Accio Lego

I do think there’s a high chance of that. The first Harry Potter calendar was based off the first movie like the most recent one, while the one after was based on the Yule Ball. Plus, the Triwizard Arrival set will still be on shelves then. It’s also worth noting that we don’t know what year the Main Tower set will be based on, but with Dumbledore’s office a high probability to be included, GoF is a strong candidate. The first Dumbledore’s Office of the reboot came as part of the Yule Ball Clocktower set after all.

The problem with that is that you’re basically asking Lego to sell an incomplete set that needs you to buy $40 of separate modules to be completed. Lego isn’t going to do that. There are exponentially more potential buyers who will be turned off by an incomplete set than who will be unwilling to pay $10-20 more for a castle section that has inserts they plan on scrapping.

That might just be chance/your area. When I was sifting through boxes I didn’t notice appreciably more of those two - instead I was seeing an awful lot of hamster costume kids. The only universal is Beastmaster being most popular, everything else is chaos theory.

It didn’t occur to me either until I saw the Ideas set listed as coming next month, but then it occurred to me that the new wolf would look an awful lot prettier than the brick built werewolf in the original submission. Admittedly, from what little I remember, Twilight’s werewolves are bigger in comparison to a human than real wolves. But if given the option between a slightly too big and really clunky brick built wolf that will add a lot of pieces or a slightly too small molded wolf it’s entirely possible the designers would choose the latter. It does seem a little too coincidental that we got a new wolf right before a set that features a wolf comes out - especially since we know we got the goat in last year’s first CMF because the designers wanted it for a big set too.

A while back the zoological park near me had a pair of Palm Cockatoos in their Australian exhibit that were absolutely fantastic - jet black with red cheeks and extremely loud when they felt like chatting. That would definitely make for a fun recolor.

To be fair, your average series doesn’t usually have one character that’s so much more in demand than all the others. Series 26 didn’t have any sort of problem like this, for example. The Beastmaster just has the perfect combination of classic castle faction update plus very cool new animal mold - both of which naturally existing in packs - that means pretty much everyone wants one and many people want several. How time consuming feeling the bags was might have discouraged some scalpers in the past, but not that many - especially since this one would still have been extremely easy to pick out with the old feel method. We all just need to take a deep breath and keep in mind that it will probably be much easier to find the Beastmaster in a few weeks when the initial hype dies down. Especially with the Ideas Twilight set due to be revealed any day now (crazy to think that’s almost certainly the reason we’re finally getting a proper wolf).

I actually just built this set yesterday. It’s in Hogwarts Castle: Flying Lessons. Specifically in the abridged Transfiguration classroom in the top of the tower. It’s probably escaped notice because it’s positioned on a turntable that allows it to be ‘transformed’ into a clear goblet, and for some reason all the box art and online retail images all feature that side instead of the parrot. It’s probably meant to represent the hornbill McGonagall transfigures in the Vera Verto scene from Chamber of Secrets – recoloring the parrot was very likely cheaper than bringing back the toucan, which would otherwise have been more appropriate in this case.

Didn’t feel like leaving the house on the first, so I’d accepted I would probably not easily find the Wolfpack Beastmaster today, but wow… the Lego store I went to had been completely picked clean - apparently people had been asking about him even yesterday. I also checked a Barnes & Noble later in my travels and its two boxes had been similarly strip mined. Luckily I managed to grab the other three I wanted – I’ll just have to keep looking for when new boxes get stocked.

The Quidditch Match set from when the theme rebooted back in 2018 featured a stud shooter and black studs for the bludgers. Likewise, the First Flying Lesson set from 2021, the Quidditch Trunk, and even the just released Flying Lessons set also represented the bludgers with studs. So it’s interesting that the polybag switches to a round 1x1 tile.

Literally any of the portraits in fancy outfits would fit at Malfoy Manor. Have you not seen the interior shots? The dining room features giant sticker portraits of Malfoy ancestors. If there’s any set not part of the actual castle that featured portraits it should have been this one. This year’s polybag seems to want to compete with last year’s on how underwhelming it can be. The only sort of interesting thing is that they’ve switched from a stud shooter to a tile shooter for bludgers and it includes the crossed swords statue that didn’t make the cut in the Flying Lessons set.

A portrait of Slytherin would also look rather out of place in Hagrid’s Hut or the Burrow, but both of those sets included two portraits. The thing is, you can hand wave away the possibility of the random portrait subject not fitting the setting (swapping out portraits as you please is kinda expected – when both my Owlery and Boathouse came with the same portrait I immediately switched one for the second in Hagrid’s Hut, which is supposed to get stashed in a cabinet where it couldn’t be seen anyway), but I personally feel it’s far more anachronistic to have fancy oil paintings in gilded frames in settings where no such thing would be hung – which is why it annoys me that Hagrid’s Hut and the Burrow get some but Malfoy Manor doesn’t.

It is really a shame they discontinued the blister pack style sets for all themes. They gave us some great parts – for Harry Potter the first one was basically a house jumper army builder and the second provided a rather nice little selection of magical shop wares including an owl, and they both had great unique tile prints (I keep the DA sign up sheet from the second one tacked up on the wall of the 2020 Room of Requirement). They could have been a great opportunity for Death Eater army building and the like, but I suppose the product format must not have sold well or been cost effective or something. On a completely different note, is anyone else peeved that we don’t get any collectible portraits in the Malfoy Manor set? We got 2 in the D2C Burrow despite oil paintings not fitting that setting at all, but Malfoy Manor - which canonically has big oil painting portraits - nothing? Seriously?

The big issue with Pokemon as a theme is that they’ve already got a contract with Megablocks, but then again, that was also supposed to be what prevented us from getting Star Trek sets and now *gestures at current rumors* The more specific issue of Pokemon as a CMF is that obviously you want several of your characters to come with smaller companion Pokemon. Simpsons, Loony Toons, and Muppets have proven that the budget can tackle each of the characters having a new larger mold with complex printing, but the issue is that you can probably count on one hand the number of molds made for those three series that aren’t new heads, which would make the budget tight for a Pokemon series – where most of the desirable characters would feature a companion Pokemon and new hair. You’d have to roll out the CMF alongside a new theme introduction like Harry Potter did and get similarly creative for which parts used what budget in order to get it to work.

You’d think if nothing else they’d use it for its original purpose and give a suburban house some lawn flamingos.

I do like the artist’s torso. And the painting tile is nice too. Some much needed variety in the wall art category.