REVIEW: Quidditch Match

75956 – Quidditch Match

Quidditch plays an important role throughout the Harry Potter series, so it is not surprising to see that in the 2018 line of sets. Being a couple of years old, and with the 2020 Harry Potter sets expected to hit the shelves mid year (unless delayed by COVID-19), it will soon be in line for retirement. So is it worth chasing up the set? Here’s my review of the set…

Background

During the long summer holidays at number 4 Privet Drive, Harry Potter really missed his friends at Hogwarts – and playing Quidditch! And Quidditch plays a big role across the books, from the Harry becoming Seeker for the Gryffindor team, to the matches against Draco and the rest of the Slytherin team, his growing interest in Ravenclaw seeker, Cho Chang, becoming Quidditch captain and seeing both Ron & Ginny Weasley joining the team in the later years.

So naturally, Quidditch is also well represented when it comes to LEGO sets. Two somewhat similar sets (representing a Quidditch pitch) have been released; Quidditch Practice from 2002 (set 4726) and Quidditch Match from 2010 (set 4737). With respectively 128 and 153 pieces both of these feature a single spectator tower and are significantly smaller than this new 2018 version, which features 500 pieces in total.

You can’t play Quidditch without a broom. So back in 2003 we saw the release of the Quality Quidditch Supplies (set 4719) shop at Diagon Alley, one of the few older sets I’ve reviewed to date. I have recently built my own version of that too.

It is also worth mentioning the “Chudley Cannons” poster included in the The Burrow (set 4840) from 2010. The Chudley Cannons was Ron’s favourite Quidditch team and The Burrow set had the poster hanging over Ron’s bed. The books explain that his bedroom was covered in posters and he brought some along to Hogwarts. I’ve used the poster in my MOC below showing Harry and Ron in the Gryffindor dormitory on Christmas morning at their first year at Hogwarts.

But enough background – let’s have a look at the set.

Box and content

The artwork of the box follows that of the other 2018 Harry Potter sets, with a silver Harry Potter logo at the top, with Hermione, Harry and Ron shown in the right top corner.

Under this is a colourful photo of the set (the House colours used for the towers around the Quidditch pitch really lights it up), with Scottish landscape as background including Hogwarts towering towards the left.

The lower left corner shows the six minifigures included in the set.

At the back, the various play features of the set are shown. We will get back to them in the following.

Inside the box you find three numbered plastic bags, two instruction manuals and one sticker sheet. The sticker sheet is loose in the box and your might get one that is creased if unlucky. Mine was in good shape though.

Minifigures

The set comes with a total of six minifigures, two players from the Gryffindor Quidditch team, two players from the Slytherin Quidditch team and two spectators. So unlike the two previous Quidditch sets, there is no Madam Hoch. But we will get back to that.

The photo below shows the line-up. From Gryffindor, we get Harry Potter and Oliver Wood. Then we have Hermione Granger and Professor Snape as spectators. Lastly, we get Lucian Bole and Marcus Flint from Slytherin. Apart from Lucian Bole, all others have previously appeared as minifigures.

Note the inclusion of the newly moulded snitch piece in Harry’s hand above. It looks pretty amazing and is a huge improvement over using a 1×1 round plate as substitute.

The capes are of the new soft material that doesn’t get creased (as easily).

Four of the characters have alternative facial expressions printed on the heads, making them look scared (or in the case of Snape, rather angry).

The Quidditch pitch

The Quidditch Pitch is a large, oval stadium surrounded by stands and towers for the spectators. This is where all the Hogwarts Quidditch games take place.

Bag 1 includes Hermione and Snape along with the bricks needed to build spectator towers in Gryffindor and Slytherin colours. The towers are well designed and colourful, as we are used to see them from the movies. Only minor drawback is that the design is not tall enough to allow full size minifigures to stand up, so Snape will have to sit down for the game. Alternatively, you could build them higher should you have bricks in the right colours yourself.

One big sticker decorate the Gryffindor tower when three smaller stickers are used for the Slytherin tower. It does look great when applied properly, but some may find it frustrating getting it right.

Both the towers include a play feature. By turning a knob at the back of the Slytherin tower, flames appear in front of Snape – allowing you to recreate the scene where Hermione sets fire to his robes.

The big flag at the base of the Gryffindor tower opens up allowing Harry to race through on his broom trying to escape from the jinxed bludger (no Dobby, that is not how you help Harry).

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Bag 2 includes Harry Potter and Lucian Bole along with the bricks needed to build the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw themed towers. These also include a number of stickers for decoration.

Unlike the first two towers, there are no real play features apart from a point scoring system on the Hufflepuff tower. Extra tiles are provided for Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, so you can play fictive games with these teams as well. But as discussed further down, no players are available for those two teams.

The Ravenclaw tower includes a megaphone. It would have been great with a Lee Jordan minifigure to do the commentary. He was legendary at this!

Bag 3 gives us the last two figures (Oliver Wood and Marcus Flint) and the parts needed to build the end of the oval along with three goal posts.

Down in the left corner is a stud-shooter to shoot bludgers at the players. There are also a chest with Quidditch equipment (bludgers and quaffles) and a small table with the Quidditch Cup trophy.

Adding the towers and you will have half a Quidditch pitch. Let the game begin!

Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor keeper, is set up on a long transparent arm, which can be controlled by a level behind the goals to move him from side to side to block the goalposts. Why, you may think? Marcus Flint comes with a black broom with a stud shooter clicked on that allows you to launch the quaffle towards the goal hoops. Oliver may need all his skills as keeper or the score board will lit up!

It is an interesting play feature that has not been seen in previous Quidditch sets. Of course, the shooter attachment can be shifted to a Gryffindor broom and a Slytherin can be attached as keeper, so you can take turns to see who will win.

But wait, there is more…

Along with the 2018 wave of sets, we also got the Harry Potter Collectible Minifigures (CMF) Series 1, which included two minifigures that complements the Quidditch Match set well.

Firstly, we got Draco Malfoy is his Slytherin Quidditch robes. Now he can chase the snitch along with Harry. I discussed this in my review of the Harry Potter CMF series 1 – Part 3 review.

In the Harry Potter CMF series 1 we also got Dean Thomas, dressed up in his Gryffindor Quidditch team supporter attire, with a scarf in Gryffindor colours around his neck, and the included accessory being a small flag to cheer for his house team. He is perfect as spectator in one of the Quidditch towers, as discussed in my Harry Potter CMF series 1 – Part 2 review.

In addition to these two great supplements to the Quidditch Match set, we had the Bricktober 2018 pack with four Harry Potter themed figures, with one of them being Madam Hoch as pictured below. So that is your chance to get her, should you have missed out on the 2010 version. I reviewed the Bricktober pack back in 2018.

Finally, it is worth mentioning the Hermione minifigure we got in the 2019 LEGO Harry Potter Advent Calendar – 14 December, as this shows a Hermione much better dressed up for a Quidditch game than the figure included in the Quidditch Match set itself.

When it comes to Quidditch robes players robes, unfortunately, we are yet to see official versions of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw robes. There are however custom ones like like those made by Potterbrick shown below (similar to the 2010 design in Quidditch Match set 4737).

Imagine if LEGO would release something similar. Hopefully we will see that one day – maybe in the rumoured Harry Potter CMF series 2?

Conclusion

I’m summary, this is a really good set. We have seen other Quidditch sets previously, but this one has a good size capturing the essence of a Quidditch pitch. And it is reasonably priced, when considering the inclusion of six good minifigures, including Professor Snape, who was otherwise in 2018 only included in the Whomping Willow set.

Should you desire so, buying a second one will allow you to combine to get a full oval surrounded by with eight towers full of spectators. You may consider chasing up Bricklink or similar for other head and hair pieces for the Quidditch players in the second set. Can you make the chasers Angelina, Alicia or Katie? Or what about the beaters Fred and George Weasley? 

So if you don’t have any Quidditch sets yet, and is into LEGO Harry Potter, this set should be the one to get – and ideally before it retires from LEGO’s online shop.

With this, I’ll finish this review and start preparing mentally for the 2020 Harry Potter sets, that based on last year’s experience should be revealed very soon.

Till then – Build the Magic!