Review: 71722 Skull Sorcerer's Dungeons
Posted by CapnRex101,71722 Skull Sorcerer's Dungeons features some excellent details and definitely stands out within the Master of the Mountain range. The carved decoration over the entrance seems spectacular and I love the extensive landscaping around the Skull Sorcerer's stronghold.
Furthermore, the set contains some exceptional minifigures, including the eponymous Skull Sorcerer and three members of his underground army. However, these characters are not the only challenges opposing the ninja because this imposing structure is protected by various enjoyable functions, ensnaring unwanted visitors!
Minifigures
The newest ninja minifigures are exceptionally unusual, featuring heavy armour which seems poorly suited to traditional ninja. Nevertheless, I like the combination of green, dark green and pearl silver that decorates Lloyd. The pattern on his attire is beautifully intricate and I like how his breastplate incorporates a dragon motif, corresponding with Lloyd's shield.
Cole features pearl gold armour which complements his black clothing and exhibits extensive moulded detail. The layered pauldron appears particularly attractive. Moreover, I like the small slits in the mask, resembling those found on mediaeval helmets. The metallic gold decorations are also effective and another animalistic design appears on Cole's torso, securing the reddish brown straps across his chest.
White and pearl gold components are combined to splendid effect for Zane, along with some medium azure highlights on the torso and legs. These details seem somewhat out of place to me and the golden arm would probably appear more appropriate on the other side, although I appreciate the differing arm colours which are shared by most of the six ninja.
Each character wields suitable weapons as Lloyd carries his dao, Cole includes an enormous mace and Zane is equipped with a crossbow. The latter weapons are especially interesting as these resemble mediaeval equivalents of their normal armaments. The decorated shields look superb too, displaying dragon and lion motifs.
Princess Vania assists the ninja in their mission to vanquish the Skull Sorcerer and appears absolutely magnificent. Her ornate clothing features intricate scrolls that resemble clouds and the blue sashes are similarly attractive, combining geometric and rounded designs. I think the torso and legs may prove useful for generic minifigures in the Chinese New Year range.
The double-sided head includes neutral and cheerful expressions, both of which look slightly sinister in my opinion. Nevertheless, this element looks great and I love the golden hair piece. This rubber component originated during 2017 but has only been produced in black, until now. Princess Vania does not include any accessories.
The menacing Skull Sorcerer only appears in two new sets, sporting an expressionless mask which looks remarkably mysterious. The stylised eyes are perfect and the hat includes brilliant texture, especially around the edges where some subtle wear is visible. Additionally, I love the spectacular bat wings which are connected to a trans-clear neck bracket.
Bright green and lime green details decorate the Skull Sorcerer's robes. The traditional styling looks outstanding and I love the elaborate triquetra at the centre of his torso. Furthermore, the words 'DEAD RISE' appear in Ninjargon letters along either side, reflecting the villain's wish to resurrect the dead and continuing expanding his evil forces.
The mask conceals a black head with bushy eyebrows and an angry expression. This design looks reasonable, although I had envisaged the Skull Sorcerer would appear more gruesome! He carries a spring yellowish green skull, named the Skull of Hazza D'ur, which grants certain abilities to the Skull Sorcerer. Unfortunately, this element does not glow in the dark.
Three different creatures comprise the Skull Sorcerer's army. Murt represents the Munce, a species resembling traditional orcs with sand green skin and prominent teeth. I like the large shoulder armour component that returns from the Hunted subtheme and the black hair piece also looks great, particularly since it is securely attached using a 1x1 round plate with hollow stud.
Ginkle also resides within the Dungeons of Shintaro, belonging to the Geckles tribe. This character appears in several new sets and features medium lavender skin which definitely stands out among the range of NINJAGO villains. I like his weathered attire and the double-sided head includes two charming expressions, displaying delight and concern.
However, my favourite of these three characters is the Awakened Warrior. This figure only otherwise appears in 71721 Skull Sorcerer's Dragon and resembles the Skulkin which have previously opposed the ninja. The black colour scheme looks marvellous and I love the lime green and white details across the head. These colours are consistently associated with the Skull Sorcerer's disturbing magic.
The Completed Model
NINJAGO has frequently taken inspiration from other LEGO ranges and 71722 Skull Sorcerer's Dungeons certainly resembles a fantasy castle, recalling 7093 Skeleton Tower from 2007. This model looks absolutely magnificent in my opinion, perfectly combining the natural environment with manmade structures and measuring 43cm wide! That scale exceeded my expectations by an enormous margin.
This structure connects to others from the Master of the Mountain subtheme, forming a larger environment for minifigures to explore. Two clips are accordingly visible near the entrance and skull torches are located beside the steps, matching another torch from 71721 Skull Sorcerer's Dragon. These trans-bright green flames contrast nicely against their grey setting.
Narrow paths surround the Skull Keep, allowing passage across bubbling lava. They consist primarily of light bluish grey, dark bluish grey and dark tan parts, although one absent section has been cleverly bridged by an ancient skeleton! White horns form realistic ribs and I like the black spider which is scuttling across the bridge.
Minifigures walking in the other direction will encounter a wooden sign which reads 'BEWARE' and stands beside the path. Light bluish grey 2x2 plates with two studs are situated along the walkways, corresponding with other sets from the new range. Some of these include stickers with arrow, skull and cross symbols, each relating to the tabletop game.
Movement during the game is determined using a dual-moulded spinner which offers enough space for a minifigure to stand in the centre. Two health meters are included as well, featuring three pearl gold 1x1 heart tiles which may be detached or folded downwards to represent lives being lost during gameplay. Accessories can be stored in the reddish brown boxes.
The stone walkways are attached at various angles, creating an interesting shape around the central stronghold. The changing heights of the paths are also effective and I love the realistic stone texture. The balance between studs and smooth surfaces is lovely and the designer has integrated some additional white highlights, matching those on the opposite path.
While the external surface of the bridge includes jagged rocks, the interior appears smoother. However, there are two rudimentary steps which allow minifigures to clamber down and reach another heart, replacing one lost during gameplay. This appears somewhat strange but can be removed easily if the tabletop game does not interest you.
Crossing the reddish brown ladder leads to an impressive tower. Alternatively, you can place another model at the base of this tower and minifigures can climb the wall. These connection points are undoubtedly appreciated as these enable significant expansion, although the Skull Sorcerer's Dungeon looks wonderful when displayed alone too.
The aforementioned tower controls multiple functions throughout the structure, including two scythes which rotate as the tower turns. They have been integrated neatly, disguising an axle that runs through this bridge and links to the Skull Keep. The surrounding reddish brown, dark tan and dark bluish grey frame seems comparatively plain and I think some more white spikes would have been beneficial here.
Another pearl gold heart is found beyond the spinning scythes, awaiting collection. Two bricks with handles allow minifigures to climb the wall, although I think the neighbouring texture could have been improved and these handles appear out of place. There would have been adequate room for ramshackle steps here, perhaps matching 71717 Journey to the Skull Dungeons.
The textured rocks improve significantly upon reaching the summit, where varied slopes and exposed studs are combined to outstanding effect. The mighty Shadow Blade of Deliverance has been secreted behind several spikes. They are connected using hinges so you can open them individually to reach the sword.
Alternatively, moving a Technic switch which is concealed among the rocks will cause these deadly spikes to swing aside, as demonstrated below. This function works smoothly and the switch has been cleverly hidden, improving upon the unsightly red activators which routinely appear throughout the LEGO range. Once the spikes have been removed, the blade can be retrieved!
Dark bluish grey is definitely the most prevalent colour across this set, hence the white skull appears particularly striking. I love the angular eye sockets and the jagged edges around the skull, creating an intimidating visage. Furthermore, its placement between the entrance to the fortification and the altar surrounding the Shadow Blade of Deliverance is superb.
Unfortunately, the second Blade of Deliverance is located inside the castle so another figure must approach the main entrance. That involves crossing a treacherous walkway with spikes along each side, complementing those from the terrain in 71721 Skull Sorcerer's Dragon. The continuing white highlights look marvellous as well, maintaining the skeletal theme that recurs throughout this whole model.
Further to the deadly scythes, rotating the tower will activate three moving floor panels here. They rise and fall on Technic cams underneath so the function is remarkably basic, although such features rarely appear on LEGO sets. I have found that the moving panels occasionally become stuck but that will depend on how firmly the surrounding parts are pressed together.
Before entering the fortress, minifigures can replenish their weapons and collect another heart. The designer has made ingenious use of a reddish brown rifle which creates a railing and the angled path between the entrance and this platform looks splendid, slotting between two ball joints. Some additional walkways at unusual angles would have been welcome.
Lava pours across the doorway, seemingly preventing access to the Skull Keep. Trans-orange flames are fitted inside matching 1x2x5 bricks which is certainly an unusual building technique, reminding me of several pillars in 70620 NINJAGO City. Nevertheless, the result looks brilliant and I hope similar techniques will appear more frequently in the future.
Despite appearing impassable, moving the ground in front of this entrance will cause the lava doors to open! This function was introduced with 41180 Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle and I welcome its return, particularly because the uneven rocks are helpful in disguising the moving section of the ground. Sliding this panel back to its original position closes the doors.
The interior is surprisingly spacious and houses the Ivory Blade of Deliverance beside some gold ingots. Moving further inside reveals an unrefined gold chunk and a poo element! There would certainly have been space for additional details, although I think this cavernous design feels appropriate. The exposed Technic gears do not detract from the model either.
Another chamber occupies the next floor, containing several accessories which presumably belong to the Skull Sorcerer. They include mismatched armour, a magic wand and a reddish brown lute. The portrait displays the Skull of Hazza D'ur while the accompanying minifigure is based upon Markus Rollbühler, the designer of this set.
Prisoners are placed in a cage which is suspended above the lava and the Skull Sorcerer can observe the captives from his external balcony. An identical cage appears in 71717 Journey to the Skull Dungeons which demonstrates pleasing consistency, although I think the sets appear accordingly awkward when displayed together. The string which supports this cage is joined to the rotating tower, allowing you to raise or lower the prisoners.
Overall
71722 Skull Sorcerer's Dungeons includes splendid minifigures, offers ingenious functionality and looks absolutely spectacular on display. The external detailing is extraordinary and I love the varying paths which minifigures can traverse as they approach this fortification. They are connected logically to provide access to every area of the model and appear suitably natural.
Moreover, I like the enormous skull which is positioned above the entrance and the combined functions are excellent. The internal mechanism is surprisingly simple but I am impressed that turning one dial activates three separate features. The price of £89.99 or $99.99 is reasonable too, hence I would recommend this set to any NINJAGO fan and anyone awaiting the return of LEGO Castle!
This set was provided for review by The LEGO Group but the review represents an expression of my own opinions.
119 likes
34 comments on this article
Who doesn't love a good giant-skull-over-the-door evil lair
Wow, this is fantastic. If I didn't already have a load of underground Minecraft stuff I'd be sorely tempted by this one.
Very interesting that the hollow 1x2x5s are now being sued that way officially. I was aware that fan models had similar techniques used, but I didn’t know it was a “legal” technique at LEGO.
Anybody else get a He-Man vibe?
Wow, this set is absolutely packed with fun play features!
This entire wave kinda makes me wish LEGO just made a new theme centered around this kinda fantasy setting. I mean, just look at the Ninja. They aren’t ninjas anymore with all that bulky armor and weapons. Plus, wouldn’t a LEGO board game want to encourage you to use and make your own characters/storylines and such? Maybe that’s just me.
But as for the set itself, I think it’s great! It looks appealing on it’s own, has plenty of play features, gives you a nice mix of good guys and bad guys, and plenty of nice parts for use outside of a Ninjago setting. Pretty sweet.
Fantasy Era trolls/orcs like this
Hm, I was kind of expecting to see all of the board game bits from the entire range connected together at the end since this is the largest set of those and it would have made sense to show a picture of the complete game. Doubly so since numerous references are made in-text to the appearance of the model beside others in the range.
@extremepayne said:
"Hm, I was kind of expecting to see all of the board game bits from the entire range. "
Expecting @CapnRex101 to be hard at work with a dedicated article just on the game aspect, and comparing it to earlier generations of LEGO set to game crossovers like the strangeness of 40315
An incredibly worthy set in the new NINJAGO range, and by far my favourite. The functions, parts use and displayibility is ingenious. Thanks for the review Capn!
One thing I would. like to know (which isn't to do with the model or the review) is how you translated the NINJAGO characters into English. Is there an app for it or something?
For me, this is the best set of 2020.
And very reasonably priced and even gets good discounts.
@CapnRex101 can you fit a bracket on Vania's neck? In the television show she has wings, curious of it could be made more accurate
@Slobrojoe said:
"An incredibly worthy set in the new NINJAGO range, and by far my favourite. The functions, parts use and displayibility is ingenious. Thanks for the review Capn!
One thing I would. like to know (which isn't to do with the model or the review) is how you translated the NINJAGO characters into English. Is there an app for it or something? "
There are some pretty detailed documents on the Ninjagon language substitution cipher here: https://www.felicitycoonan.com.au/lego-ninjago/
There's also an interactive translator tool that was created for The LEGO Ninjago Movie (http://www.ninjagolanguagetranslator.net), although since it uses the more angular Ninjagon "King" font, it can sometimes be a little trickier to interpret which keys correspond to which letters in the more hand-written or curvilinear Ninjagon fonts like "Shanghai Hand" and "Kogal".
Anyway, great review! This set is definitely close to the top of my wanted list for this wave. I love the cavernous, volcanic aesthetic with its many winding, precarious pathways to guide the characters' journey. And the skeletal motifs and green flames do a great job introducing a creepy occult vibe which sets this apart from other volcanic evil lairs that LEGO has released over the years.
Definitely on top of my imaginary buying list. The whole Skull Dungeon range offers so much potential for kit-bashing, modifying and expanding it. In my wildest dreams I already see myself building a big lair...
This guy looks so much as Garmadon
"By the power of Greyskull!"
I'm tempted by this and set 71717 for Batcave building purposes
If I was gonna buy only one single Ninjago set, from all the years it had been running, I'm pretty sure this one would be one of the highest contenders for that space. I've always loved Lego sets that have the 'menacing skull aesthetic', ever since 6776 Ogel Control Centre, and this model takes it to a whole new level of effectiveness; I'm also a big fan of the lava effects, and the many cool play features integrated with it ^^
As always, thanks for the neat review! :D
@Spartan_Ghost said:
"Cool set, and great review! Slightly off topic, i do wonder who Princess Vania is gonna get paired with. I only ask because the show has a weird habit of pairing the New Girl with a pre-existing ninja. Nya with Jay/Cole, Misako with Wu/Garmadon, P.I.X.A.L. with Zane, Skylor with Kai, Harumi with Lloyd... see the pattern yet?"
In the first episode of the show, it becomes clear she has a crush on Cole.
@PixelTheDragon said:
"This entire wave kinda makes me wish LEGO just made a new theme centered around this kinda fantasy setting. I mean, just look at the Ninja. They aren’t ninjas anymore with all that bulky armor and weapons. Plus, wouldn’t a LEGO board game want to encourage you to use and make your own characters/storylines and such? Maybe that’s just me."
I feel like it's hard to unambiguously define how "ninja" are supposed to look, given that their portrayals in popular culture are so varied, and diverged early on from their actual historical roots.
But truth be told, the ninja have had plenty of elaborate or outlandish outfits and weapons over the years — from their elaborately layered armor in season 7 ( https://brickset.com/minifigs/category-Ninjago/subcategory-The-Hands-of-Time/tag-Ninja ) to their post-apoc outfits in Season 9 ( https://brickset.com/minifigs/category-Ninjago/subcategory-Hunted/tag-Ninja ), to their high-tech, Tron-inspired "Digi" variants earlier this year!
All things considered, the current "Hero" outfits are a pretty mild departure from the norm — mostly just color-coded ninja robes like we've come to expect, with new face shields and a few scattered bits of plate armor. They're still nowhere near as heavily armored as I'd typically expect of a heroic knight or samurai minifigure!
I suspect this looks amazing along the Skull Dragon.
Edit: I adore how that Princess looks.
I agree that "Ninjago" ceased being about true ninja-ing a long time (if it ever was), but they seem committed to this fantasy world, and I give them props for that.
There is no written evidence of historical ninja ever having dressed like this: https://brickset.com/minifigs/cas048/ninja-black . The widely held - but unsubstantiated- belief that they did stems from a misinterpretation of the iconography used by Japanese artists to represent unseen or stealthy people. To convey sneakiness, artists would use the image of stagehands and puppeteers (who did dress that way so as to be as unobtrusive as possible). By extension, their attire in art was understood to mean unseen/hidden.
Did ninja ever wear the clothing of stagehands/puppeteers for infiltration or assassination? It’s possible but we just don’t know for sure.
Lovely set. Shame they changed the look of the Skull Sorcerer for animated series, so his mask looks nothing as in those sets.
What a lovely set with excellent play value.
Anyone else find it annoying that the cool new female Minifigures in Ninjago always seem to be exclusive to the most expensive sets in the wave?
@SearchlightRG said:
"Anyone else find it annoying that the cool new female Minifigures in Ninjago always seem to be exclusive to the most expensive sets in the wave?"
I suspect that Ninjago’s main demographic, boys up to 12 years old, prefer male minifigures to female ones. As the larger, more expensive sets have more minifigures overall, they are able to have some female minifigures without putting off their key target group.
It’s unfortunate for AFOLs and female KFOLs, but LEGO is a business after all. For AFOLs, there is the secondary market (BrickLink, Brick Owl, Ebay etc).
@SearchlightRG said:
"Anyone else find it annoying that the cool new female Minifigures in Ninjago always seem to be exclusive to the most expensive sets in the wave?"
I'm not sure that generalization is all that accurate… I'm assuming that you're thinking specifically of Princess Vania and Akita, but there's been quite a few other cool female minifigures at this point who were available in smaller sets.
You don't even have to go back that far to find examples! Earlier this year, the Avatar Harumi minifigure appeared exclusively in the $30 set 71708-1. Last year, the Pyro Viper sorceress Aspheera appeared in the $40 set 70674-1, and a unique Samurai X minifigure appeared in the low-priced 70665-1. And in 2018, brand-new Harumi, Skylor, and Jet Jack minifigures appeared in 70650-1 and 70651-1, two of the lowest-priced sets of that particular wave!
Great review, do you have an image of all the sets together?
Was wondering what they look like @CapnRex101 all together.
@Aanchir there was also Maya and Harumi’s princess variant, who were in an $80 and a $70 set respectively. I may have have over generalized a bit, but the fact remains that Lego does make a habit of sticking exclusive female figures in expensive sets. It also tends to happen to the figures with the most interesting designs.
That set with Sons of Garmadon Harumi and Skylor was nice. Jet Jack is honestly too similar to the other Dragon Hunters for me to consider her cool, accessories or no. Aspheera is pretty cool for our first female Serpentine figure. As for Avatar Harumi, I don’t find her too impressive either, particularly when she got new printed legs and a torso while Avatar Nya got stuck with generic City parts.
Also, General Machia was exclusive to a mid-range set in the Vermillion subtheme.
I am intending to publish an article about the tabletop game, now that LEGO has published more information about that, so will include photos of the entire layout assembled.
Thanks for the review! Suddenly there are so many sets I want, but I'm out of LEGO savings!
any idea when it will be available in canada?