Clone OPatra

Do you mean pink? They have been available in BAM stations and also in that free VIP funky pack, so it's easy to see how people have lots of them at low cost.

I have created the new 2023 topic. So as to not make things even more out of order in there, I won't try and move the discussion that was already had from this topic over to that one. When there's new/more info to come out, feel free to use the new one:

Well I stuffed this up somehow and Lyichir's post became the first one of the topic, so I have added the set information up top. It provides good commentary to kick off anyhow!

Nah, it's a new thread for the new year's sets in every forum except Licensed where we determined that people kind of just like to talk about the Licenses in general and the conversations there get very labyrinthine. We might switch it back to the old ways in Licensed too, you never know, but it isn't "wildly inconsistent" when it's one way in one forum and another way in every single other forum. Here, I made a topic for you in the right place: Enjoy!

No it isn't. Maple was talking about what is actually a new whole cupboard type piece that uses a brand new three-wide door. The hair salon uses the three wide double doors that were introduced in 2022. I hope LEGO does indeed release a three-wide frame for the three-wide door, as that could be useful.

It's a new door as well. It doesn't have a stud on the inside and is shorter than regular building doors.

These new sets look consistently great. Not that I'll buy any of them myself, but I love seeing that they exist and perusing the details anyhow. I cannot wait for all these fantastic hairpieces though. Please add them all to PaB LEGO! (I mean I assume they will show up there as Friends hairpieces have up to this point, but there are always weird occurrences with PaB) Am I correct in thinking that the new main blonde haired Friend with the new shoulder length hairpiece doesn't appear in any of the sets revealed thus far though? Isn't that odd?

Yeah. Our GWP thresholds are always nonsensically high here.

Yeah, very true. Is it around in Australia? Would I have had to go find and add it myself? I spent over $50 AUD but nothing about it came up. EDIT: looked it up - the threshold is $119 here, which I did not spend.

Finally bit the bullet and placed my first "new PaB" order since everything I wanted was in stock at once. Somehow I missed the memo that it was going to be double VIP points this weekend - d'oh! Oh well, excited to be back in the game and I hope the imageless items in my order are what I think they are.

It's a natural comparison to make given the price points but I fundamentally disagree for a few reasons. The first is size. The school has about 7x14 or 15 studs of usable space on each level. The grocery store has 11x19 and that's not counting the side shelves which are kind of "interior detail". That's a huge difference. The second is realisation of subject matter. Real life schools have lots of different types of zones: entrance halls, classrooms, locker hallways, etc. What LEGO gave us was an entrance that opens right into a classroom that also has lockers off to the side, and a second level with a classroom. The grocery store has enough space to properly emulate a real life grocery store without things feeling shoehorned together. The details aren't perfect, but the actual store is large enough. When it comes to the road plate itself, its inclusion also feels much more natural in this set than the school because grocery stores (especially in North America and Australia at least) are associated with parking lots, whereas nobody thinks "oh what goes with a school? I know! A road!" Finally, the school bus build itself looks awful and uses a sizable number of parts in the school set, whereas these vehicles are small and look good.

Why did you comment the same thing twice in this very topic? It's not like any more was said on that subject for you to reiterate it... Personally I don't find the set $20-$30 too expensive at all after thoroughly looking at it. $10-15 too much in the US at most. For kids it's actually a fantastic playset, whereas for us adults possibly looking at "just" the parts, then it feels expensive for the price.

60347 Grocery Store by Clone OPatra

LEGO's first ever normal mainline grocery store set is already tipped to retire at the end of the year, which will give it a mere 7 months of availability. Should you pick it up before it goes, and did LEGO doom it to fail? Let's find out. SET INFORMATIONNumber: 60347Name: Grocery StoreTheme: CityReleased: 2022Part Count: 404 Minifigures: 5Set Price (RRP): 59.99 EUR / 54.99 GBP / 99.99 AUD / 69.99 USD / 89.99 CADLinks: Brickset, Bricklink INTRODUCTIONThree years on from Heartlake City Supermarket, I had given up hope of ever seeing the shopping cart piece again. One random 4+ Friends set, and that was it, or so I thought. I was pleasantly shocked to see the piece return when images of this set came out. And then I noticed the new prosthetic leg, and the new corn, and the reuse of the pea suit, and the new veggie stalk... This set appears to have a lot going for it from a parts perspective, but as many people have pointed out, it seems very over-priced, as is the norm for the "road plate system" sets. Come along as I discuss what works, and what doesn't, in 60347 Grocery Store. Thank you to LEGO for providing this set at Eurobricks' request. THE BUILDWith only 404 pieces and a 6+ age rating, this set offers nearly as basic as builds get these days. As you'll see in the small amount of spare parts, for better or worse, the set lacks small details overall, though larger parts can mean it feels like you get more money's worth from fewer parts. The first bag kicks things off with the two included vehicles, which are basic builds but will interact well with the set. The little car harkens right back to four-wide vehicles that were the norm pre-mid-1990s. Bag 2 quickly lays the groundwork for the grocery store itself, and I will say that I found the build process a bit scattershot. The breaks between bags seem rather random, and it felt like I was adding a few parts over here and then over there and then back over here. It didn't flow as smoothly as I'm used to. Bag 3 completes the interior detail and brings the store up almost to its roof level, again stopping in a fairly arbitrary place. Bag 4 finishes the set with the top of the store and lovely brick-built carrot sign, and adds part to the road plate, which is included along with the large plates for the grocery store in a separate non-numbered bag. THE MINIFIGURESThe minifigure lineup in this set packs a remarkable amount of value. The man with the exclusive prosthetic leg has an exclusive torso as well, the shop owner Mr. Produce only comes in this set and the Advent Calendar and everything besides his hair is exclusive to him, the little girl's jacket only comes in two sets, the peapod costume makes its first appearance in a set after debuting in CMF Series 20, and even the woman's green jacket underneath the costume has only appeared a handful of times. This collection of characters feels beyond reproach to me, and includes all the figures one would need to play out scenarios with what's included in the set. You have the man and child customers, the shop owner to work the till, the "backroom" worker to drive the forklift, and the peapod promoter woman who can also double as a customer with the costume swapped for the included hairpiece. My only query would be why the promoter would be wearing a peapod outfit when the store has a big carrot on it. Of course, the real reason is that LEGO hasn't made a carrot costume yet, but within the universe of the set the peapod doesn't make a whole lot of sense. THE ACCESSORIESA grocery store needs groceries, and it bears mentioning that LEGO did not skimp. In addition to all of the accessories I have laid out here, there are also two orange juice cartons and two milk cartons that I didn't pull off the shelves for the picture, plus some generic bottles. The shopping cart really is a lovely piece, large enough to hold some things, but still a good size to scale with minifigures. The corn also makes a fine addition to LEGO's vegetable collection, and actually scales tolerably, unlike most LEGO food which was created to scale with Scala or Belville figures! THE VEHICLESSo far I have heaped praise on the minifigures and included accessories, and that praise isn't going to run out quite yet with the vehicles. They do their job well with minimal numbers of parts and minimal complexity. The wee little car is a fun throwback to Town, but now it's an EV! The forklift is perhaps a little heftier than LEGO forklifts of old, but looks great and can accommodate a minifigure sitting or standing, given the tall roll cage originally introduced in Power Miners. For a dark time in the early 2000s LEGO stopped including their classic opening doors on vehicles. They have probably been back for just as long at this point, but I still love the little touch of having an opening door even if it is practically useless for play. Speaking of play, I suspected that the forklift might be able to lift the car given their respective sizes... and I was right! THE GROCERY STORENow we turn to the big picture, and the titular grocery store. I will say, right off the bat, that the footprint of the whole set doesn't strike me as absurdly off the mark especially for the European prices, nor is the size of the grocery store too small necessarily to achieve a fun and proper grocery store toy. Sure it might be more the relative size of a service station or health food store than LEGO's one actual convenience store set, but what I mean is that unlike 60329 School Day for example with its woefully sized school, there's enough square studdage allotted to the grocery store to make for a decent grocery store. What's more, the road plate has some actual use here as the parking lot and loading area, and isn't tacked on for no other reason than to be a road plate. Unfortunately for the set, the devil is in the details, and the details leave something to be desired. Things start off fairly well out the front of the store, with the good and striking carrot sign, the veggie stalk stand holding wrapped flowers, and the crates with fruit and veg. It definitely gives me "fresh produce grocer" vibes, and I can forgive that different items are mixed in the crates because it's a toy and at least fruit and veg are often displayed in or on crates like this. Heading inside through the new for 2022 double doors, I want to reiterate that there is plenty of potential space for a good grocery store. There's room enough for minifigures and the shopping cart without things getting too cramped, which is great. Things start falling apart when taking a look at the actual groceries presented inside, and how they are presented. The crate of bottles reads like empty bottles for recycling. Baked goods in tall green crates look all wrong - these should have been in something like LEGO's barrel or on a built up display. There's also just not enough stuff in this section. If there were 2-stud or even 1-stud deep shelves here, things would have looked better and more items could have been included. The fish counter looks ok, though it's a little awkward being combined with checkout. The shelves along the side of the store also feel disappointing and awkward. They use up a lot of space to only hold two 1x1 items per shelf, and come across feeling bare. I also can't tell if these sections were supposed to be coded as refrigeration or not, since they look a bit like drinks. It would be much better if they had worked in an actual transparent door for a refrigeration or freezer section, and then maybe shelves with more variety of items like breakfast cereal for example, rather than just bottles. The two most play-oriented areas of the store actually work out as the best. Near the entrance is a bottle recycling machine, which uses minimal floor space and has a good collection crate for bottles on the other side. Over near the checkout counter is the loading/conveyor area. Approaching with the forklift, a crate can be slotted through the yellow and black striped technic parts which do a fantastic job emulating one of those ubiquitous plastic-strip barriers between spaces. It's a lot of fun pushing a crate through and then watching the parts fall back down behind it. Interestingly, these parts in this colour configuration were previously used like this in a 2020 Employee Gift set. However, this feature is probably why LEGO has used so many crates throughout the set even when they aren't the best thing for the actual products displayed inside. Outside, the parking lot has the details it needs, with a parking sign for Mr. Produce's car space and enough room to maneuver the forklift. CONCLUSIONThere's really a lot to like about this set. The minifigures and accessories are fantastic. The exterior looks quite good. The road plate has some utility and isn't just a tacked-on road for the sake of it. The vehicles don't use too many parts and look good. Overall, there is quite a lot of value despite the set having only 404 parts - value in the parts, and importantly, lots and lots of play value. The only really lackluster part of the set in my opinion is the interior of the store. Though it has enough floor space, the way it uses that space is awkward and ill-conceived when it comes to the display of products, which is a pretty core aspect of a grocery store! And now the price. I've read the argument that LEGO price-gouged this set because people are hungry for a grocery store. I've heard the notion that the road plate needlessly pushed up the price. Personally, given how much value the set provides, the price doesn't seem as far off the mark as I expected just looking at the pictures. An RRP of $10 less in the US, or $60, would be much better. I wouldn't expect anything lower than that as the RRP in today's day and age. As it is, if the types of things included appeal to you, I'm hard pressed to NOT recommend this set just because of the price. It could well be another three years until we see the shopping cart again... or more. Get it while you can. SCOREHow do I rate this set? 10 MINIFIGURES Great parts, great rarity and exclusivity, perfectly good amount. 9 PIECES Lots of fantastic accessories plus some very new parts, and overall ok volume though more parts for shelves and things would have been better. 6 DESIGN This was tough to score because a lot about the overall design is great, but the fact that the inside of the store is poorly designed really knocks it down. 10 PLAYABILITY There are all the right things included for play inside and outside of the store, plus well-functioning (and educational!) sections like the bottle return and crate unloading. 6 PRICE Again difficult to score especially given the regional differences. In the US it's bad, but in Europe it's ok. I still had to knock off some points. 8.2 OVERALL - With fantastic parts, figures, play value and a good exterior look, 60347 Grocery Store is a pretty strong City set, and not just for the novelty of being a grocery store. Lackluster interior details and a slightly too high price (depending on region) are the only things going against it. GIFT GUIDEWith the holiday gift-giving season coming up, does 60347 make a good gift compared to other sets at its price point? For a kid... the play value really is there, provided the kid in question likes something not too actiony. That said, two vehicles.... that's plenty for a chase. For an AFOL... the set packs a fair complement of desirable parts for AFOLs, making it a decent gift. Buying it just for the rare parts might make the price feel worse honestly, and it isn't something an AFOL would most likely want to display, so bear that in mind. For a casual LEGO fan... I'm not sure this makes a great gift for someone who casually likes LEGO. It really skews kid or true FOL who will appreciate the cool parts. I'd look elsewhere in LEGO's catalogue for a gift for someone that might want to build and display something. Next week, I'll be getting Inquisitorial.

It has been working for me all day, but I'm in Australia.

Thanks! Yes there's something just slightly off about it, which is a shame because the front of the car looks really good.

SET INFORMATIONNumber: 76912Name: Fast & Furious 1970 Dodge Charger R/TTheme: Speed ChampionsReleased: 2022Part Count: 345 Minifigures: 1Set Price (RRP): 24.99 EUR / 19.99 GBP / 32.99 AUD / 19.99 USD / 29.99 CADLinks: Brickset, Bricklink INTRODUCTION LEGO finally got me, a non-car enthusiast, truly wanting sets from their car line this year. I'm excited to see what I make of Speed Champions firsthand. Thank you to LEGO for providing this set at Eurobricks' request. THE BUILDFrom what I gather reading other people's Speed Champions reviews, the builds encompass a core component of the line's appeal - seeing all the fiddly bits and building techniques come together to capture a car's details at this scale. This set doesn't seem to be any exception, with lots of SNOT, sub-assemblies, offsets, etc. that kept the build engaging the whole way through. After adding some parts to the standard Speed Champions base, work quickly kicks off on the rear of the car, which ultimately gets attached upside down with a small ball joint and then locked in place with the 8-wide curved part that goes over-top the whole thing. The majority of the set's few printed parts - 2 1x3 light grey plates with black trapezoids, trans-red tiles with printed black lines and a 2x4 slope with silver dots - are also found in this section. Next, work commences on the inside, which involves adding the faux roll cage, the trademark NOS cannister to go fast (& furious), and more SNOT sub-assemblies with stickered panels that form the side windows. I tried my best to get the stickers right up to the top and side edges of the part, but it is a place where bad sticker placement could certainly spoil the look. Attention then turns to the front of the car, with space created for the super-charger that pops out of the top of the hood. The very front is also somewhat complex with the inset headlights and achieving as thin a front grey section as possible, though not as involved as the rear. The very last thing to add is the roof top. I read an interview where the designer discussed it being a main goal to capture the rounded corners of the roof, unlike previous LEGO Chargers that had inaccurate square corners. This has been achieved by not connecting the actual roof with any studs at all, and instead creating a sub-assembly that wedges in. It works well, and also makes the roof easy to pop off and access the interior. All in all, the build makes for a complex, involved and satisfying experience. THE MINIFIGUREFittingly for Speed Champions, though perhaps disappointingly for FF fans because there are so many characters in the franchise, the only Minifigure is the main man, Dominic Toretto himself. But... yeah this doesn't look very much like him or Vin Diesel. Without the context of the car I wouldn't recognise who this figure was supposed to be at all, and even with the car, I don't see much resemblance. Nice to get bare arms in the new warm/medium tan colour though. I forgot to picture him with his included wrench, sorry. THE FINISHED MODELGiven how complex the build felt, the finished car strikes me as surprisingly boxy. It looks less complex than it really is. That said, the core details certainly make it unmistakable, and it captures those details more cleanly than LEGO's previous Dodge Chargers, though the previous Speed Champions version made an admirable effort at 6-wide. The front of the car looks pretty good overall, with the inset super-charger, the grey outline to the headlights section, and the overall proportions. But without even comparing it to real-life images, something feels off about the back. It simply looks far too chunky, like a spider abdomen tacked on. Even with all the fancy techniques in the world, LEGO is limited by its geometry, and it could be that being a whole plate thinner would have been too much at this scale. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but there's something about the entire section behind the driver compartment that doesn't look quite right. The very back looks good again though, with well-done and good looking details like the tail lights and exhaust pipes. The interior includes the necessary details, which are done well. Positioning a minifigure is awkwardly limited by the windscreen piece, since the figure's left arm pretty much has to be down, but that isn't too noticeable once the roof is back on. CONCLUSION To conclude, it bears mentioning that if you look up pictures of the real car, you'll see that, like most cars, it's covered in subtle curves all over, while the LEGO model is squared, squared, a little angled, and squared. Nearly no curves to be found. The super-charger on the hood is also super-out-of-proportion. However, it being LEGO and an official set that needs to hold up, I wouldn't knock it for not being covered in curves. It's a LEGO-ification of the car and not a die cast model. That being said, it still needs to look good for what it is, and the chonky whole rear ever so slightly spoils the look in my opinion. Oh and of course it's way out of scale with minifigures because real humans tower over the real car, but again, not a big deal. SCOREHow do I rate this set? 6 MINIFIGURE It's the right character to include but looks nothing like him, so I can't give this too high a score. 9 PIECES Nothing amazing, but some printed parts and plenty of regularly useful goodies. 8 DESIGN Overall I think the design is successful, but the rear just drops it down a little. 9 PLAYABILITY  Vroom vroom, roll roll, take figure in and out - what more do you want to do? 10 PRICE  Interestingly, the price of this set seems to have risen in some regions over previous standalone 8-wide Speed Champions sets, but not in other regions like the US. That said, the price still seems right for the set and I would have no problem recommending it at full retail. Given it is a wide release, discounts should be available eventually anyway. 8.4 OVERALL - It's a pretty good set, though not without design flaws. And Dom looks nothing like Dom. GIFT GUIDEWith the holiday gift-giving season coming up, does 76912 make a good gift compared to other sets at its price point? For a kid... it's a good car. I really don't think a kid would be concerned about the proportional issues I have raised, and as Speed Champions goes, this might be less complex than others. Once it's finished, it's pretty solid and shouldn't fall apart during play. For an AFOL... I would probably lean towards some of the other Speed Champions sets, or something else entirely. The piece count is quite good for the money on this one, but no parts are too interesting. For a casual LEGO fan... this makes a decent gift. The build is fun but not TOO challenging, the model looks recognisable and therefore good enough for display on a shelf or a desk. For a Fast & Furious superfan... You can't NOT buy LEGO's only Minifigure-scale FF set if you're going LEGO shopping or a Fast & Furious superfan. That said, the main character doesn't look like himself, but maybe if you buy 75573 for Letty, that'll soften the blow. I'm probably going to. See you next week for some grocery shopping.

Well all of the previous animal-head masks used in this theme have had faces, while the CMF bunny mask only had ears. The CMF piggy mask did have a face, but since the bunny one didn't, you could see it as LEGO introducing a new piece for consistency, not because they're going to use it for anything else.

You seem to want to ignore the Mod requests too given that you replied to that comment. You're not a Mod. Anyone else continue any part of this off-topic discussion and I'll lock this thread.

This topic started off with interesting subject matter and totally derailed. Yes, Eurobricks has always been fine with discussion of third-party produced parts that are made in good faith to enhance LEGO. We are not cool with bootleg parts that copy LEGO's designs and have shut down such discussions in the past. No one need discuss or speculate Eurobricks' obligations when it comes to our RLOC status. EB's staff and ambassador know what our obligations are. (And for those paying attention, we do still get a support package which we are trying our best to use as contest prizes for the benefit of our EB community). If people would like to get back to actually discussing what it's like without castle themes, maybe we can give this topic one more chance before we have to lock it.

Eurobricks' Holiday Gift Guide 2022 In the vein of our Revember reviewing bonanza last year, this year Eurobricks is bringing you a suite of reviews with an eye toward gift giving. Over the next five weeks, Star Wars Moderator @MKJoshA and Licensed Moderator @Clone OPatra (that's me) will be reviewing ten currently available sets across a range of themes and prices, though primarily ones in the kid-oriented side of LEGO. Look out for a new review from me each Monday and MKJoshA each Friday. We'll collect the reviews as they're posted in this topic, below. Let us know what you think of our opinions - agree, disagree, or somewhere in between. Thank you to LEGO for providing these sets at our request (besides the last set I'll be reviewing, which I paid for myself ) _____________________________________ 76400 Hogwarts Carriage and Thestrals by Clone OPatra 60299 Stunt Competition by MKJoshA 76912 Fast & Furious 1970 Dodge Charger by Clone OPatra 75333 Obi-Wan Kenobi's Jedi Starfighter by MKJoshA 60347 Grocery Store by Clone OPatra 76989 Horizon Forbidden West: Tallneck by MKJoshA 75336 Inquisitor Scythe Transport by Clone OPatra 75335 BD-1 by MKJoshA 76403 The Ministry of Magic and 76408 12 Grimmauld Place by Clone OPatra

It's not everyday you find a USD $20 set with an identity crisis. These days, that price point will barely give you one thing let alone multiple things that don't get along. But an identity crisis is exactly what we get in: SET INFORMATIONNumber: 76400Name: Hogwarts Carriage and ThestralsTheme: Wizarding WorldReleased: 2022Part Count: 121 Minifigures: 2Set Price (RRP): 19.99 EUR / 17.99 GBP / 32.99 AUD / 19.99 USD / 24.99 CADLinks: Brickset, Bricklink INTRODUCTIONWe're going to get right into this. No box pics. No fluff. It's a small set and it is what it is. But what it is is two different things from two different scenes. We have the Thestral-borne carriage that takes 2+ Years to Hogwarts on one hand, and a representation of that weird scene where Luna is feeding a baby Thestral for some reason on the other. Do the two make for a natural pairing? Possibly. Does the pairing work? Let's find out. Thank you to LEGO for providing this set at Eurobricks' request. THE MINIFIGURESAs always I appreciate the Harry Potter team's dedication to providing ultra-specific, scene accurate Minifigures. Harry with added blue jacket and Luna in her lavender cardigan with shoulder bag perfectly match the scene where she feeds the baby Thestral (film colour-grading notwithstanding). We certainly didn't need these two variants, but they are nice. Something extra for a contingent of Gryffindors, and a multi-purpose torso from Luna. Apart from the torsos, everything else has been seen before. They include all of the accessories necessary for the scene: the shoulder bag recoloured into dark blue, an apple that the baby Thestral doesn't want, a dark red 1x1 to be the piece of meat that the baby Thestral does want, wands because every Wizard always needs a wand, and the Quibbler thrown in for Luna's introduction on the carriage (though of course her outfit doesn't match that scene). THE THESTRALSMama Thestral remains unchanged from 75951 Grindelwald's Escape, where it was introduced, while baby Thestral is brand new. The big one has a good creepy look and imposing stature, though it is a shame that it has zero articulation for the mould itself. Yes you can flap the added on wings, but that's it. The baby Thestral looks cute with its weeny little wings moulded right on. I have no complaints with the piece LEGO has created, but my nagging question is: did anyone really want this? Did anyone find the Harry Potter line sorely lacking one? It is cool to get, the mould is well done, but out of all the things this line still needs, this one feels like an odd choice. Even a new Grim within this very wave would have been a better use of a creature mould. THE TREE SCENELEGO loves little trees when they can't think of anything else. It's nothing new. Way back in my review of 4865 The Forbidden Forest eleven years ago, I deemed 2011 to be the year of the tree. At least that set went with dark shades for a spooky look. This set goes for brighter shades that don't convey the look of the forest in the slightest. It's also so darn small that the lowest branch only barely clears Harry's head, unlike all of the extremely tall trees in the film. While the attention to screen accuracy in the figures, accessories and Thestral gives the sense that real care went into recreating this scene, the tree fails. THE CARRIAGE SCENE Finally we come to the carriage, and it succeeds! Of course it's a tad too large as LEGO's renditions of small vehicles tend to be, but it has good detail all around and scales with the Thestral well enough. The carriage has plenty of space to seat four characters like it does in the film, plus has pleasant details like an opening door at the rear and a nod towards a staircase down to the ground. It works from all angles. In fact, with the carriage hitched up to the Thestral and two figures atop it, this looks like a complete $10-$15 set. THE (ACTUAL) COMPLETE SET Unfortunately, the set had to go ahead and include the tree scene. Not only does the tree not look great by itself - it looks ludicrous next to the carriage, which absolutely dwarfs it. Maybe the real purpose of the tree is to stage the scene where Harry (and co, mostly not included) flies off to the Ministry, but that's a tongue-in-cheek stretch. CONCLUSION If it wasn't already clear, 76400 Hogwarts Carriage and Thestrals is a half-good set that gets mired with its lousy half. The adult Thestral is good (though sadly lacking articulation) and the carriage is good. The baby Thestral is cute but didn't need to exist, especially before other stuff like a proper Grim or Fang. The tree sucks. Honestly if the set simply lost the tree and baby Thestral and went for USD $15, I'd call it a great set. If it had to stick to $20, throw in another adult Thestral (people can use more than one anyway), and another minifigure, and you've got a better package than this set. There's still ok value with what you DO get here, but a lackluster overall experience. SCOREHow do I rate this set? 8 MINIFIGURES They have good attention to detail and provide a couple of new prints. Nothing amazing or super desirable though. 7 PIECES There's nothing spectacular about the pieces included, besides the Thestrals themselves and a couple of small accessories. The totally static nature of the adult Thestral lets it down a bit though. 6 DESIGN I really have to go harsh on this one. The points it earns for design are all for the carriage, and the points it loses are for the tree, which is disinteresting and doesn't match the source material or the rest of the set. 9 PLAYABILITY To be fair to the set, there's plenty to do with what's included and plenty to play around with. 7 PRICE The price of $20 is to be expected of a set with the two moulded creatures, but it feels a tad high especially because the tree is such a throwaway build. For a slight discount, it would be ok. 7.4 OVERALL - A set with some good aspects, but that has been padded to meet its price point and winds up including two scenes and builds that don't go together at all. GIFT GUIDEWith the holiday gift-giving season coming up, does 76400 make a good gift compared to other sets at its price point? Looking through the 20 USD/EUR and below sets on LEGO.com, $20 in many other themes will get you at least one more minifigure and/or a more substantial build. Within the Harry Potter line, 76386 Polyjuice Potion Mistake is vastly superior. For a kid... the play value here is ok, but not stupendous. If they like Harry Potter and don't yet have a Thestral, it's a worthwhile thing to get, and they might not mind the silly size of the tree as much as I do. That said, kids are discerning too. For an AFOL... the minifigures have a couple of new prints, the bag is new in dark blue though available on Pick a Brick, and the baby Thestral is new. Apart from those things, there isn't much of a draw that would make this a surefire gift. For a casual LEGO fan... I wouldn't recommend this set. The scenes aren't memorable enough and there's nothing inherently charming about the set. For a Harry Potter superfan... Even to a Harry Potter superfan I wouldn't say the scenes are memorable enough to matter. Nobody would display this set to show off their love of Harry Potter and the the characters' outfits are inconsequential, so you would have to assess if this HP fan wants the Thestrals to add to their collection. If you have a friend who you just know likes Harry Potter, I wouldn't gravitate towards this set. Next Monday, it's all about family...

To play devil's advocate, you could say this about any set that is fully enclosed and has an interior. Why have a detailed interior in the modulars when most people will just sit them on a shelf to display? Etc. Some people get a kick out of a thing being in a thing even if they're hardly every going to see it. It's not actually the Genie ear piece though, it's just very similar. The Genie one has a moulded earring and the skrull one does not.

Does anyone have experience with parts in a cart that go out of stock and then come back into stock again? I have been adding parts to my basket on a rolling basis (now that the system saves it), but some have gone out of stock and hence disappeared from my basket. When/if they come back into stock, will they reappear in my basket or will I have to re find and add them?

Nice to see some more new stuff show up. Intriguingly the previously unavailable Tan France/figure skater/ blue Everyone is Awesome hair has shown up, and what I think is Ms Marvel's hair from the Spidey 4+ set with a new item number and no picture? Gives me hope for more being added in the future, including hopefully at least the hairpieces from that new Foosball set (probably like a year from now).