Search the Community

Hello all, and I hope it's okay to post this here. I am contributing my 1st review to Eurobricks, but I'm not new to review writing as I used to write set reviews for LEGO.com under the name "VeyronianHyperLady" and became a top 10 contributor over there. This review will be about the following set: 70146 Flying Phoenix Fire Temple, the flagship set from Chima's Fire vs. Ice wave of sets (Brickset entry | BrickLink entry). It retails for £89.99 (UK) or $119.99 (US), but does it deliver any bang for your buck? Read on and make up your own mind If you just want to look at the pictures, here's the Brickshelf gallery (it's a bit disorganised, but they're all there!) Firstly, the box. It sports the fiery banner at the top, like with the rest of the Ice/Fire Chima sets and features the beautiful artwork of the Phoenix Temple in it’s “Fire CHI Power Mode” as a phoenix flyer, while a sabertooth vehicle attacks the walls of the temple. I don’t understand why the vehicle can’t go through the obvious gap left by the temple and attack it from the inside . My box unfortunately came with a price sticker and was a bit water damaged from being left out in the rain by a courier , but it seems okay now. The back of the box shows all the functions of the set. Note that the Sabertooth vehicle can actually detach into two vehicles. The Minifigures are an immediate selling point to the set. Seven excellently detailed minifigures accompany the set, with six of them (counting Fluminox’s unique royal gown variant and Voom Voom’s trans-light blue heavy armour variant) being exclusive to this set, and the other being found in 2 other sets (at the time of writing). The set includes the Phoenixes Fluminox, Foltrax and Flinx, the tiger Tormak, the lioness Li’Ella, the Sabertooth Stealthor and the Vulture Voom Voom. Fluminox: Undoubtedly the star of the minifig selection, Fluminox, presumbaly king of the Phoenix tribe, appears here in his royal robes, using a printed slope instead of a pair of minifig legs (much like Ewald in this respect). The figure is printed with a beautifully intricate robe over feathers pattern, with golden fire motifs, a pendant, chains, dog-tags and a belt. Only the pendant is obscured by the armour Fluminox wears, which is a new mould cast with a little fire emblem by the front stud and some feathering detail on the shoulders. There are two studs at the back where the wings (new in orange) attach. The head itself is printed with a very similar pattern to the Eagle’s head pattern, with a stern face and a surprised face. The golden fire motifs continue onto the new phoenix helmet mould. All this combines to make a beautiful minifigure which will be absolutely essential for any Chima collection. Fluminox holds a Wingfurno, which a nice but rather uninteresting to look at weapon, but it does the job nicely. Flinx: Possibly the first Chima minifigure to have the short legs (corrected, it's the second, G'Loona was the first), Flinx is a small minifigure but still has plenty of detail, with a similar robes over feathers pattern, which the shoulder armour partly covers. Again his head is double sided, with a happy expression and a stern expression, with both sides conveying a rather youthful appearance. He uses the same headgear mould as Fluminox but with different printing. The youthful face, use of the small triple flames and the short legs suggest that he’s the baby of the Phoenix tribe, but this packs him with a lot of character. His weapon uses a new flame piece, like a lightsaber piece but with flame extensions down the middle and is marbled with trans-red and trans-yellow. Foltrax: Probably the least interesting of the Phoenixes, but still a nice and exclusive minifigure. Foltrax’s mix of red, dark red, orange, gold and dark bluish gray might not agree with everyone though, as Foltrax does look messy with all these colours. Unlike Flinx and Fluminox, Foltrax has an armour, fasteners and abs pattern, which is a very nice pattern sadly obscured by his heavy armour, however the armour is necessary for the wings to clip on. Foltrax’s head is quite similar to Fluminox’s, and could be easily mixed up, but luckily Foltrax and Fluminox come in different bags so, unless you mix all the bags up, putting the wrong head on the Phoenixes is very unlikely. His weapon is relatively standard fare, a Ninjago blade piece on a 4L bar, but does it’s job. Tormak: The first Tiger minifigure in Chima, whose headgear mould is the same as that of Li’Ella and 70141’s Lundor, which makes sense given that they are all based off the big cats. Tormak has some beautiful dark red/gold fire motif armour patterning, fur and muscle patterning on the torso, but this is covered by the heavy armour. Tormak’s head is double-sided, with a scowling face and an angry face, and his head is also printed with lots of tiger stripe patterning which, sadly, isn’t repeated to the same level of detail on the headpiece. The headpiece is strangely devoid of tiger stripe markings for the most part. I would say that Tormak suffers from lack of arm printing as well, he just doesn’t have as many stripes on him as a tiger should have. His weapon, a fire longbow of sorts, is perhaps one of the most elaborate weapons ever seen in an LEGO set, and looks very over the top, since it’s actually taller than Tormak itself. You have to tilt Tormak’s legs right back before he can even stand holding the weapon. The other problem with the headpiece is that, unlike many of the other Chima animal headpieces, it has a raised back. This wouldn’t be a problem if only Tormak’s head wasn’t double sided, since you can see the print of the reverse side show through, which is a shame. You can see how visible it is in this picture: Li’Ella: Finally, the Lion Tribe gets a female member added to the minifigure roster. Li’Ella has a dark red cloth print on her legs with the recurring gold flame motifs, and has some feminine upper armour printed on her torso, but again, this is covered by her shoulder armour. Again, she has a double sided head, one side with a smirk, one with a smile. The smirk is the face represented on her headpiece. If you look closely, her mouth is surrounded by lipstick. Not sure if this printing is necessary since she already sticks out as a female Lion amongst all the male Lions we already have, and, well, lipstick looks a bit strange on a lion I guess! Her weapon is pretty much recycled from the Eagle Tribe but with trans-orange round tiles on it instead. Stealthor: The only figure that isn’t a variant unique to this set, but still a nice figure nonetheless. This figure has some very intricate patterning depicting their partially decaying bodies. I suppose these ice zombies could have been in worse condition if they hadn’t been preserved in ice for 10,000 years (I don’t think calling them zombies is completely appropriate though, Stealthor looks much more intelligent and quick-witted than traditional zombies, but I suppose they’re already undead ). He sports some shoulder armour in trans-light blue, which I really like since you can still enjoy the printing in all it’s half decayed glory, which makes me wish the good guys had trans-orange armour (but maybe that was a Health and Safety nightmare for everyone? ). The patterning continues with the head, which is actually double sided unlike the Vultures. Stealthor’s two faces are both similar, one with narrow eyes, one with wider eyes. The head sculpt is different to that used on the Tiger and Lioness. The ice hand is Dark Azure in colour. Stealthor has an interesting weapon which uses two of the new claw pieces. Voom Voom: The other bad guy in the set. Once again, he has intricate printing depicting him wearing a tatty loincloth decoreated with bones, and showing the half-decaying body. He wears the heavy armour, which is trans-light blue so you can still see the printing. His head is just one-sided, with a cunning expression on his decaying face. I know vultures are scavengers, but it looks like Voom Voom scavenged himself at one point. The wings are new in Light Bluish Gray and he also has an ice leg. I do wish LEGO could have varied which leg is iced over on which figure though. Voom Voom wields a pair of ice axes. My only problem is why did they choose vultures if they were doing extinct prehistoric creatures thawed from the ice? Sabertooths and mammoths made sense, but vultures just didn’t as they’re still around? I guess I’m just being nitpicky because I studied ancient life as part of a degree at university New parts and recolours: There are a few new parts and recolours, including new parts 15092, 16770, 15107 and 16768, 13547, 43723, 43722 and 43719 in Dark Orange, 11091 in Dark Red, 11127 in Trans-Orange and Bionicle Zamor Spheres in both new marbled patterns (representing Fire and Ice), as well as a new 1x1 round tile print. Brickset’s inventory obtained from LEGO.com contains a full list of parts used in the set. Instructions: They are clear and well differentiated, though reddish brown and dark brown do look similar, but shouldn’t be a problem. Here's a random instruction image: The Build: The build itself is an entertaining 2 ½ or so hours without too much repetition, but do be aware that the build is seemingly more Technic than System, which if you didn’t know about it’s function, you’d think that it was a strange choice to build a temple out of Technic. If you don’t like stickers, be aware that this set contains over 20 of them to apply, and some of them aren’t easy to get straight. There was one tiny sticker that was especially bad, but more on that later. Unfortunately I didn’t take pictures of the build after each bag since I decided to review it after I built it all, so you’ll have to make do with my descriptions. Bag 1 builds Stealthor and Voom Voom, as well as the base of the sabertooth vehicle. You start the vehicle’s clawing mechanism here, but you don’t finish it until Bag 2. Bag 2 builds the claws for the clawing mechanism and assembles the detachable air vehicle. You then move onto Booklet 2 and bag 3, where you assemble Tormak, Li’Ella and Foltrax, as well as build the temple gates. Bag 4 extends on the temple gates, adding the two rather thin walls, and also assembles the “pool of fireballs”. Bag 5 builds Flinx and Fluminox and starts construction of the base of the center of the Phoenix Temple, including building the bomb dropping function. Onto Booklet 3, and bag 6 adds the Phoenix claws that also act as flaming torches, and finishes off the bomb dropping function. Bag 7 finishes off the centre of the phoenix and you can then see the mechanism that allows it to transform into a phoenix flyer. Bag 8 builds the walls of the temple/wings of the phoenix flyer. Bag 9 finishes the build off by adding the engines and shooter turrets to the ends of the walls built in Bag 8. The finished model: Here is the finished Saber-Tooth vehicle: Side-on view. Not it's best angle I don't think, but here you can see it's aggressive forward tilt. Back view. Front view. From this angle it really does look quite a beast of a machine. Activating the clawing function is easy, you just push a rod that sticks out of the back until it stops, then let go, then start all over again in a reciprocating motion. This is achieved by slope bricks mounted on a modified plate with axle hole, attached to the vehicle with frictionless pins, as well as a rubber band. The motion works very smoothly for the most part. Here you can see the detached air vehicle and what the base looks like without the top. The wings are built with hinges and can fold in and out, but I think I prefer the two attached. Note that these actually sit loosely on top of one another, so don't go rolling the vehicle over your ceiling Stealthor sits in his new toy. It's quite a snug fit. Note the canopy is double hinged. Now onto the temple: The complete temple is quite sizeable and works quite well as a temple, though the lack of entrance into the phoenix itself may be a bit puzzling. The bley stickered part in the centre is where you can load the zamor spheres for a function you can use in phoenix mode. Plan view: Here's the walls with the phoenix part detached. Note the trans-red circles - the phoenix slots into them when docked. The phoenix actually sits completely loose, so be careful when moving the temple as a unit. The wall section is also the most fragile part of the build, which doesn't help with transporting it. The Phoenix in Temple Mode, detached from the wall section, front view: Back view of the Temple Mode. The back central section is sparse and full of Technic, but with good reason. You can pick the temple up by the back and push the section where my thumb is to begin the transformation from temple to phoenix: The temple in Phoenix mode ("Fire CHI mode", but Phoenix mode is easier to say I think ), a front view: A plan view of the Phoenix in Phoenix mode: The Temple gains another entertaining function in Phoenix Mode. Push the pin where my thumb is in the picture and make the Phoenix drop Zamor spheres as bombs. Bottom of the Temple in Phoenix Mode. Not much to see here I suppose, but you can see the hole where the Zamors drop out when you push the pin in the previous picture. Here you can see the shooter turrets are not very moveable, but they are counterweighted. If there are no minifigs in them, they droop like in the picture, but they level out when a minifig is placed in command. A bit of a close up of the Phoenix, back in Temple mode. The sticker on the black tile is nigh-on impossible to position correctly Fluminox can stand in the head of the Phoenix quite well, though how on Earth is he supposed to pilot it if he's sitting so far away from the controls? As said earlier, the shooter turrets level out when a minifig is placed in them: This is the so-called "Pool of Fireballs", although simple, it looks very nice and compliments the Temple quite nicely when you position it in the middle. And finally, here's a shot of the whole set contents: So, in summary, this is a set that's worthy of being a flagship model in every way. It is a decent and interesting build if you don't mind building with a bit of Technic (I understand why this got a 9-14 age rating after I built it ), it really is excellent value for money, in the UK this is a whole £10 cheaper than the similarly sized 70010 The Lion CHI Temple, the Chima flagship set from last year, and boasts 1,301 parts compared to last year's Chima flagship set which only contained 1,258 parts, so on a price per piece basis, the Flying Phoenix Fire Temple is excellent value for money, especially if picked up on sale. I love all the interesting new recolours in the set, especially those marbled Zamor Spheres, and, best of all, surely it's the world's first swooshable temple? Young kids will need good strength to swoosh it, the phoenix part weighs about 650 grams, but no problem for AFOL's. It's best swooshed with one hand on the back, thumb by the bomb dropping mechanism. Now for the ratings: Set design/aesthetics: 9/10 - This set is very well designed, especially the phoenix. It's clever in construction and looks good whatever mode it's in. Points are only lost on how the saber-tooth's vehicle looks in two vehicle mode. Parts: 8/10 - Plenty of new and especially recoloured parts to keep new part aficionados like me happy, but for it to be a viable parts pack you'll have to deal with significant amounts of both System and Technic, which may put some people off. Minifigs: 9/10 - They're excellent as always, though I think Tormak's lack of stripes and the fact you can see his reverse head print at the back with his mask on is a little disappointing. Playability: 10/10 - it's fun to transform the temple into a phoenix and drop a few bombs on unsuspecting ice zombies. The addition of a substantial bad guy vehicle is also great. Value for money: 10/10 - A pleasing PPP ratio to me in the UK, and there is much fun to be had with this set. Worth every penny I paid for the set. Overall: 46/50 - an excellent set, definitely recommended if you have enough LEGO budget remaining, and even better if you find it on sale Thankyou very much for reading my review! Thoughts on the set are welcome since I can't add a poll quite yet EDIT: Changed picture location from Flickr to Brickshelf.