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Review: LEGO The Lone Ranger: 79106 – Cavalry Builder Set
XimenaPaulina posted a topic in LEGO Licensed
As follow-up to my previous review for 79108 Stagecoach Escape, I shall be reviewing the smallest set of the Lone Ranger product line, 79106 – Cavalry Builder Set. The whole ‘The Lone Ranger experience’ will not be complete without our hero’s trusty steed, Silver, which was significantly missing from the Stagecoach set and luckily is part of this small and relatively inexpensive set! It’s probably a shallow reason but this horse is why I purchased this set. So is this set worth getting just to get the Silver stallion? Let's see if this set has more to offer in this review... Set Information Set Name: Cavalry Builder Set Set Number: 79106 Theme: The Lone Ranger Year: 2013 Pieces: 69 Minifigures: 4 Price: US$13.99 | CN$17.99 Links: Brickset | Bricklink | Peeron (not yet inventoried) | LEGO Shop@Home Product Description Defeat the cavalry soldiers with the Lone Ranger! Say, “Hi-Yo, Silver!” as you blaze into battle with the Cavalry Builder Set! Guide the Lone Ranger and his trusty steed Silver into battle! Sneak past the defense wall and surprise the cavalry soldiers while they cook dinner at the campfire. Disarm all 3 before they load the cannon and take aim! Then ride off into the sunset for another Lone Ranger adventure! Collect 3 more soldiers and build up your cavalry for all of your Lone Ranger battles! Includes 4 minifigures with weapons and accessories: the Lone Ranger and 3 cavalry soldiers. • Includes 4 minifigures with weapons and accessories: the Lone Ranger and 3 cavalry soldiers • Features defense wall, campfire with flames, a cannon with wheels and the Lone Ranger’s horse, Silver, with poseable legs and head • Weapons include 3 revolvers and 2 rifles • Accessories include a duffel bag, 2 backpacks, telescope, frying pan, turkey leg, flag, flames, ammunition and a rammer • Sneak around the defenses and defeat the cavalry! • Load the cannon and take aim! • Silver stands over 3" (8cm) tall • Cannon (without rammer) measures over 1" (4cm) high, 3" (8cm) long and 1" (4cm) wide • Defenses measure over 1" (3cm) high, 4" (12cm) wide and less than 1" (2cm) deep • Campfire measures over 1" (3cm) wide and less than 1" (2cm) high and deep The Box The image of the whole set may be cramped in the limited space afforded by the small size of the box, but the elements are nicely presented in the standard TLG way: highlighting the main feature (The Lone Ranger in his signature riding pose with Silver) with the supporting elements (cavalry soldiers aiming a gun and firing a cannon) and a now-becoming-more-common (unintentional?) funny bit (one soldier busy grilling his turkey drumstick while there is an on-going skirmish). The layout of the set features at the back seems to be well thought-of as the two separate panels (cannon and ‘turkey leg’) coincide with the position of the respective items in the main image. And the funny bit about the turkey leg continues at the back as Lone Ranger grabs away the poor soldier’s meal! Like most small sets, the 1:1 actual size panel at the top shows a LEGO part rather than a minifigure – in this case the new revolver piece. Have you ever wondered if the size of the part/minifig in this panel is actually 1:1 with the real thing? I did, and a side-by-side comparison reveals a slight difference in size! (though not really that important ). I overlooked this detail in my Stagecoach review but on the right side of the box there is a small logo which, thanks to my limited movie knowledge, I recognized right away as that “lightning strikes the tree” logo of Jerry Bruckheimer films (which obviously this Lone Ranger movie is also). The Contents This little set gives us two small unnumbered bags of LEGO, a small (folded) instruction booklet, and the white horse piece that comes loose (my assumption is a large piece like this may be ‘problematic’ in the automated packaging in small plastic bags). Also, no sicker sheet! Yay! The Instruction Booklet Since the coverart of the booklet is just the same as the one in the boxart, I’ll just highlight the faint background details of the pages which really give the pages a Wild West flavor consistent with the set theme. The Parts Bagged Contents As a minifig-centric set, roughly a third of the parts are expectedly for the minifigs and accessories. The new white horse piece conspicuously stands out in the sea of Wild Western wooden brown, sand tan, and the usual black and grey assortment of parts. Interesting Pieces The new parts that come with this set are the white horse (first in this color) and the aforementioned new revolver pieces (in flat silver and pearl dark grey). When I first saw these new revolvers back in the preliminary pictures I felt there wasn’t really a need to make new mold since the old one would’ve worked IMO, but now I think these new revolvers add more authenticity/realism to this licensed theme. There is also a flag piece with printed, not stickered, logo of the cavalry, which is based on the real-life mid-19th century 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States. The Minifigs For a small 69-piece, 13-buck set we get a generous amount of four minifigures: the star of the movie, the Lone Ranger, and the main “army-builders” of the set - three cavalry soldiers. The Lone Ranger minifig is the same as the one in the Stagecoach set (and probably with the rest of products). TLG pretty much nailed the overlook look of LR in this minifig – from the face (except for the unshaven look of the actual movie character) to the outfit with his signature cowboy hat, black coat, and star badge. Meanwhile, the cavalry soldiers have the same blue cavalry uniform torsos, unprinted light blue legs, and blue forage caps but are differentiated with unique head prints and different accessories. One seems to be sort of a leader, carrying a revolver, a hand telescope and a duffel bag, while the other two are generic soldiers with backpacks and armed with rifles. All minifigs have back-printing which is already the norm nowadays. However, they don’t have double-sided heads. While it would’ve been nice to get alternative facial expressions, I guess it’s too much to ask for a small and cheap set as this one. (Double-sided faces aren't applicable with these minifigs since the back of the heads aren't covered enough! - thanks to Darth Lurtz for the correction). Here’s a couple of more shots of the minifigs: No you’re not seeing double, I'm just showing that the Lone Ranger from this set is the same as the one in the Stagecoach set. I think this is the only minor drawback of this set in the sense that you’ll end up with more than one Lone Ranger minifgure if you purchase the sets from this theme (just like Jack Sparrow in POTC, Aragorn in LOTR, R2-D2 in SW, etc.). On the other hand, the inclusion of this minifigure in this set is understandable from the perspective that the Lone Ranger is the main character of the movie/theme and this is a good cheap way of getting LR together with Silver. A group shot of the cavalry soldiers: I like the variety of the facial expressions of the soldiers – a cocky Han Solo-ish smirk, an angry serious boss-like look, and a confident smiling smug. I’m pretty sure these will be quite useful in fleshie-based minifig customization. Silver Since the Lone Ranger’s majestic white stallion is also a significant part of the Lone Ranger theme, he should also be highlighted with the other characters of this set. As previously mentioned, this is the first set to give us this new horse mold in white. I’m pretty sure this will also become popular with another licensed theme’s fanbase – I can now imagine LOTR fans removing the headstrap prints on this horse so they will Shadowfax. Here’s a group shot of the new horses in the three main colors. They look good together don’t they? And you can get these three (actually four, with another black one) from just two sets, 79106 and 79108, from this theme! The Build Elements / Set Features Campfire The smallest build is a simple 11-piece campfire with a turkey leg being cooked as dinner for the soldiers. One begs to ask, how in the Wild West will one turkey leg feed three hungry men’s stomachs? Your guess is as good as mine. Despite the simplicity of the build I think this is a nice little feature capturing one aspect of “outdoor life in the wild”. Cannon The cavalry’s main assault weapon, the moveable wheeled cannon is equipped with four cannon balls round bricks and a handy rammer. The cannon, of course, is a must-have for any cavalry arsenal, so I’m happy the designers made the right call of including this in the set. Personally, I have always loved LEGO cannons, I think this is one of the ingenious pieces TLG ever invented and I’ve been a fan of this piece/assembly since the classic Pirates sets. Getting another one in this set is certainly most welcome! Here we have the cavalry unit prepping the cannon, with one acting as the “spotter”, one as the loader of the cannon balls, and one as the “triggerman”. This is the first time I’ve seen the rammer accessory included in a cannon and I think it’s a quite accurate detail reminiscent of “early war technology” (or lack thereof) back then . Also, it’s good to know one of the spare flame pieces can be used in this scene to fire-up the cannon. Defense Barricade We get a nice little barricade as defense of the cavalry unit during gunfight. The ‘wood bricks’ appropriately give the barricade an Old West wooden look, and the small Cavalry flag is a sign that this mini-fort is officially sanctioned by the United States Army. Thanks to a swivel plate connector, the mini-barricade can be positioned in various ways/angles – straight (previous example), angled (left), or perpendicular/right-angled (right). Here’s a shot of the cavalry soldiers behind the barricade. The varying height of the barricade is just perfect for the different uses of the cavalry: defense (three bricks high), offense (two-bricks high - enough height for proper mounting of rifles), though I have no idea how useful is the one-brick high part of the barricade. The Lone Ranger with Silver Depending how one views this set, the Lone Ranger with Silver is either the main or the supporting feature of this set. Either way, this duo in itself is already a great "hero role-playing” playable feature for the kids. It helps also that the new horse mold is now poseable, allowing Silver to assume various action poses: walking (normal position), galloping (stretched hind legs), or even make his signature standing position (pictured above). Hi-yo, Silver, Away! The Completed Set Here’s the whole set in all its glory. Not a bad collection of mini-builds and minifigs for an army-builder set isn’t it? Leftover Parts This theme is quite generous in giving us these new revolvers as we get a couple of spares (further increasing the weaponry of this army builder set). Army / Cavalry-Building Potential I think this set lives up to its billing as a cavalry builder set, providing a nice assortment of cavalry necessities: 3 fully-uniformed cavalry soldiers (with three different faces) Weapons = 5 x revolver (including spares), 2 x rifles, cannon! Accessories = telescope, duffel bag, 2 x backpacks, cavalry flag Mini-Barricade Even Silver can be used as a generic white horse – which is a must-have for any cavalry unit. Overall, almost all the elements of this set (except for the Lone Ranger fig) are tailor-fitted for cavalry building. Just imagine the possibilities of acquiring several of these sets, you’d be able to build a substantial size of a cavalry: (e.g. 5 sets = 15 cavalry soldiers, 5 horses, 5 cannons, 25 revolvers, 10 rifles, a host of other accessories, and a larger barricade can be built from the parts), just never mind the 5 Lone Rangers you’ll end up getting. Needless to say, this is a definite must-have for any Old West Cavalry builder (though I have no idea how large this portion of FOLs is). For the more casual fan like me, this is a pretty good valued-purchase as you’ll be able to get the main character of the movie, Lone Ranger, together with Silver, plus other elements in a relatively inexpensive set. One last thing, before I forget, this set is a nice throwback to the old Western set 6706 Frontier Patrol (for those who don’t know). Rating the Set Design – 9/10 The mini-builds may not be spectacular but they definitely serve their purpose as simple but well-built complementary elements to an army builder set that focuses on minifigs and accessories. When combined with multiples of this set, that is where the full potential of these builds will be realized, and that in itself speaks of how well-conceptualized and well-designed this set is. Build – 7/10 One wouldn’t really expect much in terms of building techniques in a minifig-centric army builder set. The build is as straightforward as it can be. Parts – 9/10 The white horse alone garners this set a high score from me, considering this piece is still exclusive (at the moment) to this cheap set and the more expensive Constitution Train set. Plus points also for the printed flag! Minifigures – 9/10 Four minifigs in a 13-dollar set is a great deal, not to mention the variety in minifig heads and accessories we get for the cavalry soldiers. The simple but accurate representation of the real-life characters is also commendable. Playability – 8/10 Any set that has a cannon in it would translate to enjoyable time of aiming-firing-“looking-for-those-damn-cannon balls” especially for the kids. And cannons are definitely much better and more potent in knocking down minifigs than those flimsy flick-fires. Oh, and Lone Ranger riding Silver is in itself a good “hero role-playing” feature for the kids too. Price – 9/10 This set has prett good value especially when compared to similar army builders in Star Wars Battle packs: both have the same number of minifigs but you'll get better/more pieces, weapons, and accessories at a much cheaper price with this set. Overall: 85% Parting Shot Now that I have Silver, I can now pair up the Lone Ranger with his trusted companion Tonto as they start their quest for justice: Ride for Justice by Kiel.Da.Man Also, look out for an upcoming comic I’m currently working on based on this Lone Ranger set: If you haven't seen it yet you could check out my other Lone Ranger set review for 79108 Stagecoach Escape: Once again, thanks for taking the time to read my review. Comments are certainly most welcome! .