krimimimi

Could they just use a recoloured Bambi (from the Walt Disney tribute) for the doe, or would it strike people as too small? I don't think I'd mind it being visibly smaller than the stag, and I'd certainly prefer having one to not regardless of size.(https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=104729pb01)

@brickbride, Hidden Side! Thank you! I knew I was too salty for it to have only been the two failed digital products recently, so here we have a third. I have a number of Hidden Side sets, and while I wasn't particularly fussed about the digital aspect, I still had to pay higher prices for the lego I acquired, due to a gimmick they failed to properly support. If I weren't so used to licensed theme prices, I'd have likely balked. Boo. So I finally stopped sitting on my brains and image searched the "new" Hogwarts castle design posted up thread. Turns out - without the text - it dates back to at least 2017, so I think we needn't worry about it being the new castle design overmuch. It's surprising how much of a relief that was. I guess I like my Hogwarts classic. I'm excited to see their actual promotional material.

Thanks, guys. You have perfectly summed up my suspicions and fears. I have a non-trivial amount of vidiyo parts flying about, and before that I think it was the video making software that became unsupported. While I appreciate exploring new possibilities, and in fact have welcomed it (see vidiyo), their track record with supporting them longer term just isn't good, and I am not looking forward to more of the same planned obsolescence. On the safe side, give me my ABS plastic; what you have in hand remains. What I might wish to see if we can't avoid it... Downloadable effects that can expand over time or as the story perhaps changes with the new series. Sound: spooky noises as the minifigs creep through the castle. (Frankly we need Peeves.) Potions exploding. Dragons roaring. Maybe Dementors or a laugh tack for the Boggart. Lights: again, exploding cauldrons. Flickering torches. Flashes of light as they battle on the Viaduct. The glow of Patronuses. If it's sound activated, the ability to Lumos and Nox. I could picture using the castle builds as a nightlight, with the ability to cast your own spells to turn it on and off. But most of all I want this to work five, ten years later.

Particularly as the individuals making the decision on its allowability are closer to the gentlemen behind the Paramount deal, as I understand it. So I'm curious, as HBO (Max?) would be part of the Netflix deal, does that mean even as things stood they would have (likely) been part of the licensing deal between WB and lego? (I didn't even realise they were in the same hands.) Or were they separate entities? I've been uncertain to what extent we can (likely) expect lego to orientate themselves towards the new material (or to contractually have to), or if we can expect to continue to see the OG cast reflected. I know lego are often required to include new material in theme lines, and seem to recall something like that discussed here wrt the number of FB sets. On the other hand lego do seem to go back to original material, I imagine when the new version is less successful. Like no Grindelwald sets, or how Ariel was only a POC for a year and a half and has now been returned to the original version. Has something similar happened with other themes? Similar concern for the castle as a character. Also, I've been trying to ignore the Smart Brick stuff, having been burnt twice by lego in recent years. They keep starting tech things, charge you more for a feature they need to develop and finance, fair enough, but then cease supporting the tech, meaning that's potentially wasted money (unless you got enough out of it, I guess), so I wan't following this new development as I was expecting more of the same. Still am, but it looks like you're right, if we stick with HP, we're unlikely to be able to avoid it. Or is this an independent thing, like a light or sound brick? Can someone give me a (very short) summary of what it is / it's supposed to be able to do, and what sorts of applications would you expect / are you hoping for for the HP lego series specifically? How does it "bring the magic"?

Have you gotten to the instructions to look at the Ravenclaw bookcase yet? With that depth to the tower, I can't imagine there isn't a hidden space behind it. That would be such a nice callback to the OG HP sets.

I also like the new Potions classroom. It's a nice physical space and captures the room and class well, with a decent selection of characters. I like the inclusion of two uniform skirt pieces and stockinged legs and the Slytherin uniform is very much needed in the set and voila, present! The exploding potion piece and the new flask are also very welcome. It's a little expensive, but the build is more robust than many similar ones, so it's not (entirely) unjustified. Aragog and the Anglia were also quite good. I think for me the small set that comes closest to being perfect remains the Polyjuice Potions Mistake from the 2021+ castle. Brilliant. It's a room with actual building facade, it appears a couple of times in the series, it has four minifigs, five characters, gives us some much needed Slytherin uniforms while still including the trio in case you're gifting it, includes the absolutely iconic cat!Hermione head... Chamber of Secrets access play feature, easily modded for the troll's bathroom scene... All of that for a reasonable price, and of course it did what I expected from a modular castle, acting as a module, which most of the rest of the 2021+ series somewhat inexplicably didn't. Very nearly perfect. If they'd given us Myrtle instead of golden!Harry it would have been my idea of a perfect set.

@Gorilla94 I think they have to stretch it out some, because releasing the "most detailed" Hogwarts ever in a shorter time period would price it out of a good chunk of people's budgets. As it stands now, we have no idea what it will end up costing us, which probably also helps their sales. If people knew from the outset the sets so far would cost them about 780 EUR, would they have started collecting them? And we're not done yet. That's two years out of at least three years, at this rate it'll be close to 1.2 k by the end of 2026, and if it goes into 2027?

Except as @brickbride points out, they haven't been too fussed about locations. They can always make the other rooms in such a tower... whatever. Something still missing and possibly from another book. Umbridge's office, as a for instance... Binns would cover ghost and obscure teacher in one. (I'm hoping... ) Pixies, Neville, and Lockhart in DADA are one scene that comes to mind. Another is Filch and Mrs Morris, or discovering the writing on the wall. I couldn't help noticing Ariel the Little Mermaid was a mermaid of colour exclusively only for 2023. By 2024, it was about half and half classic!Ariel and the new one. By 2025, it's strictly back to the classic version. I find people are generally resistant to change, so I remain curious to see what happens here. It's a pity we don't find out what's in those agreements. I don't think, generally speaking, they pivot that quickly, and this would account at least for the main summer set and a side castle set. I doubt they'll waver either way with something that substantial to the theme. That said, is this remotely normal, taking so long to produce a television show? It all seems unusually protracted. Your use of "minor room" has me thinking. lego knows better than anyone how the sales of the Flying Lesson are doing, a somewhat lacklustre "minor" set. I can't imagine they're great, especially as it basically doesn't go on sale, and we still don't know where it goes in the castle. So I have to wonder if shifting Ravenclaw to this set might be part of an effort to increase its appeal. I could definitely see that being part of the motivation.

Looking at the blurry Hospital Wing box image, it looks like we're getting Hermione in the pink hoodie. I think we've had that in three versions and four sets before (2022 Sirius' Rescue, Hospital Wing, Shrieking Shack, and 2019 Hagrid's Hut), and I'm wondering about its inclusion in this set. She uses the Time Turner in the Infirmary in that outfit, except it's with Harry, and the reason they're there is Ron with his injured leg, and neither of the boys have those outfits. * What are your guesses as to why she's in the hoodie (what scene and / or builds are likely), and * what do you think its presence here means for scenes / sets we're likely to see (or not see) in sets in the near future?

Aside from the fact that the castle layout morphed from film to film, we didn't have many dungeon locations in the stories - Slytherin, Potions Classroom, Chamber of Secrets, the PS tasks, Hufflepuff - and that last one we never even saw in the films. I figure it was a given if they made a set with cliffs, which I appreciated, they would need to stuff things in there that didn't actually belong. As long as the sets look ok, I'm satisfied.

So if you don't count the grounds sets (although I'd be inclined to include Hagrid's), there are ten total "Hogwarts Castle" sets so far, with another due in January. One of those ten was a Gift With Purchase (GWP), which kind of sucks, because it's unavailable except for ebay or bricklink etc. Of the rest, six are castle buildings (two of which are retiring - Owlery and Boathouse), three are modules (1 GWP retired, 1 retiring - Potions classroom), and 1 is a sort of swappable piece of furnishing (the duelling club, which goes into the Great Hall) and also retiring. With retiring sets, I'd recommend picking them up this year if possible, but also holding out for sales as those prices really drop on sets going end of life (EOL). You can check a site like brickmerge.de to see how the prices evolve historically over time to get a feel for when you're better off buying, but ideally you'd want to pick a site like that that reflects your local prices. Brickmerge happens to reflect mine. If it were me, I'd skip the GWP Room of Requirement because you're going to get soaked, pick up the Owlery, Hagrid's, Potions Classroom, the Duelling Club and probably Aragog, all on sale and only if on sale, but then I also watch those sales like a hawk.... NOTE: with the "EOL" it's expected, but not guaranteed to retire. Every now and again they change their minds, but if you want it, don't count on it being available after December.

Ok, so the castle builds themselves are as follows (two are already retiring this year): 76430: Hogwarts Castle Owlery (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 76426: Hogwarts Castle Boathouse (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 76447: Hogwarts Castle: Flying Lessons (2025) 76445: Hogwarts Castle: Herbology Class (2025) 76435: Hogwarts Castle: The Great Hall (2024) 76454: Hogwarts Castle: The Main Tower (2025) the swappable module builds 40770: Hogwarts Castle: Room of Requirement (2025) - GWP (gift with purchase) - RETIRED - only available on the aftermarket 76431: Hogwarts Castle: Potions Class (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 76442: Hogwarts Castle: Charms Class (2025) the extra and grounds builds 76428: Hagrid's Hut: An Unexpected Visit (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 76432: Forbidden Forest: Magical Creatures (2024) - RETIRED 30677: Draco in the Forbidden Forest POLYBAG (2024) - RETIRED 76424: Flying Ford Anglia (2024) 30706: Quidditch Lesson POLYBAG (2025) - RETIRING 12/2025 76434: Aragog in the Forbidden Forest (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 76440: Triwizard Tournament: The Arrival (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 the extra furnishings and knick knacks builds 76438: LEGO Harry Potter 2024 Advent Calendar (2024) - RETIRED 76441: Hogwarts Castle: Dueling Club (2025) - RETIRING 12/2025

How wide or narrow in scope do you want the list? Like just the castle bones, the swappable classrooms, sets that could be on Hogwarts grounds... If you look at the nano-scale Hogwarts castle and grounds set, it includes things like the Ford Anglia and the Durmstrang Ship, both of which exist as sets. If you're being generous in the definition, that's up to about 19 sets in the 2024+ system.

Exacerbated by the Wibbly Wobbly bridge. Millennium Bridge. It's in the name. Would it have been too hard to not focus a scene on it?

That's ok, she's white. If you've seen the pictures I did, the one with the direct side view and what appears to be a grey Hedwig also has a dividing line on it and the view above the line is a slightly off centre frontal shot. Between the boys' shoulders, Hedwig is visible and you can see she's white plus her face print. But I did say you weren't going to like her... * can't fly without brooms