I was excited to hear about a polybag with the Laketown Guard in it as I had Laketown but only one guard, and had to have at least two. At $5 this was a half decent deal, not the Elf polybag mind you, but still pretty good. Enjoy this pecial Reviewers Academy Anniversary edition review!
Set Information:
Name: Laketown Guard
Set Number: 30216
Pieces: 31
Price: $4.99
Ages: 6-12
Minifigs: 1
Theme: The Hobbit
Year of Release: 2013
Brickset
Bricklink
Flickr Set
Baggy:
The front of the bag is graced with some beautiful artwork showing Laketown in the winter. The banner at the top of the bag is also quite lovely, the muted colors and the company trekking across a ridge look great.
Nothing much on the back of the bag as usual. Just "The Hobbit" in various languages as well as a wall-of-text warnings.
Contents:
As this is a small set, here's all of the parts included. Nothing super extraordinary since this is a poly bag and the main draw is the minifigure.
These are the only two extra parts, really excited to see some extra dark green cheese!
Manual:
Here is our manual. The light grey background for this is a good choice; it really plays on the snow aspect.
The back of the manual is split between a half page ad for the rest of Laketown and the final instructions for the set.
Minifigure:
This figure is just so cool! All of the curves in the figure flow so well; not to mention the colors. The purple, dark red, and brown flow together quite well. Laketown has some great colors. There's quite a bit of detail on this guy too, you can see the chain mail skirt sticking out from under his robes.
Less to see on the back. His belt continues around and his shirt has some nice printing.
Now the Master of Laketown has has two guards; as he should! The Laketown figures are so wonderfully designed and have great color schemes.
Finished Model:
There's really not a whole lot to this set; it's a polybag after all. But one gets a nice little armory and a decent catapult.
It's a pretty standard armory design that we've seen repeated for years now with only slight changes. The catapult is pretty good though.
Here's the armory compared to the one that came in the Laketown Chase set, the one here is actually more impressive.
Our original guard has a more enjoyable time with a friend now.
Conclusion:
This isn't a terrible set at all if one is army building with the figure. Otherwise there's really not a reason to be getting more than one. (I'm a bit of a completionist myself. ) The figure is really quite pretty though.
Ratings:
Playability: 4/10
Okay you get the catapult, but who's he supposed to fire it at??
Design: 5/10
It's a pretty standard set model wise; we've seen similar stuff quite often.
Price: 8/10
I can't complain about the price to much.
Minifigures: 9/10
I absolutely love this figure! So detailed and wonderfully colored.
Parts: 6/10
Nothing spectacular at all in this set.
Total: 32/50
"Mine's bigger!"
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