DuckBricks

Much lower than predicted. I’m very happy with the $40 sets.

Thanks for the remarks! I’m not entirely sure what you mean by the other photo though - is this below what you were looking for? The Battle Suit has no actual way of making contact with the bottom seat of the larger Mech; it just kinda floats there. Thanks to you to for reading and commenting! I’m glad the comparisons were useful; I wasn’t sure if anyone was interested besides me

Review is live!

Welcome to legozebra's pictorial review of 72004 Tech Wizard Showdown! Retailing for $39.99, 72004 is one of the 2018 Nexo Knights sets, although it, like many other 2018 sets, will be released officially on November 29th, most likely to capture the holiday spirit of frantic gift-buying. I was swinging by my local Toys R Us for something completely different (My branch for some reason has four Lego-related giveaways all around the $30-$50 price range - Geoffrey the Giraffe, Kai's Dojo Pod, Friends Ski Pod, and R3-M2) and happened to see this - the only 2018 set on the shelves. They seem to be appearing out in the wild at greater frequency and earlier than they've ever been, so stop by your local TRU - chances are at least one or two 2018 sets will be on shelves. But you didn't come here to read about how I got the set - so without further ado, let's jump into the box art! Packaging/Box Art (First of all, apologies for the slightly blurry pictures of the box - I noticed my camera lens was smudged after I had already thrown out the box) Emblazoned on the box art for 72004 is Clay's Tech Wizard Mech, facing off against the much smaller crawler mech that Monstrux boasts. The Infecto Byter appears to be attempting to block stud shooter bullets with his scythe (not a good plan), while the Cyberbyter is doing his best to impede the mech's progress by whacking it with his tiny axe. Neither seem like they are going to accomplish anything here. On the other hand, Monstrux is firing infecting bugs at the mech - which may seem small at first, but who knows if they'll manage to take over the mech's systems... The back of the box boasts seven golden Merlok Powers, each corresponding to a knight plus Merlok himself - a Claymore for Clay, Bow for Aaron, Lance for, well, Lance, Mace for Macy, Hammer for Robin (I guess he's a full-fledged knight now), an Axe for Axl, and a Wizard's staff for Merlok. On an aside, typing out each of these weapons and their corresponding knight really hammers in the pun names. Enough of the box though - let's get into the minifigures! Minifigures, Named Characters, and Accessories Starting off the minifigures we have Clay Moorington, the only knight not to boast golden armor due to the mech suit he fits in. I expect some sort of retailer exclusive or other set we haven't seen yet to include him with full armor, presumably the only unrevealed set containing the Merlok Staff Power. But for now, this is all we get. Here's a shot of the figure's back printing to get a good look at the sweet blue and gold printing. Everything about this figure is pretty superb save one detail - the Tech Wizard arm. Spoilers for Season Four of the TV show follow, as well as comparison photos to how it should look. As you may or may not have seen in the spoiler box, Clay's arm look pretty drastically different in the show than it does in the set - in the show, without giving away spoilers, it is part trans orange and part blue, with technology lines receding from it. Pretty cool, right? In the set, however, it's just... orange. Yeah, that's right. Just a plain orange arm. This feels like a missed opportunity here - In Ninjago, for example, when Cole unlocked his Elemental Fists, his arms gained an effect in the TV show not unlike Clay's arm here, except the set version was trans-black with orange rock highlights. That arm looked amazing, whereas this plain orange arm is a bit of a let-down. I don't know anything about how well Nexo Knights is performing financially, but presume that this lack of detail could have arisen from budgetary constraints, not technical difficulties in making it look good. Here's a look at all variants of Clay we've gotten so far - it's more than I realized at first! From left to right: 2016 Knight Clay, 2016 Ultimate Clay, 2017 Knight Clay, 2017 Battle Suit Pilot Clay, 2017 Cursed Transformation Clay, 2017 Gray Knight Stone Clay, and finally 2018 Battle Suit Pilot/Tech Wizard Clay. Note how the sword molding has changed over the years to reflect shifts in color scheme - silver, gray, and gold. Anyways, with Clay done, let's take a closer look at the other character on the side of good: Merlok. The Merlok we get in this set is indeed a printed part - thank goodness he wasn't a sticker, or there would be fingerprints all over him. Here's a lineup of all Merlok variants we've gotten so far, from left to right: 2016 Fortrex Merlok, 2016 (Sticker) GWP Training Pack w/Shield Merlok, 2017 Merlok Mech Suit, and 2018 Tech Wizard Merlok. Of all of them, the worst is by far the obscure promo version, which makes sense, as he's a sticker and way too small as well. As for the 2018 vs 2016 hologram variants, it's not obvious as first but the 2016 variant is printed in silver on the piece whereas the 2018 variant is in warm gold. It's a really nice way to emphasize the change in color scheme between the years (more on that later) but especially the change from silver highlights in 2016, orange highlights in 2017, and gold highlights in 2018. It's a cool detail I didn't notice at first glance, but am really liking how the Merlok holograms evoke that year's secondary color scheme. But now, we must move onto a more... monstrous side of the figures, starting with the CyberByter. This cute little fellow seems to be a Squirebot who has been infected with Monstrux's tech virus. A closer loom at his face shows he is trying very hard to appear as menacing as possible, to somewhat comedic effect. His alt-face is a bit more grumpy - but evil nonetheless. Now if only this virus will improve their lackluster fighting abilities as well as their facial prints... but we'll have to wait and see for Season Five of the show. Next up is the Infecto Byter, sporting a brand new vampiric helmet. Personally, I'm a bigger fan of this figure than I was of other generic baddie types in the past, like the magma and stone/lightning monsters, but I appear to be in the minority in that regards. Perhaps it's because I've never been that big of a castle fan and more of a space fan, but I really welcome these new, high-tech designs. With the helmet removed, we get a better look at that creepy face - I absolutely love this vampire-esque mask and suspect it will prove very useful in custom Space characters in the future. Turning the figure around, however, and we see one of the major flaws in the helmet - much like the masks of the 2011 Hero Factory Fire Villains (anyone remember these?), it is double sided, serving as a different helmet from the back. The only problem with this unique design, however, is the inclusion of an alternate face, which sticks out more prominently than Han Solo's scowl underneath his old hair element. Now, these may be elements of the story - perhaps these villainous fiends do indeed have eyes on the backs of their heads (props to Tommy Andreasen if he's worked this element of the sets into the show) - but until that's confirmed, this is an unfortunate side effect of having both a dual sided helmet and an alternate expression. Speaking of that alt expression, here's a look underneath the helmet, as well as a side shot for a close-up of the new mold. Next up is Monstrox and his creepy crawler platform. The hologram element is indeed printed, which came as a nice surprise. Here's a look at all iterations of Monstrox over the years, from the diminutive Book of Monsters, to the Cloud of Monstrox, and finally the Hologram (?) of Monstrox. I've obviously excluded the Stone Colossus of Ultimate Destruction, another form of Monstrox, because of his, well, colossal size. The crawler alone sports three new molds as well - a tiny tech bug (I'm sure the official name is in some set description somewhere, but it's a tiny tech bug) and a cool new wing/claw element in trans green with hexagonal patterns, a bit like a tiny version of Galaxy Squad's Insect Wings. Here's the element in question: And here's the most exciting element of all - the new shield. It's both insectoid and techy, with what appear to be coiled wires streaming down the sides of the element. It's much more visually appealing than the rock shield, and is my favorite new mold from this set. Also, here's some shots of the new tech bug element, in case you were curious. It's a neat amount of detail for such a small piece, down to the legs at different angles. I dig it! Before we move on, I just wanted to highlight the new Merlok Power: It's cast in some sort of gold, although the shine is a bit different from the other warm gold parts. It may be just me, but it looks really great and feels like a high quality collectible item. I really like this element! With all the figures and and characters covered, let's move on the the main build! Build/Model We're a bit ahead of ourselves - let's backtrack to a nice surprise inside of the larger mech suit... A baby mech suit! It's a standard build, nothing too exciting - but it's to be expected with builds piloting other builds (see 8943, 8942, 70810, the list goes on). Here's a comparison to another rather standard build: Clay's original Battle Suit. (Excuse the lack of Nexo Powers - they're all part of a large wall display) The Battle Suit features the cockpit in element in warm gold, the first time it's ever been in that color, but otherwise features no other exciting recolors or molds. The weapons can be held in a back jetpack attachment, also featured on the main mech. This attachment, while looking alright from the front and back (save the awkward giant sword placement) really does not look good at all from the side: As you can see, it juts out with the thickness of almost another Battle Suit entirely. It does this too, but to a much lesser extent, in the larger mech, and I feel that it could have been executed a bit better and way slimmer than it is. Let's take a look at the battle suit fitting inside the larger Tech Wizard suit: There's an orange click-hinge attachment point to the suit that fits the Battle Suit nicely. The box art and instructions show the legs and arms hanging out rather haphazardly; I prefer folding the legs back and squeezing the arms together as you can see in the photo. The legs especially are unwieldy as they hang out - they hamper the already extremely limited leg articulation if you pose it like it is on the cover, and can cause the mech to dislodge from the already fragile connection. Once it's in there, close up the front plate (yes - that is a Nexo Combo Power shield in glorious light blue/aqua) and fold down the shoulder pads and helmet to secure it. It reminds me a lot of 8557 Exo-Toa, a set I loved as a kid because I could remove and add a large scale figure to it, and I expect this set will be just as well-loved by children as well, as this is a really neat play feature. Once situated, here's a look at the overall suit with the helmet, shoulder pads, and chest element closed. It really brings it all together, don't you think? The Battle Suit is remarkably well-concealed, and I didn't even notice it in early images of the set. Compared to the two other mechs we've gotten, it stands about as tall as King's Mech (without its amazing 21109 Exo Suit-esque knee articulation) and is dwarfed by the Black Knight Mech. This shot especially highlights some of my issues with the mech's legs - the upper torso and arms feel like they belong to a mech the size of the Black Knight Mech, but the legs are way too stubby for it - it's almost like they took upper legs/thighs and attached feet to the bottom, foregoing lower legs completely. It's a less extreme version of the legs on 70904 Clayface Splat Attack, if you know what I mean. Because of this stubbiness and lack of articulation, you can't do much with posing in terms of the legs, as you can see: The last photo here really shows the extent to which you can pose it - and this isn't a unique issue. For better or for worse, Lego mechs in recent years have swung on thew opposite end of, say, Exo Force mechs, with lots of articulation but not much stability. Recently, they've gone with extreme stability - just take a look at 70615 Fire Mech, for example - its legs are pretty much just thick, long stalks, with no knees or feet articulation at all. Personally, I'd like a better engineered mix of two extremes - articulation and stability at the same time. I will concede, however, that this is quite difficult to accomplish. Moving upwards, I wanted to pause and highlight this bit of neat shaping - the SNOT connections with the half arches really mesh well together - props to the designer (probably Mark Stafford, he does pretty much all the mechs) to making this work out really well! Moving to the sword arm, here's another look: The cylinder hilt is stickered all the way around with an attractive gold pair of stickers - they're a pain to put on, but look so good when applied. moving along the sword you'll notice a clever resting spot for Clay's dual molded minifigure-scale sword. It also may not seem like it at first glance, but there's a solid amount of articulation here - the sword can be slashed from left to right and right to left diagonally (as well as up and down), making it good enough for play to me. Too bad the vertical placement is a little awkward to pose. Moving onto the other arm, here's a look at the gun shield: It offers a neat place to store Clay's new warm gold Nexo Shield, but the placement of said shield is a tad awkward, and it leaves an exposed clip on the other side. I do, however, love the shaping of the build - it's simple, yet visually attractive - the slight angles of the wing elements along with the circular stud shooter make it the best large-scale Nexo Shield, in my humble opinion. Moving to the back of the mech: You'll see its decently armored-up, complete with a jetpack that is much better scaled to this than it is to the Battle Suit, although it still juts out a tad. The natural shaping of the mech's back, while attractive, doesn't help this lopsided side view. And there you have it - 72004 Tech Wizard Showdown! It's a solid set for $39.99. $29.99 would have been really nice (Like the King's Mech), but I understand the pricing due to the extra Battle Suit inclusion. Does it have its problems? Certainly. The sizing is the one major problem, making it look like a dwarf with its large torso and short legs. Is it a solid parts pack? Most definitely. Would I pick it up again? For sure. Despite the problems, it's a solid mech, and the Battle Suit really blends in well (the helmet that covers it is a sweet build as well). I'd recommend picking this up if you see it on store shelves. That's it for now - hope you enjoyed the review! I'm a relatively new reviewer experimenting with different techniques (I don't think any of my reviews have shared the same background, as I'm playing around with my setup), so any feedback, good or bad, will be greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading!

Just picked up the Tech Wizard Showdown from my local TRU - it was the only 2018 set they had out. I’m writing up a review right now!

I’ll give this to Nexo Knights colors - when they decide on a rigid color scheme for character vehicles, boy do they stick to it, with varying degrees of success. The theme for this year is gold, which means we get dark blue, trans neon orange, gold, and whatever the main color for the knight is. When we first started, all vehicles shared just the blue, trans neon orange, and a hint of silver. Now, with four prominent colors to display, things start getting a bit messy, as we can see with any of Aaron’s recent vehicles (lime green really does not go well at all with the previous colors). Clay’s, on the other hand, fare better, as blue goes relatively well with dark blue and neon orange. Honestly, the worst thing about the new sets is the gold - it doesn’t seem to fit at all with the aesthetic and other colors.

Sorry to make it even harder for you, but this is one of the most criminally underrated Lego games yet - combat is absolutely spectacular and really enjoyable, and yes, Griffin Turner (Elemental Master of Speed) and Acronix (Elemental Master of Time) both have super speed abilities, which makes zipping around locations really fun and quick.

This belongs more in the TV discussion, but I really don’t see anything wrong with Zane using a bow and arrow - it’s already been explained by Tommy Andreasen that Cole got his Hammer as a gift from his father as a token to show his acceptance of his son’s life, so I’m totally ok with them writing a fun, in-canon explanation as to why the weapons changed. As far as personalities, they’re confirmed to stay the same.

Got a picture?

This is an aside, but the CMF Master Wu actually does have the printed arms, just not every other variant in the sets :)

Had to resort to YouTube to find it. Since I do watch a number of Ninjago videos, it popped up in my feed, but seemed to be a screenshot originating from Instagram, a platform I’m very much not active in. It has a giant “@kattman4” watermark over it if that helps.

YES!

Oh my.... Today I learned of this technique. Thanks so much! Now off to the ironing board with dozens of capes I go...

Yeah, I'm thinking this is the Spinjitsu variant and all the other ninja will get similar variants. Wait..... that's the exact variant that Tommy Andreasen debunked as a concept... huh.

Thanks man! The villain looks really intriguing - I'm excited for 2018! I love the print detail and pink/purple color, something really uncommon to Ninjago villains. It looks great!

Happen to remember who posted it?

They aren't in the usual places, but I assume they'll show up soon. Was this 4chan?

I'd try the Nindroid's Abandoned Factory Dojo... ;)

The person who posted it also had posted a lot of TLBM 2018 figs early, such as Hawkgirl and Egghead. I actually have it saved - I can PM anyone who's interested.

Yup - they were the planned villains had the movie been released last year - I kinda wish that's what happened. I know they're more snakes, but I kinda prefer the designs here to the Shark Army.

Took some shots of the Making Of The Movie book, and it's full of really interesting info - I'll focus on the set design process in this thread though. Some Set Prototypes: 70607 Ninjago City Chase - I like a lot of these stall designs a lot more than the barebones one we got, but at least they provide really good inspiration for future builds - especially the octopus/noodle one. 70609 Manta Ray Bomber - The "fins" using blimp/hot air balloon elements on the right design are interesting, but something's a tad off, so I see why they didn't go for it. Still, it makes the model a lot more interesting than it is now, and I would have really liked new colors for the hot air balloon. 70610 Flying Jelly Sub - Nothing much to say about these prototypes - The one with teeth is pretty cute, but since the model needed a pilot, it wouldn't really work. 70611 Water Strider - If only we got that larger scale, but I can't complain much as the price is so good. 70612 Green Ninja Mech Dragon - A lot of the designs here look great, as well as the different color schemes - the one they went with is a great parts pack, but I like the darker shades a bit more. It's interesting how they stretched out the Lego element for the movie. The red build looks amazing, but I'm glad they went with natural green. 70614 Lightning Jet - I actually really like the design we got; the other designs don't seem as inspired as our current model, and the way they evoked electricity is great. 70615 Fire Mech - The set in the middle of the spread showing the three models most closely matches the scale we got - I only wish we got the prototype on the right, which actually matches the scale of the movie set really well. Additionally, I really like that curved, trans red cockpit - but I guess it was changed for better visibility of Kai. I'm glad they went with the mech design - Although the "fire" truck is an ironically funny concept, it's really boring. 70616 Ice Tank - I like the final aesthetic of what we got a lot more than some of the other proposed designs, but I wish the cannon opening feature was used for the final set - it makes a great play feature and gives a logical reason as to why the set looks the way it does. 70617 Temple of the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon - What we got is much better than these two, but the stone dragons on the right one look a bit nicer than what we got. 70618 Destiny's Bounty - We got such a superb set I don't have much to say about the prototypes, other than I wish we got a flying feature given that it flew in the film. 70620 Ninjago City - I really, really like the top of that right one - the tan and trans light blue windshield look spectacular. What we got was alright - the skyscraper as part of the city but in a different scale is a bit odd at any angle besides the front, but it's not a big deal. 70629 Piranha Chase - I like what we got - if only the feet moved, though 70632 Cole's Quake Mech - Again, not much to say with this one except the final design is better than the umpteenth overused Power Miners drill design - that brick-built wheel looks really sweet though. 70656 garmadon, Garmadon, GARMADON Other (Unreleased): This Nexo Knights-esque concept would have been featured if the movie was set in a more rural village, something that was considered. Some of the alternate Shark Army designs - I particularly like the Seahorse, Anglerfish, and Squid sub. This bounty hunter duo would have been interesting, but the movie was already pretty crowded and I feel like there wouldn't have been any time to explore these side characters - Plus the build isn't anything special. The parallels to Lloyd and Garmadon are interesting, however. And finally, the GREAT DEVOURER was the planned kaiju for the movie, to be replaced by the cat. Man - this would've meant an epic Great Devourer model as well as the albeit far less interesting and somewhat random robot mongoose. I'm guessing this was the enemy for the script that had the Vermillion as enemies. Figure Prototypes: Fabric/Cloth Elements: Why wasn't this a thing? Fans have been clamoring for a coat just like this since Commissioner Gordon sported one in TLBM (and probably before that too), so I can't fathom why they even made a physical element but didn't release it in sets. Same with this one - they clearly designed this skirt element to go along with General #1, but I can't understand why it wasn't actually released Kai - I like what we got, but gold and red arm printing would have been nice. Shirtless Kai is hilarious as well - I would have loved to see that variant and especially that face in the CMF line. Jay - This flight suit is sweet, and I wish we got it as a variant in the jet. The dark blue hat/mask combo is very attractive as well. Zane - That "breathing mask" design is really cool - I wonder what it would've looked like in white? Cole - Wish we got that ridged hammer, but there weren't many design variants showcased here. Lloyd - They dodged a bullet here with "emo Lloyd" - That would've been awful, and I'm glad they didn't go for it. The callback to 2012-era Lloyd is a bit funny, though. Nya - I rather like all of these designs - the armor mold is neat as well and I wish we got that as an actual part. Wu - Now this is where it gets interesting. Younger, "kung-fu movie" Wu would have been cool, but I see why they went with the traditional "Sensei" look. Garmadon - The crab helmet is alright, but I prefer what we got. Some of those illustrated helmets look great, though. Misako - All of the Lady Iron Dragon designs are so sweet - I could see them being re-used as Amazonians or Warrior Princesses - they all look so good. General #1 - I wish we got that different, Japanese-style hair, but the Zombie Businessman hair is serviceable. Other These Bounty Hunters look really cool - I wish that tiger was made into a set, and I'm curious as to why the bearded man is flesh-colored. The Vermillion here look really, really cool, and I wish that posable tail was actually made. It seems like the face prints were re-used for the Serpentine/Skulkin War flashback, which is interesting. That's it for now - I've posted a bunch more onto Flickr if you're interested, including a fascinating look at how Spinjitsu and the Tornado of Creation would have played a large role in the movie.

I doubt 36 (wow - that many already?) is Hulk again, as the only re-releases they've done have been with redesigned Comic Con exclusives (thank god). I'm guessing it's probably Thanos, although we've yet to discover what that giant Brickheadz box is for, which really intrigues me.

A rumor from 4chan has about a 50% chance of being true, and especially because it's dealing with a 2HY 2018 catalogue (I'm pretty sure those are definitely not out with retailers yet, especially because retailers just got the 1HY catalogue in August/September.) Regardless, a new, original CCBS theme makes me so excited - I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high, as there's such a huge chance this is fake and it wouldn't make sense right after Bionicle G2's flop, but I'm holding out hope just in case...

I didn't not enjoy it - it was fine, but I didn't really feel like it was the best sequel it could have been to my favorite game growing up, Lego Racers.

Loved Lego Racers (it got me into Lego) and thought Racers 2 was just ok - I agree how it didn’t really feel like a standard racing game and more like an open world adventure game that happened to have races.