Review: 70221 Flinx's Ultimate Phoenix
Posted by Huw,Toy shops across the UK have started filling the empty spaces of their LEGO shelves with 2015 sets, at last. My branch of The Entertainer put City, Chima and Friends sets out yesterday and I've already bought more than I intended to. CapnRex101 has also secured a number of sets so between us we'll be posting a review a day or so over the festive period.
The battle of Fire-vs-Ice is clearly still raging in the Chima universe given that all the new sets appear to continue the storyline that started last summer. Last year's sets didn't appeal to me but I'm a sucker for models of birds, dragons and the like so 70221, Flinx's Ultimate Phoenix, is right up my street.
Parts
There are a handful of new parts in the set. The most interesting and useful is the black 1x2 plate with bar at each end that's been christened 'love handle' by New Elementary. The dark grey 2x2 bracket (6099909) is a shorter version of the snappily named 'Stone 1X2X1 1/3 W. 2 Plates 2X2', design 11215, which itself is only a couple of years old. As you'll see below it's used to stand a minifig on.
The two flame pieces are new and, at the moment, unique to this set (according to BrickLink inventories). The larger bi-coloured one is very attractive. Both are made from a slightly bendy plastic.
The 1x4 curves are printed: there are no stickers in this set: hooray!
Minifigs
Although both are new to me the two minfigs are actually just variants of those that were in last year's sets.
Flinx is prince of the Phoenix Tribe and Fluminox's son. This version of him is identical to last year's but with wings. He has a cool new weapon, though...
He has a double-sided head and printed back.
This is the third variation of Voom Voom, a vulture, to appear. All are identical except for the armour.
Construction
Construction begins with a jet-pack for Voom Voom. You can see the new bracket in use under his legs.
The grey droid heads will no doubt be useful for MOCs.
Next it's on to the phoenix. There's not much to say about its construction that you can't see in the picture below. The feet and legs are made from constraction pieces which won't please everyone, myself included, although they look OK and are an efficient way to provide articulation.
The wings each use two brown 'Plate (A) 4M 45°' (15706) that on first glance would appear to be totally 'out of system' but which have cropped up in loads of sets since their introduction last year.
The completed model looks very fiery. I'm not sure that is necessarily appropriate for a phoenix which, after all, weren't ever actually on fire, they just rose from the ashes of their predecessors. Whatever, it looks cool and the new fire pieces are great for the wings and tail feathers.
I'm not entirely convinced by the head, particularly the printed eyes which lack definition.
Flinx can stand on its back to command it when in flight.
The most disappointing part of the design is the neck: the 2x2 red plate looks totally out of place compared to the sleek lines of the body and head. A tile would surely have been better, or perhaps the new 1x2 or 2x2 curved pieces.
The wings are hinged and can be splayed out to make the beast appear more fearsome. There are a couple of apparently obligatory flick-fire missiles on either side of its body.
The phoenix dwarfs poor Voom Voom, but perhaps his jet-pack allows him to out-manoevure the beast...
Verdict
It's a good-looking model and a lot of fun to play with and pose. There's an impressive amount of articulation which allows a lot of different poses to be struck.
The lack of stickers is a nice bonus although there's something not quite right with the two printed pieces: the white eye does not stand out as an eye and certainly not as clearly as shown in the image on the box. Perhaps it's because it's white print on a red brick.
That aside, at £18 it's a no-brainer if you're a Chima fan.
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16 comments on this article
I buy this one yesterday and i'm very pleased with it too! :-)
I don't collect Chima, but however, it is a lovely set. :-)
Cool looking set!
Those HF feet in red, how wonderful!!!! Definitely need to get this.
@Huw - Spelling correction notice....
"Next it's on to the phoenix. There's not much to say about its construction that you can't see in the picture below. The feet and legs are made from constraction pieces which won't please everyone, myself included, although they look OK and are an efficient way to provide articulation."
The second use of construction is misspelled as constraction.
Construction + action = constraction. Google it :-)
@Thehornedrat: How is it a joke? :-\ But you are right, LEGO does use it - they use a fan term in their official models, and they came up with it! :-D
@Huw: Absolutely correct. Shame LEGO don't make loads of Constraction sets. I love them! :-)
oh, come on, I like stickers
@ Robana88: Some people don't like stickers - they are tricky to apply, and the model looks odd if you get them positioned incorrectly. This is just Huw's opinion, and he can apply or ignore the stickers if he wishes. :-)
LOL... what do you know.....
I did Google it, but only read this much of the first entry I saw,
"‘constraction’ has been looked up 2957 times, is no one's favorite word yet, has been added to is on no lists yet, has no comments yet, and is not a valid..."
When I saw "not valid" I made an assumption it wasn't a 'real' word. I should have followed the link to actually see the rest of the sentence, "...is not a valid Scrabble word."
Elsewhere on New Elementary:
"CONSTRACTION
LEGO®'s internal name for the building method used for buildable figure ranges such as BIONICLE and HERO Factory. See CCBS above."
Go figure. You learn something new everyday. And I always thought it was just plain bad spelling every time I saw someone use it.
Nice cool useful pieces :)
Thanks for a very detailed review.
It's a very nice parts set for me.
However, I will be waiting for this and last year's Chima sets to go on 50% clearance sales before buying any.
This happened in Singapore last weekend with the old Swamp sets, with every Speedorz except Fire and Ice going as much as 65% off.
And yet some like the Spinlynx set and many Speedorz remain unsold. So one can imagine how overstocked or un-loved some of these Chima sets are in Singapore. :(
@legogeek, glad that's cleared it up :) Yes... it's a word that originated inside LEGO and is now used widely by AFOLs. It's been suggested that I should have a glossary here and link out to it when using such terms, maybe that's a job for the New Year...
This is one of the few Chima sets that I really, really want from 2015. I love all the bird sets (the Eagle and Raven jets were fantastic), and I definitely want to add the Phoenix to my collection. I mean, look at it. It's a zord! Much love.
I am considering getting this mainly for the red Constraction feet; they would look particularly good on 70783, for example, to match with his torso and mask.
The jetpack looks terribly blocky, although that little Z-shaped piece could be extremely useful. The vehicle seems a tad empty, but it's OK since it only has about 150 pieces. One strange thing: Why is it called "Ultimate Phoenix?!"
Oh, yeah, and I picked up Vardy's Ice Vulture Glider a few days ago. I'm saving it for Christmas and I'm wondering if it's worth it or not?