[REVIEW] 71045 Collectible Minifigure Series 25

[MKJoshA]

Surprise! You didn't think EB was going to release a review for the newest CMF 25 series did you? Well, I'm no WhiteFang. But I recently moved from the United States to France and haven't found any good stores to buy CMFs from. So I went looking around online and found a great shop here in Europe selling a whole case of them. (And it's on sale till Jan 29th!) And since they shipped them so fast I had time to do a quick review.

I've got to say, until Lego starts giving me the option to either 1) buy a full set of figures or 2) buy a whole case this is going to be my new way to buy CMFs.

Inside my shipping box was this half-box from Lego.

Not sure if Brickshop gets two cases per box or what, but this is how they shipped it to me.

For those interested, this is the order I had for my figs. I've had people on Instagram tell me they had a different order for their figs. So use it at your own risk. But surely they use the same layout order within the same factory.

First up are my favorite figs out of the bunch, the medieval ones. I was happy the Goatherd didn't have yellow hiding under the hood so I can use it with fleshies if I want. Biggest complaint from this bunch is that the injection mold spots are really obvious on the Bat helmet and the purple Harpy hair. I also wish the Barbarian's hair wasn't red but was a more muted color. I hope they re-use it in tan, blonde, or another more natural hair color shade.

Up second are the city dwellers. I like the molded hearing aid on the Dog Groomer's hair. Though it does limit it's versatility a bit. My leas favorite part is the poor print job on the Workout Girl's abs. Yellow printed on Coral didn't work. We pay a premium Lego, get the details right! I also hope we see the para-olympic's legs with grey or black shorts in the future. I'd love to use those as Star Wars greebling!

And last but not least are the costumes. I'm going to be using the Noir Detective's outfit as an Imperial uniform. And the inclusion of a honest-to-goodness Red Herring is amazing. The Dino's arms and legs are also getting repurposed as Trandosian parts. And the Mushroom hat will find a way into one of my castle MOCs at some point. My least favorite part is the mis-match of color on the train costume. I love that we got the wheels in dark-red. But the middle wheel (which is part of the molded costume piece where as the front and back and trolley wheels clipped on) should match them, not be normal red.

Here's a closer look at the color inconsistencies.

Verdict?

SCORE
DESIGN 7
I thought this was a good grouping of figures. The designs range from "good" to "amazing!" with nothing feeling overly sub-par.

PARTS 8
We're all really here for the goat, I know. But even outside of that we get a really good selection of parts. And a good variety for City, Castle, and other kinds of builders.

VALUE FOR MONEY 8
If you can get a whole case or manage to use an orthoscope, scale or other method to find the figs you want these are decent value for money.

FINAL SCORE: 8
One of, if not the top favorite CMF series of all time. I think Lego really knocked it out of the park this time.

[JopieK]

Thanks for the great review @MKJoshA, of course we still miss the one's from @WhiteFang but you do a pretty decent job as well :)

B.t.w.:

 

 

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

The Goatherd is my favorite ...perfectly made!

[Murdoch17]

Thank you for the review @MKJoshA! The Film Noir detective is my favorite.

[BardDandelion]

I have opened two boxes yesterday (ordered them with some fellow LUG members). We have only big QR codes, those than could be scanned to identify minifig inside. In each box two Mushroom Girls had blurred QR code to this extent that scanning didn't work.Don't know if it is relevant but we ordered from Polish online shop (but don't know which LEGO factory they come from). Placement of minifigs in the box was different than the one described in the post so looking for specific characters by the position inside box - even in unopened box - is impossible.

Opened my series and got some conclusions:

- prints are much better than in MCU series I opened last September, overall quality of the figs is really good;

- I really like the fact that there is no space/sf minifigs, they will get separate series and I'm fine with that, I can skip it and I got more Castle/Fantasy minifigs here;

- there is a bunch of minifigs that could be simply placed in City sets - gamer girl, dog barber, both sport characters;

- number of extra parts is very limited, e.g. I expected extra dino tail and there was none (we got one in T-Rex costume in 2023, if I remember correctly, there was one in Robin Hood in Disney series, there is also extra tail in every regular set - Avatar etc.);

- cape of Basil the Batlord is made with strange material, it feels almost like paper, it also has giant LEGO trademark on red side which reduce usefulness a bit;

- leg prostheses should been removable, connected with leg by bar, don't get why they didn't do that (but it's older part, wasn't introduced in this CMF series);

- dino costume guy doesn't have any accesories (same as in T-Rex costume case), would be nice if he got e.g. recolored bone part;

- once again there are two costume characters, not cool, not sure if people really like them that much but maybe they should be put in separate series (as it was done years ago with the Classic Policeman series), also - these big multi-mould parts must be expensive to make and seems that this is one and done - we already got race car, Titanic, plane, space rocket, now train and they are not used in more sets;

 

Referring to OP conclusions:

- barbarian has red hair because that's a refference to Red Sonya character;

- you are right with not matching colors of wheels in train costume;

- same with prints on fitness girl torso (notice also that print on dog barber torso is not connected with legs, there is thin turquise line of unprinted torso visible and tan print on shepherd torso also looks not so good, especially when compared with marketing graphics of the minifig);

 

 

[MKJoshA]

On 1/15/2024 at 7:47 PM, JopieK said:

Thanks for the great review @MKJoshA, of course we still miss the one's from @WhiteFang but you do a pretty decent job as well :)

B.t.w.:

 

After I posted this review I was shocked to find some CMFs at a local store. They never had the previous 2 series so I'm not sure what changed but I was happy to see them. I tried this QR code scanner on what I found but only one box had the big QR codes. There were 5 boxes in total and the others all had the smaller codes which aren't scan-able.

However, I grabbed 3 based on my box order and got the exact 3 I wanted! Clearly others have had different figure ordering in their boxes. But whichever factory is supplying to France and Netherlands seems to be placing them in the order I listed in my review.

3 hours ago, BardDandelion said:

I have opened two boxes yesterday (ordered them with some fellow LUG members). We have only big QR codes, those than could be scanned to identify minifig inside. In each box two Mushroom Girls had blurred QR code to this extent that scanning didn't work.Don't know if it is relevant but we ordered from Polish online shop (but don't know which LEGO factory they come from). Placement of minifigs in the box was different than the one described in the post so looking for specific characters by the position inside box - even in unopened box - is impossible.

...

Referring to OP conclusions:

- barbarian has red hair because that's a refference to Red Sonya character;

- you are right with not matching colors of wheels in train costume;

- same with prints on fitness girl torso (notice also that print on dog barber torso is not connected with legs, there is thin turquise line of unprinted torso visible and tan print on shepherd torso also looks not so good, especially when compared with marketing graphics of the minifig);

The box I reviewed had the big QR codes. But the ones I just found in a shop had the small ones. However both were in the same layout. I managed to get more Goatherds just by grabbing boxes from the same placement locations as my reviewed box.

Good to know about the Red Sonya reference. Thanks!

[WhiteFang]

On 1/16/2024 at 2:47 AM, JopieK said:

Thanks for the great review @MKJoshA, of course we still miss the one's from @WhiteFang but you do a pretty decent job as well :)

B.t.w.:

 

 

Nice one, Josh! Thanks for doing your own rendition of the review of the CMFs
 

Thanks JopieK. I ordered one complete set of it - opened. And I am pretty pleased with the overall design selection too.

PS : I am moving this to Special LEGO Themes  

[karrit]

@MKJoshA Nice review.  I love the sword & body parts from the Barbarian so I picked up a couple of extras of that one which I hadn't originally planned on.  My favorites are the Goatherd & Vampire Knight.  I have two full sets coming through a bulk order one of my LUG members placed so I was only searching for extras of certain ones. 

I'm good with just 2 of the Triceratops & Gamer and the ones really had no interest in the Harpy, Fitness Instructor & Sprinter.  Was fortunate enough to find a few back at the end of December by scanning the large codes with my android phone & comparing the numbers with the originally published list of the big long number codes.  That first attempt yielded 2 Goatherds & 1 Train Kid.  I was leary of the apps that started appearing to scan the codes but ended up downloading the Brick Search app.  It's the only one I can get to work on my phone so far.  Figscanner didn't work for me and neither did the FalconBricks one.  I have had 100% success rate with the Brick Search app when I can get the codes to scan.  I've found that the blurry ones or ones that aren't dark enough won't scan for me.  I found here in the US that the boxes that have a code that has 447R3 are mostly unscannable due to blurry and/or pale print.  The Goatherd, Harpy & one or two others (I think it's the Fitness Instructor & one other) seem to have this poorly printed code on boes from that batch.  

So I'm done searching thanks to the app and managed to buy 14 Vampire Knights, 10 Goatherds, 4 Mushroom Sprites, 2 Detectives, 2 Barbarians, 1 Train Kid & 1 Pet Groomer in addition to the two full sets I purchased.

@BardDandelion The Titanic part was recolored in red for the BAM stations in the LEGO stores.  So it's possible the Train might be in the future although the two sets of wheels needed would be a problem since you are officially only allowed 1 accessory per figure.

[Robert8]

Thanks for the review!

Where was this btw? 

I cant believe I didnt see it before

[WhiteFang]

8 hours ago, Robert8 said:

Thanks for the review!

Where was this btw? 

I cant believe I didnt see it before

I moved from LEGO Town forum over to here.  

[Pchan1983]

Interesting, my box also from the Czech factory code S but has a different layout.  Not complaining with 3 sets though.  While the goat is appreciated I like the mushroom sprite the most.

 

[MKJoshA]

On 1/27/2024 at 3:34 AM, WhiteFang said:

I moved from LEGO Town forum over to here.  

Thank you for putting it where it belonged!

[Juide_Sock]

Wow, what an awesome review of the 71045 Collectible Minifigure Series 25! The detailed photos really bring out the unique features and cool accessories of each minifigure. It's exciting to see such a diverse range of characters in this series. Thanks for putting together such a thorough and fun analysis. It definitely helps to decide which ones to choose!