Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion

[westracing01]

Orders made back in May are now slated to ship the last week of July, or so says the latest email I got from Lego. Must be having a lot of issues getting manufacturing back up and running. 

[TypoCorrecto]

3 hours ago, westracing01 said:

Orders made back in May are now slated to ship the last week of July, or so says the latest email I got from Lego. Must be having a lot of issues getting manufacturing back up and running. 

Stock is also coming from overseas with the sticker attached.

[Vilhelm22]

I kinda wonder with a topic like this - when is a good time to start speculating the next set?  10270 was officially announced on 6 December 2019, so it’s still 5 months until the actual announcement.  I guess time will tell...

I’m a diehard train fan so will always want the train station that will never, ever happen, but I’ll take whatever I can get.  I want a hotel of some kind, considering that CC was 13 years ago (and will be 14 when the 2021 modular is released) and had no interior.  It seems like a good choice to me.

Until very recently CG was the only modular that actually said ‘temporarily out of stock’ on shop@home which kinda surprised me as it isn’t the best imho.  Bookshop, for example, and Assembly Square fit a lot better with older modular than DD and CG.  Both are on backorder, but they weren’t out of stock, which I find surprising.

Edited July 10, 2020 by Vilhelm22

[The Island Chronicles]

@Vilhelm22 I saw something like a train station on Lego Ideas. Only it was a bus terminal with a coffee shop. Here it is. Big fan of buses. I drive a bus as a matter of fact. I'm getting this one if it becomes an official set. 

Edited July 10, 2020 by Brandon Pea

[Agent 86]

6 hours ago, Vilhelm22 said:

I kinda wonder with a topic like this - when is a good time to start speculating the next set?  10270 was officially announced on 6 December 2019, so it’s still 5 months until the actual announcement.  I guess time will tell...

The speculation normally starts when a semi-reliable rumour or two appears. But, Lego have been increasingly skilled at stopping leaks, including the most general of descriptions descriptions (e.g. corner / not corner, single use building / multi-use building, residential / commercial / government (civic) building, etc).

[jonwil]

Even ignoring the desire to keep things secret from bootleggers and competitors, it makes a lot of sense to not announce new products too far in advance. Announcing too far in advance can hurt sales of the products being sold now and that's not good for LEGO (google "Osborne Effect" to see more about why this can be bad)

 

[Salix]

I saw a RUMOUR somewhere mentioning that the next modular could possibly be a LEGO store. I don't know where I saw it though, so I don't know how reliable it is.

8 hours ago, Vilhelm22 said:

Until very recently CG was the only modular that actually said ‘temporarily out of stock’ on shop@home which kinda surprised me as it isn’t the best imho.

When I checked yesterday it was still out of stock, but it seems to be back in stock today. :)

[Vilhelm22]

One thing we can be pretty sure of is that this isn’t a corner.

Edited July 10, 2020 by Vilhelm22

[Salix]

47 minutes ago, Vilhelm22 said:

One thing we can be pretty sure of is that this isn’t a corner.

I hope so, yeah.

[Salix]

The Corner Garage is out of stock again... :/

[Vilhelm22]

1 hour ago, Salix said:

The Corner Garage is out of stock again... :/

Again...?  Though now I think about it, it’s the only corner available now (BB was the one before that) so may be bought because of that.  I at least want some variation from a straight line, but not a huge amount.  

The pattern is Corner Straight Straight on repeat (ignore MS) so for those who don’t understand my logic for the comment above, here’s an explanation.  CG was 2019, meaning 2021 is a straight.

[TeriXeri]

While not a large modular, I also do hope they continue the 3-in-1 scale building sets.

The current line of sets certainly are similar to modular with the removable floors and technic pins + sidewalks in the 2019 (Townhouse/Petshop/Cafe) and 2020 (Townhouse/Toy Shop)sets, and the builds have some options between straight or corner.

And while it's only 2 sets, there are still 9 different 12-14 stud wide buildings possible with the official builds :

• dentist
• hair salon
• tram stop
• cafe
• pet shop
• toy shop
• flower shop
• cake shop
• bank building

They are just much smaller of course, and open-back, but still make nice towns at smaller scale, and they have more depth for interior/roof/balcony space compared to the previous sets from 2014-2017 (but those were hinged, so could fully close)

 

Edited July 11, 2020 by TeriXeri

[ReplicaOfLife]

9 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

While not a large modular, I also do hope they continue the 3-in-1 scale building sets.

The current line of sets certainly are similar to modular with the removable floors and technic pins + sidewalks in the 2019 (Townhouse/Petshop/Cafe) and 2020 (Townhouse/Toy Shop)sets, and the builds have some options between straight or corner.

And while it's only 2 sets, there are still 9 different 12-14 stud wide buildings possible with the official builds :

• dentist
• hair salon
• tram stop
• cafe
• pet shop
• toy shop
• flower shop
• cake shop
• bank building

They are just much smaller of course, and open-back, but still make nice towns at smaller scale, and they have more depth for interior/roof/balcony space compared to the previous sets from 2014-2017 (but those were hinged, so could fully close)

 

I'm very glad they returned to proper buildings with that line (as in: they abandoned the horrendous double-modular concept they introduced some years back with everything being constructed on 8x8 plates ready to be recombined. Those sets looked horrendous).

I'm not so happy with the direction they took with regards to colors - the earlier sets in that line (e.g. bike shop & cafe, town house, corner deli etc) were brilliant parts packs as they mainly stuck to only 1 or 2 main colors, which usually were toned down colors that are easily reuseable, especially for a modular MOCer like me.
But nowadays... I got two copies of 31105, because I need the 3 wide windows for my next MOC, but I'm still not quite sure what to do with all those azure bricks. I can't picture doing a building, or even a larger part of one, in that color, it's way too bright.. And 31097 is a great set, especially as finally they made a somewhat substantial building again, but it has 4 main colors for the walls, which of course means that there aren't that many pieces in each color in there. If they had just stuck to two, it would be much more useful.

[jonwil]

If they brought back sets as cool as the Bike Shop & Cafe or the family house (and they picked a decent color scheme) I would buy them no question.

All of the old large Creator House sets (Model Town House, Beach House, Family Home, Hillside House, Seaside House, Family House) were great parts packs :)

 

[Salix]

The Corner Garage is back in stock, so I quickly ordered it. I wonder how long it'll stay in stock this time. Last time, it only stayed in stock for a day.

EDIT: And it's gone again a day later.

Edited July 16, 2020 by Salix

[mattmarsden]

Legoland Windsor had good stocks of Book Shop and Assembly Square when i went yesterday.

[westracing01]

I received the book shop I ordered back in May last week. Hopefully get to build it this weekend 

[BrickFit26]

Downtown Diner supposedly being retired. 

[Wesley D]

Now LEGO has changed it's approach for the more advanced sets, does Creator Expert still exist? The logo isn't present on box of the Haunted House and the Crocodile Locomotive, but on the site they are still listed under Creator Expert.

Can we expect the next modular building (if the line continues) to have a black box too? On some sets black can be fitting, but I prefer Lego sets to look cheerfull and atmospheric.

I'm also curious what the age recommendation will be. Personally I think '18+' doesn't fit for any LEGO set at all.

[Salix]

5 hours ago, Wesley D said:

Now LEGO has changed it's approach for the more advanced sets, does Creator Expert still exist? The logo isn't present on box of the Haunted House and the Crocodile Locomotive, but on the site they are still listed under Creator Expert.

Can we expect the next modular building (if the line continues) to have a black box too? On some sets black can be fitting, but I prefer Lego sets to look cheerfull and atmospheric.

I'm also curious what the age recommendation will be. Personally I think '18+' doesn't fit for any LEGO set at all.

I do indeed think that the next modular will have a 18+ black box probably saying something like "The Modular Collection" just like the Haunted House says "The Fairground Collection". Since LEGO did retire the Creator Expert brand, but at the same time still need to categorise their sets on their website. But time will tell what the future brings us.

[The Brick Masters]

We think the modulars would look much better in a cheerfull and atmospheric setting on the box

and 18+ is not a good age for any set, 16+ is okay in our opinion

Edited August 1, 2020 by The Brick Masters

[jus1973]

I am not sold on the black boxes for any of the sets.  Having seen some in stores now, I’m not drawn to them.  I wonder if the reason the website still lists the expert range is simply down to the large number of existing sets with the old packaging still for sale, such as the vehicles (Mustang, London Bus etc) and the other buildings. I guess it would be too expensive to repackage them now as well?

In the end, don’t we all buy the contents rather than the box, so isn’t that a bit irrelevant?

[Options]

I throw the boxes away.  It could come in plastic bags as far as I’m concerned. 

[ReplicaOfLife]

I wouldn't mind black boxes - I rather like the look of the box of the Crocodile, for example.

But I wish they'd focus more on what's in the box than the box itself.

[Wesley D]

I appreciate nice box art. Because I mostly don't have the time to build my sets right away, I like to stare at the boxes every now and then. I would be bummed all boxes become black since lately LEGO has made nice boxes, with first on my mind Stranger Things and Pirates of Barracuda Bay. The Hidden Side boxes on the other hand I didn't like at all.