Review: 70500 Kai's Fire Mech

[Lord LOLrus]

Hi everyone; this is my 4th review here on Eurobricks, and my first for Ninjago. Today I’ll be reviewing 70500 Kai’s Fire Mech.

I stopped by the LEGO Store yesterday to fill up my holiday Pick-a-Brick box and bought this set as well. I would’ve bought 70503 as well, but there weren’t any in stock.

Set Number: 70500

Name: Kai’s Fire Mech

Piece Count: 102

Minifigures: 2 (Bathrobe Kai and a Scout)

Price: $9.99 USD

I'll start with the box:

Front:

Back:

Here we can see all the play features. They consist of grabbing things, and…..beging able to move the limbs. O-K.

Top:

Kai in his bathrobe. Or whatever.

Contents:

Inside the box are three bags, an instruction booklet and a Dreaded Sticker Sheet.

The DSS:

More than normal for such a small model, but not too outrageous. I’m not going to be applying them (at least not right now); the mech looks fine without ‘em.

Nothing special here.

Here’s the parts list:

…and a random step:

…

There’s a small ad in the back as well. It’s in my photostream, if you care.

The Parts:

Large Pieces:

Lots of Hero Factory parts. This allows for plenty of posability, so I won’t complain.

Medium Pieces:

Small Pieces:

Three bags is kind of a lot for such a small set, wouldn’t you say? Lots of gold weapons in this bag, and of course the “Fire Blade.”

New and/or interesting pieces:

The red quiver and Sensei Wu hat are of particular note, but the new inverted brackets are also nice.

The Minifigs:

The Figs - Front:

Kai looks rather angry in his bathrobe, and the scout looks similarly displeased. The scout has short legs, so he doesn’t get any leg printing, while Kai does.

Back:

Both have back printing, but neither fig has a double-sided head. Oh well.

With headgear and weapons:

Seriously, what’s with the bathrobe?

Kai and his sword:

Geez, that’s an oversized sword. By the way, Kai in not 'holding' the sword here, he's just propping it up. The sword is standing on the ground.

Now for the set itself:

The Build:

This body is the core of the model. Everything else attaches to this.

The legs. Pretty nice, and I like how the two cheese slopes give the appearance of toes. One problem is that the range of motion for the legs is rather more limited than I would like, but it's not a huge problem.

The missile launcher (I think that’s what that is. Might just be a gun). Not as good as it could have been, but it works. Nice connection; seems to be very common in these new sets, but nice and sturdy.

The hand. I think it’s gorgeous; what do you think?

The palm of the hand, connected to an arm.

The last few bits of the model. The thing on the right is what holds Kai in the robot (and what he holds onto, as well), while the bit on the left is the mech’s antennae. Or something.

And the robot needs to be able to hold a sword, right?

Finished Product:

Front view:

Rear view:

With Kai and Fire Blade:

Extra Parts:

Not much. The extra katana is kinda unexpected, though.

Everything together:

This gives you a sense of scale.

And a comparison with its older, larger, brother from Exo-Force (8101 Claw Crusher):

(Some time ago I made some significant modifications to the Exo-Force set, if you can’t tell.)

Scoring:

Design: 13/15

A solid design. The missile launcher is a bit half-hearted, and the legs have a somewhat limited posability, but other than that, this is a very solid design. Not nearly as skeletal as previous comparable mechs.

Features: 3/5

Not much. There’s a hand, and the arms and legs move. I’m gonna give this category less weight than normal, and give its points to design.

Parts: 9/10

102 parts, many of them useful, especially (for me) the joints, but also the brackets and “weapons.” The Fire Blade piece is very…interesting; I like it.

Minifigures: 9/10

My jokes about Kai and his bathrobe aside, these are some nice figs, with useful printing and accessories.

Price: 9.5/10

102 parts for $10 is fine, and the parts are useful, the design is solid, and the figs are nice.

Total: 43.5/50

87% is pretty good. This is a solid little mech; I may wind up purchasing another.

[DraikNova]

Wow. The hand is great and very "realistic" (for a given value of kaboom). Anyway, seems all this 'bot needs to be show accurate is for the two katana to be replaced by Dragon Swords of Fire, and boy do I have a lot of those.

[horizon]

It is an awesome set and a must get for every Lego fan, not only Ninjago fans. :)

The posability is great imo.

[Vindicare]

Great review! Nice photos and good description. The extra sword seems to be the norm now. I got an extra one in 70004 Wakz Pack Tracker, 79104 Shellraiser Street Chase(I think it even came with more than one due to the Foot having a sword), 79101 Shredders Dragon Bike.

[streifen]

Nice review!

I also bought this set and for that price, it has a lot of fun built-in!

[Aanchir]

Wow, this had already been one of my favorite sets from the new wave, but this review makes it appear even more appealing. I had expected the sword to be attached to the palm of the hand somehow, like the weapons of most Exo-Force battle machines. Instead, it's actually being held by that brilliant hand. Quite a pleasant surprise.

One way I think this set could have been improved would have been to place either a turntable or a 2x2 jumper plate behind the 2x2 round plate on the blaster, so that it could rotate.

I'm very fond of this set's use of Hero Factory elements. IMO, Hero Factory elements are way better-suited to System building than most BIONICLE parts were, since they share the smooth surfaces and uninterrupted fields of color typical of System parts and models. It's a shame they're not being used in System more often, but sets like this are a step in the right direction IMO.

[jabadala]

This is an incredibly fun set and it's only $10 to boot. Didn't hesitate for a moment when I saw this on the shelves.

[Ceroknight]

Thank you for the review!

I can't wait to get this!

[Darth Wayne]

This thing seems like a great value pack and i'm not even that interested in Ninjago!

[Devorath]

Where does the 'jail' sticker go?

[Ace Krampus]

It goes on the back, on the grey 2x2 SNOT piece.

What a brilliant little set! I hadn't even given it a thought until I saw this review and immediately went and bought the next one I saw. Cheap, fun to build, fun to play with... I can't imagine how this set conceivably could have been better. Only my second Ninjago set but I may have to look into some others given how much I've enjoyed the two I randomly picked up.

[Esurient]

Thank you for the review, when the first pictures came out, I was expecting it to be a big mech like the Nya's Samurai Mech. But TLC has done it again! This set is great as it captures all the essential element of a mech using the least amount of parts. I really marvel at how designers manage to improvise and are so good at creating such models.