Well, it's early July which means that speculation over this year's Winter Village set is well overdue. All we know so far is the set number (10263) and a Hungarian toy shop has it listed at 32,980 Forint (approximately £90).
Recent sets have been unveiled increasingly late in the season:
10259 Winter Village Station was officially announced on August 22
10254 Winter Holiday Train on August 11
10249 Winter Village Toy Shop on August 18
10245 Santa's Workshop on August 9 (at San Francisco Bricks by the Bay)
10235 Winter Village Market on July 13 (at Toronto BrickFête)
10229 Winter Village Cottage on August 5
The last 3 all leaked a week or so before the official announcement, a phenomenon that has sadly diminished in recent years.
So what's it going to be this year ? It's always fun to guess how new pieces (particularly minifigure torsos) in any given year may appear in the subsequent WV set and
60202 Outdoor Adventures includes several new torsos that would work well in a Winter Sports type of set. So, based on no inside knowledge whatsoever, I'm going to call it for a Winter Ski Resort, complete with cable car (see
41324 Snow Resort Ski Lift) and a lovely Alpine apres ski venue...and if all that can come in under £90, so much the better!
Failing that, I'd like to see a Winter Village Chocolate Factory/Sweet Shop, ideally taking some design cues from
1620 Chocolate Factory.
Any other ideas out there ?
Comments
I was just reading through last years predictions. It seems like a Candy Shop or Sweet Shop of some sort was the number on prediction (that and the WV Sewer Works). I'm just wondering if the recent release of #31077 will somehow make that less likely?
Along the lines of @Bumblepants, I would like to see a WV Fire Station w/ Fire Truck. It would be a great addition to the line of buildings already released and would be highly marketable in my opinion.
I'd also love to see a WV Town Hall of sorts. It would really help to tie down the Village and would be a great central piece to center the Market and other lesser sets (like last years #40263 and #40262).
Or the WV Sausage Factory. Because why not?
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?M=hol106#T=S&O={"iconly":0}
TLG have proven they can choose good designers for interiors on the Friends and Elves themes, so why not spread the love to the minifigure themes? Even something similar to an Unexpected Gathering would be a nice approach.
Santa Hot-Air Balloon!!!
I like the idea of a chocolate/candy/dessert shop.
I keep hoping for a Winter Village Inn - basically a pub, but not a pub to side step the loosely enforced content rules.
Other possibilities I can think of:
Winter Village Clock Tower (side step on a church like building)
Winter Village Cafe - wouldn't surprise me in the slightest
Winter Village Farm - could be interesting but would likely need to be too big to be done well
Winter Village Hall - probably too UK-centric but I grew up in a small village and all the events took place here or the village school...
Winter Village School house - done in the style of a victoriana school house that's been updated with the times could be awesome.
I really hope that alongside a new release we get a re-release. I can understand why people were so annoyed with the re-release of the Toy Store as it replaced a new release. However for those of use who missed on sets first time round it would be good to see them again as long as it's not at the expense of a new designed set.
I would like a Christmas and snow decorated log cabin bigger than those released as 3in1 creator sets.
If any Lego designers are looking at this thread, that would be fantastic!