Clone OPatra

Well it's not like they called the obvious remake of Johnny Thunder by his real name. We all know who this is. Have they in fact ever given a non-licensed, non-tie-in CMF character a name, or do they always only have descriptive names? Goatherd: am I a joke to you?

Only good considering what it is, or actually looks like something you'd want to display (or just see regularly in general)? For me there are plenty of LEGO sets that fall into the former category, like good considering they're made out of LEGO but obviously not a great replica of what they're trying to represent. If they still look good themselves despite being a bit blocky or having that LEGO effect, that's usually ok with me. This Rocket's face just looks off-putting, so I can't justify it on the basis of it being LEGO, because plenty of LEGO things still look aesthetically pleasing.

That Rocket looks no less ugly and horrendous in their out of box, real life build pictures I'm afraid. The face is just so gnarly and freaky, like a horror version of Rocket.

I thought the previous prints were just standard over-ear hearing aids, though to be honest I do not know much about the available technologies. Of course there are pros and cons to both prints and moulding. With prints you can use any hairpiece, while with moulding you can use any face - though the option to expand into Minidolls is great. In fact one of the 2024 Friends sets does use the short hair cochlear hair piece.

Ah thanks! That's great confirmation. Some interesting tidbits there about Hagrid's Hut too. It can connect with the sections of the Forbidden Forest set apparently, and there are references to all the Houses in the hut - is that something from canon or just something they felt like doing?

JB posted part three on their Instagram. The dog groomer does indeed have a long ponytail. I don't really care about the body or face of that figure to be honest, but the dog and hairpiece sell it for me! The barbarian woman is also looking good. Unlike the bright red hair on the Black Falcon archer that just looked totally out of place to me, this figure has a wilder look and style that makes the red hair more ok. I get why others don't like it though.

Who is it or on which account did the designer comment this? Not doubting - I'd just like to see it myself.

I'm really eagerly awaiting part 3 (or a YouTube version) of JB Spielwaren's CMF overview so we can get a better look at the cochlear implant!

Plus there's nothing "accurate" about the battle pack - it's based on LEGO's own made up speeder design and includes Clones that would never be seen fighting together against an Octopurra droid, so having an accessory pack to accessorise the clones would be extra fun for kids. I don't care for myself as I've got plenty of those extra accessories, but it would have made good sense to include to heighten the product.

Just saw in-hand pics of the BP on Instagram, though now can't find the account again. It had tagged Bantha Bricks but isn't on their account, I suppose because they're a Facebook community? Anyway, the B2 still has pretty much the same back, so while the cosmetic detail on the torso piece is now a bit sharper, functionally it's still very much the same as the old B2s. The clone helmets also do look oddly square, like all ones with the helmet holes. Curious LEGO couldn't be bothered throwing in like a standard black or grey accessory pack for people to customise their clones.

Yep, on the kids side of the site here. That's where I found the Crooks' Hideout too.

I wasn't going to buy any either, but then I found BL sellers selling the Marvel CMF brand new for less than full retail price, so figured I might as well. Hopefully it'll be the same with this series. I guess that's still supporting LEGO's deplorable move to true blind boxes to some degree, but at least it isn't gambling or wasting money on my end.

Yeah on closer inspection, the two are different and the hair swoosh goes a different direction on each. Just interesting both pieces have such a similar sort of style of hair to them!

Also, a new colour for that little bulldog with collar in crooks' hideout set I hadn't yet seen - white with a teal collar!

In 42617 Animal Sanctuary And in addition to the space fat cat, there's an orange fat cat in 42612! I love that piece!

So I think the hound-trimmer's new hairpiece incorporates something like a cochlear implant, though you can only see a tiny hint at it on the CMF images on the right side of the head. What's weird is that the hairpiece looks the same-ish as the one I'm seeing in the new Burger Van, except they seem to be mirror images of each other, so I don't know what's going on.

Ok, you're right, I didn't notice. I guess my bigger gripe is that they are functionally the same and a little bit of cosmetic difference on the body hasn't helped the main issue of how unplayable and unposeable they are. That arm does nothing to convey their arm rockets in my opinion, and the B2's whole thing is turn its hand. I'd take a bulkier 2-piece arm with a joint in the middle to at least add some poseability. They've also always felt way too tall to me, even if B2s are a bit tall.

Where did any talk about the newly revealed sets go? That fuzzy character in the 4+ set is giving me hibbyjibbies but dang if I don't want the new hairpiece on the other one. I'm a little disappointed in the battle pack to be honest. That Super Battle droid was never a good mould, and to see it back after such a long hiatus completely unchanged is sad. Star Wars really seems like it tries to do the bare minimum in some cases, and then over-deliver with new moulds in stuff like 4+ sets. It's great to get all the shinies and the Shock on the Clone side though, and in general great to have a way to mass generic CIS at the same time, so I do think it's a good set, but I'm still personally a wee bit disappointed.

Hagrid's Hut is completely what I wanted out of the set. Fang and new Norbert. Different outfit for Hagrid. Fairly compact size for the set itself. Having a lift off roof was a good idea, and I love the reclining chair that fits Hagrid. Yeah it seems quite expensive and I shudder to think of the Australian RRP, but good things come to those who wait. The Owlery looks very charming with a good level of detail. Two owl recolours is ok and it's good they used the new small one. The set isn't for me personally since I just don't feel any need for it, but I like it. The Boathouse set looks fine. Ok model, and I guess this scene hasn't been done at all for a long time, so it makes sense. The figures seem dull to me, though since they're in pre-sorted robes, it wouldn't have made a difference to include students from other eventual houses. I really like the colour direction they went for the Forbidden Forest set, but it's such an odd collection of things. They could've at least include a centaur, or preferably Firenze himself, to make it more exciting. The price of $30 also feels egregious if that's correct. The Anglia is the Anglia. Decent small impulse set idea for kids. The Hedwig set also seems like a good idea. I like to see affordable display things on the market, especially something a bit cutesy like this.

I'm looking forward to the mega battle pack and to seeing the Grogu Escape set personally, though my interest might come down to what clones are included. Still sounds like a decent low-ish price set.

December is here, which means Advent season! Is this year's Harry Potter Advent Calendar worth your money and/or time? Let's find out! SET INFORMATIONNumber: 76418Name: LEGO Harry Potter Advent CalendarTheme: Harry Potter / Wizarding WorldReleased: 2023Part Count: 227 + ~40 extrasMinifigures: 6Set Price (RRP): 37.99 EUR / 29.99 GBP / 59.99 AUD / 44.99 USD / 59.99 CADLinks: Brickset Bricklink Flickr set INTRODUCTIONI don't really understand LEGO's business model for advent calendars. Presumably the primary market for them uses them as intended: parents buy them to have ready for December 1st, and kids open the designated flap each day leading up to Christmas Eve. If that's the case, why does LEGO release these sets in September, and start discounting them in November, before the time they're most in demand? At the time of writing this review, this set is 30% off in Europe directly from LEGO, and sold out entirely in North America. Doesn't LEGO know that lots of people, including parents, aren't organised enough to buy these in advance? Wouldn't LEGO want to capitalize on that? Anyway... this is my second ever foray into LEGO's advent calendars, after last year's Marvel calendar, which I picked up on big discount because six Guardians in one cheap-ish set was too good to pass by. For this review, I'll try to get into the mindset of someone opening the gifts each day, as well as share my thoughts on the set as a whole, including for us adult fans. Let's see how it goes. Thank you to LEGO for providing this set at Eurobricks' request. BOXWhen preparing this review I noticed that the back of the box has a picture of itself, which struck me as amusing. Here it is. Anyone who has ever picked up an Advent Calendar will know how relatively light they feel for the size of the box; there aren't a lot of parts, and a lot of the parts are going to be rather small. It'd be redundant to show you the back of the box with the flap flipped down, given you just saw it on the back of the box, but here's a bird's eye view of the flap, which itself has a bird's eye view into four Hogsmeade shops. The completely non-LEGO art style feels jarring and I think I would've preferred LEGO-style images here. Without further ado, let's go through day by day. DAY 1We start off with the main man boy who lived himself, Mr. Potter. The students' outfits in this set all take inspiration from their getups when they visit Hogsmeade in Prisoner of Azkaban, as seen here. Harry's outfit has been faithfully recreated, though he could've done with a recolour of the other version of this hood that had hair attached, which sadly was only ever used twice and hasn't been seen since 2018. Harry is a fitting way to start the calendar anyway. DAY 2Next up we get a mundane little counter for Honeyduke's, though the Bertie Botts 1x1 brick is always welcome. DAY 3Honeydukes continues with this slightly more elaborate counter with a glass display built in and a 1x2 cheese slope to probably represent a till, though it's unprinted. Quite a few spares here as well. DAY 4Here we get a version of the Sirius Black wanted poster, with one of the set's obligatory exclusive prints. This calendar contains only two exclusive prints apart from Minifigures; 2022 had 3 (though one was the brick for the game spinner), 2021 had 6 (including its dish for its spinner), 2020 had only 1 (though exclusive printed bricks are used as the legs of three characters, so that could count as 4), and 2019 had 5. The number of exclusive printed parts is a bit proportionate to the number of exclusive printed minifigure parts, though not perfectly. The print and overall design of this stand, while simple, look good, It's a print with limited use, but good graphic design nonetheless. It's actually the third iteration of this poster, and second iteration of this exact stand, as pictured below with the much more elaborate one from Hogsmeade Village Visit. That one used the exact same graphic design of Sirius from the original version found in the 2018 Hogwarts Express, though the original had inaccurate text. This new one is the first to allude to the text that appears in the film underneath the moving image of Sirius, despite being smaller than the last one. DAY 5Only five days in and we get our second spiffy Minifigure in the form of Ron. Now, Ron's hat is inaccurate to the film, but from a purely LEGO perspective it's an awesome reappearance and recolour of the part developed for Ron's brothers in the second Harry Potter CMF series. DAY 6We now whip over to Zonko's Joke Shop for a stand that's perhaps even more boring than the first Honeyduke's stand, though involves slightly more building and has a ton of extra pieces. I was startled to see incredibly messy mould injection points on all of the clip pieces, so I took a picture, below. Have you seen parts recently with such messy-ness? This is nearly clone-brand level bad. DAY 7The next day continues with Zonko's. It was fun seeing a bunch of different colours of 1x2 plates in one bag, and the 1x1 cones are nice colours, though that's about all there is to say. DAY 8Here's the second and final exclusive print, this 1x4 tile printed to look like it's a wooden hand sign. Kinda useless, but kind of cool too. DAY 9Hermione rounds out the trio on day 9, not even halfway through the calendar, with another fantastic recoloured hair-hat combo and an exclusive torso (like Harry's and Ron's) that's generic enough to use outside of the Harry Potter setting. DAY 10A quick Bricklink search shows that there are a lot of ways to build small (blocky, awful) Christmas trees, but this set's designer decided not to reinvent the wheel and instead recycle the design from the 2019 and 2020 Harry Potter calendars. If you're onto a good thing I guess... It's certainly not very interesting, though the colours are better than the previous versions. DAY 11Speaking of not very interesting, this very basic mailbox, though everybody can use more owls. DAY 12Somewhat worse still is this fountain, which has nothing particularly Harry Potter-y about it and provides no interactivity with the minifigures. It's pure scene dressing. DAY 13I was quite surprised again when I opened Day 13, and saw the most desirable Minifigure in the set, the exclusive and first ever Aberforth Dumbledore. I would've bet a small amount of money that LEGO would save Aberforth for Day 24, given he's the coolest, newest thing in the set. This sent me down a Bricklink rabbit hole seeing what LEGO does in terms of Day 24 for the other themes. City has pretty consistently had Santa on Day 24, apart from a brief lapse in judgement in 2018 when they presented this abominable snowman build instead (serious what the heck is that). Star Wars consistently includes a cool holiday figure last, which is also a good choice. The other themes, though, have been mixed bags, which again is just weird. Why wouldn't they always want to go out with a bang in every calendar for every theme? As for Aberforth himself, he's pretty cool though not super detailed. The torso print immediately reminded me of this torso from Western, which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement because LEGO has levelled up their design work a lot since 1996. Obviously it is a bit better than that, but it's still simple. His face is very highly detailed though and I like the wry little smile. To be honest I felt unconvinced by this figure when I first saw images of it: the bright purple didn't remind me of Aberforth because, while he might technically wear purple, all the scenes Aberforth appears in are so dark and relatively washed out in that colour scheme Yates preferred for all of his Harry Potter films. The use of this particular hair and beard, which LEGO continues to use for Professor Dumbledore from films 1 and 2, also made this Aberforth look too much like his brother, though when paired with a Gambon Dumbledore there are enough differences to set them apart. Still, I think Aberforth needs something like the Hobbit film dwarf hair to really capture his wild, bushy look. DAY 14Fittingly, our journey through Hogsmeade now takes us to Aberforth's Hog's Head Inn, and this once again mundane table with a definitely-not-alcohol bottle. It's a trendy water bottle. For sure. DAY 15Next comes this cask of definitely-not-alcohol. People keep juice in casks right? RIGHT? As casks go, it's a good little build, but is this exciting for a kid? DAY 16We move back outside for this spindly lamp post, though at least this could double as some sort of weapon, what with the lightsaber hilts. DAY 17Now we get the only total repeat Minifigure of the set: Madam Rosmerta, the proprietor of the Three Broomsticks, who also appeared in Hogsmeade Village Visit. She's a decent figure though, and the set contains Three Broomsticks stuff, so her inclusion makes sense. DAY 18The "Three Broomsticks stuff" begins the next day with this terribly simple and dull table. "Look mummy, today I get to build a table with five parts! What a treat!" - said no kid ever. DAY 19Irksome mundanity is really setting in with this decent, but again unexciting, fire place. DAY 20At least day 20 bring two builds and something with which Minifigures can interact. Is this the start of a wreath-making workshop or just a large table decoration? DAY 21Like Ron's, Draco's exclusively recoloured headgear is inaccurate to his film costume, but I'm not bothered because it's a great colour scheme for the part and LEGO doesn't make anything like his film hat anyway. The jacket is also extremely reusable. This means that there are no minifigures left for Day 24 though... DAY 22Things should be ramping up towards Christmas, but instead we get probably the least exciting build so far: this basic bench. DAY 23One Christmas tree wasn't enough, so here's another one, now with extra cheese slopes. DAY 24 And rounding out this month of utilitarian builds comes this wet thud of a snowman with next to nothing special going for it. Nothing magical. No elevated design. The scarf is a jumper plate and a face is non-existent. Sigh... Here are all of the spare parts - I counted around 40! COMPLETE SET and CONCLUDING THOUGHTS Now, the whole concept (or perhaps conceit) of this set is that it gives you everything to play out Hogsmeade scenes by placing the builds in their respective sections of the box's flap, as shown below. The effect is kind of weird for my order-liking brain, since you're placing LEGO and making Minifigures walk on top of top-down non-LEGO-style designs, including things like tables and chairs. I think they should've gone with just the floor design of each store, and left any interior furnishings to the physical LEGO rather than the artwork. Kids probably won't mind it as much as I do, though I think I would've minded as a kid too. In any case, when all's said and done this is a cool thing, to have all the builds and Minifigures tie together into a complete scene. However, is an Advent Calendar about the journey or the destination? For us adults who like order, harmony, and cohesion, this set does a good job, but if it's supposed to feel like somewhat of a special gift every day for 24 days, it largely fails. The vast majority of days are mundane nothingness, all in service of creating the full scene at the end. While I don't personally care for micro models, if the point is to provide something somewhat cool every day, the Advent Calendars with micro models do a much better job of fulfilling that mission. People seemed to dislike last year's Harry Potter calendar, but a ton of those models look cute to me, and are each a whole recognisable little thing in a single day. The 2020 calendar did a decent job of mixing between stuff to build a Yule Ball scene and micro models on a Goblet of Fire theme. This one goes completely in the build-a-scene direction, and I'd thus be hard pressed to tell you any single day felt exciting or special besides the Minifigures and perhaps the Sirius Black sign, which would be a mighty slog for nearly a month. For AFOLs or general Harry Potter fans who aren't interest in the advent aspect, the value here is all in the Minifigures. Whether or not you're interested comes down to how much you like contemporary, everyday Minifigure parts. To my taste, I love what's on offer here with three recoloured headgear parts, four useful wintery torsos, and Aberforth to add to the Harry Potter collection. However, if you're purely a Harry Potter fan then Aberforth is really the only thing going for this lineup, since the kids' costumes, while exclusive, are inconsequential. SCORE How do I rate this set? 9 MINIFIGURES There's enough cool and exclusive stuff, including an exclusive character despite his flaws, for me to rate the Minifigures quite high. 5 PIECES I've got to give this a low 5/10 because, while there's never a satisfactory number of pieces in any Advent Calendar, these pieces are especially uninteresting apart from the couple of prints. 6 BUILD/DESIGN Unlike calendars with micro models, there are no NPUs to be found and nothing special or particularly charming about any design here. 2 EXPERIENCE Here I'm ranking what I feel like the experience would be to open a door everyday, which I think would be a rather abysmal slog. 7 PLAYBILITY End result playability would be fairly decent though if you like roleplay, since you get a complete and coherent set scene in which to enact play scenarios. 6 PRICE The price varies by region, being a better deal at full price in Europe than North America, though like I said up top, it's so easy to find these sets on discount. The price isn't "good", but for the minifigures alone it is ok on discount. 5.8 OVERALL - This might well be the lowest score I've ever given a set, but I think it's justified. The minifigures are really all this set has going for it. What do you think? Am I wildly off base? I'll also be back with a few crappy alt models that I tried to build out of the limited selection of parts, which I'll post in a comment in this topic.

You think that comment was an insult? I think the logo design is pretty uninspired (as does Lyichir it seems), but a general comment on the fact that people are focusing a lot on logo design is cool and fine.

Move on and drop it @danth. And before you ask why I'm singling you out (publicly, no less), Lyichir made a generic comment about the discussion, and you took that and made comments to and about Lyichir. Thanks.

Yes really. There was a bot. It posted a post that was clearly written by AI. People reported it. I deleted the account. On we go.

I already explained it in my post in this topic: