Chinese New Year Sets - Rumors and Discussion

[Klaus-Dieter]

It's strange - Brickmerge lists four CNY sets for next year:

80118 Chinese New Year – 80 Euros (December 2025)

80119 Chinese New Year – 100 Euros (December 2025)

80120 Chinese New Year – ? Euros (May 2026)

80121 Chinese New Year – ? Euros (May 2026)

I didn't buy any CNY set this year since there had only been display sets. So I hope that 2026 will see minimum one big nice building to add to your (Chinese) town.

What are your thoughts?

[RichardGoring]

I imagine the other two are small little trinkets like the calendar and the GWP last year. 

I only got the lantern recently when it went on sale, and not so much for the set itself but the parts, which were crazy expensive on PAB.

I hope the next batch are more tempting.

[Lyichir]

11 hours ago, Klaus-Dieter said:

It's strange - Brickmerge lists four CNY sets for next year:

80118 Chinese New Year – 80 Euros (December 2025)

 

80119 Chinese New Year – 100 Euros (December 2025)

80120 Chinese New Year – ? Euros (May 2026)

 

80121 Chinese New Year – ? Euros (May 2026)

 

I didn't buy any CNY set this year since there had only been display sets. So I hope that 2026 will see minimum one big nice building to add to your (Chinese) town.

What are your thoughts?

The latter two of these are likely related to a separate Chinese festival (the "official" name of these sets has been Chinese Traditional Festivals and while most are related to Chinese New Year in late winter, there have been a handful related to other celebrations like the Dragon Boat Festival in late Spring).

I have slightly less to look forward to at the start of next year thanks to the end of the Monkie Kid theme, so hopefully some of these will impress and help to fill that niche in my collection.

 

[RichardGoring]

9 hours ago, Lyichir said:

The latter two of these are likely related to a separate Chinese festival (the "official" name of these sets has been Chinese Traditional Festivals and while most are related to Chinese New Year in late winter, there have been a handful related to other celebrations like the Dragon Boat Festival in late Spring).

I have slightly less to look forward to at the start of next year thanks to the end of the Monkie Kid theme, so hopefully some of these will impress and help to fill that niche in my collection.

 

Oh, that's a good point, I didn't pay attention to the dates. Hopefully it means they are also of decent quality.

[Robert8]

So 2026 is year of the horse on the chinese horoscope

 

New mask piece or reuse of the S13 Unicorn one?

Place your bets...

[RichardGoring]

8 hours ago, Robert8 said:

So 2026 is year of the horse on the chinese horoscope

New mask piece or reuse of the S13 Unicorn one?

Place your bets...

The lantern may not have sold well, judging by a 30% discount directly from LEGO, but that's not a firm indicator. They also sold the snake head piece for $11 on PAB, which was outrageous. If these are lower volume sets and they have to charge more due to unique moulds, I'd by happy with a reuse if it means a more interesting, better value set.

[hikouki]

I think people really want buildings and sceneries with minifigs.

The display items are really nice, but people who don’t celebrate CNY cannot really relate to them. Plants however seem to be a different thing.

[Lion King]

It would be cool if Lego is doing Chinese New Year Icons set like Modular Buidling  like a restaurant, a townhouse or a fully enclosed temple with street festival.  I mean we have Chinatowns everywhere so I don’t see why Lego should not do it for Modular Buidling Colleciton. 

[Lyichir]

New sets are revealed!
https://www.newelementary.com/2025/11/springfestival2026.html

Sadly no building/scene sets for people who prefer those, but the galloping horse canvas feels quite unique and interesting.

[Vindicare]

Man…what happened to this theme? The location sets were by far some of the best sets they’ve done….nd they’re suddenly done making them? Did this theme get. Whole new design team? Neither of this years offerings, much like last years, do much for me. And only two mini figs in the bigger set is insulting. 

[Robert8]

The horses set is amazing

And the horse mask is new

 

So far only the pig one has been a reuse

 

[RichardGoring]

None of them particularly excite me. They're nicely done, well executed, and I think better than the 2025 sets, but I am very likely to get any of them. But then, I'm also probably not the target market for traditional Chinese objects, having never been to China.

The snake head mould was $11 on PAB and I fear that the horse head may be similar, which is such a shame.

[MAB]

I would have loved it if they had chosen a style and stuck with it for 12 years. One of my favourite sets was the 2013 Snake, with this part ...

If they had committed to do a similar set for 12 years, each with a small animal themed build built around a "collectable" printed common piece such as that 8x8 circular tile, I would have been hooked in. Even better if they didn't put the date but just year of the X, so a set of 12 could be reused perpetually.

[lifeinplastic]

I’ll join the noise of people here and elsewhere feeling disappointed that the LNY sets aren’t locations but just objects. I won’t be buying either of these.

5 hours ago, MAB said:..

If they had committed to do a similar set for 12 years, each with a small animal themed build built around a "collectable" printed common piece such as that 8x8 circular tile, I would have been hooked in. Even better if they didn't put the date but just year of the X, so a set of 12 could be reused perpetually.

This sort of thing annoys me about Lego - they don’t ever seem to put enough thought into this type of thing. It’s the same as the Hogwarts students where the uniforms were changed so those partially trying to build up a collection representing the two more obscure houses could not do so over time as the uniforms were changed. 
Also, things like the Collectible Minifig diner waitress, who was given a name badge so you couldn’t then buy several to represent multiple staff as they’d all have the same name! It might seem trivial to some but it’s just a bit thoughtless in my view.

[karrit]

These are interesting sets but not for me.  I too prefered the location building sets rather than these decorative object sets.  Hopefully will eventually be able to grab some of those new torso prints they have in the Firecracker set.  

[hikouki]

21 hours ago, Vindicare said:

Man…what happened to this theme? The location sets were by far some of the best sets they’ve done….nd they’re suddenly done making them? Did this theme get. Whole new design team? Neither of this years offerings, much like last years, do much for me. And only two mini figs in the bigger set is insulting. 

I'm going to be honest and I would love a location-based set as well.

But I am inclined to think that Lego did their market research on what items might sell under this theme. Remember, these items were/ are intended for the Chinese market.

[RichardGoring]

2 hours ago, hikouki said:

I'm going to be honest and I would love a location-based set as well.

But I am inclined to think that Lego did their market research on what items might sell under this theme. Remember, these items were/ are intended for the Chinese market.

Agreed. I can imagine these being successful, even if they're not of interest to me directly.

[Robert8]

Maybe the location sets were getting too repetitive? 

So maybe they are taking a break for a couple of years to keep the theme fresh

[Lion King]

Eh, i don’t care about decorative display stuff but i care about costumed minifigures. And i also care about location-focused sets like Temble Fair in 2019 or 2020. Or Lion Dance or dragon boat. 

[hikouki]

23 hours ago, Robert8 said:

Maybe the location sets were getting too repetitive? 

So maybe they are taking a break for a couple of years to keep the theme fresh

Perhaps that and the fact that we are getting that Sushi restaurant modular from BDP which may look *too similar* to some Lego fans.

[Lyichir]

On 11/6/2025 at 4:17 AM, MAB said:

I would have loved it if they had chosen a style and stuck with it for 12 years. One of my favourite sets was the 2013 Snake, with this part ...

If they had committed to do a similar set for 12 years, each with a small animal themed build built around a "collectable" printed common piece such as that 8x8 circular tile, I would have been hooked in. Even better if they didn't put the date but just year of the X, so a set of 12 could be reused perpetually.

I mean, that one set was sort of a weird case (an existing Creator 3-in-1 set with extra parts, before they had decided to invest in fully unique sets for Lunar New Year). They've been doing GWP animals for each year since 2015 that are much more consistent. And while they haven't stuck with the exact same sort of subject matter overall, they have had a seasonal animal costume minifigure in at least one of the larger sets since 2019.

[MAB]

4 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I mean, that one set was sort of a weird case (an existing Creator 3-in-1 set with extra parts, before they had decided to invest in fully unique sets for Lunar New Year). They've been doing GWP animals for each year since 2015 that are much more consistent. And while they haven't stuck with the exact same sort of subject matter overall, they have had a seasonal animal costume minifigure in at least one of the larger sets since 2019.

Yes they have been doing animal costume character minifigs for CNY but they have been doing them elsewhere too so they are not that distinctive. The pig was a rehashed CMF except for the tail. 

Doing something like a brick-built animal of say 400-500 parts in front of a small piece of architecture in similar colours to the animal with one obvious repeated "collectable" part that ties the entire series together would have hooked me.

What they have done, I have two CNY sets and reuse them year after year like I reuse Christmas sets. I don't care for the costume minifigures so skipping sets is not a big deal.

[hrdknxbrix]

Not sure why the fan sites aren't listing it but this is also listed on lego.com.  Fortune Master 40864