Review: 30071 Police Boat

[woofmcmoose]

Police Boat

Set #: 30071

Year Released: 2012

Piece Count: 35

Minifigs: 1

RRP: $3.99 (US), Free with the Sun newspaper (UK).

Here we have one of the 2012 City Polybag promos, which was available in Walmart in the US, free with a 'news'paper in the UK and part of various other exclusives across Europe. The set is part of the 'forest police' line rather than your regular city cops.

The Box Bag

Despite being a 'forest police' set the bag art shows our cop speeding through the water in front of silhouetted city skyscrapers and out onto the usual City blue 'L' which contains the LEGO logo, age range and set number. Already you can see the much griped about neck issue with the new style life preserver.

The back of the bag is full of multi-language 'small parts' warnings, a small promo for the lego club and gives you a sneak peek at the parts through a transparent strip down the centre seam:

The Minifig

Here you get a standard forest cop. He has a nice front and back print khaki shirt, with badge over his left pocket and a handheld mic clipped to his right pocket connected to a radio in the back of his waistband. Dark blue legs, a tan 'park ranger' style hat and the smug pilot head complete the figure.

The Parts

There aren't many, but you get a few interesting bits: two flavours of 4-wide wedge, some trans-blue cheese a 2x1 cheese grill, a black 1x2 brick with two studs on both sides and printed blue 'POLICE' tile. You will end up with a single trans-blue cheese left at the end of the build too.

The Instructions

Look how cute when folded; almost minifig size!

Here they are unfolded, they have a good contrast light blue background and the set colours are sufficiently dissimilar that you won't easily be confused. The steps are simple with only a couple of parts added at a time.

The lower half of the back page shows a promo shot of the other 'forest police' sets. You can see their downtown bretheren across the bridge in the background:

The Build and Model

The build is done in 2 parts, the boat and engine. It starts pretty much as any other 4-wide boat/plane with a combination of plates and wedges:

Then, add some more plates and wedges! I think given the size and price of the set the red/green nav lights are a nice little touch by the designer. The stacking of the two wedge angles also gives a more streamlined look to the bow:

Finally the engine and it's pretty huge. I think perhaps the older style plate, grille plate and lever/arm with 3 fingers used trhoughout the 90's may have been more suited:

And we're done so lets have a look around. First from above; you can see just how big the engine is and how far it sticks out. Whilst the clip-on arrangement gives a minor 'play feature' allowing the engine to be raised/lowered/removed, I can't help but thing it should be closer to the boat:

Rear quarter and again you see the giant engine dominates:

From the front quarter though she looks good and fast. Though the cop is having a bad neck day. You cant really spot in the photo but there is a 2x2 inverted dish under the bow for riding wave in the carpet without snagging:

The Verdict

Build & Model: The build was simple yet enjoyable given the small piece count. The nav lights were a nice touch, though insufficient to distract from the likely issues of centre of gravity vs centre of buoyancy are policeman is about to encounter: 6

Parts: A reasonable selection of bits for say, making boats? Might also be good as a parts source for aircraft MOCs or general policey bits. Let down only by the lifejacket: 7

Figure: Very good, I do like the forest cops, I suppose you could want some leg printing, but I'm not sure what. Lifejacket I have scored in parts, so as to not be unkind to the minifig: 9

Playability: It will happily splash (what is the boat equivalent of 'swoosh'?) around your carpet pretty fast. You could say the engine adds playability but that might be stretching it a little. Get another boat or fig and there are plenty of scenarios to play out: 7

Overall: For a promo polybag I think it fulfils it's purpose well. It shows off some good design elements, has a good fig, reasonable playability and would entice kids into the police product line. For AFOLs it's still a nice little impulse set and with slight modding to the engine area I think would look good in most settings: 8

[woofmcmoose]

As a little extra, here is a quick engine mod, achieved simply by removing the clip and bar plates. Ok, it would need tweaking to be robust to play, but I think it already looks a bit more in proportion: