Harry Potter Advent Calendar - Day 12
Posted by CapnRex101,
Repeated models are becoming an unwelcome trend during this Harry Potter Advent Calendar. Hopefully something completely distinct might emerge on day twelve.
Let's open the door and find out...
Several more food accessories are available today, complementing those from day eight. I am slightly disappointed with this selection because of its similarity to the earlier accessories, although I certainly appreciate another pearl silver dish while the bright light yellow pie is only available in four other sets and might therefore be new to some people.
The accompanying goblets, croissant and cookies are also welcome but those components are more common. Nevertheless, I think this feast seems suitably appetising when everything from days seven, eight, eleven and twelve is combined. The tables are extremely cluttered but that is appropriate when compared with the movies and the resultant range of colour looks marvellous.
Overall - 3.0 - Something new would have been preferable to more food accessories, although there are some lovely pieces included and I think the combined feast is impressive.
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I think your rating and explanation matches my thoughts exactly. I do like the pie and silver dish especially. The only real drawback is that there is no actual build. Combining both tables and both accessory days does have a nice overall look though.
@stevesheriw said:
"I think your rating and explanation matches my thoughts exactly. I do like the pie and silver dish especially. The only real drawback is that there is no actual build. Combining both tables and both accessory days does have a nice overall look though. "
Totally agree: nice parts for decoration, but providing no actual building play is a miss IMO. Might be a limitation of the source material in a small piece-count setting like this: lots of uncommon/expensive parts would be needed.
Think this is actually quite generous.
This is why I bought the HP Advent set for me, but didn't buy one for my children. It is a great advent calendar on the whole - it fits nicely with the Great Hall and Clocktower sets. I was just concerned that, as a day by day event, my kids would be underwhelmed by four days of tables/tablesetting plus the house banners and tree builds.
I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about rare dish colors as others are on this site. I really dislike the food and utensil packs that come in advent calendars. I'm hoping for something to build with the rest of the calendar days.
I think I'll enjoy it a lot when all the days' worth of stuff is put together, it seems to be setting up for a nice holiday feast scene in the Great Hall, but several of the days so far definitely feel like they should've been put together, like the tables and the food stuff, especially since the latter has no building involved at all. Feels like LEGO are being unnecessarily stingy.
Battle of the Licensed Advent Calendars continues. Heading into Day 12, the slumping HP calendar holds a tenuous one point lead on SW, the latter of which has gained some momentum of late. Behind HP's door 12 was another repetitive offering to pair with yesterday's gift. While an additional pearl silver plate is more than welcome, as well as the rare yellow pie, today's gift is yet another re-hash of accessories with no real build. While the HP calendar may be trending toward an "overall scene", today's entry in and of itself is not a strong one, in any sense of the word.
On the flip side, SW fans were treated to another minifigure, this time a rendition of an Imperial Gunner. While the author rightfully points out that this fig is fairly common, the printing on certain elements is rare, offering fans a pleasant entry on Day 12. For those reasons, and reflected in the reviewer's scores, SW takes a commanding point.
And with that folks, for the first time this holiday season, the score is tied at:
HP- 6
SW- 6
Tomorrow's entry will be a pivotal day in this seasonal battle!
To be continued...
This is my first year with a Harry Potter calendar, does it always suck so hard? Last year we got City and the year before SW, and they both seemed much better (especially City).
I don't understand people who complain about this.
First of all, everyone can know beforehand what the Advent calendars contain because the information is available everywhere you buy the sets. Going by this I decided to only get the HP calendar (of which to my knowledge there hasn't been one before) this year because it's the only one that contains stuff you can actually use as a coherent scene and as decoration for other sets. The SW calendar mostly contains mini-builds the parts of which go straight to the parts bin afterwards. And the City and Friends calendars just contain the same stuff as every year basically.
I'm hoping that we're at least spared from more flags for a few days after this.
The opinions on this calendar versus others are highlighting an important factor in picking your calendar: Do you want something cohesive, or do you want something with a lot of stuff, and what kind of stuff?
City is giving us a number of vignettes, Friends seems to be full of decorations, Star Wars is individual models, and Harry Potter is building a single scene. All of these styles have pros and cons, and I think it's a good thing that we're getting variety in what each calendar is trying to provide.
Personally, I picked the HP calendar for myself this year - after choosing Star Wars twice previously - because I wanted that single scene, even though it would be tempered by repetition and perhaps a little dullness, and so far I'm pleased with what I've had.
The offerings so far have been a bit repetitive (we’re hoping for no more banners) but I must admit the play value is high and we love the sweater-wearing Harry and Ron.
@uwfan893 said:
"This is my first year with a Harry Potter calendar, does it always suck so hard? Last year we got City and the year before SW, and they both seemed much better (especially City)."
This is the first year for everyone with HP. It didn’t have the full run time on design as the other calendars do, as the decision to make it came earlier in the year.
That’s something we need to remember & judge according. It explains the lackluster(or nonexistent) builds. If we get one next year, I have no doubts the builds will stack up.
I agree with some of the more positive remarks about this calendar. I almost didn't get it, because a quick, accidental glance at the advertised components (I try to just let myself be surprised) showed that there was a lot of filler.
But now, I'm actually enjoying it a great deal. I like how it's coming together as a single scene; something that's not generally the case in the other calendars. Of course, in order to be that way, it means we have had (and will likely continue to have) some less than enthralling days. But the builds have bene quite good. Those are really nice tables and the tree is fantastic. The mini-figs are exciting and unique and there are a ton of great accessories.
While this may be a bit uneven as a calendar, I think it's shaping up into a nice set.
I got this calendar because I love to build a single bigger scene, especially when it has a nice base and background for display. I'm really enjoying the scene so far and it already has a lot of play value.
@AustinPowers said:
"I don't understand people who complain about this.
First of all, everyone can know beforehand what the Advent calendars contain because the information is available everywhere you buy the sets. Going by this I decided to only get the HP calendar (of which to my knowledge there hasn't been one before) this year because it's the only one that contains stuff you can actually use as a coherent scene and as decoration for other sets. The SW calendar mostly contains mini-builds the parts of which go straight to the parts bin afterwards. And the City and Friends calendars just contain the same stuff as every year basically. "
The Friends calendar actually has you making ornaments this year. I combined them with an older LEGO advent calendar (set 4924 from 2004) and my own designs and filled a whole small tree with just LEGO ornaments.
Honestly I'm loving this calendar. Every day I get to add more to my Hogwarts display. I don't even mind the banners...and be ready. There will likely be 2 more before it's over.
I can see why it might not be the best choice for younger kids as they might be underwhelmed on certain days. But I'm loving that it continually builds on one theme in the universe
@DingusTX : The Friends calendar last year also had ornaments.
Even more so than this year actually. The builds were much more substantial than those this year. Small wonder, this year has 330 parts, last year had 500 parts. Just compare the pictures of the contents of both calendars on their respective set details pages.
Plus, the 2018 calendar was sold on Amazon for 10 Euro on several occasions. At that price it made a tremendous parts pack, even if you didn't like the builds themselves. In the end I got five of those, four of them just for the parts.
When you realize this is the Harry Potter Christmas People Pack, distributed over 24 days, you'll probably like it better. I wonder how many people complaining about the food paid 5$ for that Xtra pack containing the exact same things.
Isn't this pie, with the cream-coloured topping instead of white, quite rare?