Dunjohn

REVIEW: 2260 Ice Dragon Attack

  

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  1. 1. How would you rate this set?

    • Poor
      5
    • Below Average
      6
    • Average
      16
    • Above Average
      23
    • Excellent
      17


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Hi there, I haven't posted here for a bit. I'm still officially in a dark age. I'm not that interested in the NinjaGo theme at any rate. The Spaceport theme didn't turn out as interesting as I'd hoped, and it doesn't look like Pharoah's Quest will be released in Ireland, but I'd nothing else to spend my spare Christmas money on so I let curiosity win out. Apologies for the occasional rough photo. I've taken apart my usual setup and there's a lot of Christmas junk around the place. So, with the life story out of the way, let's get going!

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2260-0000-xx-12-1.jpg

Fly to the underworld on the Ice Dragon and reclaim the shurikens of ice!

Zane flies into the perilous realm of the underworld to recapture the stolen shurikens of ice from the skeleton army. Suddenly, Krazi appears out of the darkness and he has a different plan! Blast him with the Ice Dragon’s frozen breath before he gets away with the treasure! Set includes Ice Dragon, 2 minifigures and 2 weapons.

INFORMATION:

Set Name: Ice Dragon Attack

Set Number: 2260

Theme: NinjaGo

Year Released: 2011

Number of Pieces: 158

Minifigs: 2

Price: €24.99 on release

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

box.jpg

The whole NinjaGo line makes a big, warm impression on the shelf and this set is no different. I like the background art. It'd be nice by itself. I dunno why the Dojo set makes such a big deal of its single golden shuriken, this Krazi dude seems to be fully armed with them has has no trouble flinging them around the place.

This is obviously the European box. I've always been jealous of the American boxes, which list the set name and piece count. I have to look all this stuff up online.

boxback.jpg

The back isn't much different. I'm pretty sure Golden Weapon #1 isn't available yet. That's an interesting way of doing things. Atlantis let you have all five Rings from day 1.

characters.jpg

The manual has the same cover art as the box and the inside is clear and unremarkable, so I'll skip to the end. Here we have a character list. I don't recall seeing that lady ninja or some of the skellies in the store, so they're presumably in future sets. This is really weird of TLG.

weapons.jpg

Also nestled among the ads is this weapons list, including the set numbers they come in. A very nice touch for the collectors out there.

contents.jpg

As well as the manual, the box also contained these three bags of what appears to be small plastic bricks. Odd, but nice. Note the absence of any sticker sheet. Only the head parts and one tile is printed; the rest is going commando! This set also includes no cards. It's purely a model kit.

square.jpg

The set is white-heavy so I laid the parts out on this sheet of brown cardboard. The minifigs weren't pre-built, I did that. Most of the grey will be hidden, while maximum use is made of the blue and trans-blue; there seems to be hardly any here, but the model uses it well. Colour-wise, I'd have preferred if the dragon's tongue was blue instead of orange. Firing an ice ball from it would've looked better that way. In fact, most of the orange in this set looks out of place. Purple, now, that would have been awesome.

cool.jpg

Some of the cooler pieces, I think. I'm a bit out of the Lego scene so there may be something interesting in the big square that I missed. Those three-way bar things are inspired. They should have been made a long time ago. My only qualm is that they have a little triangular ridge along the side, separating the studs from the bars. The blue wedge things are the same shape as the crystal/rock elements from Power Miner's Crystal King set, so there's MOC possibilities to build a blue wife for him. She'd have no head, but progress is progress. The printed tile says "dragon god" (thanks, lisqr!) and looks lovely.

dragonhead.jpg

Surprise of the day: The dragon's head and jaw are made from flexible plastic. I think it's new stuff, it doesn't feel the same as the normal soft weapon plastic. A little more rigid, but maybe more prone to wrinkling. DON'T BEND IT TOO MUCH. I think I damaged the front bit of the orange beard by bending it sideways, just to see if it was made of the same stuff. It looks and works fine if you leave it alone.

swords.jpg

This fuzzy shot is supposed to be displaying the sword hilt. It's the newer square type. That's an older sword in the background, with its octagonal hilt. Otherwise, aside from number coding, they're identical.

THE BUILD:

minifigs.jpg

I'll start with the minifigs, since I've obviously already built them. This version of Zane is Zane DX, which apparently means he gets a flashier, more ceremonial-looking outfit. Quite gnarly it is, too, though the knot of his belt is partially printed on the torse, making the torso difficult to use separately. His cowl is the same as the Collectible guy's as far as I can tell. The skeleton is Krazi, which is just an excuse to wear make-up. I wanted to compare him to a regular skeleton but my other minifigs are packed away too deeply to reach, so I'll just have to assume that everything about him is brand new. I like those new feet, I've named them "skellie wellies." They're better in other contexts than the old ones, though the old ones look nicer on actual skeletons. Dunno what he has to hide under that loincloth. Or she, perhaps. Maybe a guy would spell it "Krazy."

Both of them are made from normal, non-Chinese plastic.

minifigbacks.jpg

Zane has rather nice back printing. It's a dragon head and "ZANE." Hmm. Funny how they matched a guy named "Krazi" with a guy named "Zane."

arms.jpg

Our final blurry close-up of the day compares the new skeleton arm with an older droid-style one. The new one is slightly shorter, and the elbow angle is a few degrees more acute. All in all, I prefer the new arm, even for non-cartoony Castle skeletons.

build1.jpg

Getting into the main build, Step 13 attaches the legs to the torso. After this point, the wings and head obscure the body so this is the last clear shot of it. The blue 2x2 plates under the ice wedges bring out the colour nicely.

wings.jpg

The wings are very nicely made, and look good in either folded or unfolded positions.

finished.jpg

The head doesn't take much to construct so here's the final model. There are a lot of articulation points so it has a wide variety of potential poses. It's also well balanced so most will actually work.

spares.jpg

Five spares, including a shuriken.

IN CONCLUSION:

Looks cool. It has a nice mix of fantastic and sci-fi influences that can work in a variety of settings. It looks good as a display piece, which was my main reason for choosing it over the other sets in the store. However, I don't think it particularly fits the NinjaGo theme very well. It's a bit out-of-place with the martial arts ethos, like they felt that an oriental theme needed a dragon so they tossed one in.

Design: 7/10: Like I said above, the model is highly swooshable while being very well balanced for display. The main problem is that the dragon is a bit stumpy; nice head, great wings, huge feet, but the torso is small and the tail is pathetic. That said, any bigger and the price would have been affected.

Parts: 8/10 A bit heavier on the Bionicle elements than I prefer, but those new three-way bar bits are both excellent for everything, and probably replace even more Bionicle elements. Fewer weapons than the apparent NinjaGo average but the three stars are still cool. Everything else seems nice to have. Aside from the dragon head, nothing is ridiculously specialised, and even that could be either biological or mechanical. I like the printed tile especially, it's nice and simple, very elegant.

Build: 9/10 Speedy and efficient with no tricky areas. Simpler than it looks.

Playability: 8/10 This looks like it'd be amazing fun if I were twelve years old. The fact that Krazi has absolutely nothing but the shurikens means that any battles are going to be a little one-sided.

Price: 9/10 After the slew of expensive licensed themes in 2010, it was very refreshing to see the prices on the NinjaGo line (at least, the non-card sets). A definite clincher in my decision to buy one at all.

Total: 85% I could easily see myself going for this entire line if I had the time and funds.

Thanks for reading!

- Dunjohn

Edited by Dunjohn

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Thanks for the review! But my complaint of this set: The dragon doesn't look finished. :wacko: But the minifigs are great. And even NinjaGo can make 'good value for money' sets :tongue:

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Nice review. I think this is a beautiful dragon straight out of the box, and a good base for modded dragons and other mythical beasties. The jester-skeleton gives me a bit of an Insane Clown Posse vibe - I'm not so sure about him. And seriously, how is he supposed to fight off an ice dragon? Does he juggle shuriken until the dragon is overcome with laughter?

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Whoa! 24,99€? That's a solid 5€ steeper than I had anticipated (and hoped for at the bottom of my empty treasure vault *tears*).

Anyway it lives up to my expectations and will probably be in introduced to my collection when on clearance or I'm really lucky to find a seller with more... "reasonable" prices.

Zane DX doesn't do much for me as his torso design is too specialised for my tastes.

Thanks for that thorough review Dunjohn!

Be well all!

Cutty

edit: +1 to all Gryphon Ink said!

Edited by Cutty

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Thanks for the review, it's an intresting set though I'm not overwhelmed by this set the dragon isn't to bad but I think it seems rather shorts and it's not as impressive as the Fafnir Dragon.

I'm not sure I'll be picking this set up though maybe if it's on sale.

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Great review! This set is definitely on my list to pick up, as it is nicely priced in the US. Sorry to hear you are in a dark age :cry_sad:

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This set is way better than I expected. Very nice review. The only fault to this set IMO is the piece count, which could be a bit better.

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Wow, the addition of all those weapons charts hit something of a nerve in me! I feel the urge to start collecting! :laugh: Lego always gets me to buy into themes like that with creative art style and a story.

The set is nice, the dragon body seems very simplistic though, and the arms are especially hideous but the minifigures make up for it. I'd say the concept gets a 9/10, but the execution is a 7/10

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It's a nice set. I'll definitely pick up one or two.

Btw, the tile says dragon god.

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Great review, thanks for sharing this Dunjohn! This is one of my favorite sets in the NinjaGo line, particularly because of the white dragon. It's fairly well-designed with great new pieces - nice-detailed head pieces, and those cool-looking ice wedges. I agree it may not be perfect, but it's already a great base for further modification.

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Great review, great set. I do have a question - the way the wings attach to the body looks very flimsy, with that technic piece. Do the wings flop around easily?

Edited by Lockon Stratos

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Great review, great set. I do have a question - the way the wings attach to the body looks very flimsy, with that technic piece. Do the wings flop around easily?

Nope, they're very maneuverable but they hold in whatever position I put them in. The wings are very light.

Taking into account what people have said here, I've kinda changed my opinion slightly, and edited the review. Especially about the dragon looking unfinished; he really does look like half a dragon, doesn't he? The tail is very weedy. I've also fixed a couple of errors.

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Great review! I believe that the dragons are the ninjas' "special mounts". In the videos on Lego.com it shows them flying the dragons through a cavern, and I think the summer sets will contain two more (fire and earth). Also, it's nice to see an extra shurkien.

EDIT: That weapons list is very odd. For example the silver-ish katana comes in more than 3 sets, and I don't see any NINJAGO set number 2216 (bley pickaxe), but there IS a 2116. They don't list the sword/"machete" from the Dojo, and probably others.

-Santhor

Edited by Santhor

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Hmm. I don't like the back printing, but anyway...

The dragon has looked strange from when I first saw it. It's not the same type of dragon that most of us are used to, so it appears small or unfinished. The set has become better though, particularly considering the Chinese minifigs in the spinners.

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Thanks for this nice review!

I definitely want this. It may be a little scrumpy in the body area, but have you heard of the "rule of cool?" Certainly, this set gets a few extra points here. It's a white ninja riding a fricken ice dragon fighting a skeleton with a jester's cap and gold shurikens?!? *oh2* What else can you ask for?

The price is good too. I still hope to get all the small sets in this wave for a ninja of each color and a small skeleton army. The total price for the smaller ones isn't too bad.

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Got my hands at the German january-may catalogue today and found the MSRP for this baby actually IS 19,99€! So my first hopes weren't in vain and thus I might get one earlier than first hoped for.

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I like this theme's emphasis on collecting weaponry, thanks for sharing!

And the grass is always greener, I wish US sets didn't have the piece count, your box looks better on display with that much less text and numbers. (I don't collect stuff MIB, I'm just saying yours looks better har har)

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And the grass is always greener, I wish US sets didn't have the piece count, ...

Ironically many Europeans wished boxes here had that information up-front so one could calculate piece/price-ratios without having to check online databases beforehand. But one does always desire the things one does NOT have, ain't it so? ;-)

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Yeah... that's why I said the grass is always greener [on the other side] :tongue:

The piece counts are unnecessary to me because I never buy LEGOs at retail price, I can usually find what I want at a great discount (used) and would rather build my own stuff anyway (yay bricklink lol)

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Great review, but I'm feeling like some out there.....the dragon is nice, but..... :wink:

No, I wont be buying this....I would prefer the Dojo over this one !

Keep on spinning everyone ! :sweet:

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A truly awesome set the stars are so cool and have true potential but one question can you remove the mouth gun or is it a mandatory piece in the connection cause I'd like to be able to use the mouth to pose the dragon eating something or some one :devil:

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Thanks for this nice review!

I definitely want this. It may be a little scrumpy in the body area, but have you heard of the "rule of cool?" Certainly, this set gets a few extra points here. It's a white ninja riding a fricken ice dragon fighting a skeleton with a jester's cap and gold shurikens?!? *oh2* What else can you ask for?

My thoughts exactly! :laugh: I'm not so fond of the large head/foot peices, i'd rather brick built, but it's certainly less cartoony than the old castle dragons. The wings especially look awesome! :thumbup:

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Great review,

Only thing I find odd is the legs. They use the old bionicle styles socket instead of the new hero factory one, leading to a high possibility of breaking. :/

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A truly awesome set the stars are so cool and have true potential but one question can you remove the mouth gun or is it a mandatory piece in the connection cause I'd like to be able to use the mouth to pose the dragon eating something or some one :devil:

It can be taken out easy enough, and doesn't really need to be replaced with anything, but the mouth won't close. The inner mouldings prevent the parts from fitting together any tighter.

I remember hearing something about TLG updating the ball & socket joints, a couple of my Exo-Force ones are busted. So they're being used in Hero Factory? Odd that they're not being used here, alright, I'd have liked to see them.

Speaking of Exo-Force, one other thing I like about this dragon is how easily it can fit the Exo-Force theme. It looks cypernetic enough, especially with a couple of adjustments here and there.

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