Virginia_Bricks

Wondering if this year the promotional set could be another classroom module. Would love a History of Magic with Professor Binns and clearly if Charms is $20, the price range is fine for a promotional set.

I hope not. Canonically it shouldn't, but till the instructions leak we won't know.

You are right and that was leaked so long ago I forgot.

The spring SW UCS set hasn't leaked yet either, so not ruling out a HP D2C.

I'm assuming the Great Hall has been selling well and that is why they are doubling down on the expensive playsets. As for comparing in price to the D2C Diagon Alley it is a decent comparison volume wise (piece count is radically different given the size of pieces). Both are 16 studs deep and DA is only a few studs longer, while the GH is taller. I'm expecting the GH and MT will also have more minifigures overall.

Prices leaked. Herbology is supposedly $60 and main tower is $250. If these are true, this is a big win for the modular castle and big L for wallets (and a L for children/parents since that is D2C pricing for a playset). Seems Lego has taken a drastic change in strategy with price for HP this year.

I'm content in a good way. Greenhouses are "new" (I'm ignoring the Hogwarts Moment set because it wasn't a greenhouse) and have been the portion of the castle I have been wanting most since it breaks up all the tan, green, and grey (and need a Professor Sprout). The Main Tower is expected and I think the name instead of Grand Staircase is simply because most people probably don't know its called the Grand Staircase besides Harry Potter superfans. The others while remakes (besides the Book Nook) are understandable. Fawkes has been retired for 3 years, Private Drive retired at the end of last year, Book of Monsters 4 years ago, and QQs/Ice Cream made sense to continue the playset version of DA. Without new HP content (and the lack of buy in behind Fantastic Beats), they will have to repeat sets and they know what sold well before.

Just a really popular wizarding apparel company is all...

If you look at the minifgure graphic, the newspaper graphic goes very close to the edge compared to the other stickers in the set.

Its a hard line for Lego Designers to walk. If you remove one wall, the set on its own seems lacking. But with the extra wall when added to the main framework it hides the beauty. While sets should not require MOCing to be worthwhile, the good thing is at least for Potions removing the entrance wall is easy. We will see on Charms

For me 3 studs longer, a new printed newspaper piece (likely), and the sleeping witch makes it an easy choice. But if I already had the Knight Bus I would skip it. I also strongly prefer the new chest piece which feels like luggage and not a pirate chest.

As for the fire place, if it was in the original great hall you would not have had space for two rows of tables. But with the dueling club it will fit. And the new wave is clearly mixing AFOL desires with playsets for kids desires. Feels very similar to Star Wars which releases $150-200 playsets regularly that a kid can save up allowance for and an AFOL would enjoy having

My thoughts: We have three clips in this set. Two on the smaller tower and one behind the larger tower. Personally this feels like the chance to expand beyond the silhouette of the microscale Hogwarts is possible. Otherwise Lego is really butchering the layout or either the DADA tower or Viaduct entrance. For a lot of fans here that should be very exciting. The McGonagall figure choice is odd since the dueling club uses the better Snape. Only the head is a better representation since he does not wear her hat during this scene. Otherwise the figures are as expected with Oliver Wood as a nice surprise inclusion. The choice to do small interiors with the main component sets is clearly intentional and I like it. It keeps these sets a tad bit cheaper and gives younger fans the chance to get a set without a large price point. At the end there will be a lot of leftover modules, but it is a perfect chance to use the parts to MOC up parts of the castle they didn't include or beef up parts they did. The alternative is just less sets in this wave. We won't be getting a transfiguration classroom it seems, which overall isn't bad as that classroom is overall boring compared to other options. We definitely will get DADA, but this makes me feel like we have a chance at Divination and Herbology. There were leaks that a new Private Drive is coming out in the summer wave. One minor leak, nothing substantial though

If I did my math right, the charms class will be 8 x 11 studs, which while the correct width for the middle portion of the Great Hall would be 1 stud not deep enough (possible 1 stud is hidden in the pictures). Therefore, there is the possibility the Charms classroom will go under the Flying lesson. And if I put my tin foil hat on, I believe Lego not only likes these leaks but is directly responsible for them and intentionally made sure the picture showing where it inserts was not leaked because it is related to an unleaked set.

If they make it possible to expand and collapse that would add a new element.

The angle of the picture doesn't necessarily mean the middle of the manor will be lacking an interior. There was a Malfoy Manor MOC posted to the Lego Harry Potter subreddit a few days before this leak and the width of each set seem pretty similar (8 studs) and the MOC had a decent interior.

Yeah, I was going to come here to mention Voldemort and Nagini make it a good guess that the table will be present. Hopefully they include enough chairs that you can add other Death Eaters in your collection

The Grand Staircase will be taller, but I would bet the Great Hall will have the largest footprint area wise. Maybe the Viaduct entrance could be similar in footprint to the Great Hall.

Built the Owlery yesterday and pleasantly surprised. It was my least favorite of this year's modular castle sets from pictures, but it stands up well and when it is 20% off it is a good deal. Might be the first set I get a duplicate of to MOC a more complete/taller Owlery.

This means it will also likely be $130 USD, right? Most of the times the Euro and USD thresholds are similar. I was at one point contemplating the Burrow on day 1 but the GWPs aren't worth it and I don't care for non-brick GWPs so hoping just to get the Durmstrang ship.

I'll never be able to display every set I own and that is a good thing. I can rotate through my collection annually and so I am constantly building, but not buying.

I'm happy to buy the extra classrooms and modules because I expect this Hogwarts to only be the main portion and then I can MOC the Greenhouse side and use the extra modules to fill it in.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but in my opinion the Great Hall was fairly priced. The low piece count is because of some significantly sized pieces. This link shows some data of Lego IP at price per pound and $50 per pound is the median (from 8 years ago). The Great Hall is 4 pounds and therefore right at $50 per pound and is an external IP. The issue is Lego didn't want to go over $200 it seems and had to cut costs in some of the details. But they haven chosen to create standalone sets that can replace those details and add more customization to the castle. Forget if I saw it here or somewhere else, but there was a good comment regarding the size of the castle not being able to include every common room or every class at once, but everyone will have the choice to include what parts they want.

Not yet, but one can speculate and I would guess the price range would similar to this year's March wave. I would guess the Motorcycle will be similar priced to the Anglia of this year ($15). The Diagon Alley set will be somewhere around $70-90 in line with the other two. Knight Bus will be in the $40s given where the last two were priced. Charms I would speculate will be $40s and similar to Potions. Flying Lesson (3 minifigures) and Dueling Club (4 minifigures) will be in the $20-30 range. Malfoy Manner will be $70-90 range, similar to the last 4 Privet drive. Maybe a few surprises cheaper or more expensive, but that seems like fair guesses. What I am interested is how they make the Dueling Club a standalone set since that explicitly takes place in the Great Hall.

That would require Quirrell being repeated as a mini-figure which Lego hasn't done repeats of unique Professors during the same modular castle run. Which is why I think the Chamber of Secrets is more likely. But Lego could change the way they include minifigures this run, so everything is fair game.