Set Review - #40560-1: Professors at Hogwarts™ - Brickheadz - Harry Potter

Here are Brickheadz numbers 170 to 173. Can you believe we’ve had that many already? #40560-1: Professors at Hogwarts™ was released in the US on 27 June 2022. It retails for $39.99 and contains 601 pieces. This works out to $0.067 per piece which isn’t too bad. The set contains four of the professors who teach at Hogwarts to expand on the Harry Potter characters that have been offered in BrickHeadz form besides the three main characters.

Onto the review…

The front shows the 4 figures with the BrickHeadz and Harry Potter logos. It also gives the number of each character. The back then just shows the same figures and that you can remove them from a base that you build out of plates.

My set showed up damaged (thanks FedEx). There was a big hole tear in the box and one of the parts bags was open. Thankfully nothing ended up missing during the build.

The contents are four numbered parts bags with two bags each for eight total. Each numbered bag is tied to an instruction booklet so you could build this set with other people if desired.

Bag number one is tied to Brickheadz number 170 Severus Snape™. The design seems to capture the character pretty well. You get a few 1x5 tile pieces which is fun if you are like me and still enjoy seeing them. He also comes with a flask for building potions. The unique printed tile is a purple tile in the front that is his shirt.

Next up is bag two which builds number 171 Minerva McGonagall™. My daughter built this one and realized she clipped the hat on wrong as compared to the instructions, but I’m okay with the large feather pieces being in the back so we left it. Are the feather pieces from Ninjago? Or Monkie Kid?

This one has two printed tiles in the front as part of her robe and also a gold ring attached as a necklace. The set comes with an extra one which is a bonus if you are trying to create a “Lord of the Rings” scene. There is a gold cup that the figure holds which is also a nice addition. I don’t think it’s too rare, but they are often clear versus gold.

Bag three builds number 172 Alastor Moody. There was some interesting SNOT work to get the brown band on his forehead. While building it, I wasn’t sure how it was going to work, but it looks good in the end. You get a printed eye piece element and then his shirt/jacket is a printed tile. There are a few 1x5s as well. The hair portion is fun to assemble with the various curves and angles. I think they did a good job trying to recreate the movie character here.

Lastly, bag four builds number 173 Sybill Trelawney. I like how they integrated the cloth headband the character wears and the glasses are fun with the nose bridge in the middle incorporated into the face as a brick. The hair is another fun section to build with all of the angles and curves that end up coming together in the end. There’s a printed tile in the front as her shirt and she’s holding a tea cup.

Here they are all together. Not a bad bunch if you are a fan of Brickheadz or the Harry Potter theme. I am not a collector of Brickheadz and I only purchase sets that interest me. I’m a fan of the Harry Potter stuff and I added these to my collection of previous Harry Potter Brickheadz. For the price per piece the cost isn’t too bad and if you wait until closer to the end of this set’s shelf life, you might be able to get it on discount.

Happy building!

Set Review - #75958-1: Beauxbatons' Carriage: Arrival at Hogwarts™ - The Wizarding World - Harry Potter

The first new wave of Harry Potter sets arrived last year (2018) and now in 2019 we have a second wave. They have been out for a bit, but my preference is to wait until they go on sale. This set, #75958-1: Beauxbatons' Carriage: Arrival at Hogwarts™, was released in the US on 2 August 2019. It contains 430 pieces and retails for $49.99 in the US. It works out to $0.116/piece which is a bit on the steep side in my opinion.

This set depicts characters from the fourth book “Harry Potter and the Goblet of FIre.” Beauxbatons is a French wizarding school and the school arrives for the Tri-Wizard’s tournament in the carriage this set depicts (yes, I had to Google all that).

The box shows the full set on the front, the minifigures on the bottom left of the front and the characters from the movie on the top right. The back shows some of the different play features of the set.

The set contains three parts bags, an instruction booklet, and a small sticker sheet. Bag 1 contains a piece separator.

The first bag begins to build the carriage. I like how the designers achieved the angles on the front and back. I also like the light blue color and I think it goes well with the brown and gold brick colors. Beauxbatons was never shown in the movies, but this would make for a good MOC. A French style chateau with brown, light blue, gold, and the tan-ish color would look cool.

The second bag almost finishes the carriage. The second picture shows how one side of the carriage lifts up. I assume this was done for playability as you can get to the minifigures more easily versus removing the roof. While I’m not a fan of stickers, I do think they add to the set with the gold design on the light blue pieces.

This set comes with 4 minifigures and no it does not come with the base plates from the collectible minifigure series. I added them just to help the minifigures lay flat for the picture.

From left to right there is:

Rubeus Hagrid - This is a taller minifigure. To achieve the height, the torso is bigger, but the legs are the kid version legs. His arms are connected to the torso by a Technic like attachment.

Madame Maxime - She is the tall head of the school. I don’t recall how much taller she is over Hagrid in the movie, but I think they got it right with this minifigure.

Gabrielle Delacour and Fleur Delacour - These are two sisters attending Beauxbatons. Fleur (older and the taller minifigure) was a part of the Tri-Wizards tournament and her sister Gabrielle (smaller minifigurte) plays a big part in one of the challenges in the book/movie.

Overall, I think it is a good mix of minifigures for the set. Only 2 of the girls are really named and the rest are extras as far as I know, so I’m not sure what good it would have done to add more of the girls in. Especially since you can only make the carriage so big.

The third bag finishes up the build. The carriage has a top which needs to be removed before you can flip up the side. Additionally, it adds the wheels. The front axle rotates so it adds some playability. Additionally, there is a chest with tea cups to go with a table inside with a tea pot.

I’m sure the Harry Potter world has an official name, but I’ll call them winged horses. They are attached to the carriage via a somewhat bulky looking hitch. I’m not sure how I would redesign this part, but to me this part doesn’t match the elegance they tried to achieve on the carriage.

My final thoughts on this set… if you’re not a Harry Potter fan, then don’t bother unless there are specific parts you want from this set. If you are a Harry Potter fan, then it’s a good addition to the collection. You get some good minifigures and the designers did a decent job depicting the scene given the scale they used. I definitely recommend getting the set at a discount. Check amazon.com, Walmart, and Target for the deals they are offering. I think the full retail price is a bit steep.

Keep building!

Set Review - #75954-1 - Hogwarts Great Hall - The Wizarding World - Harry Potter

Okay, the last of 2018’s Harry Potter sets. Sorry it took me so long to get through them. Thankfully I finished before the 2019 wave comes out (assuming that happens).

Hogwarts™ Great Hall (#75954-1) was released in the US on 24 Aug 2018. It retails at $99.99 in US and I have yet to see it on sale at Amazon.com or anywhere else for that matter. The set contains 878 pieces and 10 minifigures. This puts it at, $0.114 per piece which is a bit steep in my opinion. Is it worth it? Let’s dig in.

Here’s the box. The front shows the set while the back shows the play features (pretty standard). The back shows that you can connect this set with #75953-1 Hogwarts™ Whomping Willow to expand your play with the castle. The Great Hall set has portions of the first 2 books to include “The Sorcerer’s Stone” and “The Chamber of Secrets.” For example, the Mirror of Erised is from “The Sorcerer’s Stone” while the basilisk is from “The Chamber of Secrets.”

And hardcore Potter fans help me out here… At what point did the basilisk chase Professor Quirinus Quirrell like it shows on the bottom left corner of the front of the box?

This set contains 6 parts bags. Bag 1 has a piece separator included in it. The instructions are bagged and include the sticker sheets. The set also includes 3 dark gray plates to include 2 which are 16x16 studs and 1 which is 8x16 studs.

The first bag includes one of the boats used to transport the first year students across the lake to get to the school. It is the same boat used back in the old Pirates theme days. It also includes a basilisk from “The Chamber of Secrets,” Fawkes the phoenix from “The Chamber of Secrets,” The Mirror of Erised from “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” and Dumbledore, Hermione, Harry, and Draco minifigures. Everything is pretty simple in terms of the build. The basilisk seems pretty lame in my opinion, but I don’t have any recommendations to make it better other than to just not include it in the set as the basilisk never appears in the Great Hall. This bag also includes Hedwig (Harry’s owl) and the Sorting Hat.

The second bag starts to build the Great Hall itself. The build is fairly simple and not very complex. It’s mostly stacking parts on top of each other. Kind of boring…

Bag three continues to build up the Great Hall. I expected a bit more detail in this set as compared to #71043-1 Hogwart’s Castle as this one is larger. It was interesting how some parts had more detail while others didn’t have any additional detail. One area in particular that caught my eye were the windows. In #71043-1 the windows, while small, had colored translucent plates behind the grills used for the windows to give them the stained glass look. This set does not have color in the windows at all. The reasoning probably is that they could either have the design on the window or the color, but not both. I don’t know. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make the windows colored while retaining the same look that it has now?

Bag four continues the build to include the walls and the tower. There are a number of stickers that add detail to include the clock and some of the brick design stickers on a few of the larger wall pieces.

The fifth bag builds up the inside of the hall. There are candles on the ceiling and the house banners. If you’ve watched the movies, you can see the candles floating. I think LEGO did a decent job making them float. The parts look a bit ugly, but I get what they are trying to do. As for the banners, you can flip them around to see all four of the houses so everyone is represented. Finally, there is a stairwell that is added and the stairs can close up. I don’t recall where the stairs are used in the books/movies, but it is an interesting piece that I have not seen used before.

Before I wrap up the build, I wanted to hit on a few of the accessories. The first is the Mirror of Erised. You get a few choices of what to put in the mirror as you can see. I get why they did it, but I think they could have cut back on the set cost by just having one piece and a clear sticker. The 4 stickers and extra piece don’t do much for me. Is it for the play factor?

You also get a boat and a basilisk. I find both of these extraneous and not needed in the set. I guess when the students first arrive in their first year they take the boat and one of their first stops is the Great Hall, but I would rather they focus on making the Great Hall more detailed than having one of the boats. Same with the basilisk. I’m pretty sure it never was in the Great Hall. They could do a Chamber of Secrets set and put it in there, but it’s just additional bricks to help jack up the price.

As mentioned earlier, the set comes with Scabbers, Hedwig, and the Sorting Hat. I’m okay with these being in the set. They all were in the Great Hall with the main characters at one point or another.

And here we have the main reason for the set. This set is a (very expensive) minifigure pack. You get (top row, left to right) Ron Weasley, Susan Bones, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter all with the short minifigure legs. In the bottom row (left to right) you get Professor McGonagall, Professor Quirinus Quirrell, Rubeus Hagrid, Albus Dumbledore, and Nearly Headless Nick.

Students first… who the heck is Susan Bones? I initially thought it was Ginny Weasley, but then I looked at the box and saw that it was Susan Bones. I don’t recall her being named in the movies and my NLS who has read all the books didn’t recall her either. I had to do a Google Search to find out who she was. Definitely an odd minifigure choice.

Okay, onto the larger minifigures. I like how they made Hagrid a larger figure. The arms snap in with Technic like pins and the torso is a much larger piece too. I’m sure it’s out there, but I can’t recall this design being used. In the Ninjago movie Collectible Minifigure series, Garmadon has 2 standard minifigure torsos stacked on top of each other to create his height. I like what LEGO did for Hagrid better to make him larger.

A number of these minifigures only show up in this set so it could help the price of the minifigures go up on the secondary market. I wouldn’t buy this set hoping for that though.

The sixth bag completes the build. The tower is finalized to include a few rooms in it which I should know, but I don’t and then Fawkes who normally lives in Dumbledore’s office. Maybe it would be better if I knew what the rooms are, but the tower doesn’t do much for me. I’m sure it is there for play purposes. And I added another picture of the Great Hall just because. The last bag is just the tower build and it connects to the Great Hall.

Overall, I was disappointed in this set. The cost is too high compared to what you’re getting. The 10 minifigures are great, but there are some excesses that should have been done away with like the basilisk, the boat, and the extra Mirror of Erised designs. There are also a lot of larger brick wall pieces which I’m sure add to the cost of the set. I would have rather seen more focus on details and the build versus making it an easier build to put your minifigures in.

If you’re looking to get this set, wait for it to go on sale. It’s not worth it at the current high price point that it’s at.

What are your thoughts?

Set Review - #75956-1 Quidditch Match - Harry Potter - The Wizarding World

I’ve had this set on my shelf for a while and finally got a chance to build it so here’s the review. #75956-1: Quidditch Match was released on 24 August 2018 in the US. It retails at $39.99 and with 500 pieces and 6 minifigures that works out to be $0.08 per piece. I have yet to see it on sale at Amazon.com or Walmart. I got this one at full retail price from LEGO Shop @ Home during the time leading up to Christmas for double VIP points.

Here’s the box. The front shows the full set with the minifigures flying around on their brooms. The back shows some of the play features of the set as per usual.

The set contains 3 parts bags, 2 instruction booklets, and a sticker sheet. The instructions were folded, but the sticker sheet was in-between the instructions so at least it was somewhat protected.

If you’re interested in the Harry Potter line of sets hopefully you’ve either read the books or have seen the movies. I admit that I have only seen the movies. My NLS has read the books though so that’s got to be worth a few points.

Bag one builds two of the four viewing towers. The red and yellow colored one is the Gryffindor tower. It includes a Hermione Granger minifigure with a wand and the bottom part of the tower has a door piece with a sticker that swings out. I assume it is so the quidditch players can fly through there, but I could be wrong.

The green and gray tower is the Slytherin tower and it includes Professor Snape with a wand. This tower is built similar to the other one only it has a Technic pin attached to a translucent orange flame piece to match the scene from the Sorcerer’s Stone where Hermione casts a spell to start a fire to distract Professor Snape.

The second bag completes the remaining two towers. The blue and gray tower is the Ravenclaw tower. I couldn’t tell you any of the characters from the book/movie who were in that house and they don’t appear in this set either. The tower has a speaker/megaphone attached to it.

The other tower is the Hufflepuff tower. It is black and yellow and also contains the scoring display. There is a brick container that holds 1x1 round tiles that you can attach to the Technic pins in the tower to display the score of your game. It also comes with four 2x2 tiles to display the houses playing. Each tile has a sticker to use and there is a tile holder in the back of the tower.

This bag includes the Harry Potter minifigure with his super long cape (why didn’t they use a smaller sized one for him?), broom, and a snitch. It also includes Lucian Bole with his broom and bludger (if you don’t know what that is, Google it).

The third and final bag completes the set (which I took in front of my 71043-1 Hogawts Castle set). It includes the three goals, a clear piece attached to some Technic parts to move the keeper who can protect the goals, and connections for 2 of the towers to the goal area of the pitch. It also includes a chest to hold the parts and a trophy for the winners.

Bag three includes Oliver Wood and his broom (Gryffindor) and Marcus Flint (Slytherin) who is holding a broom with a… I have no idea what that is attached to his broom. I think it’s supposed to be your way to try and shoot the quaffle (yes I had to look that up) through the goal. There’s also another shooter on the ground that has a bunch of 1x1 round black plates. I’m not sure what it is for. Anybody smarter than me on this one?

Overall, it’s a pretty simple build. There isn’t much to this one and I’m kind of disappointed by it. I would feel slightly better about it if I had waited for it to go on sale. I’d definitely recommend waiting for a sale if you are interested in this set. For big Harry Potter fans, buying 2 of these would allow you to have a good start to making a full up quidditch pitch. It would take some additional parts, but you could make the viewing towers a bit bigger and you’d have 2 goals. You’d probably have to supplement with some other minifigures as well.

In terms of building techniques, this one is pretty simple. It definitely fits the 7 to 14 year age range that they list versus an old fart like me. It’s not really a piece pack either. The parts really aren’t that spectacular so don’t buy this set looking for rare parts.

What are your thoughts on this one?

Happy building!

Set Review - #75952-1 - Newt's Case of Magical Creatures - Fantastic Beasts - The Wizarding World

Full disclosure, I have not seen the Fantastic Beasts 2 movie that was released back in November 2018 at the time of drafting this post. With that being said, I have seen the first Fantastic Beasts movie and I thought it was good. I was wondering how they would work a spin-off in and they did it. Kind of like Star Wars in that as long as you have some of the same plot details, you can make a movie about anything and make money on it. Enough blabbing…

Set number 75952-1 - Newt’s Case of Magical Creatures was released on 24 August 2018 in the US. It retails for $49.99 and with 694 pieces, it works out to be $0.072 per piece. I waited and got it 20% off on Amazon.com so even better. As of today (30 December 2018), it’s still 20% off there so if you were looking to pick this one up at a discount, now is your chance. Onto the review…

Here is the box. The front shows the case opened up with all of the creatures and minifigures. The back shows the play features. You can also see the damage that the box took during shipping on the back. Thanks Amazon.com! I guess that’s what I get… 20% off, but a banged up box.

The contents of the set are four numbered bags, 2 instruction booklets that were jammed into the box, and a small sticker sheet. There is also a wing in a separate bag. I’m not a big enough fan of the movie to know all of the names of the different beasts. I looked it up and it is a Thunderbird wing. When I first opened the package, I was worried because only one wing was on its own. The other wing is in bag one. I’m not sure why one is in bag one and one is separate. So don’t panic if you can’t find the other wing loose in the box.

Bag one builds the Thunderbird (white and gold winged creature), the Occamy (bluish/purple creature that looks like a bird and a snake), and the Niffler (tiny duck billed platypus type creature). The 2 minifigures are Newt Scamander and Tina Goldstein. Newt has his wand and is holding a Bowtruckle (I’m not going to try and explain this one… just Google it). Tina has her wand and the tea pot used to hold the Occamy (again, Google it or just watch the movie if you haven’t seen it).

The second bag includes the Erumpent (the big rhino looking creature) along with the minifigures for Jacob Kowalski and Queenie Goldstein. Jacob comes with a hair piece and a helmet and is holding an umbrella. Queenie has her wand.

The third bag starts the case. I will have to go back and watch the movie as I will be honest and say that I’m not sure how accurately the case is being portrayed as compared to the movie version.

The fourth bag completes the case. Here are pictures of the case opened and then closed. If anything, it captures an item from the movie, but also gives you opportunities to do your own thing. Much like the LEGO Ideas Pop-Up Book, there are many different things you could do with this case besides representing the Fantastic Beasts movie.

Here’s a final picture of everything from a top down view. Not the greatest of pictures, but it shows all that you get. From a play standpoint, it captures a lot of the characters from the movie along with a key piece of the movie. From a parts standpoint, there are some good parts that could be used in other MOCs, but nothing too out of the ordinary. The build wasn’t too challenging and really didn’t have any different techniques that stood out to me. The sticker sheet was small so that made the build slightly better as I wasn’t putting stickers on after every other instruction page. Overall, unless you’re a big fan of the movie, I wouldn’t rush out to buy this one. I wouldn’t have purchased it without the 20% off sale at Amazon.com.

What are your thoughts on this one?