THROWBACK THURSDAY REVIEW: Quidditch Match (2010 version)

Set 4737 – Quidditch Match

I teased a while ago an upcoming review of the 2010 Quidditch Match set to compare it with the 2018 set with the same name. With work being busy, it took longer than expected to write it up, but here is finally the (Quidditch) blast from the past. Being significantly smaller than the 2018 set in terms of bricks, does it stack up well? Here are my thoughts…

Background

Back around 2015 I decided I needed a full Quidditch pitch. Already owning a copy of the 2010 Quidditch Match set (which as we shall see, gives you the key components for half a pitch) I sourced a second set with slight shelf wear, but it ended up on my own shelf instead and remained an idea for the future. But while the excellent 2018 set is now available, I had also stocked up on extra Quidditch players in the 2010 design, so the plan remained on the table.

And here the other day, having recently reviewed the 2018 Quidditch Match set, I thought it would be fun to build the 2010 set again. So I found the extra copy and started building.

Box and content

The Harry Potter sets from 2010-11 all featured a red background, LEGO and Harry Potter logos in the upper left corner and a photo of the “trio” (Ron, Harry and Hermione) in the top right corner. In the lower left is a list of the included minifigures.

All of these design features remain for the current series of sets, though the photo of the trio has been updated and the background is now blue.

The main feature of the front is otherwise a photo showing the content: Quidditch goal posts, Quidditch players and Madam Hooch in her referee tower with Harry in the center on his Nimbus 2000 racing towards the snitch. The background of the photo is a graphic representation of a Quidditch pitch set between the mountains, which works well setting the scene for the set, though may falsely give the impression that you can create a great Quidditch pitch from this set alone.

Turning over the box, the back is more sobering, showing only the LEGO – no illusion of a larger Quidditch pitch. Normally, the back shows the play features, but there is not really much to show so it is an almost identical photo of the content, without the graphic background, making it more clear what you get. You can also see that the main features are swooping around the minifigures on their brooms and occasionally trying to shoot them down with the small catapults that have been included.

But let’s look at the actual content.

Minifigures

The set includes five minifigures:

• Madam Hooch
• Harry Potter
• Oliver Wood
• Draco Malfoy
• Marcus Flint

The figures are very detailed in printing and definitely much better than the early era Harry Potter figures. As such, in terms of detail, they stack up well with the 2018 equivalents.

Madam Rolanda Hooch is the Flying instructor, Quidditch referee, and coach at Hogwarts. She is a quite rare minifigure, with this being the only flesh coloured version apart from the one included in the Toys’R’Us 2018 Bricktober pack.

From the Gryffindor Quidditch team, we have the the team captain Oliver Wood and Harry Potter himself. While we have seen plenty of Harry Potter minifigures, this set was the first set to include Oliver Wood. Both comes with a torso printed to represent the dark red/bright orange Gryffindor Quidditch sweater, a dark red cape and white leg pieces. The uniform looks great and is only available in this set.

Two members of the Slytherin Quidditch team are included too, team captain Marcus Flint as well as Draco Malfoy who joined the team as seeker in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts. They both come dressed in Slytherin Quidditch uniforms, with a torso printed to represent the dark green/silver Slytherin Quidditch sweater, a dark green cape and white leg pieces. As it was the case with Olivier Wood, this was the first time we got Marcus Flint as minifigure.

Here is a photo of the five figures included.

Three of the figures come with alternate face prints, showing different moods (Draco and Harry) and in the case of Madam Hooch, when wearing flying googles.

Adding some of the accessories, here is what the line-up looks like.

The dark brown “carrots” look perfect as the bats the beaters use, and the helmets included looks just as the ones for example Ron Weasley was wearing when he became keeper on the Gryffindor team.

But we need a Quidditch pitch to play. So let us see what else is in the box…

The build

You start building the referee tower for Madam Hooch. It sits on a green 6×6 plate and is a fairly quick build. A clip on the side holds her broom while she watches the game from the sideline. The blue/grey colour scheme works quite well overall, complementing the colours of the uniforms of the two included teams nicely.

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Next up are the three goal posts, a small stand for the Quidditch cup trophy and two small catapults.

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The catapults may be fun for a couple of minutes till you’ve lost a few pieces under the furniture. I think they are meant to shoot for the Quidditch players (representing the bludgers), but I could be wrong and maybe you are expected to hit the quaffle through the Quidditch goal post rings instead. Good luck trying that…

But in the absence of other play features, it may have been why these otherwise quite useless catapults were included.

Conclusions

Overall, the set includes five well printed minifigures, including two which had not been released before, and Madam Hooch, which till that point had only been released with yellow head. The figures have aged well – the detail matches what you would expect today, and the helmets and bats probably provides better accessories than the newer 2018 set. And five minifigures in such a small set was quite unusual back then.

With this set, you will have the goal posts for one side the pitch and a tower. Another set will help you along having a full pitch, though you would have to add a lot more towers yourself, if you want to make it look like a real pitch.

Compared to the 2018 set, you do get less – let us be clear about that. The 2010 set only had 153 bricks while the 2018 set includes 500! But the core elements for a pitch are there (or at least half a pitch) which is great for kids who want to recreate the games swooping around characters, but if you want to display it as a real Quidditch pitch, the 2018 set, with three times the amount of bricks, does a much better job.

Overall, it was a great set when released back in 2010 and still holds up very well compared with the modern equivalents. This can be said pretty much about all the 2010-2011 series of sets which got me into LEGO Harry Potter.

I hope to bring more “throwback” reviews in the future.

Till then, Build the Magic!