krimimimi

I'm not seeing it in the US or Canadian stores, but still am in a number of European ones I checked. For example https://www.lego.com/en-de/vip/rewards-center/rewards It's under "VIP", then "Rewards", then "Choose Your Discount", if they still have it in that particular store. If they don't, I assume it's a momentary glitch. Belated thanks, @Yope, for updating your excellent list. Much appreciated.

Possibly, but unlikely off of what they seem inclined to choose. For instance, a lighting bolt is definitely iconic, but not exactly useful in a MOC. What is strange and more than a little disappointing seems to be the number of printed tiles included. The $45 Mickey & Minnie desk set only contains 10 printed tiles and two Mickey head tiles. Twelve special tiles, and that's it for the box. At that price, it's not worth it unless you really want the desk set. Or you're minted, whichever. 😆

@Seaber, you're correct, the Second Task was the only one for which they were confident in the minifig lineup. That's just wishful thinking on my part about Rita. I think Diggle and Crockford, although unnamed, were in the Accessory Pack last year. Or at least as close to as we're likely to get. Who were the Masons? I imagine Burbage and Bathilda are unlikely, at least in the scenes they're known for ...

I'm hoping they'll give us another DH II set next year for the "25th anniversary" of the Battle of Hogwarts. That would permit them to split the trio up into some of the other sets and give us more side characters instead. I still haven't entirely given up on the book format. It's not (completely) unlikely that it isn't simply a nomenclature thing, but we shall see. Nice updated list, @Seaber. I can't help wondering if they might sneak Rita Skeeter in with the Second Task set. Or perhaps they'll do a third CMF series this summer that nets us Fleur, Cedric and Cho, too. (A Marietta with a "SNEAK" forehead would be a lovely but sadly improbable inclusion...) We really need an assortment of Death Eaters... @Yope, hadn't you done a list of the characters with screen time / book time that are still missing? Any chance you still have that bookmarked / saved somewhere accessible?

Do you imagine they'd include the Vanishing Cabinet in the RoHT? Or is that something to save for a scene with Death Eaters? IIRC, the cabinet is there in the video game. Maybe three compartments instead of the four plus roofs of the Hospital Wing, the Fiendfyre snake, the Diadem, a basilisk fang for Harry to destroy it, some stuff to pile up, Harry, Malfoy... Blaise seems likely as they've actively been working on representation in the line. If you're going to have Fiendfyre, I'd agree Goyle seems like he should be included as well (although far from certain). I don't suppose they'll give us six figs, so I reckon Ron was more useful than Hermione in the scene. He needs to kick the Diadem into the flames and fly to rescue Zabini.

Correct, which is why I deemed the suit from the Muppet CMF useful. The rest of the Muppet figs, far less so.

@BrickBob Studpants, I've never believed that Dumbledore Neville and Luna needed to be included from lego's POV. We really have too few data points to say, and I imagine it also depends on what other sets are released that year. All three are included this year in sets that aren't anywhere near the top of the price range (even excluding the D2C). While I appreciate that I'm probably not representative of the average lego consumer - although I wonder what their purchasing profile looks like - I do buy sets outside the HP theme. Since the reboot, I've shifted most of my purchases to the theme however, spending more in total, but simultaneously on fewer themes overall. What I can say is I presently own none of the Looney Tunes or Muppets CMF, despite a general fondness for both properties, because I can't collect everything under the sun (where would I put it?), and I consider them (with the exception of Waldorf's suit , cheers guys) less useful for my MOCs than many other figs. On the other hand I own multiples of all the HP CMFs and also of many of the set figs, even some that are more difficult to squish multiples of into builds, like Dumbledore. But mixing and matching parts means his robes reappear with Fleur's head in a "portrait", her dress is on a mannequin in Madam Malkin's, Dumbledore's beard obscures much of Godric's robes in yet another portrait, and they'll eventually populate my DA when it's more fleshed out. I have to wonder if lego see the same effect on purchases with the Muppets or Looney Tunes? What do you do with multiples of the Tasmanian Devil?

I really want Hermione's red dress from Bill & Fleur's wedding. I find I can't recall what the boys were wearing in the scene, so they presumably matter less, but that dress was the only time EW looked good in her formal wear in the films, something of an accomplishment considering the attractiveness of the actress. (Implied gripe about pink =/= periwinkle, and the costumers' near universal and frankly somewhat insulting vision of Hermione's over-fondness of pink.) They did a nice rendering of the dress in the years 5-7 video game I wouldn't mind seeing in an actual fig form.

Welcome! The best example I've seen anywhere is our @deskp 's flickr that pairs the minifigs with pictures from the movies. I'll try to dig up a link unless anyone else has it ready to hand? *nudge nudge* deskp? Found 'em! "In order of film apperance + duplicates + missing characters at the end" and "latest to oldest releases since 2018 - only including figures with unique original elements"

Well this is very nearly perfect in my eyes. It's a gorgeous set that should appeal to some non-Wizarding World fans, it's nicely appointed, their concept seems to have been implemented well, for the most part the minifig selection makes sense, and yet they haven't made it painful to pass on it, which I'll be doing. It's the sweet spot between tempting for a Potterhead, but not a painful miss. If lego are going to keep making high ticket items with this frequency, I really appreciate that they're trying different things for different tastes, and haven't gatekept popular characters in a set with this price tag, or repeated last year's dodgy move that unexpectedly rendered many collections of the golden anniversary figs suddenly incomplete. I have to give them credit, they've really improved on that front this year, placing characters like Pince and Pomfrey, or even the Thestrals, in the more affordable sets. In a story where a train features so prominently, this makes sense. I'd love to hear more from some of our hardcore train fans how they like the set.

Fair point.

PS/SS has Ollivander's in addition to the Quidditch goals and Harry. OotP only has RoR & the Prophecies plus Tonks. My pick for oddness is the inclusion of the Express in DH2. They've skipped the Battle of Hogwarts entirely and gone straight to the epilogue. 😆

Except it's not the board game (which I strongly dislike) per se that's the issue. Even without it, themes like Star Wars resort to high proportions of nanobuilds, and they're the chief problem with this set as far as I'm concerned. I agree with @DannyPowers, this is a step down even compared to last year's. I really miss the ACs that gave us things to flesh out our builds. And I was so looking forward to Christmas at Grimmauld, too.

TheMagicIsYou really feels like it should be more interactive / active than the D2C. Would we necessarily know if the lego HP video game were being revamped? Especially considering the page they have for it has only has three links that aren't product pages. There's one to "lego life" in the app stores, one for "the characters" and one for "the game", which is suspiciously thin on info to have provided a page for it (and given they didn't even bother keeping it current for iOS, definitely a neglected property). On the other hand lego life uses "Build and Share Your Favorite Scene" as a plug, so maybe they've another contest coming up...

Couches in one, squashy chairs in another, beds in a third, study /chess / Exploding Snap desks in the fourth... I really need those House ghosts. And as we've had two Nicks, they could use that as an excuse to include yet another Harry instead if they wanted, although I'd much prefer a Peeves... 50 % increase in size over this year's winter wave. We had the trunk, Hospital Wing, and two Moment sets: DADA and Divination. This would be two more. I appreciate that they aren't more expensive, however. The trunk was pricey at 60 EUR. It's a little easier to rationalise this wave being $55 more expensive when it's for two extra sets. I love the things. Very nearly dust-proof and don't take up any space unless I unpack them... As long as they make them, I'll be purchasing them. Privet Dr, Malfoy Manor, the Leaky, Ollivander's, Madam Malkins... As long as they're clever about the inclusions so they can easily be used elsewhere, it works out in the end even if I only put them in MOCs. By the time I've paid postage on bricklink, I've more than made up for the extra cost of the book covers, and I find the format / footprint more appealing than if they were spending the set's budget on the castle panels of the 2021+ system instead. Judging by the lukewarm reception of Sirius' Escape and Fluffy Encounter, I'm not alone on that count.

Less worried than curious what people's thoughts are. We can't spend the next five and a half months navel-gazing. 😉 Dragons seem to have become incredibly popular of late, don't they? They've done a good job developing / evolving them. I was thinking of rarer things, though, (trains appear far less frequently than cars, for instance) spread across the whole collection, because I can well imagine someone in control nixing certain ideas along those lines. "We have enough ships this year, so no Durmstrang boat. Maybe next year..."

The polybag is gone from the German, UK, Australian and New Zealand S@H offers page, still appears at present on the US and Canadian sites. AUS and NZ seem to be the only ones with the Amusement Park GWP. In other news... Promobricks is reporting on the Indiana Jones sets due out in 2023. 77014 The Temple of Doom appears to be an update of 2009's 7199. I bring it up because it should include roller coaster tracks and two mineloren (that's what the dictionary says, but I'm not sure if that's English? "carts" at any rate), and it makes me wonder if it increases or decreases the likelihood of the inevitable Gringotts containing something similar? Or, given the popularity of the rollercoasters, if we might be likelier to see a separate vault set with it included so the design of the bank itself could focus more on matching Diagon Alley? (I genuinely can't imagine after the very excellent DA set that a Gringotts wouldn't fit on the street, but I know many here have expressed some hope of recreating the scene in the cart.) How often do we see rollercoasters across the various themes? Do they have their own following like trains, cars or boats seem to? How often are multiple instances of things like that released in a year?

Well we're not getting the amusement park gift in Germany. A little disappointed tbh. It looked cute. I did get the polybag and staircase though.

@Surge should be the 15th.

You never know. They've done a couple different versions of Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, so maybe we'll see something like that here.

I hear you (and doubly so on the budgets). I think Grimmauld's problem is exacerbated by those triangular 8 by 8 Wedge Plates with Cut Corners that make the floors in both side buildings. You're left with these teeny tiny rooms of only 21 available studs which is tough when the three walled 8x8 modular's already too tight floor plan is twice that. (They won me over again with the cleverness of the shifting stair front.) Speaking of clever, I liked the way they did the stage backdrops in the Friends theatre (although I always find the colour scheme in the line somewhat confronting). As a whole the set reminded me some of a pared back version of the rebuildable theatre stage Ideas submission. I wouldn't mind seeing a generic Hogwarts backdrop along similar lines. (It would also make a decent castle expansion set.) Fewer panels, more bricks, doors, sconces, portraits and arches, more in the style of the Grand Staircase than Sirius' Rescue, say. Sort of like the trunk without the trunk, or the Build Your Own Adventure book without the filler book, but perhaps with a few instructions for some alternate builds this time... 😋

Not even the Shrieking Shack or 12 Grimmauld? Both are also far more interesting builds than the 2021+ modular castle sets are, and the Shack fits in with the Hogsmeade builds well from scale, too. I think the pictures let that set in particular down. I focused too much on a Willow I didn't want again or the moon reveal feature I'm somewhat ambivalent about or the slightly too small footprint for the furniture, and almost completely missed the interesting twists and angles of the building itself which I rather like.

@Seaber, here it's supposed to be an HP GWP during the same window as the Grand Staircase with purchases above 40 EUR, so at the latest we expect the S@H (at least) to have them mid July. Not sure when they'll be available in other stores, or other countries for that matter, but it's not unlikely they'll do the same promotion elsewhere. @joeee and @karrit, drewdotexe is right, there are no official instructions for the alternate builds, but I just saw that our @Micmac has put his up on rebrickable for free download. If you like digital modeling, I took a crack at it a couple of weeks ago on mecabricks. Each version has all the pieces not visible on the official builds in separate folders so you can try coming up with your own variations if you'd like. Mecabricks, if you haven't tried it before, is also free and doesn't require you to install any software.

Do we know who succeeded him as design lead? This year there seemed to be far fewer interviews with designers (at least for HP stuff), or did I just miss out?

It has 60% more pieces than last year's did, which I think shows when you compare the sets. And while they did give us an extra minifig, it was one people were likely to have already. I definitely prefer the better build for roughly the same buy in.