REVIEW: Advent calendar 4 December 2020

After an initial minifigure, the advent calendar as taken us on a trip to micro-scale land. While an interesting, and and for me a somewhat surprising excursion, the question is whether day four take us back to minifigure scale? Read on to see what we got…

Oh, I like it! Today’s model, the Beauxbatons Carriage, is a perfect follow up to the two previous days. So now we have three models that all tie together, with the arrival of the the two other wizarding schools for the Tri-wizard tournament in the Goblet of Fire. A great idea for a calendar centred around the Yule Ball in that book.

Like the Durmstrang ship we got yesterday, the Beauxbatons Carriage has only featured in one set previously, set 75958 from 2019.

4 December model

But let us have a look at today’s model.

We have had two days in a row getting models with 18 bricks – which is a pretty high count for an advent calendar. Today we got even more, with 19 pieces (and none of those were spares). So from a piece count perspective, it is a good start.

Putting together the pieces, this is what you get.

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It is a hard model to build in small scale. I think they have done well, even though the wheels may be slightly large. Having only one flying horse in front of the carriage can also be seen as a limitation, but for an advent calendar, they are constrained how many pieces they can use for each model, so I can understand this. You can probably find a way to add more horses yourself, should you wish so. And it is clear what the model represents.

I did find the horse was sitting really close to the carriage, and found that a bar 1L with clip from my spare bricks pile (instead of the 1×1 plate with clip) would allow it to sit at a greater distance instead. A light grey would be better than the black I have used as example below.

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Of course, the whole model begs to be photographed with yesterday’s setup, so here it is.

I really like how these last three models tie in together. Today’s model is really good, but the wheels quite large, with the pins protruding. I don’t know how to build it any better though, but I order not to inflate the scale at this early point, I’ll award it four of five housepoints.

What will tomorrow bring? More micro-scale – or will we jump back to minifigure scale? Just one sleep and we will find out. Check back tomorrow on the Advent Calendar page to see.

Till then, Build the Magic!