Whittleberry

For those who cannot view the video because Youtube has blocked it in their country (like it has for us Australians), view it here.

I've had the pleasure of playing with these, quite a few years ago now. Melbourne Museum has a whole lot of this stuff, and kids can build houses and things. It's great! Here's a pic:

There seems to have been a lot of bttw spruiking in this thread lately, what's up with that? IMO the LEGO City Suitcase looks like a cheap plastic document folder. I don't particularly think it's worth getting, yet I would be interested to see a review of it . I like LEGO gear reviews

Is it possible then, that the Hogwarts will be an exclusive, or that it won't be too common? It might be like the '07 Hogwarts, which, from what I've heard, was not exactly in every store.

And what would postage for a Hogwarts Castle be to Melbourne, Australia? I tried looking on the Poste Italiane website but couldn't find any info on actual costs.

Well I'm really pleased with the new sets now I've seen the photos. Considering that less than a year ago all hope was lost, this is spectacular! And this just goes to show how reliable a certain Mister Witt is...maybe we should take all he says with a large handful of salt? Anyway, although I'm not a massive fan of the Hogwarts Express or Hagrid's Hut (a Fang would be way better than that freaky looking Aragog), but I'll buy them all the same, since there are so many nice figs and pieces. Dobby's Release is giving us a new Lucius and a flesh (and more realistic looking) printed Dobby, which is reasonable for a small set. I really think that the old version of this set was better though, since it had a much better looking Diary included. The Burrow is very nice; dark red roof, detailed interiors (the likes of which never appeared in the old HP sets) and more. And Hogwarts itself....boy. They've certainly decided to make the theme go out with a bang, and the most detailed Hogwarts ever. Exclusive pieces and figs, printed owls and sorting hat, new dementors, and a nice looking exterior. The figs in all the sets are all excellent, I particularly like Ginny, Bellatrix and the Quidditch figs. I can't really think of anything to say that hasn't been said already, but I will say this: I think this is it, and there will be no more HP sets after this wave. So go all-out, this is the last chance we'll have to stock up on HP LEGO! Heck, if the line sells really well, LEGO might even release some more sets next year to coincide with the second film. But I doubt they will, regardless of what happens.

Get your friend to take the Southeastern Highspeed train from St Pancras (right next to King's Cross) to Ebbsfleet International, and then a bus from there to Bluewater, where there's a LEGO Store. The trip there should take about 50 minutes each way. That's the quickest way your friend is going to be able to get you a Fire Brigade.

There's an Education Centre here in Melbourne where you can buy LEGO education stuff, but from a parts/price they're not good value. Interesting to see the variety of uncommon parts in the 9385 set - turkey, black broomstick and red kettle! And the brown parts look like Old Brown...but that's just wishful thinking .

You can see that here. As I type this it's almost 6am.

It's 5am before the big day right now in NYC! I'm pants-wettingly excited. The confirmation of Bella and Luna doesnt help.

The cars could have been made earlier though! Who takes a brand shiny new car into the desert on an expedition? As for the nationalities of the villians, I'm no Adventurers expert but there's Baron von Barron, Senor Palomar, Mr Cunningham and others. They're just a whole bunch of different nationalities, and it's a classic action-film cliche to have the enemies very different from the heroes; think Indy vs. Nazis or Russians, or James Bond vs. le Chiffre, North Koreans and Afghans, to name a few. The fact one is German doesn't really have much to do with anything, although to a modern audience, a evil German with a strong accent has negative connotations.

Goodness gracious me, the Limo's 36% off!!! I don't know how much the plane usually is but for that price it seems like quite a good deal.

Peeron and Brickfactory have scans of catalogues and instructions...maybe they could start up a Club Magazine collection?

The game looks even better than I thought! From what I gather, this is what the game is about: It's exam time at Hogwarts, and players who each play as a different house have to go around Hogwarts collecting study materials from each of the 4 different rooms. I can't say I really understand the tile-rearranging and exactly what happens when what is rolled on the dice. The game features Malfoy, Harry, Ron and Hermione as microfigs, and the guy mentioned Dumbledore and Mrs Norris but I couldn't see them in the video.

I really like the 2x1 1 1/3 curved slope brick for some reason. I also go gaga over plant elements, minifig scale animals, civillian minifig torsos and minifig accessories and food. And anything chrome or printed, or cloth!

I definitely reckon they should re-introduce inspirational alternative builds on boxes. I remember being inspired by the back of my Knight Bus set as a younger child and building something new based on that. To parents it looks like it adds play value and possibilities (and thus seems better value for money) and kids get excited about all the different things they will be able to make with their new set. I read that LEGO doesn't do them any more because people rang customer service asking for instructions to build the alternative models, but I don't really think they would be that put out by there not being any, because the pictures are a bonus as it is. As long as there was a little disclaimer on the box saying that instructions were only included for the main set, I think it would increase the appeal of LEGO sets to both adult buyers and children.

In Melbourne Myer CBD there's one Taj Mahal, if anyone is looking for one. Other than that there's a couple of unwanted sets from last year, the new SW sets and a lot of Racers canisters. I was in DJs CBD two weeks ago and they had the same sort of thing going on, minus Taj, plus a couple of Grand Carousels.

Thanks for that. You may use whichever word you like, but I was just informing you that it's a fairly standard word in AFOL terminology; so if you use another word then it might confuse.

Hmmm I watched the trailer and thought, and this is what I think. Here's the Dobby head from 2002: And here's Dobby in the trailer: I don't reckon that LEGO will include the petrified, hollow-eyed old Dobby in the new sets. They'll probably give him a slightly updated head and printed eyes, a la the Toy Story heads, and send him off to China to be mass produced.

Yeah what's up with that?! It even looks like that in the instructions btw Doodz, thank you for the enlightening photo review. Except I'd just like to point out that the pieces you're referring to as being "etched" are what everyone else refers to as "printed". The word etched, in my mind, has connotations of being scratched in, so I don't know how other people read it but IMHO it doesn't sound right. Also, would you be able to measure the dimensions of the wierdly-shaped instruction booklets? I'm trying to sort out my instructions storage atm and it would be helpful to know the dimensions of these. In my opinion, LEGO should just print one A4 instruction book, it would make storing them much simpler, and I suspect that being in parts makes them easier to lose.

These set descriptions from Huw have got me excited, but it's a shame about the hogwarts express wheels. Matn, I doubt the quidditch set will come with hufflepuff or ravenclaw figs, but that would be great! The Hogwarts Challenge game also looks great. Anyone noticed that one of the 2x2 tiles on the die looks like the old marauder's map tile?

Then how exactly does LEGO get rid of excess stock now? Excess parts could be sent to LEGO Stores to be sold in PABs (although that's a sort of small-scale way to sell it) but what about bagged parts?

Your store is quite small, so don't be surprised if not many people flock to use it. And I wouldn't post on Eurobricks about your store, it's just spam. Lots of people who use Eurobricks also maintain stores, and you don't see them clogging up the BSTF forum with pleas for custom do you? Btw are those grey bricks in your store light grey and dark grey or light bluish grey and dark bluish grey?

I added a photo of this, taken at the Bluewater Store, to the LEGO Set News Worldwide pool on Flickr.

My LEGO Studios camera used to work fine on my old Win98 computer. I would suggest, like Davey, using an emulator, or picking up some cheap-as-chips old computer to run Win98 for you.