[REVIEW] 70671 - Lloyd's Journey

[makoy]

NINJAGO season 11 is already airing in some countries and I am very excited to watch the latest adventure of the ninjas. In anticipation for the next season in english, I bought this little set. It's a small set so let's not wait further. This is my 23rd Eurobricks review - set number 70671 - Lloyd's Journey.

Overview

Name: 70671 Lloyd's Journey
Theme: LEGO System / NINJAGO / Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu
Year: 2019 (2H)
Pieces: 80
Minifigures: 3
Price: USD 14.99 / EUR 14.99 

Quote

Stage an epic ice battle matching Lloyd and his wolf against Blizzard Warrior with this action-packed ninja toy for boys and girls. This 70671 Lloyd’s Journey LEGO® NINJAGO® set features Blizzard Warrior's fortress with a shooting crossbow and buildable ice holder for Lloyd's golden sword. Fans of the NINJAGO TV show will love role-playing scenes and creating their own adventures with the 2 LEGO NINJAGO minifigures, a wolf figure and cool ninja weapons in this toy building set.

• This LEGO® NINJAGO® set includes 2 new-for-June-2019 minifigures: Lloyd and Blizzard Warrior, plus a new-for-June-2019 Lloyd’s wolf figure.
• Cool toy for kids who can create Blizzard Warrior’s fortress with LEGO® building bricks, featuring space for a minifigure, a shooting toy crossbow and ice elements.
• This battle toy building set also includes a buildable ice holder with Lloyd's golden sword.
• Weapons include ninja minifigure Lloyd's flaming torch and silver-colored toy katana, and Blizzard Warrior’s ice katana.
• Playset also includes Lloyd’s katana holder and Blizzard Warrior’s ice armor accessory elements.
• Cool toy for kids to recreate exciting action from the NINJAGO® TV show.
• Add 70676 Lloyd’s Titan Mech and 70678 Castle of the Forsaken Emperor LEGO® sets to play out more adventures with Lloyd in the Never-Realm.
• Fortress measures over 1” (5cm) high, 2” (7cm) wide and 2” (7cm) deep.

 

Introduction

After the conclusion of season 10, we have learned from the NINJAGO team that this new chapter will be more exploratory and creative. And just how exploratory and creative the LEGO sets will be? We shall find out.

 

Front panel

What I noticed in the box art for this wave is the usage of  manga inspired panel borders and effects. There are lots of speed lines, sunbursts, halftones and written sound effects. This is more evident at the back panel which can be seen below.

 

Back Panel

I really like this manga-style art at the back panel.

 

Comparison of the recent "USD 14.99"  Ninjago boxes

Apart form the box art, I immediately noticed that the box is smaller for its price. Before buying this, I did not know how many pieces are inside the box because unlike the North American versions, Asian boxes do not have the number of pieces printed on the packaging.

I have bought The Samurai Mech set recently and it is a  USD 14.99 set with 153 parts. It does not help when you compare that the USD 9.99 set from previous wave, 70680 Monastery Training has 122 pieces. Even if it has 2 minifigures only, you still get twice as much parts.

So, you are paying 50% more price premium for something that has half the parts. I know it is an unfair comparison but for any casual buyer, it would appear as a bad deal. Am I right?

I know that the inclusion of the new wolf mould hiked the price considerably for this set but this made me wonder.-- is a new mould this big actually warrants a 50% price increase for a set this small?

 

Content of the box

These are the immediate contents from unboxing. There is 1 small instruction booklet, 2 plastic bags containing bricks and 1 plastic bag containing the 3-tailed wolf. There is also an 8x8 corner plate (wedge) without any plastic packaging.

 

Also, good news. There is no sticker!

 

 

Minifigures

Let's begin with the minifigures (and creature) because this is what you came for anyway.

Of course, the creature included in the set is not a minifigure but for the sake of scale comparison, I am including it here.

 

Front view with hairpiece/headgear and armours

If you haven't seen my minifigure distribution for the Ninjago 2019 wave, go ahead and check out in the Ninjago 2019 discussion topic. What we get in this set the variant of Lloyd with the hairpiece, and a foot soldier generically named Blizzard Warrior.

The print on Lloyd's gi is very crisp with dark brown and dark green colours. Lloyd's right arm is dark brown which likely represents leather arm guards.

One cannot deny the resemblance of the Blizzard Warrior from the Game of Trones' White Walkers. Although this trope had been tried in the retired Legends of Chima theme in its final run "Fire vs. Ice" subtheme, I find it more interesting with snakes and samurai. Also, Fire Snake and Ice Samurai -- isn't this a child-friendly version of the Song of Ice and Fire?

Anyway, I digress. The Blizzard Warrior is excellent. It has dual-moulded armour in dark red with trans-light blue ice spikes sticking out which makes it very cool (pun not intended). Kudos to the creative team of NINJAGO as they applied the lessons learned from Chima by not putting any gross rotting flesh on the Blizzard Warrior minifigure.

 

Back view with hairpiece/headgear and armours

The new sword scabbard is very stylish compared to the older scabbards/sword sheaths.  

The Blizzard Armour looks good even if viewed from the back and its helmet also look fantastic with the ridged design and trans-light blue ornamental horns.

 

Front view without gears and accessories

As mentioned earlier, the Bilzzard Warrior is excellent with its armour. Without it's armour, it is still decent. Both minifigures have dual face print.

It is a little disturbing that some ice shards are sticking out of the Blizzard Warrior's right eye and cheek. I don't know if that is necessary.

 

Back view without gears and accessories

The back printing is very good as well. Too bad we're not going to see much of the back printing of these minifigures because they will be covered for majority of the times.

 

Back view of the new scabbard and Blizzard warrior's armour worn "backwards" 

 

Lloyd looks good with the new scabbard.

In case you wonder, the Blizzard Warrior armour can be worn from either side because it appears that the front is a mirror image of the back.

 

Lloyd's Wolf

Before talking about the wolf, just appreciate the engraved shape on the shoulder pads that comes with the scabbard.I don't know its significance because I have not seen the season 11 yet but I can tell that the shape is like a snowflake with 6 tips.  

 

So about the wolf -- it is the biggest deal about this set and also my top reason why you should buy this set.

 

Comparing the Ninjago wolf with City feline mould

Next to the City feline mould, it is the same height. The neck articulation is the same but it lacks the hind legs articulation.

Too bad that the 3-tailed wolf mould has no articulated hind legs because it looks like TLG could have used the same approach even if the torso of the wolf is slimmer. 

 

Wild dog vs. wild cat

 

All this while, I was wondering why did NINJAGO team used a 3-tailed wolf instead of a 3-tailed fox. After all, if you have watched Naruto or played Pokemon, you should be more familiar with the Japanese folklore surrounding the nine-tailed fox or Kitsune. On the other hand, there is also Okami  which is a PS2 game that featured a wolf in the game that bears more than a passing resemblance to this NINJAGO wolf. Not forgetting, using the Game of Thrones analogy, the inspiration could be from direwolves since the system scale wolf should only be a little bigger than the classic Alsatian / German Shepherd dog mould but a LEGO direwolf is the right size as "Lloyd's wolf".

I don't know the right answer but if you have any wild guess, feel free to share.

 

Build

All parts laid down before building

So, let's rewind and do the build now.

 

 

So is it hard to build? No. It's actually very easy, barely an inconvenience.

 

And just like that, we're done!

 

I like the usage of the part #30166 (PLATE 2X3 W/ HOR. 3,2 SHAFT) as part of the battlement on top of the fortress.

There is nothing to see on the other side.

 

 

 

Completed build 

Hear ye, hear ye! I present you the fortress -- the mini fortress.

 

Parts

The new moulds and recoloured parts all look great.

If we exclude the minifigure-related parts, we only have 1 new mould, the wolf, and only 3 recolour of parts with pointy ends.

New armours and helmets are typical designed for new NINJAGO waves so it isn't a big deal. 

 

Extra parts

Just putting here for your reference.

 

Conclusion

In my history of reviewing NINJAGO sets, I have came across very good small to medium-sized sets that satisfy my AFOL needs. This small set is one of those sets that I struggled to score because even if it is good, I feel it lacks several things to make it great. It's easy to spot what you don't like in a set but as a reviewer, my job is to be as objective as  I can be, and I try really hard to be very objective in every review that I do even as I throw in some of my opinions.

Pros:

• New wolf creature mould is exclusive in this set
• Excellent NINJAGO minifigures as always
• Cheapest way to get Lloyd and Blizzard Warrior
• Weapon selection is top-notch 

Cons:

• Colour scheme is "meh" (this could be a matter of taste)
• You need to have a big imagination to see the fortress in the build -- frankly, it's just a small tower
• The cheapest set for this wave is not meant for building regular armies -- if you need to army-build, go buy set # 40342 instead (where you can also get Clutch Powers)
• New wolf mould tax is ridiculous
• No mask included for Lloyd 

 

So below is my final score breakdown --

Review summary

Playability: 6/10 - There's nothing much you can do with a mini fortress but the role-playing aspect of Lloyd travelling the snowy mountains is there for kid's (and adult's) imagination.
Design / Building Experience: 6/10 - I will not even score this if I am buying a minifigure pack but this is a small set so the mini fortress building experience only makes this set lackluster.
Minifigures: 8/10 - The minifigure designs are great but there are only 2 minifigures as I am not including the wolf  in this score -- an additional minifigure could have bumped up the score.
Price / Value for money: 8/10 - I guess it could have been worse but if you cannot swallow the price premium due to the new wolf creature, it will be a tough buy.
Overall: 7/10 - On one hand, this is very appealing set if it's a minifigure battle pack but on the other hand, as it is a small set, I expected more than just the wolf and a few parts. 

 

Blizzard Warrior: "I am so underpaid for this job!"

[Thedarkmaster2]

3 hours ago, makoy said:

this new chapter will be more exploratory and creative

Hopefully it will also be good, 

The Manga art style in the boxes is a cool change, I don't remember the last time they changed it significantly. 

3 hours ago, makoy said:

So, you are paying 50% more price premium for something that has half the parts. I know it is an unfair comparison but for any casual buyer, it would appear as a bad deal. Am I right?

You are right, the prices are going up, possibly because Lego is shifting to new plastics. That and overall inflation. I think that the boxes might be the same size, in area. If only because it's wider, while the other is narrower but taller. I can't be certain without exact measurements though

 

3 hours ago, makoy said:

There is also an 8x8 corner plate (wedge) without any plastic packaging.

Lego does that a lot with regard to large base pieces. especially if the other pieces are small

3 hours ago, makoy said:

One cannot deny the resemblance of the Blizzard Warrior from the Game of Trones' White Walkers. Although this trope had been tried in the retired Legends of Chima theme in its final run "Fire vs. Ice" subtheme, I find it more interesting with snakes and samurai. Also, Fire Snake and Ice Samurai -- isn't this a child-friendly version of the Song of Ice and Fire?

Anyway, I digress. The Blizzard Warrior is excellent. It has dual-moulded armour in dark red with trans-light blue ice spikes sticking out which makes it very cool (pun not intended). Kudos to the creative team of NINJAGO as they applied the lessons learned from Chima by not putting any gross rotting flesh on the Blizzard Warrior minifigure.

I personally never found the meat disgusting. I mean it was very cartoony. Also is it any more disturbing that having Ice growing from the eye. Also technically Chima I think was also Inspired by Game of Thrones, as the book was released prior to that theme's release. Just so you know, that skin tone is very similar to rotting flesh

3 hours ago, makoy said:

All this while, I was wondering why did NINJAGO team used a 3-tailed wolf instead of a 3-tailed fox. After all, if you have watched Naruto or played Pokemon, you should be more familiar with the Japanese folklore surrounding the nine-tailed fox or Kitsune

I think Lego Did that because wolves are larger, thus can be ridden by Mini-figures.

 

Great review don't take my comments as like rude or anything,.and fair assessment of the set. i thought it was great but I can now see many of the flaws, still going to get it though, whenever it comes out in my area. (How do you people get it early?)

[makoy]

1 hour ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

Just so you know, that skin tone is very similar to rotting flesh

 now anyone reading this cannot unsee that

 

3 hours ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

(How do you people get it early?)

The supply chain schedule for Asia & Australia/NZ is different from Europe and US. We get Ninjago earlier this round,  but it isn't always the case.

 

Thanks for giving a lot of your thoughts in my review. Appreciate all of them.

[Umbra-Manis]

7 hours ago, makoy said:

So is it hard to build? No. It's actually very easy, barely an inconvenience.

Would you happen to be a Pitch Meetings fan?

Great review here Makoy, and thanks for the size comparison on the wolf!

[Besters_Brick]

Great set and great review  

[makoy]

6 hours ago, Umbra-Manis said:

Would you happen to be a Pitch Meetings fan?

Great review here Makoy, and thanks for the size comparison on the wolf!

Yes, Pitch Meetings are tight! 

You're welcome!

5 hours ago, Besters_Brick said:

Great set and great review  

It's indeed a great set once you get pass the shortcomings. Thanks!

[Pchan1983]

I totally ordered this set just for the wolf because it kinda fee like creatures from Princess Mononoke.  

[makoy]

1 minute ago, Pchan1983 said:

I totally ordered this set just for the wolf because it kinda fee like creatures from Princess Mononoke.  

While I can see that had given them inspiration on the size just like GoT direwolves, the red marks on Okami Amaterasu (the white wolf) is strikingly similar --

 

[Thedarkmaster2]

16 hours ago, makoy said:

 now anyone reading this cannot unsee that

Oh sorry, oof I just kinda had to say that, since you kinda did the same thing to Chima

[makoy]

1 minute ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

Oh sorry, oof I just kinda had to say that, since you kinda did the same thing to Chima

Well, at least Chima is already retired and that has been acknowledged long time ago. Anyway, no harm done to me. Not sure about other readers. 

3 hours ago, makoy said:

3 hours ago, Pchan1983 said:

I totally ordered this set just for the wolf because it kinda fee like creatures from Princess Mononoke.  

While I can see that had given them inspiration on the size just like GoT direwolves, the red marks on Okami Amaterasu (the white wolf) is strikingly similar --

On a second thought... Moro (the mother wolf in Princess Mononoke)  has two tails... so Ninjago 1-up the tail and made their wolf three-tailed.  

[Thedarkmaster2]

41 minutes ago, makoy said:

Not sure about other readers.

Oh my apologies then

[TeriXeri]

Blizzard Warrior is my fav part of the set.

Already had the impression of it looking like an "undead" even before reading this.

Nexo Knights stone monsters also had some more "damaged" alternate faces with holes or missing eyes, so seeing ice shards on the alternate face isn't that strange to me.

Edited June 4, 2019 by TeriXeri

[Ecclesiastes]

This is what TLC should do more often, putting those awesome unique animals in these smaller sets. Just because of the lower price the wolf becomes a must buy!

[makoy]

13 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Blizzard Warrior is my fav part of the set.

Already had the impression of it looking like an "undead" even before reading this.

Nexo Knights stone monsters also had some more "damaged" alternate faces with holes or missing eyes, so seeing ice shards on the alternate face isn't that strange to me.

I'm sure there are many who have deduced the same as early as leaks of these wave came out.

Re: NK... I think undead and "animated statues" are different level of strangeness. Don't get me wrong. This doesn't take away the great design of the Blizzard Warrior. I just need to point it out 'coz I don't think it's necessary.

 

9 hours ago, Ecclesiastes said:

This is what TLC should do more often, putting those awesome unique animals in these smaller sets. Just because of the lower price the wolf becomes a must buy!

I hope the LEGO design and marketing team are taking notes. This argument about the wolf as "a must buy"  sums up my dilemma. Ultimately, because the set is cheap, I still bought it despite having reservation about the price. 

[Aanchir]

Good review! I think the lack of the articulated hind legs on the wolf probably stems from how difficult the triple tail would make it to reuse for other animals in future sets. All the big cats in recent City sets (including the Smilodon you compare the wolf with in your review) share the same body segments, and all but the Smilodon share the same head. All that reuse helps to offset the cost of having so many new molds.

But the wolf in this set appears ONLY in this set so far, and while the head may appear in other sets or themes in future years, the same can't be said for its hindquarters. The price of this set is already higher than similar-sized Ninjago sets due to these animal molds, and I doubt it could have absorbed two more new molds (left and right sections for a third body segment) without further raising the price.

You can compare this with the camel from the Prince of Persia. Unlike the LEGO cows and horses that already existed, it lacked neck articulation — presumably because LEGO didn't expect many themes besides Prince of Persia needing a camel in the near future.

Likewise, the Thestral and Hippogriff from recent Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts sets and Wooly Mammoth from recent City sets are less articulated than many similar-sized creatures since their molds would be difficult to reuse in as many future sets and themes as the molds for big cats, bears, dinosaurs, or horses.

 

Re: the talk about how gruesome undead minifigs should/shouldn't be, I think there's a few things about them that might make injuries or necrosis tame enough for many kids to handle.

First, kids often tend to think of zombies and undead as imaginary fantasy monsters, so they don't tend to convey the same "yikes, what if this happened to me?" reaction as if a similarly gruesome injury were depicted on a cadaver or hospital patient minifigure.

Second, the cartoonishness of the minifigure tends to offset some of the grotesqueness that these sorts of injuries or this sort of decay might have in a live-action zombie movie. The simplified textures and colors make things like torn flesh a lot less visceral than it would be in a medium where it had a more believably tactile appearance.

[makoy]

@Aanchir Thanks for adding your inputs into this review. Knowing more reasoning or argument could help others form a better opinion about these products.

 

[WhiteFang]

Such small sets appeal to me greatly, especially with the white wolf. I am just going for the unique wolf, while the minifigures are pretty useful in its own way. I am just here for the exclusive animal. 

[Pchan1983]

Finally opened and built mine.  Love the wolf and I agree with you the Blizzard Warrior is excellent.