Harry Potter

Hogwarts Wizard's Chess

The one scene from the first film that still gives me chills, and a chess set you can actually play.

Brick Rated Score

4.0/5

Set 76392 · 2021

Pieces873

Minifigs4

Year2021

Set number76392

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The verdict

This recreates the giant chessboard showdown from the first film, and it wins me over on nostalgia before I even open the box.

You get 32 brick-built pieces you can genuinely play a game with, plus four minifigures including that pearl-gold 20th anniversary Snape everyone chases. The build gets repetitive and the board is famously slippery, so it is not the one to buy if you want engineering thrills. But as a display-and-play tribute to a beloved moment, it delivers.

Best for: Harry Potter fans who want a real, playable chess set with movie-scene sentiment

The full review

What it is

The wizard's chess scene is the moment the first film stops being cozy and gets genuinely tense, so a LEGO set built around it was always going to get me. This is that broken, dust-and-rubble chamber turned into a working board: 32 buildable chess pieces, black against white, sitting on a raised frame with the ruined pillars and arches around the edge. The pieces are the star. Each one is brick-built, and yes, they smash apart exactly like they do on screen when a knight gets taken, then snap back together in a few seconds. That single detail is what got me. It turns a static model into something you actually want to knock over.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the caveats, because there are a few real ones. The build is repetitive by its very nature. A full chess set means eight identical pawns in black, then eight identical pawns in white, then matching pairs of rooks, knights, and bishops. If you love a build that keeps surprising you, this is going to feel like a production line. The board itself is another sticking point that comes up again and again: the surface is covered in smooth 2x4 tiles, which look lovely but turn the whole thing into an ice rink. Nudge the table and your carefully placed pieces go sliding. And at the original price, for a build this straightforward, it asked a bit much.

Who it's for

So here is where I land. If you are a Harry Potter fan who loves this scene, or someone who genuinely wants a chess set you can play with real weight and character, this is an easy yes. Kids get a proper game plus collectible wizard card tiles, and the smashable pieces make it more fun to actually use than most display sets. If you are a builder chasing clever techniques or complex engineering, though, this is not the one, and you will be bored by pawn number five. Now that it is retired and climbing in value, sentiment is doing a lot of the pricing, so buy it because you love the moment, not as an investment gamble.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this is a patience exercise dressed up as a chess set. You settle into a rhythm assembling piece after piece, and because it is a full 32-piece game, you repeat each design multiple times. The pawns are the most charming small touch: each one wears a minifigure miner's helmet on backwards to form that domed pawn head, eight in black and eight in white. It sounds silly and it works beautifully. The taller pieces, the rooks, knights, bishops, and royals, are more involved and satisfying, but you build them in matched pairs so even they come around twice.

The headline part is not on the board at all. It is the pearl-gold Professor Snape, released to mark 20 years of LEGO Harry Potter, and he is the single most valuable element in the box, driving a big share of the set's value on the aftermarket. Alongside him you get exclusive Harry, Hermione, and Ron figures, all specific to this set. Part-count value is fair rather than generous at 873 pieces, but you are paying for the concept and those figures more than raw brick quantity. The randomized collectible wizard card tiles are a nice hook for younger collectors chasing the full run of 16.

Fun facts

01The pearl-gold Snape minifigure was made exclusively to celebrate 20 years of LEGO Harry Potter, and it now accounts for roughly a third of the whole set's resale value.
02Each pawn's rounded head is actually a minifigure miner's helmet placed on backwards, eight in black and eight in white.
03The set includes three randomly selected collectible wizard card tiles, part of a series of 16 to track down across the 2021 anniversary sets.
04It retired in late 2022 and has since roughly doubled from its original 59.99 dollar RRP on the secondary market.