with the Ford Anglia being Speed Champions style to appeal to that market. Otherwise maybe we could get a graveyard duel remake (although that still might be too dark for the 2021+ era?) or OOTP room of requirement. Hopefully there isn’t too long of a wait for set names.

Don’t mind a bunch of cheap remakes if that’s the case. I’m more tempted to buy remakes of cheaper sets for a couple new things than the remakes of larger sets we got this year. What remakes could we really get at those pricepoints though?

That’s the only way I could see it done (a set actually including multiple Harry figures sounds like a nightmare with how many Harrys I’m sure we all already have. Still though a set based around a motorcycle for Hagrid? Realistically since it would have to meet LEGO’s play standards it’ll probably end up like the oversized and ridiculous bikes the super heroes line is famous for. It’s not really at the top of my list. Really I suppose they could make a new Privet Drive set be battle of seven potters focused but I really doubt that would happen. I’d argue the dementors could also count as antagonist foot soldiers but that still leaves us with very little. When it comes to death eaters the problem is that unlike stormtroopers which are everywhere all the time they’re restricted to very few scenes until DH (DH of course being restricted to very few sets with OOTP and HBP also not getting much attention from Lego). Off my limited memory it’s the Quidditch World Cup, Graveyard duel, department of mysteries battle, Ollivander’s kidnapping, bridge destruction, Borgin & Burkes, Dumbledore’s death, Malfoy manor meeting, seven potters, wedding battle, diner battle, ministry, Lovegood house, Malfoy manner battle, Gringotts break in, and battle of Hogwarts. Some options are too niche (bridge destruction, manor meeting), some have already been made in recent years (ministry, Gringotts), some would work better based on other films (Borgin, Ollivander’s), and some are probably too dark especially for 2021+ LEGO HP (parts of the ministry and Malfoy manor battles, Dumbledore’s death). Personally my most wanted from what’s left would be the wedding battle or the lovegood house.

In the past it’s taken about a decade between Gringotts releases but I doubt that will be the case here. Now that they’ve finally ripped the bandaid off Gringotts I’m sure they’ll only wait another 3-5 years to make one that’s more accessible. If you want a substantial building then go for the D2C, if you want a facade with more budget for new prints and interior then wait for the playscale version. A playscale version almost certainly won’t include the dragon or a physically underground section though and I’d bet that a minecart section wouldn’t be included. Really I would just expect a vault plopped on the ground floor like the 2011 set. Chances are the D2C Gringotts will still be on the market by the time that releases anyway if you see the playscale one and decide you want the D2C. We got WWW this year, probably Ollivander’s next year, then maybe Borgin and Burkes or QQS after that before Gringotts. They’ll want to release one of these DA system sets a year and there are really only so many shops that are recognizable enough to a casual audience to sell a set based on them.

Oh I had forgotten about the death eater in the Gringotts set. I’ve tried to avoid looking at the pictures or thinking about it too much so it still feels fresh once I finally get it, although during the wait from purchase to delivery I’ll probably cave and watch reviews once those start coming. I do hope it pops up a few more times. I’ve never been a diehard battle pack with only massable characters guy (mainly because the vast majority of people will only get one copy of the set) but I’m always for throwing these kinds of figures in with sets. There aren’t many sets that have been released where I think a death eater should’ve been thrown in since there have been so few OOTP-DH2 sets but there are plenty where I think a dementor should’ve been added, 2022’s Sirius Black’s Escape set being the prime example. Hopefully we’ll get a dedicated ministry battle set (in the same relative style as the last ministry set?) or something else with a death eater next year.

Death eater mask? Has a death eater figure leaked or something? What am I missing?

That would be my guess too. Definitely not green because that would be too close to the turtle house. If it’s orange hopefully it’ll be dark orange like the actual piece is.

Brickheads Hagrid and Buckbeak was the tie in GWP for Diagon Alley. I definitely got it when I ordered the DA just after midnight on release day. We’ve been told the vault comes in September right? And in general the concept of it seems very tied to the set (although the same could’ve been said for micro Hogwarts and the micro DA).

I’ve been getting back into LEGO Minecraft recently after only watching from afar since around 2015. It hasn’t extended beyond buying anything other than the Swamp Adventure and a ton of 2x2 tiles for MOCs but I’m definitely interested to see what happens with this line. Not too interested in most of the new additions to the game in recent years but I love the Sniffer and was hoping to see one here but there’s no obvious place for one. 21251: Steve’s Desert Expedition - I can definitely see this being Steve, a hostile mob, a camel possibly reusing the llama head (it would be as accurate as the fox), a small amount of desert terrain with a cactus, and maybe a decorated pot. 21252: The Armory - One or two printed armor trim sets on armor stands and some kind of rough build of a wall. Armorer villager, player, and probably a hostile mob? Can’t really see getting too much more for only $20. 21253: The Animal Santuary - Name is too vague to really get much. I doubt it would feature a Sniffer since I think doing Sniffer stuff could take up a $20 set on its own and if it was Sniffer focused it would be in the set’s name. When it comes to the classic overworld mobs the pig is the only one we got in 2023 so I could see them making a general mob set with a cow, pig, chicken, and a new color of sheep to entice collectors. Just hoping whatever mobs get included are the adult versions and not the baby versions Lego often cheapens out with. 21254: The Turtle Beach House - Doesn’t seem expensive enough to be a full turtle house, so probably just the head? 21255: The Nether Portal Ambush - I’ve seen this set under the name “Expedition of the Nether Portal” so not sure what’s up there. Sounds less generic than ambush though and could imply that maybe blocks need to be cleared to access it. I’ve been tempted by the current portal set (I’ve never owned any Nether set) but maybe I’ll wait and see what this is like since it’ll probably be similar just hopefully a bit larger to go with the increased price. 21256: The Frog House - Pretty self explanatory. Not surprised it exists.

Low prices! Incredible! And they’re not all the same price so probably not all the same gimmick repeated 4 times. What a breath of fresh air after the last two years where every single non-gimmick set except one was $45 or more. I’d bet at least one of those is anothe foldout and another is an out of scale buildable creature/object but surely a couple of those are going to be standard minifig sets? Based on those prices I’m going to assume it’s the winter/spring wave?

Any idea when we’ll get winter wave info? Kind of an interesting spot right now after the last three years which have been a downgrade from the earlier stuff, to say the least. If the castle is rebooted I’m sure we won’t know until the summer 2024 wave but it’ll be interesting to see if we get yet another fold out system or if those are being left in the past now that the new lead has fully taken the reins. We’ve had books, trunks, and banners already so what’s left? Feels like we’re already scraping the bottom of the barrel. Wands? Scarves? Cauldrons? Potion bottles? Those are probably all scrawled on a whiteboard somewhere in Denmark. Personally I think they should make accurate Hogwarts buildings which fold out and have interiors. That would be cool.

Looks good so far but I really haven’t saved enough money for this yet.

Casting aside the Hogwarts sets, foldable things, and oversized builds (3 things which make up most the line these days) leaves a mostly solid collection of sets. Hogsmeade, the Thestral carriage, the Shrieking Shack, Grimmauld Place, the second task, and maybe to a lesser extent the WWW and Hogwarts Express remakes are all on par with the 2018-20 level of quality. The only thing that makes me nervous is the D2C Hogwarts Express. In general with modern HP if the concept is good, the set is still good. If we were talking about a trunk full of Gringotts rectangles with a buildable Griphook model instead of a building above an underground section with a dragon, then I’d be worried.

LEGO hasn’t done a Hogwarts free year since 2005, a year with only 4 sets. Even if LEGO was going to reboot the theme to adhere to the HBO- I mean MAX series, they probably wouldn’t just have a year without Hogwarts. The castle is going to be the same in the series anyway based on the promo material and the fact that aside from needing to play into nostalgia, the design language of the movies is what got a lot of people into the movies in the first place. Even if LEGO did abandon the movies once the series came, the castle will be relatively the same and it’s not like the sets we’ve gotten (even in 2018-2020 when they were trying) were ever all that accurate to the films. Of course, LEGO won’t be abandoning the movies. At most I’d expect to maybe see one token set tied to the series (maybe a D2C?) but LEGO didn’t even bother doing that for FB3, and that was a mass release movie and not limited to a streaming service. Maybe after a few years we’ll get something if it does really well (same way it took years to get sets based on the Disney movie remakes) but I wouldn’t bet on them doing anything major. Also if it wasn’t obvious from the last 3 years, LEGO want to string collectors along as long as they can. It took 3 years to get 3 DH sets and Gringotts, stuff we would’ve expected back in 2021. In the meantime they’ve sold plenty of us on plenty of other sets we probably wouldn’t have bought otherwise. And now that we’ve got it, it’s been long enough and our expectations have been lowered enough that some of the remakes of other 2018-20 sets look pretty appealing and they’re selling us on a new DA series. A clear universal reboot of the builds and figures based on a reboot series is as good of a jumping off point as collectors could ask for, outside of LEGO just cancelling the line. There’s no way they’d make it that easy.

The strange CoS entrance without PPM would’ve been the least of this system’s worries and considering the official 2023 layout doesn’t have it above the CoS set think even LEGO would agree. So much for them planning the whole this castle in advance like some people were speculating. My point was just that it’s an anomaly. No other retail set had its interior on the front of the box or was at that pricepoint. No other retail set had such a simple and unobtrusive exterior design. PPM even has a complete floor without lattice plates which I’m not sure any other retail sets have. It follows most the rules of the 2021+ castle redesign but it feels like it’s in a totally different language.

The 2001 and 2010 versions included libraries, also the microscale 2018 set if you count it. The Hogwarts Moments and later the Banner sets are to blame. Similarly those sets take the blame for this massive school ridiculously having only 2 classrooms. It seems like Lego realized they couldn’t do two “affordable” Hogwarts interior based systems at once and the modular rectangles were cut out of that under $50 pricepoint. In retrospect PPM was a mistake. The low price and focus on interior would never be repeated (even if you think the later interiors were good, they’d never make the front of the box). PPM was fluke which showed what this reboot should’ve been.

The battle of Hogwarts set description on the US S@H has a typo saying it’s one of a “series ofmodular sets”. For noticing that forgotten space, they’ll send me a free copy of the set now right? Good to see that these are out June 1st even in the US. I want to get the Battle of Hogwarts at least ASAP but I’m not sure where I’ll buy these since there’s no GWP. I’ve got a relative who gets 20% off at Macy’s of all places and ideally I’d go through them but they only stock around half the sets each wave (the winter wave was just the Griffindor and Slytherin banners) so it’s a bit of a gamble if they’ll actually have it. Otherwise I guess I’ll just have to be patient, since none of the recent sets feel like they’re worth full price for.

This clearly was not planned. The Polyjuice potion set isn’t on top of the chamber entrance (something that actually was planned), Lockhart’s office is nowhere near his classroom, the Library is separated from Dumbledore’s office which means the exterior design of it extending out into the office is broken, and the clock tower is randomly representing the astronomy tower. I think the BOH was designed for this and it’s possible Sirius’ Escape with its wedge plates and maybe the otherwise inexplicable hinges in the hospital wing were made for this (if the whole set was designed for this then they really shouldn’t have done those white windows) but that’s as far as I’d go. What’s happened is that they’ve got enough of these Hogwarts blocks that they can shove them together in a way that kind of resembles the castle. They couldn’t plan a consistent window design (or even a consistent color) so I doubt they planned to make everything go in its exact places for this setup. If they did, apart from all the issues I mentioned earlier, it still looks like a haphazard mashup for the most part. That’s not to say it isn’t impressive, it’s certainly tempting me to pick up the sets I didn’t bother with (Polyjuice, hospital wing, Dumbledore’s Office) but it’s definitely not very cohesive.

The other day I read the designer’s notes on the 2018 Great Hall set and if I remember right they discussed how they originally designed a set of 7 larger models to represent the complete castle and originally the Great Hall and staircase tower were separate sets. Personally I’d love to see something like that. Imagine that combination image of the sets currently on the market but with all the sets not being rectangles and actually based on the parts of the castle they’re meant to represent in that combo model. The 2018 micro set covered the same portion of the castle. They could even do Clock tower and Bell Tower sets to go around the sides/back. Include a maybe 6-8 brick high level of rocks underneath at least the modules where that wouldn’t be covered by bridges (again like the combo image) I think it could be the perfect Hogwarts exterior line. If they had some kind of loose plan for the interior and gave us all form common rooms or dormitories that would be cool too. Plus the essential classrooms (something this system has completely failed to do). Let’s be honest, those 2018-20 sets could be a lot better. The Great Hall and the attached tower are IMO possibly inferior to the 2010 version. The Great Hall is entirely the wrong shape and the staircase tower is missing the larger upper section and turrets. The viaduct entrance is too small. The Whomping Willow set really overinflated the number of short modules and space that the system took up too. They’re great but there were compromises made. Now that thanks to the 2021+ system we know Lego HP can sell just about any vaguely castle looking build and that the theme will be around for many years I think it they could do something far more extensive than the 2018-20 system. After that I’d love to see them try this dollhouse system again, avoiding the many problems the current one has encountered and actually commuting to making interior sets (hopefully the gimmick foldout interior sets would be gone by then no longer taking up that part of the market).

Bessa only just left last year, I doubt the concept for all of these sets were planned by Seenan considering how long if takes Lego sets to get produced. WWW as part of a DA reboot aimed at a lower price point feels like the only real new idea here. Buildable creatures for display and foldout sets are all Bessa era staples (he even designed last year’s trunk set). An HE remake was inevitable and probably had been in the works for a bit. Battle of Hogwarts stuff and Gringotts were the biggest omissions from the line so far and I assume they’ve been in some level of development for awhile too. Finally I’d be surprised if the Second Task didn’t predate even the Bessa era and was one of the original 40 (if I remember right) set ideas pitched when the line was being rebooted. More power to you if this feels like a reboot, but for the most part it strikes me as mopping up old playscale leftovers before a change next year and the theme being on autopilot for everything else. While I’m sure we’re seeing plenty of stuff from them when it comes to design choices I don’t think this is all the new team when it comes to set concepts. I don’t think we’re seeing their “full extent” yet.

“Footprint gets too big” -> We’re getting sets like the BOH which has a big fold out courtyard. Unless you want a ton of unused roof modules, exteriors they waste so much of the budget on to not line up, and things like the SB Escape missing half its floor, this system ends up with just as big of a footprint. Just look at the official combination they showed off last year, it’s very sprawling. “No more recognizable structures” -> We’re getting so many unrecognizable structures like whatever the Forbidden corridor, ROR, Dumbedore’s office etc. sets were meant to be. Clearly they can sell Hogwarts sets with unidentifiable buildings on the front of boxes. “Only way to do underground sets” -> The underground sets were completely abandoned after wave 1. “Only way to get decent interiors” -> Most the interiors we get now are 8x8 modules which are often worse than the 2018-20 interiors, or they’re just empty. Most of the reasons this system exists didn’t pan out. I agree that Polyjuice should’ve been the norm, not the exception. LEGO shot themselves in the foot by also making Moments and now these banner sets which have taken over the cheaper Hogwarts interior market which this modular system should’ve been filling. I understood the purpose of this system when it began but I really don’t see the point anymore based on all the sets they’ve released for it in the last two years. I’ll be interested to see if we get another one in the winter wave or if they take a wave off and reboot the system in the summer. Doing the battle of Hogwarts combined with the 3 year life cycle being up makes me feel like maybe this could be the finale.

Every time they do a castle set I think “they couldn’t possibly mess this up” and then somehow they mess it up. Luckily this time it’s mostly death by a thousand random grey technic holes rather than anything massive beyond the concept itself. I remember just two years ago when people were happy that this modular line would remove the need for the entrance halls which always took up space in the old sets and now we’re getting a $90 set which is seemingly nothing but an entrance hall. So what is going on with the attachment points in this set? The wings have four grey attachment holes on each side of them but none of them are actually used. Instead we’ve got a new clip system adding clips to each side? While I’m talking about the wings getting cluttered there’s also the 1x2 snot piece in the middle of the walls for… reasons? The main build also features technic holes on the front of it? So the extra clip system is just an extra? There’s also random front facing technic holes on the second level of the main build? Completely useless in this form but potentially useful when taking the main build apart into different sections. There’s also a tan technic hole dead center of the build, I guess that one is just for detail which is odd since I thought we were meant to gloss over and ignore the holes. The main build splits into 3 8x8 sections so that’s a thing. Based on the two castle sets we’ve gotten the new design team seems to really adore the appearance of technic holes everywhere and they seem to value the modular aspect of this system. So if we don’t care about aesthetics and mostly care about modular play why are we getting a $90 set which is almost entirely exterior based? Also for the record we’re now 3 years, 9 sets, 2 GWPs, in with a roughly $550ish I think castle system and the only classrooms in this school are the 8x16 DADA from the COS set and the 8x8 Astronomy class from the COS set. Oh yeah looks like it. Brickset was estimating it would be a lot more though in their article.

Think it’s the right choice there, WWW is actually a corner building and most importantly it’s not supposed to go on top of other sets. Actually I wonder if we are going to get another pair of buildings like this with the same footprint so we can have all 4 of them combine into one block of DA, a bit like the proper set did. For whatever reason I had gotten confused and thought that WWW was $90 and not $120. For a $120 I definitely wouldn’t get it. Also it’s pure ridiculousness to only get one owl with the post office when they’ve got four slots for owls. LEGO really couldn’t spring the extra couple cents to at least give us one more owl and fill half the slots?

3 years ago it would’ve been hard to pick out any that I didn’t like, now it’s hard to pick where to start. There are plenty of 2021+ Hogwarts modules to choose from. I won’t rant about the RoR again, Forbidden Corridor wasn’t a stunner and the Fluffy which it lived or died on was a bit of a mess with its half awake/half asleep design, and finally Sirus Black’s Escape was a complete nothing of a set. As much as some people here hate the 8x8 grate plates they’re still better than the 8x8 wedges used for floors in the Escape set, since at least the grates work with this format and don’t leave holes in the floor quite as massive as the wedges. All the foldout gimmick sets are worth a mention. Maybe they wouldn’t be if they hadn’t been released alongside a supposedly interior focused Hogwarts system, seemingly completely replaced any set under $50, and most importantly if we didn’t get 12 sets in 3 different styles in the span of 3 years. The buildable creature models are what they are, and they’re easy enough to ignore. Remember the $120 Harry and Hermione set? No other theme ever did those figures. They just made a sort of cloaked Harry that doesn’t really look like any of the figures and then Hermione for some reason. You just get 2/3rd of the HP trio and that’s it. Why Hermione and not Voldemort so it could make more of a complete duo. Why did that set exist at all, especially in a year with so many slots already filled up with the new Hogwarts rectangles. I think getting Grimmauld Place back in 2021 instead of the figures would’ve made 2021 a lot better.

Pretty sure it’s a printed technic ball, they’ve been printed on before. It’s not bad or anything it’s just that it got so hyped and it was selling the set to some people. So now that we’ve seen it, why does this set exist and why does it exist now? Was a printed ball and the puking statue really that essential that this building had to be remade now while the original is still on the market? Im not saying the set should never been remade but why in 2023. Sure this fills the gap in the market previously filled by the Hogsmeade set which I assume retired recently but we survived the first three years without a wizard shops set for kids, surely we could put this remake off for another year or two especially since the DA version is still on the market.