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Random question: Why does Catwoman have a hole in her head?

I know I keep harping on this, but I really don't understand the pricing for the Harry Potter theme. As I've said, the cheapest set of the ENTIRE YEAR (!) is the EUR 30 Dobby figure. The cheapest actual playsets are EUR 35 (if you count the banners) or EUR 45 (if you don't). And that's in a theme heavily marketed towards kids with all the various Ameet books, plushie toys, and boxes of puzzles and stickers with a single minifigure in them. Again, the only two sets with a list price of LESS than EUR 30 are the Thestral Carriage from 2022 and the Polyjuice Potions Mistake from 2021 (which I think has gone EOL already)? And Dots, but again that's not playsets. Just - WHY???? How does this make any sense at all? Why can, say, Marvel make a licenced Guardians of the Galaxy set with two desirable minifigures and a build for EUR 10, and Star Wars all those microfighters, and don't even get me started on Friends and City - but Harry Potter only STARTS at EUR 30? And let's face it, just how many kids will want a buildable figure of a non-action character with no minifig included? And it's not like they'd run out of ideas for smaller playsets because they can just remake stuff that's long overdue like the Troll on the Loose or the Final Challenge or whatnot. I just don't get that at all.

Second that: The movie is awesome and the larger sets don''t do it justice. I think the smallest is the best in terms of value for money (and I sorta want that GotG sticker after watching the movie :-)). Also, the cinema I went to showed the trailers for both The Marvels and The Flash. I hadn't seen either before. And while I cannot even remember the last DC movie I liked, plus there's the Ezra controversy, plus I could not even stand the Flash when he guest-starred on Arrow, plus I like Captain Marvel a lot and I loved her movie - I still have to say that the trailer made me not wamt to watch The Marvels, and that The Flash looks a million times better. Which makes me sad.

@Lego126Does that mean the Batcave would not actually include a Batmobile, just a platform or something where you can put one from another set? There has been some discussion regarding this point before, but no definite result, I think. For that price, frankly I'd expect a set to be complete without the need for the customer to buy others as well. But one just has to look at the EUR 500 Hulkbuster to see that LEGO think differently.

Quoting myself again because now there's a pic of the set available from JB Spielwaren: https://www.jb-spielwaren.de/en/lego-71797-destiny-s-bounty-race-against-time/a-71797/ Something must have got lost in translation during the initial Promobricks description. There is a dragon prow - actually it's the new Ninjago baby dragon - and there also is an azure dragon, but those are not the same thing.

Just noticed I hadn't commented on the revealed sets for 2023 so far ... EP: I actually really like the colour sand blue, but the combination between that and some random trans-blue elements is, yeah, not great. Also I'm surprised no-one has commented on just how bad the wolf build's snout looks. The secondary build definitely should have been Snape’s doe with a Snape minifigure and an optional „Always“ sticker for the plaque. :-) An easy pass for me. BoH: All that set has going for itself is minifigures (which I'm not interested in) and being part of the giant rendered display (which I don't have the room or the budget for). So, another easy pass. Also, as someone has pointed out, sticking this "entrance" in front of the modular series' "Great" Hall would not work at all - anyone who enters would find himself right in the mouth of the Salazar Slytherin statue, wouldn't they? Dobby: looks bad to me, but then I hate Dobby as a character and thus might be biased. It's pretty sad for the theme as a whole that the "cheapest" set of THE ENTIRE YEAR (not counting Dots) has a list price of EUR 30 (!!!) AND looks like this, though. Quidditch: I really don't get the point of including only four torsos, one for each House, and then a ton of heads and hairstyles. Given that Quidditch is a team sport and all. Yeah, let's just put Draco in Slytherin robes and Harry in Gryffindor robes on the same team, that's going to end well and won't be at all confusing! I mean I can see the set's appeal for kids, but I bet it would be a lot more popular with adults if it included some extra torsos (and capes I guess) for Quidditch army building. Also I'm baffled by how many different Quidditch outfits LEGO think we need in a single year. Between the Quidditch jumpers in the banners, Cho from the polybag and now this set, everyone's Quidditch teams are going to look horribly inconsistent. (The fact that for Ravenclaw all three versions involve Cho, makes it even funnier.) WWW and HE look to be the best ones of this wave, so of course those are the partially exclusive ones. :-( And I called it that the HE would have 1-2 minifigure slots going to personnel. Still, even for someone who cares about minifigures as little as I do, the selections don't seem particularly exciting. As for WWW, I'm at least looking forward to what they do with the new modular DA in the next few years. Hopefully we'll get some lesser known shops, some like the Leaky Cauldron that have been long overdue, and of course Knockturn Alley.

Those came from a survey (@JeanGreyForever leaked them) and are unlikely to refer to 2023, though an earlier release would make some sense for the two you mentioned for reasons outlined below. Promobricks covered them here: https://www.promobricks.de/lego-leak-umfrage-2023/157463/ Google translation of the parts of the article referring to Disney: Snow White House As we speculated in our article on the LEGO 71038 Disney Minifigures leased list, there is indeed a Snow White house (or rather the house of the 7 dwarfs) in development at LEGO. The house is similar to the rejected LEGO Ideas design, but is slightly more compact at 25cm high, 20cm wide and 30cm deep. In contrast to the Ideas design, the roof is not yellow, but dark orange. Next to the house there is a small sidebuild with a fountain and three birch trees. Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs are of course included as minifigures and thus perfectly complement the Evil Queen from the Disney Collectible Figures Series 3. For this reason, the Snow White house is also our favorite when it comes to an early release. We can well imagine that the set will also be released to celebrate Disney's 100th anniversary in the coming months. Parts: 2500 Price range: $200 to $325 Most Likely Price: $250 Maleficent & the Dragon A set based on the Disney classic Sleeping Beauty from 1959 also made it into this LEGO leak. Taking the form of one of the dioramas with a black border and a tile printed with a quote, the battle between Prince Phillip and the evil fairy Maleficent is depicted in her dragon form on the bridge. The dragon is built from different LEGO bricks and does not consist of large molded parts. The wings are pieces of fabric. A greenish flame shoots out of the dragon's mouth. Both Prince Phillip and his white horse minifigure are included, as well as Maleficent himself again. The dragon is fully articulated and can also be removed from the diorama for play. We can also imagine an early release for this set, because Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) should also be part of the Disney minifigure series for the 100th anniversary in May. Parts: 1250 Price range: $80 to $130 Most Likely Price: $100 Simba from The Lion King One of the most famous Disney characters is the young lion Simba from the movie The Lion King. Simba is also implemented in the form of a separate set in the latest LEGO Leak. The little lion is built from LEGO bricks in a sitting form, the head can apparently be moved and the mouth can be opened. A brown LEGO bush is installed as the tail tip, which was first released in January in 76243 Rocket Mech. Simba is 30 cm high, 16 cm wide and 25 cm deep. Parts: 1353 Price range: $80 to $130 Most Likely Price: $100 Donald Duck Another built Disney character is Donald Duck in this LEGO leak. Donald is standing on a built base wearing his blue sailor suit. The figure is 30 cm high, 16 cm wide and 19 cm deep. Parts: 1000 Price range: $80 to $130 Most Likely Price: $100

Here's a pic courtesy of StoneWars. The ship does look pretty cool, but I'm not sure how much use it'll be for a pirates display, unless your pirates really embrace the supernatural. The "teeth" decoration on the bow is neat. I expect it to be a sticker, though. EDIT: Set number is 71469 (Nightmare Shark Ship).

Yes. If you have that kind of space and if you're willing to spend that kind of money, for like 500+ EUR you'd get a pretty impressive display that way. It certainly looks to be better value for money in terms of footprint and minifigures than, say, the EUR 500 Hogwarts Express. Only those are some serious constraints! I really cannot imagine many people having the space to display the sets like this (I certainly don't), and LEGO ought to know it. And strangely enough, it does seem easier to get people to buy a single EUR 500 set these days than to get them to shell out the same total amount for like eight or so individual sets, especially given that many of those look sort of poorly made, individually. So I'm really wondering if that plan can work. I guess it also depends on whether they come out with a new modular Hogwarts system next year, as has been speculated, since that might lead to the old one being forgotten rather quickly.

@MaxHeadroomI think the designers of WWW heard you about the wedge plates. "No more 8x8 wedges from now on, we're going big!" Do you all think the shape of WWW is due to its being a corner location, or is that going to be a new thing?

New ship set :-) Source: Brickmerge 10786 Gabby's and MerCat's Ship & Spa

Honestly, the sets I dislike the most are probably the new Dumbledore's Office and the Hospital Wing. While the Fluffy Encounter and Sirius Black's Rescue are simply bad, that makes them easy to ignore - there's nothing here that I want. However, I really like the library part of Dumbledore's Office, and I really like the clock part of the Hospital Wing. Only the rest of each set does absolutely nothing for me. So I'm kinda annoyed that they had to package them together instead of selling them on their own. I probably would have bought the libary level if it came without another three levels of badly designed DO, and I definitely would have bought the clock part without the HW - in fact I ended up bricklinking it, though I had to make a couple of part substitutions.

Thank you! Yes, those 8x8 lattice plates suck. Especially for HP because there's already so many minifigs with either short legs or dresses that you cannot pose on just one stud, and then there's barely any studs thanks to those sucky plates. Whoever came up with that particular combination?

Quoting myself because now there's pics: - two kinds of mermaids (Triton with the old straight tail, everyone else with the new curved tail) - fish in several unusual colours - the wrecked ship in the bottom left corner would make a nice addition to any beach or cove, I'd think

Yeah, I'm kind of baffled by all the enthusiasm, too. What's with the ears? They're barely connected to the head! I'm also glad that the second building with WWW is a random (and tiny!) owl post office no-one's wanted instead of something cool I might actually have to get. :-)

The Three Broomsticks isn't that exciting either. I'd have guessed that the LC would be at least as big. And that set was called "Hogsmeade Village Visit", not "Hogsmeade: Honeydukes". Still, you might well be right. If it is the LC, though, I wonder when it would be set, and with what characters. The LC mostly appears in the books in first and third year, but WWW was only established in sixth year.

If the connection we cannot see is the brick arch, that might make sense. And it would also be a somewhat fitting pick for the first new DA set. Plus the LC has only one noteworty figure (Tom), so it would not take too much from the fig count. Points against it: The LC has a pub on the ground floor and rooms to let above, it would have to be much bigger than that. Plus, the LC, like B&B, is a building people have been asking for for years, so they could probably soll it seperately or at least would presumably include it in the set name.

Another blurry mystery: It's hard to say because the roof of the Hogsmeade Station is right in front, but to me it looks as if WWW and the grey mystery tower thing were somehow connected on the lower levels. There's a little dark "bump" in the middle between them. It could be a decoration on the back of the Hogsmeade station roof, except that I'd be surprised if the Hogsmeade station roof HAD a back to begin with. If they buildings are connected on the lower levels, that'd probably narrow it down what the grey mystery tower could be.

I really think the side-build is too narrow for B&B, as that has two rounded windows with a door in between (similar to Ollivander's). I've found some pictures of Diagon Alley in Orlando and there's a narrow building on the right-hand side between Ollivander's and Gringotts that kind of looks like it might be the right one. No idea what that is, though. It has a green rectangular sign hanging from an upper storey and and rounded sign saying "Diagon Alley Arts Club" below. Given that, it's probably not right, since I don't see how an Arts Club would lend itself to a playset, so never mind me ...

Except that the set is still called: "DA: WWW", isn't it? Last we've heard. And if you look at the sizes, whatever the darker building is it's clearly a side-build. Somehow I cannot see them assigning it three characters (who are all bad guys, too) when that would mean that WWW, for which the set is named, would only get four (and two of them are the owners, so that leaves only two others). For the same reason, I'd expect it to be a less exciting building, say Broomstix or Scribulous, not B&B which people have actually been asking for.

Thanks again for the link, @krimimimi! I agree with most posters so far. Train and BoH look surprisingly good, not that I have room (or the money) for either set. Dobby and the stag to me look about as bad as expected, the stag's form seems pretty unnatural and Dobby looks more like a traditional fairy than a House-elf. Also the proportions seem way off. You cannot even display the stag and Dobby together all that well, as opposed to the last series of buildable creatures. (I realize that an owl, a phoenix, and a dragon should not be the same size, but they still look good together. This doesn't. Especially given the tiny Harry minifigure next to the stag and Dobby.) I still have zero interest in Quidditch. I'm pleasantly surprised that they've added a second building to WWW. Not that I want either of them but hopefully we'll get other such side buildings (which they think wouldn't hold our interest on their own) in the future. I'm wondering which minifigures will actually be included with the train and WWW sets. Promobricks' guesses for the train have already been proven wrong (she didn't expect Hagrid). And all of her guesses for WWW were based on, well, WWW. If there's another building, presumably that would have at least one shopkeeper and/or customer, as well. Isn't that set, together with the train and I guess Gringotts, supposed to be a LEGO exclusive? Or is it just supposed to be exclusive to a specific chain of stores? Either way I guess that means it won't get as steep as discount as others might.

Where can I find the pics? IG does not show me any.

First picture courtesy of StoneWars: Though the dragonhead prow, which according to Promobricks should be there, is missing. Also, presumably there's a way to make the ship look more like one piece.

According to StoneWars, yes: https://www.stonewars.de/geruechte/lego-marvel-2023-neue-infos/#lego-76261-spider-man-no-way-home Google translation of the relevant part of the article: LEGO 76261 Spider-Man No Way Home The Spider-Man film No Way Home may have been out of cinemas for a long time, but a 900-piece set is still coming out in August this year, which could make fans' hearts beat faster. Because the final fight between the three Spider-Mans against the large number of opponents could of course not be spoiled before the film, so that a LEGO set can now be released with enough distance. The fight takes place at the Statue of Liberty, which is why this New York attraction is partially rebuilt with the scaffolding around it for 104.99 euros. After there were initially rumors of 9 No Way Home minifigures, we currently expect only 6 minifigures to be included with the model. In addition to all three Spider-Mans (played by Tom, Toby and Andrew), the opponents Green Goblin, Doc Ock and Electro are likely to be included. Sandman is also supposed to be there, but due to his size he will be implemented as a brick-built character. Summary of the information so far: Set number: 76261 Name: Spider-Man No Way Home Parts: 900 Minifigures: 6 Age recommendation: Price (RRP): 104.99 euros Release: August 1, 2023

Well since you've asked (WARNING: LONG RANT TO FOLLOW): Not all of us care that much about minifigures to begin with. Sure, I need some to populate my Hogwarts Castles :-), but I care much more about builds. And play functions. I prefer the old yellow-headed figs anyway. I don't need a complete line-up. I don't care that like two-thirds of them were Harry in the exact same outfit. Those were sets that were fun to build, that look good on the shelf, and that had a decent amount of parts for their price - especially since the parts were much bigger then. And if you got lucky they came with functions where you'd use a rubber band to turn a column and show the treasure chest behind it, or the genius clock-and-door mechanism from the 2004 castle. (Yes, I'm an adult. So what? :-)) Now, I realize that this was like twenty years ago, but that's kind of what I'm looking for now. Sets (in the sense of classic LEGO sets, not buildable creatures or objects or weird banners wiht like one stud breadth) that are fun to build, that display well, and that - if possible - have decent play functions. And there aren't many of those around these days. Plus, LEGO has gotten REALLY pricey. Even the big and expensive flagship sets these days feel like they're cutting corners. Like, they'll make a EUR 500 Hogwarts Express but can't afford dark red pieces? Or they'll make a EUR 150 Chamber of Secrets with those weird lattice 8x8 plates where you cannot pose anything because they won't afford a regular 8x8 plate? The parts counts may have gone up, but the parts have gotten so much smaller, and I often don't see the value in them. You spend such a lot of parts on small details and decorations, and the rooms are so small and overcrowded. Or, in the case of the worse sets like Fluffy Encounter and Sirius Black's Rescue, completely empty. :-) So, basically: I won't buy new sets unless I feel like the end result is worth the money, regardless of parts count or "But there's an exclusive new minifig in it!" And I'm not interested in non-sets like buildable patroni, buildable Dobby (plus I hate Dobby), and stuff like the Quidditch Trunk you cannot display. If TLG cared about making me happy, they'd just continue making play sets with functions that also look good. They don't have to be big. They shouldn't be that expensive. They don't have to be all new stuff - like I've said, you can never have enough Hogwarts Castles -, but the 2018 series overall looked way better than the modular one and that's not that big an endorsement either. I don't mind them re-doing stuff so much, but more often than not the end result doesn't work for me. With the way the prices are going up and the way they've been cutting corners, I don't see that changing anytime soon. And given that Harry Potter is a series still supposed to be mostly aimed at kids, I frankly don't understand why they keep doing what they're doing. I mean, I suppose that many kids would look for the same stuff I'm looking for! Like with the modular system: If they re-did some of the old sets like the Final Challenge or the Chamber of Winged Keys or the Troll in the Bathroom in a fun, affordable way as single rooms, I would buy it. Marvel regularly gets EUR 10 sets with two minifigs and a small build. I've been tempted to get some of those and I don't even collect Marvel. I own a Millenium Falcon microfighter with stud shooters (again, with a list price of EUR 10) and I don't even care for Star Wars. It still looks good on the shelf! Why doesn't Harry Potter ever get EUR 10 sets? There's only two with a "cheaper" price point (EUR 20) and those have been out since the start of 2021 and the start of 2022 respectively, which as you've said is a long time in LEGO terms! Those are at least sets that kids might buy. But no, all I'm hearing is "Have another EUR 90 addition to the modular Hogwarts - it has exclusive minifigs in it!"