Review: 70642 Killow vs. Samurai X
Posted by iso3200,The summer NINJAGO wave is fast approaching so I best get my finger out and finish off the Sons Of Garmadon sets that I have here for review. Today, I'm looking at 70642 Killow vs. Samurai X that has an RRP of £44.99 / €44.99 / $49.99 for 556 pieces. Given that 70641 Ninja Nightcrawler has 552 pieces for a tenner less, the obvious question is why such a difference? Let's see if I can find out.
As usual, here's the box shots with a human for scale. It's bigger than the Ninja Nightcrawler box, but that could just be clever marketing trickery at play.
The first thing that struck me when I opened it up was the huge wheel and tyre within. It seemed totally out of place, and gave an early indication of the size of the build. You can't really tell from the picture below just how disproportionate it seemed. There are 4 bags for bricks, a separate bag for the bigfig and a 128 page instruction booklet.
Stickers have been used sparingly, 16 in all, and they're all of a reasonable size.
The Minifigures
OK, so they're not all minifigures but we'll start with them. Here's the S.O.G. incarnation of Jay. He's competent enough with a detailed print much like the others in the wave, but he's hard to get excited about with so many versions prior.
He has a back print which is mostly obscured by the scabbard accessory...
...and a dual sided head.
He is equipped with a pair of swords...
...and some kind of flail.
Next up is Samurai X. I like this figure but I found the attire can hinder her a little. The printing is great and the colour scheme reminds me of Iron Patriot – no bad thing as that's one of my all time favourite minifigs. The print continues onto the legs and even the feet get a little detail. The gold shoulder armour looks great but the thing I had most trouble with is the white jaw-piece used on the helmet. Time and time again I knocked this off, and I was only handling for photos – not rough play. The golden horn/crest piece is easy to knock back and forth as well but at least I wasn't constantly having to re-attach it.
There is printing on the rear of the torso and the helmet looks good from behind too.
Take away the armour and helmet and you can see the figure has a pretty cool head print.
It has an alternate on the reverse. There are two gold swords as accessories and I'll highlight those in the build pictures.
Now to the bigfig – Killow. Wow, I love this dude. Dressed in leathers with skulls on his knees, The Oni Mask of Deception, decorated waistcoat and tattoos, he is quite a presence.
From the rear he is a little plain but you can see he has a connection point to accessorise him. The buttock contours are, err, interesting and the matt black shines as leather should.
Underneath the mask is a comically small standard minifig size head.
He has a brick built weapon arsenal that attaches with technic pins on the rear. This features stud shooters either side, a small jet pack kind of thing and his flag – a one sided tile with sticker like the one I whinged about in 70639 Street Race of Snake Jaguar. He also carries a massive club that could pulverise any minifig within striking distance.
From the other side you can see his arm tattoos. This bigfig is simply ridiculous – in a good way.
The build
Bags 1 and 2 are used for the Mech, and there are 98 steps (if we include Killows back pack). The first bag is for the core torso and there are a few stickers to apply here. The only annoying ones are those for the 2x2 round tiles. Mine were printed slightly off centre so they look a bit out once peeled and applied.
Bag 2 is for the limbs and weapons. The colours match the Samurai X minifig perfectly. There is no articulation in the knee joint and I found that it is easy to topple the mech backwards, but once you get used to setting the right kind of positions it looks good. I'll cover this more when we get to the play features.
You will not be surprised to learn that bags 3 and 4 make Killow's Oni Chopper. There are 112 steps in this and I really enjoyed the build. It's a good mix of technic and system and features some interesting parts usage. This shows the end of Bag 3.
Bag 4 finishes it off - and my what a big old beast it turns out to be. Just have a look at it and you'll see all sorts of little parts, slopes, tiles and panels. The handlebar grips are brilliant being paint roller handles and the blade that replaces a front wheel is pure evil. Mwahahaha.
Add it all together and you have a really nice play set.
Play features
Let's look at the mech first. Up top is where the pilot sits of course, and this has a simple hinged drop down mechanism. The front of this uses a Vehicle Mudguard 3x4x1 2/3 which is a recolour in dark blue.
When it's lowered there is easy access to a pair of studs to stand the minifig on. Also note the 2x3 tile – that's a recolour too. This is one of areas that I kept knocking the jawpiece off of Samurai X's helmet whilst popping the figure in.
With the pilot (finally!) in place, the mech looks complete. Weapons aboard are a spinning disk on the right arm, with a (non-functional) large bore gun underneath and a pair of stud shooters on the left. The arm with the spinner is quite short so there's not a lot of travel on it. The left arm has a hand with three movable fingers – and these will be very useful in a moment.
From behind it's not especially attractive, but there's some features worth pointing out. Samurai X's gold swords hang conveniently in a pair of holders, and there is a wing system in place at the top. This actually pops out. It is mounted loosely on a technic pin with axle and is held in mainly by gravity and a simple mechanical arm so it is very simple to remove. But why....?
…..because it can be gripped by the hand and makes the mech look super awesome – that's why. Now the mech is fully armed with a massive blade that can be thrashed about. It's a clever touch for sure – excellent thinking from the designers.
I found it quite easy to make the mech topple backwards as there is a limited range of movements, but once you focus on what it can do, rather than what it can't, it'll pose quite happily on a good flat surface.
Moving on to the Oni Chopper, the first point of mention is the sheer size of it. Here it is compared to 70641 Ninja Nightcrawler. Impressive huh? Killow is very easy to mount. He stands on a platform using two studs each side as connection points and the handle grips fit to perfection.
It looks equally impressive from many angles – though despite this, I prefer the Ninja Nightcrawler as shelf display material.
Feature wise it has a couple of tricks up it's sleeve too. It has swing out blades much like the type seen in 70639 Street Race of Snake Jaguar.
For complete madness, it has a pair of detachable skateboards. I found them the perfect size and place to get my thumbs in to grip the bike.
These come in black for the first time and when removed Killow can use these as roller skates – presumably powering himself along by his jet pack. I didn't find he attached to them that well, and he was easy to knock backwards, but it's a humorous feature nevertheless.
And if the heroes could grab them? I mean, come on, you would wouldn't you?
Lastly, what's a guy to do when he's not out clubbing? Well, the front fairings lift up to give a handy space for stashing his weapon. Superb.
Overall
It's another good set with features that weren't first apparent to me, so I've really enjoyed discovering them along the way. The star for me is Killow, followed closely by the chopper itself. Mechs come and go and it's good to see some effort has been put in to make this one as interesting as possible on the budget.
Talking of budgets, the question I asked was why this costs a tenner more than 70641 Ninja Nightcrawler for a nigh on identical piece count. Well I appreciate the simple economics for a start - the bigfig and the massive wheel are obviously more pricey to produce than a minifig and a standard wheel, but leaving the accounting out of it, I do feel like I have more of a set – more for the money. I was afraid it wouldn't be the case but it appears to have an added value for sure.
I enjoyed the Ninja Nightcrawler but I felt it was all about the car and nothing else. The puny bike in that was no match. This one however, has a good pairing of friend and foe so the playability is much more connected. I also enjoyed having two quite different builds in the same box. Not many sets have bigfigs either, and certainly not as nice as this one. All in all, it has a lot going for it.
At £44.99 / €44.99 / $49.99 RRP I'd still wince a little, but it's regularly been under £40 on Amazon in the UK. With the new wave due out soon it'll be a good time to watch out for further discounts as this is yet another set that gets my recommendation.
As usual, let us know in the comments what you think.
Many thanks to the LEGO Group for providing Brickset with a copy of the set. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.
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22 comments on this article
Still love the new ninja design.
I wish all bigfigs had attachment points in some capacity on the back like Killow. That would make them so much more versatile and I'd probably have more bigfigs if they did!
That head proportion on the big fig. Ouch.
Love the tone of the review!
@Link O Neal.. That's funny, I actually had the opposite reaction.. To me it makes him look more behemoth.. I saw pics with the mask/helmet on & thought "ah, that's kinda cool.." & then saw the pic with his normal minifig sized head was YESSSS... DO WANT!
(He can be the leader of my Harry Potter troll gang)
Great review! Love your style/tone and the fact that you show pictures of the accessories. This makes me want the set for me and my boy. Lots to play with here and it looks awesome!
Nice set and review.
I don't know about this set; the figs look great, but the builds are a little meh. The mech felt like it was one of the weaker ones by Ninjago standards (although your pictures did make it look good), and the large chopper just isn't to my tastes. This is the one S.O.G. Ninjago set that I passed on. But nice job with the review, it does show off some of the set's highlights.
I didn't like it at first, bit it looks better now.
Samurai X is a girl, not a dude. Probably Pixal.
Jack is right, Samurai X is indeed P.I.X.A.L. and does indeed use female pronouns, not male. Just as a heads up!
Yeah...I don’t know what Lego was thinking with Killow. He’s got some great design elements, but his lower body seems to have been thought out poorly.
Honestly, how do you take those pictures?
^^Even though I'm not a Ninjago expert, I did know that - honest! The dual sided head gave it away and I never corrected my text. Apologies.
The set design reminds me of a more colourful Warhammer 40k, Orks in particular.
It's not like it was done with malicious intent, it's just best for the quality of the article for it to be corrected so the readers get the best review they can! It's good that you can admit to your minor errors and correct them, and that the major contributors to this site do read feedback given to them
^No malice taken :-)
It looks like an alright set, but definetly one I'll be skipping. Probably the weakest out of the whole SOG wave IMO.
Has an Exo-Force vibe. I dig it.
^^ ugh! Sorry, when I commented I was quite tired - I should also have said thanks for taking the time to review this - the set is not to my taste, but the writing is such that I still wanted to read about it!
Good review! My brother and I built this a week or so ago.
My feelings on Jay's new outfit are similar to my feelings on the other ninja outfits — I love the textured fabrics and bright colors, as well as how they incorporate elements of the movie costumes. The Dark Stone Grey belts on all the ninja costumes are pretty nifty and different than what we're used to.
Killow is a delightful design and as I watched the episode "Snake Jaguar" for the first time yesterday I was delighted to see that he was not just dumb muscle, but in fact a pretty charming fellow in his own right! While he's not Ninjago's first bigfig, he is the first who has a totally unique body shape instead of just a unique head shape. That suits him well when riding on his motorcycle, since the generic bigfig design used for characters like Dogshank, Gorilla Grodd, and some versions of the Hulk has one foot placed a stud in front of the other, instead of having both feet square with each other.
On another note, it's great that he has a more heavy-set physique, as LEGO characters so rarely have body types besides "thin", "muscular", or "average". A spiked bat is a very traditional sort of Oni weapon, so is well suited to this faction. Another note… so far in the show, I haven't seen Killow without a helmet, so I'm left wondering what his hair looks like under there. Him being bald would certainly work, but I'm also amused at the thought of him pulling off his helmet to reveal a poofy 70s afro!
Killow's bike is pretty nice as well. The functions are not as charming to me as those of Mr. E's bike, but I love the handlebars and the giant saw blade wheel. When I first saw the set, I kind of wished the front wheel used two saw blades so it would be more similar in width to the back wheel, but after building the set I like the way that the single saw blade lets you tilt the bike to either side as you steer.
The size is really where this bike stands apart from all others. Most Ninjago bikes are oversized, but they're oversized for a minifigure. This one is a beast even for Killow! The roller skates are such a brilliant feature and I was delighted when I first noticed them in pictures of the set! The colors of the Sons of Garmadon also scream "cyberpunk" while still very much in the tradition of past Ninjago villain factions. Unfortunately, one of the Dark Stone Grey connectors for the blades was either missing from my copy of the set or I misplaced it, so I haven't been able to completely finish building just yet.
Samurai X's new design is great, even if it does spoil her identity for those who aren't caught up with the series. LEGO is at least getting good enough with secret-identity characters that their identity isn't immediately obvious from their first set appearance, as was the case with the original Samurai X as well as the Green Ninja. The red, white, and blue color scheme is certainly a departure from last year's gold, black, and blue, but not so different that it's not recognizable as the same character. I will say that the red lipstick is… an unusual design choice, since it means her lips have neither the same color nor the same contours as her revealed identity.
The new mech has a really distinctive personality all its own — I love the sharp, flared contours of the shoulder pads, hip guards, and thighs — hips tend to be a very difficult part to fill out without impeding posability but the designer here found a very tasteful and minimal solution. It's certainly a much more nimble-looking mech than the original Samurai Mech from 2012! The colors and patterns suit this year's cyberpunk aesthetic quite nicely. And the blade/wings are an inspired weapon that reminds me greatly of Bionicle. If I have one disappointment, it's that with the weapon removed from the hand, its lack of a thumb feels a bit jarring.
Overall this set wasn't as high on my wish list as the Temple of Resurrection or Ninja Nightcrawler, but I'm really happy to have it in my collection!
Just an FYI: I'm pretty sure Jay's "flail" is inspired by a rope dart . . . a lesser known martial arts weapon.
Lego's official description says its nunchucks, but that's obviously wrong.