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17 December 2019

(CW:HP) LEGO® Harry Potter review & alt build: 75958 Beauxbatons' Carriage

Posted by Admin
Jonas Kramm continues our final run of 2019 sets that caught our interest parts-wise, with an August release from LEGO® Harry Potter which he has not only reviewed but also created an alternate build of his own design with! Editorial note: Although views expressed by Harry Potter's creator do not align with that of New Elementary, we continue to cover HP sets. Read about our stance here.

The recent series of sets from the Wizarding World brings us a bunch of scenes from the fourth movie: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Our pick is 75958 Beauxbatons' Carriage: Arrival at Hogwarts including 412 pieces and priced at £44.99 / $49.99 / 49.99€.




New Moulds, and all the Minifigures

The set doesn’t surprise us with any new moulds other than a minifigure part: the headgear of the two Beauxbatons pupils, of which there are two. It is a fine new element made of two colours of plastic: Cool Yellow/ Bright Light Yellow hair and a Medium Blue cap.


Worth mentioning at this point is the printed slope for Madam Maxime’s dress, which is a normal 2x2x3 Slope in Dark Red, but printed on two sides with an abstract pattern that could be used for many things in your models.


New Colours in 75958 Beauxbatons' Carriage

What we don’t get in new moulds the set compensates for in recoloured existing pieces. Most prominent are the Light Royal Blue/ Bright Light Blue, which has been around since 2004 and increasing in available parts for a while now, but personally I don’t spot it in too many fan creations yet. Maybe these new pieces in that colour will help!


The selection of basic bricks gets two additions: five Brick 1X4 (6287903|3010) and four Brick 1X1 (6285271|3005).


Brick 1X4X1 Inv. Bow (6285267|13547), Slope 1X2X3 Inv. (6285268|2449) and Brick With Bow 1X3X3 (6285272|13965) each come four times with the set.


Rather special are the three following pieces: four of the quite popular Nexo Shield (6285269|35341), two Panel 1X4X1 (6285270|15207) and two Door 1X4X6 (6285266|60623).


This is the full array of pieces you get in Light Royal Blue with the Beauxbaton carriage, including those previously available.


The recolours aren’t limited just to this blue tone. The colour change of the Lamp mould that was introduced with the Harry Potter theme last year is new: Warm Gold/ Pearl Gold (6283475|37776) and it is included four times. Lamps in Titanium Metallic/ Pearl Dark Gray (6234116) and Black (6227901) were already around and don’t come with this set.


Two more pieces coming first in Warm Gold with this set are wheels: Wheel Wagon Giant Ø56 (6282738|33212) and Wheel Wagon Huge Ø43,2 (6282740|33211) both appear two times in this set. Here they are together in a group shot with the already-existing Wheel Wagon Large Ø33 (6093573|4489) on the right.


To recreate the two Pegasuses you get two pairs of wings, appearing for the first time in White: Wing Right (6283820|20312) and Wing Left (6283821|20313).


At first I thought the white horse was the same as the one from 2013 to 2015 (6036454), but the printing is slightly different. The new version on the left (6284169|10509) comes twice with the carriage.

Stickers in 75958 Beauxbatons' Carriage

If you want you can add more ornamentation to the set by applying the stickers, but I don’t think it is missing anything without them.


I’m pretty happy that the pentagonal Nexo shields aren’t printed and therefore will be more useful for other builds.

My own alternate build

What really sold the set to me is the colour scheme. I’m becoming a big fan of Light Royal Blue and am really happy about these additions in that colour. To this day I mostly had bricks and tiles that I, for example, used for the pool in this build.

The combination in the carriage with Warm Gold and Reddish Brown looks really good, so I wanted to use it in my own build. To test the capability of the bricks of this set I tried my hands on an alternative build. And because I loved the pieces so much I immediately got a second copy, to have twice the amount available.


I started my build with the Nexo Shields and quickly came up with some kind of leg.


Four copies can connect to one of the wagon wheels, and so the idea of a Steampunk Walker was born.



It has a single seat at the front that fits a minifigure. Right behind that is the engine with exhaust pipe and storage compartments.


In the back are some stairs to help the driver get up.

While I used only a fraction of the available pieces from the two sets, I really enjoyed putting this small build together. It really felt easy to build something that looks good, because of the great colour scheme.

Conclusion

This is the first official iteration in LEGO bricks of this movie scene and I really like it. While you only can see it fleetingly in the movie, the designers did a good job recreating the look of the carriage in their set.

A great integration is the play feature that allows the carriage to open up. First you remove the Dark Red roof, then the wall swings up and reveals the interior. The wall then sits vertically on the roof.


I also appreciate the dedication to detail, as shown here with the angled window.

There are many things that make this set appealing: great colours, four exclusive minifigures, two Pegasus, a cool build and a lot of potential to use the bricks in your own builds. 
My biggest issue is the price: £44.99 / $49.99 / 49.99€ for 412 pieces it isn’t cheap, but once you can get a good deal I think the Beauxbatons' Carriage is worth it.





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Products mentioned in this post were kindly supplied by the LEGO Group. All content represents the opinions of New Elementary authors and not the LEGO Group. All text and images are © New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.

5 comments:

  1. Is this the same light blue that was used in Market Street? There are so many shades available now that I think I've missed this one being a unique color!

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    Replies
    1. No, it's not. The Market Street uses the rather ordinary Medium Blue (BL/TLG). As mentioned in the article Light Royal Blue/ Bright Light Blue didn't get used that much yet, so no wonder you missed it.

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    2. Bright Light Blue was used in the Detective's office though. In small quantities.

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  2. It is interesting to be able to create something using a lot of a rarely used color. I used light aqua blue when making one of my Halloween pumpkins.

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  3. I didn't realise those shutter elements could be put into a 1x2x3 window frame, that's a nifty little connection to remember!

    ReplyDelete