Review: 40564 Winter Elves Scene
Posted by Huw,If this year is anything like the last few, 40564 Winter Elves Scene will be the first of two Christmas-themed gifts with purchase, with the second becoming available during December.
It's stylistically similar to 2021's 40484 Santa's Front Yard which was supposed to be followed by 40489 Mr. and Mrs. Claus' Living Room, but that was cancelled at the last minute due, some claim, to names on Santa's naughty list being legible.
Anyway, this one will be available this weekend and next, free with purchases at LEGO.com exceeding £170/$170/€170.
Summary
40564 Winter Elves Scene, 372 pieces.
A delightful and detailed wintery scene
- Substantial build
- Extravagantly detailed base and backdrop
- A lovely bit of squirrel!
- Unfortunately, the high spend threshold will keep it out of reach for many
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
The set's 372 pieces, many of which are 1x1s of one sort or another, arrive in four bags.
Construction is straightforward but quite fiddly on account of all the small pieces. The base is flamboyantly detailed with ice, rocks and mounds of snow, and features a turntable linked to a splat gear on the front edge which allows you to rotate it.
The backdrop of snow-capped mountains and dark green conifers uses a forced perspective technique to give the scene depth which I think is quite effective.
Two more trees, built using layers of wedge plates and cheese slopes, populate the foreground, and a string of lights hangs between them.
Elves have appeared in sets before, but this is the first time one has been attired in a red jumper.
The inclusion of a squirrel is most welcome particularly if, like me, you don't have any yet!
One Elf is holding a snowball and is accompanied by a sledge carrying more.
The other is equipped with ice skates, one of which needs to be removed in order to attach him to the icy turntable.
Overall it's a delightful scene and a substantial gift with purchase. However, I do miss the days when purchasing the year's Winter Village set was enough to secure one of the seasonal GWPs, which admittedly were much smaller than nowadays.
It will be available this weekend and next, free with purchases at LEGO.com exceeding £170/$170/€170.
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41 comments on this article
It looks very cluttered. Too many 1x1s on the ground, and those random bits of trans. light blue are too much IMHO.
Sorry, but it doesn't do it for me.
"The elves have appeared in sets before"
The red torso is new is it not?
New red torso. But other than that, this is too similar to previous GWPs
This is cute but I look at the frozen pond and can't help but think that it would have been better with the the trans. light blue quarter circle tiles that debuted this year.
@Spaceman82 said:
""The elves have appeared in sets before"
The red torso is new is it not?"
Yes, I think so. I could be mistaken, but I don’t think there are any other unique pieces in this set. So apart from the red torso, you could reproduce the set from parts you already have or can get from LEGO or BL. The instructions will be online in due course.
'Lovely bit of squirrel'
Looking forward to getting this. Maybe an hour or two after Friday night dinner!
shouldn't our squirrelly friend be hibernating?
Far, far too many 1x1 and 1x2 pieces. In order to keep piece count (and, therefore, perceived value) this set and many others have a huge amount of 1x1 and 1x2 pieces.
The visual result is a busy, cluttered set. I still like the set and I'll be getting it because it's free.
Hoping that red elf torso shows up in other sets, or pick-a-brick.
Thank you for the info about the red torso, I've edited the text.
@AgentKallus said:
"shouldn't our squirrelly friend be hibernating?"
No, squirrels do not hibernate. They collect nuts and cones to have something to nibble through the winter.
@sjr60 said:
"'Lovely bit of squirrel'
Looking forward to getting this. Maybe an hour or two after Friday night dinner!"
S??t on it!
I missed an opportunity to use that in my review summary, so have added it now :}
Our American readers must be wondering what we are on about...
Other than the fact that this set has elves, I don't think this set is better than 40416, and the threshold to get that set was much lower.
@Huw said:
" @sjr60 said:
"'Lovely bit of squirrel'
Looking forward to getting this. Maybe an hour or two after Friday night dinner!"
S??t on it!
I missed an opportunity to use that in my review summary, so have added it now :}
Our American readers must be wondering what we are on about..."
Not just Americans….
@Huw said:
" @sjr60 said:
"'Lovely bit of squirrel'
Looking forward to getting this. Maybe an hour or two after Friday night dinner!"
S??t on it!
I missed an opportunity to use that in my review summary, so have added it now :}
Our American readers must be wondering what we are on about..."
RIP Mr Ritter - comedy genius :)
@jhuntin1 said:
"Other than the fact that this set has elves, I don't think this set is better than 40416, and the threshold to get that set was much lower."
Threshold for that set is only $20 lower than this one, it was $/£/€ 150
@Huw said:
"Our American readers must be wondering what we are on about..."
Standard!
@Binnekamp said:
"It looks very cluttered. Too many 1x1s on the ground, and those random bits of trans. light blue are too much IMHO.
Sorry, but it doesn't do it for me."
Agreed, this GWP along with last year's weird brick-built reindeer set have been pretty lame winter-season GWPs. Bring back awesome GWP sets!
Yes, please explain the inside joke about the squirrels.
Thank you,
Americans
@woosterlegos said:
"Yes, please explain the inside joke about the squirrels.
Thank you,
Americans"
And us Canadians too... please... we dont get it!
I am more looking forward to the FREE baking set with $65 purchase
@ggfile said:
" @woosterlegos said:
"Yes, please explain the inside joke about the squirrels.
Thank you,
Americans"
And us Canadians too... please... we dont get it!"
Catchphrase of Martin, the dad on sitcom Friday Night Dinner
Similar style to Santa's Front Yard 40484 but the backgrounds are different enough that they wouldn't work right beside each other. Wish they made these "modular" so you could expand the scene.
@Huw:
Besides buying a copy of the Squirrel Battle Pack, I picked up a few through B&P before the merge, and again through PAB after they came back. I also helped my LUG get grey and red squirrels on LUGBulk, where I picked up 50 of each (Squirrel Girl’s gotta have an army!), and I’m already trying to get the third on this year’s order. Oh, and one of the other members of my LUG went in for 200 each.
And no, we’re not wondering what you’re on about. It’s clearly some British thingummy, whatever it is.
@Spaceman82:
I was thinking not, but it looks like they’ve made three green torsos and one pink one. Then I remembered I got some CMF Queen’s Guard torsos to use for red ones.
@AgentKallus:
Depends on the species. Many ground squirrels do, but the Eastern Gray Squirrel stays active all winter, living off the many nuts and seeds it hides during the fall, and it’s fat reserves (they look about twice as big before winter as they do right after).
@guachi:
You’re right. They should have just given us a dozen 2x4 bricks and told us to imagine harder when we complained that it looked like something a toddler would build.
@jhuntin1:
They appear to have borrowed a tactic from Disney. When the parks attract too many visitors, they creep up the ticket price until it tempers the interest enough to bring the crowd to a manageable level. Likewise, they’ve been having problems keeping certain GWPs in stock (holiday, Ideas, and May 4th are often the worst offenders), and seem to have incrementally bumped up the spend threshold until supply lasted through most of the offer period instead of being sold out by morning.
The threshold isn´t the major problem here. The boring and lackluster set is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_Night_Dinner
While i don’t love the set and it doesn’t entice me to buy anything if I do decide to get something I will gladly take this for free. I do like the red torso so that is a plus. The rest is okay. It isn’t a bad set and I don’t think it looks too bad with the 1x1s on the ground. It feels snowy to me.
If names being legible on the naughty list was the reason for cancellation, why did that list make it into 40499 ? I don't buy it.
what I do buy, or will buy, is the amount needed for this lol. It's my first year having a winter village and I need to populate that thing! Not to mention those trans tiles, gear, string/web, and a SQUIRREL!!!
@ShilohCyan:
Santa keeps _two_ lists. The sleigh got the other one. And we spent a couple days figuring out the most likely names on that list, even though they printed it at such a resolution as to make them illegible.
Very nice vignette, i like it more than the Santa's front yard gwp. But I have nothing no to buy from Lego to get this so i hope it will be reasonably priced (im hoping around 30 $) on aftermarket
Fun fact about the SQUIRREL. After getting one and exercising my curiosity on examining it I found the hole in the base of the Squirrel allows it to fit FULLY onto the neck of a minifig, allowing you to completely replace a head should you wish.
So I now have a build at home with Mr Squirrel-for-a-head.
Looks like he'll be getting a friend this Christmas hopefully.
Not even sorry.
@lost_scotsman said:
"Fun fact about the SQUIRREL. After getting one and exercising my curiosity on examining it I found the hole in the base of the Squirrel allows it to fit......"
Blimey... You nearly had me looking for an RSPCA contact number!
I was planning to aim for the Lego House GWP anyway, so this nice little set is a welcome bonus.
I do sometimes wonder how many other things I could do if I wasn't burning all my money on pieces of Danish plastic...
Can't wait to get this! I collect all WV related sets. It looks like it will work very well with last year's GWPs.
It doesn't look as good as previous Christmas GWP offerings to me. I'll likely just get it on the aftermarket, as I expect there'll be many of these right after the VIP weekend.
@PurpleDave, Sheesh! So you’ve got a lot of squirrels. Betcha don’t have lots of Alien Conquest clinger headpieces.
@lost_scotsman:
Fun fact about the SQUIRREL. If you drill a hole in their neck, you can pin a bow on Tippy-Toe:
https://brickshelf.com/gallery/PurpleDave/Humor/c39dd926-b1a6-44a7-9a6d-7fa8d888c912.jpeg
Also not sorry. I did, however, figure out how to cram two more squirrels on that tiny little scooter. I haven’t given up on adding a fifth…
@Rutger:
Best not to think on it. The answer would be very boring.
@Zander:
I don’t have any goats. Or a Thanos for Squirrel Girl to get medieval on.
@ShilohCyan said:
"If names being legible on the naughty list was the reason for cancellation, why did that list make it into 40499 ? I don't buy it.
what I do buy, or will buy, is the amount needed for this lol. It's my first year having a winter village and I need to populate that thing! Not to mention those trans tiles, gear, string/web, and a SQUIRREL!!! "
Cause 40499 has the nice list. The 40499 has the naughty list!
Even that I'm sceptical about higher prices I do accept higher threshold WHEN we are getting something more. For example 40487 was justified in my opinion. 170€ would be fair with snowman and wolf here.
@Huw Could You add photo of elves with swapped hats and legs?
It's cute, not enough to get me to spend $170, but it's cute.
@Spaceman82:
Having just set up my elves at Detroit Festival of Trees, I realized I actually used S4 Garden Gnome torsos.