REVIEW: 70324 Merlok's Library 2.0

[WhiteFang]

Hello everyone,

I am back again to share my next LEGO Nexo Knights review. I have earlier reviewed the 70325 Infernox captures the Queen and 70327 King's Mech earlier, and both sets gave me tremendous playing pleasure till this date. Well, it didn't just stopped there and I finally picked this new 70324 Merlok's Library 2.0 to complement my small LEGO Nexo Knights collection. I don't think I will be collecting every single set but pick and choose that I like. Without further ado, let me share another of this new excitement.

Name: 70324 Merlok's Library 2.0

Theme: LEGO System / Nexo Knights

Year: 2016

Pieces: 288

Minifigs: 3 minifigures

Price: USD $24.99, GBP 19.99, EURO 24.99, SGD $34.90

Resources: Brickset, BrickLink

Shoot down The Flame Bat and guard the Book of Revenge!

Watch out for the pesky Crust Smasher swooping in and stealing the spell book! Whizz-kid Ava Prentiss and heroic knight Lance Richmond are defending Merlok's Library 2.0. Can they fend off the Crust Smasher and stop the Book of Revenge falling into Jestro’s hands? Includes 2 scannable shields for NEXO Powers Toxic Sting and Ice Dragon.

• Includes 3 minifigures: Lance Richmond, Ava Prentiss and Crust Smasher.

• Features Merlok's Library 2.0 and The Flame Bat.

• Merlok's Library 2.0 features a prison with movable bars, 2 stud shooters, a hologram banner element and a red translucent aerial.

• Weapons include Lance Richmond’s lance and Crust Smasher’s sword.

• Accessory elements include the Book of Revenge and 2 helmets.

• Defend Merlok's Library 2.0 against The Flame Bat with the stud shooter.

• Launch The Flame Bat’s ballshooter at the hologram banner element to break open the prison bars and release the spell book.

• Merlok's Library 2.0 measures over 7” (20cm) high, 7” (20cm) wide and 4” (12cm) deep.

• The Flame Bat measures over 2” (6cm) high, 5” (13cm) long and 3” (8cm) wide.

• Can combine with 70317 The Fortrex.

• Download the free LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™: MERLOK 2.0 app to your smartphone or tablet. Ask your parents’ permission first.

• Scan shields for each of the 2 NEXO Powers (Toxic Sting and Ice Dragon) and power up in the LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™ game!

• Watch all your favorite NEXO KNIGHTS™ episodes on Cartoon Network.

An original box image of the 70324 Merlok's Library 2.0

Back view of the original box image of the 70324 Merlok's Library 2.0

This appears to be a low lying fortress wall instead of a library

What can I expect from this set? Judging from just the set name, I thought this is going to be a set to be filled with library materials containing a wide range of library references and books, similar to those archives of LEGO Harry Potter in Hogwarts. However, this does not seem to be the case. This library is actually a prison to imprison a book known as 'Book of Revenge'. Merlok is the wise wizard in the realm and he knows it require an impregnable fortress to contain those terrible books of evil. Thus, this is actually a semi-watch tower with prison installation.

The content of the sealed box

The sealed box come with two mint numbered packs, an instruction manual and a sticker sheet to decorate the library façade. I decided not to apply these stickers and retain its vanilla appearance. It is most likely I might break the set later for parts and I don't want stickered parts to be in the midst of it. Once the set is built, these are the remaining spare parts in packet 1 and packet 2. I am also pleased to see these spare printed disc shooters.

Two unique Nexo Knights Power

Feel free to use the above image and let it be part of the fun virtual part of scanning those shields into the app. In this set, these are the two unique LEGO Nexo Knights power which is known as 'Ice Dragon' (your enemies will skate on a crystal trail) and 'Toxic Sting' (summon the scorpion, but watch out). You can use my image and try to scan into your app. It will be quite an eye-opening experience.

Book of Revenge

Before I start with the minifigures, I would like to highlight this new amazing design of a LEGO book. This newly updated book design is way better than the traditional foldable book which is divided into two halves. Whereas, the improved design utilised these building parts to form the Book of Revenge. Beneath the cover of this book which appear to have hideous claw marks on it, it revealed an evil spirit attempting to claw out of the book. This evil spirt from the Book of Revenge will allow Court Jester to amass and increase his evil powers. This is why such evil books are under tight supervision in an enclosed secured area. Do note that those designs are printed nicely and the book edge are well designed to allow minifigures to hold the book with ease.

Introducing Crust Smasher, Lance Richmond and Ava Prentiss

I am pleased to introduce another three new minifigures from my collection which I am glad to own them. These minifigures have nice overall printed outfit and back printing too. I am also pleased to note their alternate facial appearance for Lance's wink confident looks. First of all, let me shed abit of detail on Crust Smasher. The Crust Smasher minifigure is a lava soldier holding a scimitar and appeared in this set and 70311 Chaos Catapult. His outer appearance is filled with solid lava stone crust with molten lava on the inside. I suspect he liked to smash things and enjoy chaos.

Lance Richmond is one of the five Nexo Knights and is well known for his perfectionism and the likes of media attention. From my understanding, Lance is a noble and raised like an aristocrat equivalent. He didn't have to suffer any sort of hardship and he like things to be as perfect to his wishes including his overall physical appearance. Like his name, Lance, he is specialised in jousting through his medieval lance looking weapon. Till this date, Lance Richmond also appeared in 70312 Lance's Mecha Horse and 70316 Jestro's Evil Mobile. In this set, Lance is equipped with a jet pack and his full assortment is made up of this. You can see the awesome detailed armour from his side view and this view. You can see the placement of the jet pack clearly from the back view.

Ava Prentiss is exclusive to this set and a tech-whizz child prodigy. She is an outstanding freshman in the Knights of Academy and is sensitive to technology. She is able to grasp difficult abstracts and assist Merlok greatly in the technology enhancement for the Nexo Knights. She used her equipped game gear to help her troubleshoot in times of difficulty. Well, I always had that impression that Ava is a royal princess by King and Queen Halbert.

The entire building content for Packet 1

The completed built for Packet 1

Upon finishing packet 1, you can see the partial built of the Merlok's Library 2.0 base. You are able to turn behind and see from back of the partial-built. There are other completed built like Flame Bat. All minifigures are also included in the first packet.

The completed built of the Flame Bat

To ensure a successful attack on the Nexo Knights, they have highly destructive assault fast craft as well for quick interception. Like this Flame Bat, it has a powerful ball shooter to wreck buildings from the air. The overall built does remind me of some feature of a bat. It is able to stand well for a minifigure to control the flight. As you shift it to the side, then I noticed it looked more like a dragon head than a bat. Do note that the bottom of the ball shooter is adjustable.

The entire building content for Packet 2

The completed built of the Merlok's Library

This is the completed built of the Merlok's Library. It is not a library filled with references and books, instead it is a fortified prison for evil books and in this case, the Book of Revenge is imprisoned here. As you turned and looked at the other side, you can see this sparse built that featured a centre watch tower with two low lying walls to keep threats at bay through these shooting blasters. The lower level contain a control panel which takes care of the security controls. At the upper level, this is where the Book of Revenge is kept locked away from others. The lower level contain highly energised disc shooters to fend against unexpected enemies. However, this proved to be useful against the Flame Bat. The ball shooter will fire across and hit the top of the energised banner and break the prison wall away. I do hope the Nexo Knights is aware of this vulnerable attacking point. This will show the broad overview of the playing features.

To me, I find this set very useful to do either border watch outpost or an extended fortress. Do you know that this set can expand and combine with the 70317 The Fortex? When the Fortex is opened up, this will increase the internal space for Fortex and allowed more activities to be carried out in there.

Lance and Ava looking across the wall

Break open the prison bars

Outpost meeting

We are under ground assault

To conclude, this set is an above average set. I enjoyed the overall built and even though some might felt it is simple and rather futuristic. Well, I think the colour schema works well and complement with the rest of the Nexo Knights set to boost integration and playability. I am glad the price which I have bought was pretty much worth it due to the good assortment of parts. This is the only set which I have bought two boxes as I thought it will be good to expand the borders a little. I am still not too sure on where and how I will carry on with theme as I am still deciding on what to buy to complement my collection further. Time will tell whether there are going to be more of these new LEGO Nexo Knights in my collection.

Summary review

Playability: 8/10 (Good decent playability which allow integration with other sets and the breaking of the prison wall.)

Design: 6/10 (The centre of the tower is done nicely but I felt the two fences will be a better improvement.)

Price: 8/10 (Price is very reasonable as it is a promotional set and with these nice parts.)

Overall: 7.3/10 (A good decent value for money LEGO Nexo Knights set which could be good for sampling.)

I gave it a "4" based on my Review Score Card. What about you?

I hope every one of you enjoyed reading this simple review of mine. Comments and Criticisms are welcomed.

Pictures can be found in My Flickr.

[dooberfloober]

I'm actually pleased to learn that Merlock is a sticker-- much more versatility (I'm thinking a holo-gram in a Star Wars setup, or a reflection in a mirror!) Lotta great parts, too. :)

[GregoryBrick]

Great review WhiteFang. I just got this set and think it's good - something different in concept and lots of neat parts.

[Robert8]

The whole set is kinda awkward

I see it more as an appendix than a set for itself.

The minifigures are nice, especially Ava

[WhiteFang]

Thank you very much guys. Glad you enjoyed reading it, as much as I am doing it.

[BrickJagger]

I like it as an outpost, but it makes no sense if its supposed to serve as an extension to the Fortrex. If you attach it to the Fortrex, it can't move, defeating the purpose. And where are you supposed to keep it when you want to move the Fortrex around on the treads?

[Forresto]

I was going to complain this doesn't look at all library-ish in the slightest but then I read it's a prison for books. It's an interesting concept!

[Dazz]

The minifigures are great, as are the printed parts like the evil book, but overall it's just an avarage set.

[Sandy]

I got this set for the minifigs, and the sole book of the set was nice as well, but otherwise it was really dull.

It's neat that you can add it to the Fortrex, but by itself it is just bland. It doesn't have Merlok even as a sticker!

[DraikNova]

I see it as an excellent parts pack (scorpion shield inlay? Yes please. Extra evil book? Yes please), with the relatively mediocre but not outright bad set being just added value.

[Junior Shark]

Nice review! This is actually my favorite Nexo Knights set so far.

[Lyichir]

Good review! I built this set myself a little while ago and while it's less impressive than the Fortrex itself, it's still a decent set with some neat functionality. You didn't apply the stickers, but one nice thing about them is that they do in fact match those on the Fortrex, making the whole thing look very consistent when combined.

The biggest flaw with this set, in my opinion, would obviously be the inability to actually shelve multiple books on the upper level rather than just one. I intend to try modding my own copy to do so at some point, but if that had been built into the set it would have made for a much more essential part of any Nexo Knights collection. Of course, it's still the only set with the adorably precocious Ava, so it's not exactly a set a dedicated fan could skip either way.

I'm actually pleased to learn that Merlock is a sticker-- much more versatility (I'm thinking a holo-gram in a Star Wars setup, or a reflection in a mirror!) Lotta great parts, too. :)

Actually, Merlok himself doesn't appear in this set. In the Fortrex, where he doesn't appear, he actually ISN'T a sticker, which surprised me when I built it.

[Captain Braunsfeld]

Thanks for the excellent review.

I still don't know what to do with those Nexo Knights. The combination of knights and high tech still seems strange to me and nothing I would have played as a child.

So, for me the question is whether there are some good minifigs or special bricks in these sets which I can then use elsewhere.

In that case the Book of Revenge is fantastic, but I will probably not buy the whole set just to get the book...

[iammac]

Great review!

I don't have any Nexo Knights yet...I feel like the theme is too "magical" for me. I mean, spells and wizards are castle-ish enough, but I'm not a fan of orcs, dwarfs or lava monsters that belch.

Great parts load though.

[Staslegomaster]

This is a small library for a wise techno wizzard. Thanks for the review. I hope your next review will be about Ninjago 2nd wave 2016. I saw a couple of official pictures of buildings today.

[WhiteFang]

Thank you everyone for your comments. It's very interesting to read what you think and what you like or dislike about this set.

I like it as an outpost, but it makes no sense if its supposed to serve as an extension to the Fortrex. If you attach it to the Fortrex, it can't move, defeating the purpose. And where are you supposed to keep it when you want to move the Fortrex around on the treads?

I supposed this is just to keep Fortex to be placed at a stationery state, when needed. Even though, Fortex is really meant to be mobile.

The biggest flaw with this set, in my opinion, would obviously be the inability to actually shelve multiple books on the upper level rather than just one. I intend to try modding my own copy to do so at some point, but if that had been built into the set it would have made for a much more essential part of any Nexo Knights collection. Of course, it's still the only set with the adorably precocious Ava, so it's not exactly a set a dedicated fan could skip either way.

Well, I could love to house more of the evil books which is why I got two boxes of it. However, I tend to view this set as an useful parts pack, rather than to expand and continue further. Ava is one of the push reasons for me to get another.

Actually, Merlok himself doesn't appear in this set. In the Fortrex, where he doesn't appear, he actually ISN'T a sticker, which surprised me when I built it.

That is a pleasant surprise. I haven't decide whether to get Fortex or not. It's still in my wishlist though.

I hope your next review will be about Ninjago 2nd wave 2016. I saw a couple of official pictures of buildings today.

Surely. I am interested in Ninjago but I haven't managed to get any new sets for 2016 just yet.

[Staslegomaster]

There are some official trailers of the 2nd wave in youtube, you'll see a couple of unusual buildings there, too. They're alwaysmore interesting for me than techno nonsence in ninjago style.