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This is a review of the new Harry Potter set, Harry and the Hungarian Horntail
In this review I use the term “ash” for new light gray, “blay” for new dark
gray, “clay orange” for dark orange and “dusty blue” for ‘sand’ blue.
The first aspect of this set that I’ll review is the selection of pieces in it
(since that’s, of course, what you get a first impression of when you first open
the box). There’s a new minifig handheld magnet piece. It’s so small and
simple that it could have a multitude of uses in MOC’s. There’s a gold ball
(similar to a minifig basketball) that has a metal pin through it, so that
there’s an small exposed metal surface at each pole of the ball. Since this
gold ball is the same size as minifig scale soccer balls and basketballs, I see
a unique potential to use this piece in Great Ball Contraptions. There could be
a GBC module that sorts out the metal-containing balls from the regular balls.
The set comes with 2 ash B.U.R.P.s and 2 blay L.U.R.P.s. This is handy, as
it’s often useful to have these pieces in even numbers. The set has a few large
plates: two 6 wide in black and a 2X16 in tan. There are 2 clay orange stairs.
Clay orange may seem to be an odd color for Minifig scale stairs, but that piece
is scarce enough that any non-pastel color is a good thing, and it doesn’t take
long for the ALE mind to come up with uses for this color of stairs. There are
also several other basic clay orange pieces: bricks (1X1’s, 1X2’s & 2X2’s),
slopes (1X2’s) and plates (1X4’s, 2X4’s & 2X2 corners).
4767 has a decent
selection of tiles. There are some 1X8 ash tiles that make up the bleacher
seats, as well as a couple 1X4’s and 1X2’s. (The seats have to be tiles instead
of studded pieces so that the minifigs will fall off, as part of the set’s
playability.) There are two 1X6 tan tiles, which can be hard to come by. The
three 2X2 printed tiles that go above the bleachers are quite nice. I think
that their use would be constricted to just Castle, but they could easily be
used for non-Harry Potter themed MOC’s.
The Hungarian Horntail dragon is a
new LEGO animal, and I think they did a decent job on it. The piece that’s the
top half of the dragon’s head has good detail printing, including gold teeth.
The legs are nonmobile, which is about my only gripe for this new dragon. The
bottom of the feet can attach to enough studs that this beast could easily be
attached to a S.N.O.T. surface if you want. The wings are the same type as the
ones in the new Viking sets; they attach via click hinges. One of the most
interesting things about this new animal is the fact that it has banana pieces
on its wings. Not only do these tan bananas serve as the dragon’s wing claws,
but their color lets you still use them as minifig food. We have a few
realistic shades of minifig apples, and now we have 2 colors of bananas too.
The dragon’s tail is formed from the familiar base and middle pieces from
dinosaur tails. The horned tail tip (from where the animal gets its name) is a
new piece that’s tan with a swirl of black in it too.
Aside from the new
light flesh skin color, the 3 minifigs are pretty nice.
Harry is pretty much what
he’s always been, except for his torso. His torso and arms are black and
printed on both sides. For anyone looking for battle-damaged torsos, this one
has some fabric rip marks on it. Even if you don’t like the small Hogwarts logo
on the front or the word “POTTER” on the back, you have to admit that this torso
is much more appealing than the old light gray classroom uniforms. This Harry
minifig is one that does not come with a cape.
Mad-eye Moody is an
interesting fig all around. He’s the first minifig in years to have a peg leg
(aside from Pirate key chains, or course). The peg leg is pearl light gray.
Moody’s torso is quite
nice with all its shiny silver buckles, zippers and buttons. I’m sure that
his face printing will
be one of a kind (won’t be in any other sets). He has some scars or wrinkles
and an eyepatch that’s actually a gold ring instead of a patch. I’m sure
there’s a story behind this, but I haven’t read the book. Last but not least,
Mad-eye has dark tan straight woman’s hair.
Professor Dumbledore comes in
a nice dusty blue outfit. He has his typical long old man hair and long beard.
My advice is to remove everything from the shoulders up and use this sweet legs
& torso combo to make an awesome Space guy. It’s a shame that Dumbledore’s
beard hides his torso,
because it has a really nice printing. The printing is an armorish looking
design that has a gold border, silver dots and a lavender background.
Some
other part tidbits that this set has are 1X2 plates with 1 stud in tan, a black
chain, a black string with a stud at each end, log bricks in tan and a few
Technic axles.
Set
inventory on Bricklink
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As far as the accuracy of this set to the scene it’s depicting, I can’t
comment because I haven’t read the Goblet of Fire book, and the movie isn’t out
yet. However, I can say something about the set’s playability. The set is made
of different free standing sections. There’s the B.U.R.P. section, the L.U.R.P.
section, the bleachers and then the small bowl that has the gold ball in it.
The B.U.R.P. section has a small catapult on top that launches Harry’s broom.
This section also closes, by way of hinges, and forms a hollow rock that figs
could hide in. The L.U.R.P. section has an odd archway thing between the 2
rocks. This section also folds up, but it does so in a way that leaves 1 rock’s
outer side showing and 1 rock’s hollow side showing, so you can’t make any
hiding spots. The dragon has his leg tied to the base of the bleacher section.
It looks like the dragon is supposed to pull on his chain, which slides out a
support under the bleachers, and then fly into the flag/banner thing over the
bleachers which tips them and makes the seated minifigs fall out. Right... tip
something over and make the minifigs fall out. I think we could’ve done that
one ourselves without the moving parts.
I only have a few tidbits of Harry
Potter knowledge, so my speculation as to what’s supposed to be going on in this
set may be way off. It looks like spectators are watching while Harry has to
fly in where this dragon is and snatch the gold ball, but the dragon gets loose.
While the different sections that make up the set can be arranged into a
semi-arena, the set’s best playability (as far as playing with what the
instructions show to make) is swooshing the dragon around.
The set’s box has
1 alternate model on the back, and I think it’s pretty good. The alternate
model is the set of stairs going up a rocky hill to a throne on top. The throne
looks neat because it has the dragon’s wings on its sides and the horns on top.
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Overall I think that this set is definitely worth the money. The main model
isn’t too great, but the minifigs and the dragon are quite good, and the
selection of parts is very versatile.
David “Fuzzy” Gregory
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