brickbride

You're saying that as if Potions hadn't been overpriced to begin with. Though Potions had four figs, a new Snape, and new parts as well (the flask and bubble pieces, both in two different colours). It also had more pieces than Herbology so yes, a EUR 10 premium for fewer parts and fewer figs seems excessive. And that's not even going into whether the figs are going to remain exclusive, which we just don't know. But of course it depends on what you value. If all you care about are potentially exclusive fig parts, have at it! I'm more of the "How much stuff do I get for my money" persuasion and from that POV, both Potions and Herbology seem overpriced to me.

Herbology does look pretty cool between the skirt piece, the mandrakes, and the various other plants in the background. I'm also pleased to notice that it's "only" EUR 50 - wasn't there talk of it being EUR 60? I mean EUR 50 is still too much for that size and for only 390 pieces and three figs, but that's LEGO these days for you. QQS and Fortescue's, though? Ugh. The crooked window at Fortescue's is nice, as is the ice cream cone (though the latter's nothing Friends couldn't also do), and the striped awning and little chairs-and-table sign at Fortescue's as well as the crooked chimney at QQS at least somewhat evoke the D2C Diagon Alley. But other than that? I realize that the pink for the upper part of QQS wasn't everyone's cup of tea (though I don't mind it) but where's the sand green at least? QQS now looks like a giant tu... I mean 76429 Sorting Hat. The D2C version also had a lovely leaning window which was fun to build and looked great, couldn't they have at least approximated this with hinges or something? And the microscale verson had an upper level in dark gray and dark blue with Quidditch hoops on the front which again would have looked better. I don't get it why they have to be this inconsistent about the looks of the shops if the result then doesn't even look good.

How is the F4 set EUR 60? A construction fig using around 400 pieces plus four minifigs with plain legs using the same torso and mostly reusing faceprints should not be more than EUR 40 list price, tops. This has to go on sale with 33% off just so you get to pay what should have been the asking price in the first place, never even mind getting a bargain. (A common theme with LEGO these days.) Reed's legs look hilaroiusly bad, couldn't they have found something better for his feet at least? I also find it funny that they're doing One Piece this year, where the hero is another rubber person, but there's no consistency across themes as to how to portray this. (Luffy will use the Ms Marvel arms.) Do the designers just not talk to each other?

Sherlock Holmes book nook has leaked. Looks like a proper book nook as opposed to bookends, and allegedly comes with five figs. Whereas the HP one has only two figs and doesn't make sense when closed. The consistency here doesn't seem to be great across themes. I wonder what the LotR one will look like. The buildable phoenix looks at least better than the latest iterations of Hedwig, which is something. Though it's still a clumsy build, the claws and wings especially, and the baby phoenix looks to be about on par with drone Hedwig from the motorcycle set. According to Reddit the price is EUR 20 but USD 23. This seems like one of the tariff-related increases we've heard about in other themes. I wonder if the USD price for the Main Tower will climb up all the way to 300. (Also this is not HP related, but how many people pegged the Creator Unicorn Castle to be an actual castle for unicorns in the style of My Little Pony, as opposed to the stronghold of a faction of Unicorn Knights? LEGO seem to almost be trolling the Castle AFOLs by giving them two castles, one of which has no moulded horses and the other of which has no knights.)

That's my favourite, too. The 2021 version was straight-up ugly what with the light gray joints, and the new one looks too cuddly for me. Besides, with the 2001 version you can take off the upper parts of the heads and replace them with crocodile heads. ;-)

This version of Fluffy looks way more rounded than the previous ones. We do have DUPLO bears (the ones I linked above) and I can see why someone would think that.

Yeah, that's probably the most aesthetically pleasing version so far. Although IMO it's also the least menacing. It basically looks like someone got three large dogs to stand one behind the other. It's weird that the legs are no longer black - did the budget not cover dual-molding? EDIT: Someone on Reddit said that it looks like DUPLO, someone else said that it looked more like a bear than a dog. They're not wrong IMO - the shape of both the body and the heads, as well as the eyes, do remind me of DUPLO bears a bit. Both the 2021 and 2001 versions just looked a lot leaner and less cuddly.

A new Botanicals set, 10438 Japanese Maple, has leaked. Apparently someone at LEGO knows how to build proper, good-looking trees. Why couldn't they have done this for the Shire set?

Hogsmeade

According to a fateful source, several Marvel (and other) sets are getting price increases in the US. So far we have 76319-22 and 76324-5. European market's still up in the air.

According to a fateful source, prices for the summer sets are to increase across the board because of tariffs, but not necessarily just in the US (European market's still up in the air). He explicitly mentions a couple SW, Ninjago, and Marvel sets. No HP yet but we'll see.

Well it had better go on sale, EUR 100 seems way too steep for that. It looks okay but not EUR 100 okay, you know? Also I think it might look weird folded together as a book nook, since then the carriage of the Hogwarts Express would shift to representing another adjacent train like there's a fleet of Hogwarts Expresses or something. Also the pic makes it seem like they use gold on the engine and bright light orange on the carriage which I don't think will look good together.

We've had some exclusive book minifigs in the past, like Prefect Percy and Rita Skeeter. Also I'd think that the book would be designed in cooperation with LEGO from the start. That is, I don't expect them to design an entire book around Luna and a Thestral and then go to LEGO and be like "Can we have a minifig of Luna with a buildable Thestral, will that be okay?" I imagine they'd get together with LEGO and be like "What's a good subject for this book that a) kids will like, b) won't infringe on your current sets, and c) can make use of your existing minifig parts?" The Thestral Carriage was in 2021 (I think) and is no longer on the shelves, nor is Luna in her Ravenclaw uniform (my guess is that this fig was taken from the 2021 Chamber of Secrets), so reusing her makes sense.

Just found this on Amazon: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/LEGO®-Harry-PotterTM-Luna-Thestral/dp/1837250812# At first glance, there doesn‘t seem to be anything exclusive about Luna? They must like the subject matter a lot, though, because we've already had the Thestral Carriage and now we are to get Brickheadz as well.

It says Hermione. She actually does have a ponytail on occasion, for example here in DH:

Quoting my own predictions from mid-March. I had Harry in place of Hermione and figured that at this price point we might get more than six figs, but otherwise I was spot on.

But the microscale DA isn't a D2C, is it? The D2C is a whole other story, but given that it's several years old I don't expect continuity there.

At this point I hope you are right. Otherwise EUR 380 seems like a ripoff for what sounds like 2 to 3 (if that) 16×32 baseplates worth of houses. I'm kind of baffled that they have just given us a microscale DA where Fortescue's was clearly not a corner building and are now deviating from it already.

I wouldn't call a tinsel-decorated weapon (and that's what an AT-AT is) a fun holiday set. That's pretty much akin to a tank with a red ribbon and a sprig of holly tucked into it. And it's made so much worse IMO by LEGO being adamant that religion - including, you know, Christmas - is against their policies unless they can use it to make more money. Such as by perverting weaponry into fun holiday decorations. They'd never make a nativity scene (like Playmobil and COBI have) because that might be controversial. Instead, they give us non-denominational holiday murder vehicles for everyone!

Sure, but she's absolutely irrelevant to the story. Whereas, say, Draco and Snape are not but neither made it into the set. Or if they had just wanted a female and a Ravenclaw torso, Penelope Clearwater would have been a much better choice.

Isn't there also a rumoured 40806 Christmas AT-AT over at Star Wars? LEGO must be desperate for content by now.

Well this is clearly a collectible series, so they had to do it at a price point similar to the helmets. The Black Panther bust was EUR 350! If they made that a regular thing, hardly anyone would buy every single one for completeness' sake, instead people would pick and chose which characters they liked best. Which isn't what LEGO want. They want predictable sales and to know that once you start your collection you won't stop till you've caught them all. I've said it before but the Black Panther bust to me always seemed to be a badly disguised attempt to cash in on the actor's death (let's "honour" a random superhero with a completely new type of product after his popular actor has just passed away). Sure Black Panther isn't a nobody but if they'd been serious about establishing busts at this price point as a thing (and like I've said that's not really a price point lending itself to a series of collectibles), they would not have started with him. They would have started with the obvious contenders like Spidey and Iron Man, as they've just proven here.

I do agree that the problem lies partly with the source material; there's too few female characters and those are often not depicted positively compared to the male characters. (It's less obvious in the movies but the books make you wonder about JK's attitude towards her own gender.) It's therefore no surprise that LEGO love sticking Luna into random sets (such as the 2021 Chamber of Secrets where she's not even mentioned in the source material) or pick Hermione over Ron when they need two of the trio so that they can gloss over the imbalance. Even then, like I've said, LEGO themselves create an imbalance and prevent people from getting more female students at cheaper price points. The Cho polybag was a one-time exception but there should be more sets like it. I also agree with @BrickBob Studpantsthat HP still has relatively more female representation compared to other licenced themes, but that by itself is something that should not be glossed over. (And don't even get me started on this year's updated Slave Leia over at Star Wars!) And frankly it's not as if they made much more of an effort with their unlicenced in-house themes. The only laudable exception was Friends. Before the reboot where they changed it because we can't have even one theme where girls don't play second fiddle to boys. /rant

I meant allowance-friendly sets. Like Aragog, Ford Anglia, Draco polybag, Harry polybag. Maybe you could include Charms Class which would give you 1 female minifig for 8 males, but the others you named are all pricier.

LEGO HP have been shafting girls for a while now, every affordable set including polybags since the Cho one has been Harry and Ron. Or Draco. The Reobrix set is a book nook and looks great, but it has like 3.000 pieces. At LEGO's piece count bookends make sense. EDIT: According to reddit there's also a non-licenced bookends set that looks similar (google Magic Railman Train).