[REVIEW] 70349 Ruina's Lock & Roller

[makoy]

I feel between a rock and a hard place selecting this set because it is my first Nexo Knights to review. Could this be the last? Let's find out in my 7th RA review, set number 70349 - Ruina's Lock & Roller.

Overview

Name:  70349 - Ruina's Lock and Roller
Theme: LEGO System / NEXO Knights /  Season 3
Year: 2017 (1H)
Pieces: 208
Minifigures: 3
Price: USD 19.99 / EUR 19.99 / GBP 14.99 / SGD 34.99 / MYR 89.90 
Resources: Brickset and Bricklink

Quote

Help Aaron rescue the queen from the wicked Ruina and her Lock & Roller, featuring translucent-blue claws and a minifigure cockpit, plus a detachable rear prison carriage and Forbidden Power pole to activate the opening door function. Includes two scannable shields and three minifigures.

• Includes three minifigures: Aaron, Queen Halbert and Ruina.
• Ruina’s Lock & Roller features a detachable GargoBike vehicle with minifigure cockpit and translucent-blue claws, and a rear vehicle with opening cage, collapsible Forbidden Power function, shield holder and wing elements.
• Attach the shield to Aaron's feet and use as a hoverboard to role-play a flying rescue scene!
• Push the Forbidden Power shield holder to open the cage doors.
• Weapons include Aaron's Blazer Bow stud shooter, Queen Halbert’s club and Ruina’s Lightning Scythe.
• Also includes Aaron’s shield holder.
• Download the free LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™: MERLOK 2.0 app to your smartphone or tablet. Ask your parents’ permission.
• Scan shields for the NEXO Powers Gorilla Roar and Forbidden Power Wrecking Wrath, then power up in the LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™ game!
• Watch all your favorite NEXO KNIGHTS™ characters on Cartoon Network.
• Measures over 4” (12cm) high, 9” (23cm) long and 3” (9cm) wide.

Introduction

We are on a rocky start because I have to admit I am more of a Ninjago and Star Wars fan. However, I do appreciate the villains in Nexo Knights. Now before anyone cries foul, there were only 2 things I expected from this set when I bought it - (1) the minifigs must be great and (2) the parts should be serviceable for MOCs in order to give it a decent rating. Now join me as I pick this set apart starting from the packaging.

The front panel of the box shows Ruina riding a rock creature pulling  a carriage, prison carriage or tumbrel. Whatever you want to call it, that's how the set got it's name "Lock & Roller" if that wasn't obvious enough. Btw, the rock creature is called GargoBike but I will just call it the rock creature because it does not look like a gargoyle enough to me.

At the back of the box, we see Ruina fighting against Aaron and it shows the play feature of the prison carriage.

At the side panel, we see the minifigures included -- Ruina, Queen Halbert and Aaron. At the side flaps of the box, you'll see the name of the forbidden power as "Wrecking Wrath" and the power up as "Gorilla Roar".

Inside, we get 3 clear plastic bags without numbers, 2 dark bluish grey wheels and a stapled instruction booklet. I'm very glad to report there is no sticker in this set.

 

Build

As there is no numbered bags in this set, all I needed to do was arrange all these parts in one go before I built the entire set.

In order to judge this set fair and square, I watched a couple of NEXO Knights episodes to appreciate the character of Ruina Stoneheart more, as well as understand how her Lock & Roller prison carriage was used in the series.

The first thing I immediately noticed while watching the TV show was the absence of pole holding the forbidden power shield.  It is not on the carriage at all; there is no "target" per se. It's possible that the designer added this play feature for the sake of adding play feature because it is not integral in the episode's story. Unless you watch the TV show you will not care about the difference. Depending on how you appreciate or dislike NEXO Knights,  not caring about the TV show could be a good thing or a bad thing. Pick your poison.

Moving on, I like to add that I am not a fan of medium blue as contrasting colour or highlight for the build, especially the one on top of the roof of the carriage. In the show, the carriage has a roof with spiky rocks that look like fangs or stalagmites rising at each corner of the roof. It did not translate well on the set or perhaps the designer was trying to achieve a different design altogether. Those medium blue cheese slopes just look like meaningless greebles.

 

Best-angle-view

The use of trans-light blue looks good on the wheels and on the claws of the rock creature pulling the carriage, representing the flowing current of electricity. However, I have to nitpick on the use of trans-light blue rock panel in front of the carriage. It is supposed to be a current of electric field serving as the windshield of the carriage. The problem is -- I associate this colour of rock panel with ice or glacier. It does not help that I also own Elsa's Castle so it is just hard to imagine it an electric field covering the carriage. Frankly, I prefer if it is just a panel, not a rock panel.

Maybe it was a mistake watching the TV show after all because this makes me compare the version of the rock creature in the TV show. The beak of the rock monster should have been just dark bluish grey and not this fancy medium blue. I think that the use of medium blue colour is unnecessary when the animated version looks fine (arguable better) without a different coloured beak.

 

Back view (ugly view)

If you think it is narrow, it's because it is. This is comparable to the several old-school Castle carriage that I own since they are also 4-studs wide inside. I guess the standard accommodation inside LEGO carriages has not changed since then.

 

Not the best place to be in

As shown at the box front panel, the carriage has a mechanism to open the floor when you hit the shield holder. I will discuss more about this play feature in great detail later.

 

Side view

The carriage has a slight tilt and you can see the shadow of the 3rd wheel in front of the carriage to keep it from tipping over. When you detach the stone creature, the carriage will still keep its balance.

 

Front view

The front view is decent. I'm still not a fan of the medium blue colour but I do like the use of purple cylinder as bike wheels because even without the carriage, the stone creature can balance on two wheels and it can be played independently of the carriage. The creature's head can also tilt up and down apart from swivelling sideways.

 

Hit me baby one more time!

I want to address the most frustrating thing about this set:  the play feature that won't work most of the time! 

Hear me out. This is the single feature that was unnecessarily added in the carriage so that you can target something and yet it does not function well enough. I'm not a Physicist  but I found out that the shield piece works so well in deflecting the towball "bullet/arrow" so much that the force is greatly reduced when it hits the target. This renders the stud shooter useless.

A simple solution to make this play feature work more effectively -- just remove the freaking shield. The shield holder will catch the towball easier because the recessed area is exposed without the shield. This will force the shield holder to push the mechanism so much easier.

To be fair with this set, the official description mentioned that you have to "push" the Forbidden Power shield holder to open the cage doors, not hit with the stud shooter. Wait... what? Open the cage doors? Even the official description is wrong! Pushing the forbidden power shield does not open the cage doors. It opens the cage floor. The cage door can swing open but it does not open when you hit the shield holder. It's a poor description to a poor play feature that is poorly executed. 

 

I honestly wish that I was posing a horse, not a stone creature, when I took this picture above.

To wrap things up in this section, here are the extra parts not used on the build after following the instruction booklet thoroughly.

 

Parts

This set contains some new parts (new moulds) as well as new colours of existing LEGO elements. Unlike the previous sets that I reviewed, I am not really excited with the new parts selection here. I still like the new parts included but there is nothing fancy about any of these, in my humble opinion.

Just to highlight what I like the most --

I already mentioned the excellent purple cylinder piece. You get 2 of these in the set.

The rock claw/fingers piece was also introduced in NEXO Knights in this set along with Jestro's Headquarters so this is also a new part. Getting this set is the cheapest way to get them at the time of my purchase. You get 3 of these.

The blunt spear head, which looks cool as an ornament but looks ridiculous as a weapon, was also introduced in Season 3 wave of NEXO Knights sets. You get 3 of these and they are used as limbs in Aaron's bow (1 spare). If you don't believe it's ridiculous as a weapon, just look up an image of 70366 Battle Suit Lance.

 

Minifigures

I am very glad to share that I enjoy the minifigures in this set. It is odd that when I bought this set, I was looking forward to Ruina the most. However, when I already opened the set and had a chance to stare and take pictures of the minifigures for a couple of days, I now like Queen Halbert minifigure the most.

Many people raved about Ruina's hairpiece and it is one of the reasons why I was looking forward to getting Ruina. In a lot of ways, getting Ruina from this set had paid off my excitement, but with diminishing return. Apart from the hairpiece, there is nothing to be excited about the minifigure. Her appeal to me is shortlived and that's why I appreciate the Queen Halbert minifigure more lately.

Queen Halbert's torso is printed with metallic gold and silver patterns which match the design of King Halbert armour from set 70327 - The King's Mech.

All the minifigures have excellent printing on torso and legs. All have dual face printing. How I wish that all LEGO minifigures always come with dual face printing. If they can do it in NEXO Knights they can certainly do this in other themes.

 

In comparison to the Season 1 armour, the new armour looks sharper and it covers less area of the torso. It is supposed to be an upgrade to the season 1 suit because but I guess more is less? The trans-neon orange parts are good but I think it's a little overdone. I prefer the non-transparent visor though I won't mind using the trans-neon orange visor to upgrade my Ice Planet minifigures.

 

Conclusion

I am glad that my opinion about this set did not hit rock bottom.  It has some good things that I can appreciate even if the non-functioning play feature had frustrated me. I normally don't allow my son to use stud's shooter because it's hard to look for missing round plates or towballs so imaginary arrows will. I also observed that even if he does not like NEXO Knights villains in general, he played the GargoBike. I detached the bike so that Ruina can rock and roll really well without the weight of the carriage. 

The thing about NEXO Knights -- the story and character development is so poor in the TV show that even if I take the time to learn more about the characters, I don't get the same level of empathy or interest at all when compared to Ninjago and Friends. Most of the villains in NEXO Knights are disposable. Perhaps it was meant to be that way.

 

Don't you know it's rude to stare?

Somehow, removing the medium blue piece at the tip makes this stone creature look more fierce.

 

Let me make up to you dear

If I will weigh the reason to buy this set, the biggest factor is getting the minifigures only. If you have King Halbert, Queen Halbert in her gold armour matches very well with King's Halbert armour. IMHO, the royal Halbert family is probably the best thing in NEXO Knights because the family dynamics is funny and quite different than what LEGO has done before. Queen Halbert can win her own battles and Macy is one of the more interesting characters LEGO had developed in recent years.

Enough of the Halbert family. Let me reveal the final verdict. 

  

Review summary

Playability: 6/10 - The poorly executed play feature ruined it. Yeah right. Ruined Lock & Roller.
Design / Building Experience: 7/10 - Design follows typical carriage design. Rock creature looks good. Use of medium blue pieces in this set is questionable.
Minifigures:  9/10 - Awesome looking minifigures and probably the best reason to get this set.
Price / Value for money: 8/10 -  An average value for am average set. Parts selection is okay.
Overall: 7.5/10 - An okay set if you're getting the minifigures; however, it leaves a lot to be desired.

[Whiteagle]

Ironically enough, Ruina's disposability in the episode she appears in is due to her actually having a story arc via being a link to Merlok's and Monstrux shared past.
That said, Battle Armor Queen Halbert is more that worth it for this set!

I bricklinked the parts to both symmetrize Ruina's staff (Seriously, it would have been nice to have gotten a second swirly dish, and it would have made it more show accurate) and to turn the Queen's Hammer into a proper ORANGE TRANSPARENT CHAINSAW HALBERD (My backstory for the Queen is that she's a stranded Ice Planet 2002 female, hence all the Trans-neon Orange Space Schizo Tech!)

[Lordofdragonss]

IMO Best cart next to the Skeleton one from fantasy era.
The Gargoylebike rolls suprisingly well! The set has good pieces.  My only wish was it had Macy in it, but oh well! Great we get great Queen once again!

[makoy]

7 hours ago, Whiteagle said:

Ironically enough, Ruina's disposability in the episode she appears in is due to her actually having a story arc via being a link to Merlok's and Monstrux shared past.

Yeah I read your spoiler in the NK 2017 thread. 

You're right that they should have added an extra one. I have that same disk from Ultra Agents so I can use that one to make a symmetrical staff for Ruina.

15 minutes ago, Lordofdragonss said:

IMO Best cart next to the Skeleton one from fantasy era.
The Gargoylebike rolls suprisingly well! The set has good pieces.  My only wish was it had Macy in it, but oh well! Great we get great Queen once again!

I agree. Story wise, I don't get why Aaron needs to be there all the time with the Queen. Seems like they have something.  

[Japanbuilder]

Did a review of this set also at Brickset. Though I do think kids will make do with anything this set offers (since my kids love rolling it around like crazy) the flaws you mention are a real downer. 

My biggest gripe in my review though was that the Queen was caught again >< That is two years of sets where she has to be rescued. I wish they came up with another story involving the sets she appears in, specially since she is actually tough in the show. Though I will say that given her personality this is the best version of the queen when compared to last year's Infernox set. 

 

 

[makoy]

Did your kids started with Ninjago or any similar theme? That could make a difference on their reception to NK.

For the record, I don't acknowledge that this set is an example of "damsel in distress" because everyone gets caught in NK, one way or another. 

I do agree that this is the best version of the Queen and this set does not represent her character very well.

[Japanbuilder]

1 hour ago, makoy said:

Did your kids started with Ninjago or any similar theme? That could make a difference on their reception to NK.

For the record, I don't acknowledge that this set is an example of "damsel in distress" because everyone gets caught in NK, one way or another. 

I do agree that this is the best version of the Queen and this set does not represent her character very well.

Naw, we don't have Ninjago at home. NK is the theme they know best and they love the characters a lot. And you need not acknowledge this set for anything really. Though, if you bought it it would be kinda obvious the damsel appears to be in distress, specially if you don't know what NK is. I mean she is on the cover of the box clearly imprisoned. 

My view was mostly through adult eyes, if you got Infernox, you saved the queen last year. And now this set comes along, hmm. But all that aside I know from looking at my kids that they love the carriage and rolling it over the carpet seems to bring smiles to their faces and I guess that is all that counts in the end. 

[makoy]

10 minutes ago, Japanbuilder said:

Naw, we don't have Ninjago at home. NK is the theme they know best and they love the characters a lot.

This pretty much sums up what NK is to Ninjago. My son started from Ninjago and dislikes NK. He knows the character and whatnot but he does not care about the villains. I think it could go both ways. Well, as long as they enjoy it, I let them be. I still have this carriage at home  -- 6042 Dungeon Hunters and I had so much fun with it as a child even though there is no target to hit. :)

Btw, I got the Infernox set few days AFTER I got this set so I don't have the preconceived notion what others had with the previous set. 

[Whiteagle]

6 hours ago, makoy said:

I agree. Story wise, I don't get why Aaron needs to be there all the time with the Queen. Seems like they have something.  

Maybe it has to do with

Spoiler

Aaron being Clay's chosen successor for when he turns completely to stone?

6 hours ago, Japanbuilder said:

My biggest gripe in my review though was that the Queen was caught again >< That is two years of sets where she has to be rescued. I wish they came up with another story involving the sets she appears in, specially since she is actually tough in the show. Though I will say that given her personality this is the best version of the queen when compared to last year's Infernox set.

4 hours ago, Japanbuilder said:

My view was mostly through adult eyes, if you got Infernox, you saved the queen last year.

Well there is huge difference here story wise: Infernox was a non-canonical store exclusive just to get a mini-figure of the Queen into a set, but the Rock & Roller was the centerpiece of Season 3's penultimate episode "Rock Bottom," and the Queen's Kidnapping is a HUGE deal that is a terrible blow to Knighton's moral.

6 hours ago, makoy said:

I do agree that this is the best version of the Queen and this set does not represent her character very well.

Well there is a reason I went out of my way to get this set and not Infernox; It's the one that finally gives us the Queen in her BATTLE ARMOR!
As you know from the show, she's not one to go down without a fight, and in the episode that debuts the Rock & Roller she does go down swinging (Literally, she was nabs during a yearly visit to the village of Hammerin for their Hammer Festival, and they only caught her after the Rogul of Relentless Rust destroyed her weapon!)

[WhiteFang]

Thanks Makoy for delivering this detailed wonderful review. I had finally managed to it this set at a very good discount. I wanted this set largely for the minifigures especially for Queen Halbert and Ruina, similar to Beatrix. 

[makoy]

15 hours ago, WhiteFang said:

Thanks Makoy for delivering this detailed wonderful review. I had finally managed to it this set at a very good discount. I wanted this set largely for the minifigures especially for Queen Halbert and Ruina, similar to Beatrix. 

Good deal for the minifigures. :) Queen Halbert is really the star in this set.