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acciobrickNews on the summer Harry Potter lego lineup!
And a bit of news on the summer 2024 wave of Harry Potter lego sets has leaked from Poland! (I believe it's a general lego blog / fan site along the lines of stonewars or promobricks, but as the name and subtitle are in a picture, I'm unable to just run the translator over it.) As with all news we get at this time of year, it's provisional and there will likely be some changes, but the source has been deemed fairly reliable by a few individuals I've known for a while and trust. (FOMO is unfortunately a contaminant; I've held off reporting to wait for the additional confirmation as I was unfamiliar with the original source, fanklockow.pl.) Generally something like this tends to be based on someone's description of a fuzzy picture, or their description of someone's description (like promobricks attempting to describe the Gringotts vaults last year... Chinese whispers, ftw!), so the things that are most likely to be mistaken are the names of minifigs included (like the time Yaxley was mistaken for Lucius Malfoy in the Ministry of Magic set) or small details.
Expected release date June 2024, we will see the following sets (some of them have had different prices mentioned, I've listed them as a range with the most recent information in bold):
76434 Aragog in the Forbidden Forest - 195 pieces (ca. $15 - $20). The set will include lego's largest and most realistic Aragog build ever, with moveable legs, canines and pedipalps (yeah, I had to look that one up, too 😆), as well as Harry and Ron minifigs. The set also includes a small scene from the Forbidden Forest, two small spider pieces and a cobweb. They can be combined with 76432 Forbidden Forest: Magical Creatures and 30677 Draco in the Forbidden Forest, the polybag from the 2024 winter wave.
76431 Hogwarts Castle: Potions Class - 397 pieces ($40). A part of the newest Hogwarts castle system, this set contains two collectible portraits. (w00t!) Minifigs: Severus Snape, Hermione, Pansy Parkinson and Seamus Finnigan. We should also see some new pieces: chemical flasks and a brick representing steam/vapours, which sounds neat. The room will be the size of one of the rooms in the Great Hall set (see 76435 below), but at that, I have to admit the price point for what is apparently actually going to be only a single room is making me a little nervous. (By contrast 76386 Hogwarts: Polyjuice Potion Mistake RRP was $20.) Here's hoping the footprint / build justifies it.
76427 Buildable Buckbeak - 723 pieces ($60). This won't be another creature with a crank and mechanical automation like Hedwig and Fawkes, but the head, wings and legs will be posable (so more like the Patronus then). Beaky will come complete with a small piece of yard including two pumpkins and a bird.
76433 Buildable Mandrake - 579 pieces (ca. $60 - $70). A posable model of a roughly life-sized Mandrake in its pot. The Mandrake will have moveable lips and limbs and a simulated "mechanism" for screaming. It will not, however, include a sound brick, something I'm sure parents will be grateful for. 😆 Frankly, considering the price of special features, I think this was a wise choice. Unlike with the Sorting Hat, where it serves a real purpose and randomness is a crucial aspect, here it's consistently nothing but a scream. We should be able to manage that on our own, certainly no later than the latest biological material contribution to the build... (A very valid argument can be made for putting your hair up when you build, say. 😉)
76439 Ollivander and Madame Malkin stores - 744 pieces (ca. $90 - $100). Continuing the expansion of more affordable Diagon Alley sets started with 2023's 76422 Diagon Alley: Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes (& the Owl Post), we return to the shopping district once more. Ollivander's wand store will have a removable box on the shelves containing Harry's wand, wand stands, a ladder and a total of 26 wands. In Madame Malkin's store we'll find mannequins, hats and coat elements (I wonder if that's meant to be "cloak"?). Figures: Harry, Garrick Ollivander, Madame Malkin, Padma Patil, a wizarding schoolgirl and a witch with a flower cart (shoutout to Anna Arvensis from Horizont Alley). The store will connect with other models from the latest version of the wizarding world's famous street of shops.
76440 Durmstrang ship and Beauxbatons carriage - 1229 pieces ($140). Two models in one package (meh, and again: meh), it will be an exclusive / limited distribution set, which means it also won't be subject to much by way of sales. (More meh. This is very likely going to be a pass for me as well.) Minifigs: Igor Karkaroff, Viktor Krum, Kornelius Fudge, Fleur Delacour and Madame Maxime. Here's one of those instances where I suspect the identification of a minifig might be off: we've had Fudge, and Barty Crouch Sr. wears essentially the same clothes, so I wonder if this mightn't be him instead.
The carriage will be smaller than 2019's 75958 Beauxbatons' Carriage: Arrival at Hogwarts, such that there will be room for only one of the Abraxans. As we're paying to retread ground covered fairly recently, I can't say I believe that's a bad thing. The ship also won't be massive, but should contain four sails, including one with a print.
76435 Great Hall at Hogwarts - 1732 pieces ($200 - $220). I'm sure you'd have never guessed from the name, but this will be a new version of the Great Hall. 😉 The third minifig scale Great Hall within seven years, it should be noted, make of that what you will. In addition to being one of the most iconic bits of the castle, this set serves as the central build of the latest Hogwarts castle system. Complete with flying candles, a courtyard, and dungeons with a secret passage (I like those), in a lego first, it will also have an interior ceiling depicting the sky / the Great Hall's iconic charmed ceiling. The following rooms / scenes are also part of the set: a bathroom (presumably for the Troll in the dungeons scene, yay!), a corridor and "a Hufflepuff room" (unclear if it's the common room or the dorms). These rooms will be able to "eject" from the model. We could see 11 minifigs / characters: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Albus Dumbledore, 3 as yet unnamed students, a ghost, the Troll (a new bigfig version mould), Professor Quirrell and (probably) Aurora Sinistra. Interestingly enough, names of random Professors are usually the errors in leaked info such as this, but as Professor Sinistra is the only black member of faculty, if the information stems from a picture, I'd expect that to be accurate. Frankly it's a bit odd not to see a Professor Sprout included anywhere this year now that we're finally seeing a Hufflepuff build, but I think that increases the likelihood of a greenhouse set perhaps as soon as next winter, something that is also more in keeping with the sets that doubled as expansions to the 2021+ modular system this winter (the Boathouse, the Owlery, Hagrid's hut), which would be excellent. Also, if you're going to include nonspeaking characters, I was really hoping we'd see Professor Vector instead, something I think makes more sense in a set like this, as her robes are a lot prettier than Professor Sinistra's.
The Great Hall will connect with 76426 Hogwarts Castle Boathouse from the winter wave.
Less typical leaks for the season... things available in the September 2024 wave:
76438 lego Harry Potter Advent calendar 2024 for PLN 169.99. (I'll report on the usual USD / EUR / UK£ amounts when they're posted; straight exchanges unfortunately don't always do the job.) Last year and the year before we had some AC part leaks, which 2023 led to some accurate guessing, 2022 not so much (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
erexen, you'll recall the great deal of head scratching caused by the torso for Sirius Black's mugshot photo, of all things). This year we have a text description instead. I'm not sure if this is someone's guess operating off parts leaks or pictures, so take this with the requisite skepticism... The 2024 HP AC should include two (2!) of the shiny new Hogwarts collectible portraits (yay!), a Christmas tree, Christmas gifts, a "Hogwarts machine" ??? (your guess is as good as mine) and many more builds, plus seven (?) characters: Harry, Susan Bones (Hufflepuffs represent!), Draco, Professor Dumbledore, Professor Flitwick, a ghost, and Hedwig. I'm pleased if they are finally letting go of the "need" to include the trio every time. Hermione and Ron appear in a number of sets this year, some not too pricey, so it's nice not to keep covering the same old ground. Do the Trio every other year or so in the AC, if you must, but it's so nice to see other characters. McGonagall ("Professor McGonagall." Yes, thank you, Hermione.) is in the Boathouse set, Snape ("Professor Snape." Quite. Whatever would we do without you, Hermione?) will be in the summer Potions classroom set. Flitwick... Professor Flitwick doesn't seem to be putting in an appearance elsewhere, so this is nice. It will be interesting to see if the ghost is the same one included in the Great Hall set, which I think is more likely, or the presumptive fourth House ghost to complete the set once and for all. (I'm not holding my breath. They will draw this out until we're all old and grey and no longer recall what we were waiting for, admittedly that last may be true for some of us already... 😆😘)
Continuing, this sentence wasn't translating clearly: "the models included in the calendar can be 'matched' to the new Great Hall (76435)." I'm not sure if that means it will be minifig scale builds we can integrate in our larger Hogwarts displays, like last year's most excellent Hogsmeade AC builds, or if this is supposed to say it will be more of the loathsome nanobuilds (Ã la 2022) of the GH set. I guess we'll have to wait until this summer when the pictures are released to know for sure.
76437 the Burrow - the Weasleys' wonky warren - 2405 pieces. Presumably this year's D2C. We first heard of the possibility of a Burrow D2C thanks to ForeverJeanGrey from EB who reported on a survey they'd taken for lego roughly a year ago. A lot of people were disinclined to believe it could be true, but here we are, with still more confirmation. It will be an 18+ set, and its Polish price should be PLN 1229.99. Again, I'll update the price when we have the info.
And because I'm keeping track, heh, a running count of the minifigs (10 distinct characters and 19 minifigs) / characters we've had in the winter wave (and polybag) so far this year: Harry 5, Hermione 3, Ron 3, Draco 2, Neville 1, Dean 1, Cho 1, Professor McGonagall 1, Hagrid 1, Filch 1. (Males 7 distinct characters and 14 minifigs, Females 3 distinct characters and 5 minifigs 😕 Gryffindors 7 distinct characters and 15 minifigs, Slytherins 1 distinct character and 2 minifigs, Ravenclaws 1 distinct character and 1 minifig, NO HUFFLEPUFFS! (they'll undoubtedly make up for that this summer, though) plus one Squib. 2 POC which at 20% of the distinct characters actually does significantly better than simply tracking with the 90's population demographics of the UK. (Relevant aspect.)
Creatures: Hedwig 3, Scabbers 1, Fang 1, Norbert(a) 1, Trevor 1, Buckbeak 1, Pigwidgeon 1, baby Thestral 1, spiders 3, Pixie 1, fish 1, bat 1, misc rat 1, crab 1, misc owls 4.
I'm curious to see where we end up when the sets for the year are fully revealed. It's good that they've thought to bump the witch count with the inclusion of the Diagon Alley set, but it's a little irksome that's probably only because a clothier is included. (Seriously? 😕 Just make the glad rags all pink and floaty why don't you... 🤮) Even if you ignore Harry as the main character and remove him from the equation, it's still 6 distinct characters to 3, and 9 minifigs to 5 in favour of the males, as always. I appreciate the source material skews male, and that certainly accounts for something, as do market pressures and fan favourites, but if you aren't depicting actual scenes, do better, lego. (*cough* Boathouse *cough*) I'll give them a pass on the polybag, though. It's very considerate to make main characters available even if you're less than minted.
That's it for now. If recent years are anything to go off, we should see official pictures of the summer sets in April. If they get leaked, lego has been quick to respond with the official pix shortly thereafter.
And a bit of news on the summer 2024 wave of Harry Potter lego sets has leaked from Poland! (I believe it's a general lego blog / fan site along the lines of stonewars or promobricks, but as the name and subtitle are in a picture, I'm unable to just run the translator over it.) As with all news we get at this time of year, it's provisional and there will likely be some changes, but the source has been deemed fairly reliable by a few individuals I've known for a while and trust. (FOMO is unfortunately a contaminant; I've held off reporting to wait for the additional confirmation as I was unfamiliar with the original source, fanklockow.pl.) Generally something like this tends to be based on someone's description of a fuzzy picture, or their description of someone's description (like promobricks attempting to describe the Gringotts vaults last year... Chinese whispers, ftw!), so the things that are most likely to be mistaken are the names of minifigs included (like the time Yaxley was mistaken for Lucius Malfoy in the Ministry of Magic set) or small details.
Expected release date June 2024, we will see the following sets (some of them have had different prices mentioned, I've listed them as a range with the most recent information in bold):
76434 Aragog in the Forbidden Forest - 195 pieces (ca. $15 - $20). The set will include lego's largest and most realistic Aragog build ever, with moveable legs, canines and pedipalps (yeah, I had to look that one up, too 😆), as well as Harry and Ron minifigs. The set also includes a small scene from the Forbidden Forest, two small spider pieces and a cobweb. They can be combined with 76432 Forbidden Forest: Magical Creatures and 30677 Draco in the Forbidden Forest, the polybag from the 2024 winter wave.
76431 Hogwarts Castle: Potions Class - 397 pieces ($40). A part of the newest Hogwarts castle system, this set contains two collectible portraits. (w00t!) Minifigs: Severus Snape, Hermione, Pansy Parkinson and Seamus Finnigan. We should also see some new pieces: chemical flasks and a brick representing steam/vapours, which sounds neat. The room will be the size of one of the rooms in the Great Hall set (see 76435 below), but at that, I have to admit the price point for what is apparently actually going to be only a single room is making me a little nervous. (By contrast 76386 Hogwarts: Polyjuice Potion Mistake RRP was $20.) Here's hoping the footprint / build justifies it.
76427 Buildable Buckbeak - 723 pieces ($60). This won't be another creature with a crank and mechanical automation like Hedwig and Fawkes, but the head, wings and legs will be posable (so more like the Patronus then). Beaky will come complete with a small piece of yard including two pumpkins and a bird.
76433 Buildable Mandrake - 579 pieces (ca. $60 - $70). A posable model of a roughly life-sized Mandrake in its pot. The Mandrake will have moveable lips and limbs and a simulated "mechanism" for screaming. It will not, however, include a sound brick, something I'm sure parents will be grateful for. 😆 Frankly, considering the price of special features, I think this was a wise choice. Unlike with the Sorting Hat, where it serves a real purpose and randomness is a crucial aspect, here it's consistently nothing but a scream. We should be able to manage that on our own, certainly no later than the latest biological material contribution to the build... (A very valid argument can be made for putting your hair up when you build, say. 😉)
76439 Ollivander and Madame Malkin stores - 744 pieces (ca. $90 - $100). Continuing the expansion of more affordable Diagon Alley sets started with 2023's 76422 Diagon Alley: Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes (& the Owl Post), we return to the shopping district once more. Ollivander's wand store will have a removable box on the shelves containing Harry's wand, wand stands, a ladder and a total of 26 wands. In Madame Malkin's store we'll find mannequins, hats and coat elements (I wonder if that's meant to be "cloak"?). Figures: Harry, Garrick Ollivander, Madame Malkin, Padma Patil, a wizarding schoolgirl and a witch with a flower cart (shoutout to Anna Arvensis from Horizont Alley). The store will connect with other models from the latest version of the wizarding world's famous street of shops.
76440 Durmstrang ship and Beauxbatons carriage - 1229 pieces ($140). Two models in one package (meh, and again: meh), it will be an exclusive / limited distribution set, which means it also won't be subject to much by way of sales. (More meh. This is very likely going to be a pass for me as well.) Minifigs: Igor Karkaroff, Viktor Krum, Kornelius Fudge, Fleur Delacour and Madame Maxime. Here's one of those instances where I suspect the identification of a minifig might be off: we've had Fudge, and Barty Crouch Sr. wears essentially the same clothes, so I wonder if this mightn't be him instead.
The carriage will be smaller than 2019's 75958 Beauxbatons' Carriage: Arrival at Hogwarts, such that there will be room for only one of the Abraxans. As we're paying to retread ground covered fairly recently, I can't say I believe that's a bad thing. The ship also won't be massive, but should contain four sails, including one with a print.
76435 Great Hall at Hogwarts - 1732 pieces ($200 - $220). I'm sure you'd have never guessed from the name, but this will be a new version of the Great Hall. 😉 The third minifig scale Great Hall within seven years, it should be noted, make of that what you will. In addition to being one of the most iconic bits of the castle, this set serves as the central build of the latest Hogwarts castle system. Complete with flying candles, a courtyard, and dungeons with a secret passage (I like those), in a lego first, it will also have an interior ceiling depicting the sky / the Great Hall's iconic charmed ceiling. The following rooms / scenes are also part of the set: a bathroom (presumably for the Troll in the dungeons scene, yay!), a corridor and "a Hufflepuff room" (unclear if it's the common room or the dorms). These rooms will be able to "eject" from the model. We could see 11 minifigs / characters: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Albus Dumbledore, 3 as yet unnamed students, a ghost, the Troll (a new bigfig version mould), Professor Quirrell and (probably) Aurora Sinistra. Interestingly enough, names of random Professors are usually the errors in leaked info such as this, but as Professor Sinistra is the only black member of faculty, if the information stems from a picture, I'd expect that to be accurate. Frankly it's a bit odd not to see a Professor Sprout included anywhere this year now that we're finally seeing a Hufflepuff build, but I think that increases the likelihood of a greenhouse set perhaps as soon as next winter, something that is also more in keeping with the sets that doubled as expansions to the 2021+ modular system this winter (the Boathouse, the Owlery, Hagrid's hut), which would be excellent. Also, if you're going to include nonspeaking characters, I was really hoping we'd see Professor Vector instead, something I think makes more sense in a set like this, as her robes are a lot prettier than Professor Sinistra's.
The Great Hall will connect with 76426 Hogwarts Castle Boathouse from the winter wave.
Less typical leaks for the season... things available in the September 2024 wave:
76438 lego Harry Potter Advent calendar 2024 for PLN 169.99. (I'll report on the usual USD / EUR / UK£ amounts when they're posted; straight exchanges unfortunately don't always do the job.) Last year and the year before we had some AC part leaks, which 2023 led to some accurate guessing, 2022 not so much (
erexen, you'll recall the great deal of head scratching caused by the torso for Sirius Black's mugshot photo, of all things). This year we have a text description instead. I'm not sure if this is someone's guess operating off parts leaks or pictures, so take this with the requisite skepticism... The 2024 HP AC should include two (2!) of the shiny new Hogwarts collectible portraits (yay!), a Christmas tree, Christmas gifts, a "Hogwarts machine" ??? (your guess is as good as mine) and many more builds, plus seven (?) characters: Harry, Susan Bones (Hufflepuffs represent!), Draco, Professor Dumbledore, Professor Flitwick, a ghost, and Hedwig. I'm pleased if they are finally letting go of the "need" to include the trio every time. Hermione and Ron appear in a number of sets this year, some not too pricey, so it's nice not to keep covering the same old ground. Do the Trio every other year or so in the AC, if you must, but it's so nice to see other characters. McGonagall ("Professor McGonagall." Yes, thank you, Hermione.) is in the Boathouse set, Snape ("Professor Snape." Quite. Whatever would we do without you, Hermione?) will be in the summer Potions classroom set. Flitwick... Professor Flitwick doesn't seem to be putting in an appearance elsewhere, so this is nice. It will be interesting to see if the ghost is the same one included in the Great Hall set, which I think is more likely, or the presumptive fourth House ghost to complete the set once and for all. (I'm not holding my breath. They will draw this out until we're all old and grey and no longer recall what we were waiting for, admittedly that last may be true for some of us already... 😆😘)Continuing, this sentence wasn't translating clearly: "the models included in the calendar can be 'matched' to the new Great Hall (76435)." I'm not sure if that means it will be minifig scale builds we can integrate in our larger Hogwarts displays, like last year's most excellent Hogsmeade AC builds, or if this is supposed to say it will be more of the loathsome nanobuilds (à la 2022) of the GH set. I guess we'll have to wait until this summer when the pictures are released to know for sure.
76437 the Burrow - the Weasleys' wonky warren - 2405 pieces. Presumably this year's D2C. We first heard of the possibility of a Burrow D2C thanks to ForeverJeanGrey from EB who reported on a survey they'd taken for lego roughly a year ago. A lot of people were disinclined to believe it could be true, but here we are, with still more confirmation. It will be an 18+ set, and its Polish price should be PLN 1229.99. Again, I'll update the price when we have the info.
And because I'm keeping track, heh, a running count of the minifigs (10 distinct characters and 19 minifigs) / characters we've had in the winter wave (and polybag) so far this year: Harry 5, Hermione 3, Ron 3, Draco 2, Neville 1, Dean 1, Cho 1, Professor McGonagall 1, Hagrid 1, Filch 1. (Males 7 distinct characters and 14 minifigs, Females 3 distinct characters and 5 minifigs 😕 Gryffindors 7 distinct characters and 15 minifigs, Slytherins 1 distinct character and 2 minifigs, Ravenclaws 1 distinct character and 1 minifig, NO HUFFLEPUFFS! (they'll undoubtedly make up for that this summer, though) plus one Squib. 2 POC which at 20% of the distinct characters actually does significantly better than simply tracking with the 90's population demographics of the UK. (Relevant aspect.)
Creatures: Hedwig 3, Scabbers 1, Fang 1, Norbert(a) 1, Trevor 1, Buckbeak 1, Pigwidgeon 1, baby Thestral 1, spiders 3, Pixie 1, fish 1, bat 1, misc rat 1, crab 1, misc owls 4.
I'm curious to see where we end up when the sets for the year are fully revealed. It's good that they've thought to bump the witch count with the inclusion of the Diagon Alley set, but it's a little irksome that's probably only because a clothier is included. (Seriously? 😕 Just make the glad rags all pink and floaty why don't you... 🤮) Even if you ignore Harry as the main character and remove him from the equation, it's still 6 distinct characters to 3, and 9 minifigs to 5 in favour of the males, as always. I appreciate the source material skews male, and that certainly accounts for something, as do market pressures and fan favourites, but if you aren't depicting actual scenes, do better, lego. (*cough* Boathouse *cough*) I'll give them a pass on the polybag, though. It's very considerate to make main characters available even if you're less than minted.
That's it for now. If recent years are anything to go off, we should see official pictures of the summer sets in April. If they get leaked, lego has been quick to respond with the official pix shortly thereafter.
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Date: 2024-03-18 12:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-03-18 07:56 pm (UTC)