brickbride

So how much train are we actually expecting in the train battle set? 393 pieces really doesn't sound like a lot.

True, but these days I see a lot of people differing between "Raimi" and "Sony" movies so I figured you meant the latter.

I'm not so sure about that. There's already one current set (two if you count the Spiderwoman one), there's the rumoured minifig series, and last year"s Spider-Man themed AC did badly enough to probably kill this year"s Marvel AC entirely. Sure, Spider-Man is still a huge draw overall but would LEGO stake that much on the Sony version as opposed to the Raimi movies (which tick the box for 90s kids nostalgia bait, LEGO's most favourite thing ever)?

Yeah, I certainly wouldn't expect an entire round tower. More something like the Owlery (two walls in a round-ish shape).

The German LEGO store had a bunch of Dreamzzz sets for 40% off on Black Friday, too. I'm still not sure who the target audience is supposed to be, to be honest. The cutesy dream creatures and the nightmare stuff don't really seem to fit the same age group imo. The nightmare stuff also looks a lot like Ninjago and the dream stuff looks a lot like Friends right down to the colours, so there's some obvious in-house competition there. And while LEGO has shown an annoying tendency lately towards really expensive playsets across several themes (like the Friends buildings and the new modular Hogwarts), Dreamzzz is by far the most parents-unfriendly of those themes. You know what parents like even less than their children being into nightmares? Their children being into video games!

I'd consider a 20% discount for a part exclusive set with Amazon as the partner fairly unlikely. Unlike most chain stores, Amazon doesn't really do store discounts like the "20% off all toys" that you might get otherwise before a major holiday. Rivendell (also a part exclusive set) has occasionally been discounted to something like EUR 410 or EUR 420, but a) that's still less than 20% off the EUR 500 list price and b) those instances were few and far between and it always sold out quickly. And that's a massive, high-price set with a fairly limited target group (basically AFOLs who like LotR and have a lot of money and room to spare)! The Flying Lesson has a broader appeal (both kids and AFOLs), a lower spending treshold, and it's part of the new system so a lot of completionists are going to want to get it whether it's good or not. So those are all the more reason for Amazon not to discount it much in my opinion.

Huh, Amazon Germany sells it at list price, too. Which - this set would already have been overpriced with the usual discounts factored in, but without them? No, thanks. Do you think that it's going to be the only (part) exclusive module of the new Hogwarts?

German YouTuber Brickstory has a video up where he walks us through the latest LEGO catalogue. The HP section includes all the known January and March sets except for the Flying Lesson. Is that one going to be exclusive or part exclusive (with one retail partner), then?

Yes, I know. I meant it's weird for me because that's not how I'd have depicted the scene based on the book at all. Most of the time the disconnect isn't so great. And on a practical level, this polybag seems considerably less useful than the Cho one which allowed you to army-build an entire Ravenclaw team with uniforms and brooms (and you got snitches to spare, too) whereas here you don't even get a Gryffindor uniform torso and no brooms, either. Sure, you'll have beater's bats, snitches, and quaffles, as well as enough statues to populate your castle, but it's a weird choice nonetheless.

As someone who read the books but only sporadically watched the movies, the polybag is hilarious to me - Seeker Harry has a beater's bat but no broom, WTF? Still, two minfigs and parts like the snitch make it better value for money than the previous ones. The Marvel polybag this year also has two figs, I don't think licenced themes used to do that (though City and Ninjago did), which is a welcome change.

I've said it before but a competitor has already done a book nook with the Hogwarts Express as its subject: Reobrix 66031. There's also others not made from bricks. Though the Reobrix one has about 3.000 pieces and the LEGO one is said to have less than 900, no idea how that'll work.

A lot of HP sets went EOL per the end of 2024. This included - no big surprises there - the last remnant of the 2018 modular Hogwarts system (Astronomy Tower), all the remaining sets of the 2021 modular Hogwarts system, and both Hogsmeade sets (though the Hogwarts Express with Hogsmeade Station remains on the shelves, but I guess that one counts more as a Hogwarts Express set than a Hogsmeade set). A slight surprise to me are Expecto Patronum and the Quidditch trunk, both from 2023 so they really didn't last long. The UCS Hogwarts Express also went EOL while much older UCS sets (microscale Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, and Hogwarts Icons) remain available but then we knew that this set hadn't been well-received. The EOL list also includes, and that's more of a surprise to me: all the connectible Forbidden Forest sets from 2024 (the Draco polybag and the cobbled-together Ron and Hermione one) excpt for the Aragog one; WWW (from 2023, with Ollivander's still on shelves and another playset DA set coming in Summer), and the Triwizard Tournament second task (from 2023 and with the Triwizard Tournament Arrival set still available). WWW especially puzzles me, as it seems to have been fairly well-received (given that LEGO are continuing with the playset DA line and especially its wacky pricing) and it's an integral part of DA which would hardly feel complete without it. And the Aragog set now contains a pitifully small slice of forest with clips but no more chance for expansion (since I don't think there are any Forbidden Forest sets planned). Has LEGO been that eager to break up lines in the past?

And how would that be a bad thing?

Presumably there will also be an advent calendar. We already have a strong indication that LEGO won't completely stop doing them (a Minecraft one has already been rumored), and the HP one was pretty much the best-received and (presumably) best-selling one this year (in contrast to the Marvel and Disney ones, which ended up being quite heavily discounted even by LEGO's own online store). Plus like I've said before I'd except the Main Tower to be similarly empty as the Great Hall and to need beefing up.

Ugh, 90s kids nostalgia bait winning out again. I suspected as much because most AFOLs are the right age, but was sort of hoping LEGO'd go for the broader appeal of TOS regardless. I mean I actually am from that 90s kids generation but TOS was vastly superior to TNG in terms of characterisation and storytelling. There goes the last of my interest.