For years LEGO Harry Potter fans have been asking for a complete model of Hogwarts Castle. LEGO has made more than 20 sets depicting various parts of the wizarding school, some with just a few rooms or a bit of wall, and some with large parts of the structure. Some were excellent, and some were not. Now LEGO has finally created the whole castle in a single set, using a massive 6,020 pieces to sculpt 71043 Hogwarts Castle in microscale, including 27 microfigures and 4 minifigures. The set is available beginning today for LEGO VIP members (signing up is free), and will be available to everyone beginning Sept. 1. It retails for $399.99 USD.
Wondering if you should spend your hard-earned cash on a set this big? Check out our hands-on review of 71043 Hogwarts Castle, or see more of the official photos in our announcement article. You can help support The Brothers Brick by purchasing this set and others through the links below.
71043 Hogwarts Castle | 6,020 pieces | LEGO Shop Online (USA | CAN | UK)
Note that you must be logged in to the LEGO Shop Online as a VIP member to purchase the set before Sept. 1. Additionally, although LEGO generally rolls out its releases beginning at midnight for each region, it appears this one may be slightly delayed in some regions.
While it remains to be seen if LEGO has produced enough of this set to fulfill demand, if the sales of the even-larger Ultimate Collector Series Millennium Falcon were any indication, this Hogwarts will be hard to find for quite some time. The Millennium Falcon was only available for a few hours at a time before going on backorder, until nearly 6 months after release.
LEGO Stores were taking reservations for a large quantity of these, so right off the bat they corrected two problems with the UCSMF2 release. People know if they have one on reserve, so no need to take time off to chance it in line. Quantities available by reservation were reported to be 75-80 per store, so in some cases there should be more than 10x as many copies available for VIP release. This also comes earlier in the year, so even if they blow through stock faster than expected, they have a few months to squeeze them into production before they need to really ramp up for Christmas sales. The only downside is that, with a larger piece count, one would expect that even more resources will need to be diverted to increase production.