Farmland Frenzy! The Scarecrow has constructed a diabolical weapon of fear and the vicious Killer Moth joins in on the side of evil. However the Batman and the Blue Beetle are soon in place to defend the citizens of Gotham against this new threat!

Box/Instructions

I was a bit surprised when the store clerk returned with this box. I thought to myself - "But, it's so big!". I had expected a somewhat medium-small size set, fetching a high price due to the number of figures and whatnot. Inside the box we find the numbered bags, two instructional booklets, a sticker sheet and a comic!

Parts

There isn't a whole lot to say about the parts really. You've got a color mix of a lot of black (being present in all builds), red for the tractor, blue for the helicopter and translucent green and light/dark brown for the harvester. As to be expected of any helicopter build you get a canopy and the Y-looking front pieces for the cockpit. Not owning a lot of helicopters however I was surprised and impressed by the landing gear/stand (whatever the technical term is!) which is one big, solid piece upon which the main body of the helicopter rests in good balance.

There's also two land vehicles in the set which means you'll get wheels! However, considering the design of actual farming vehicles being replicated here, you get different sized wheels which may be troublesome if you were hoping to harvest them for another build.

Minifigures

As much as I enjoy a good vehicle or structure or whatever, the minifigs is always where it's at for me! Luckily we're treated with a whole bunch of 'em in this set!

Now then, the recent movies and video games have all adapted a more or less realistic look for their characters. That is why we, at first glance, can pretty much tell that the minifigs are not from any of those but rather from the comic/animated series designs with their bright colors and exaggerated features.

Saving the best for last we'll begin with the Killer Moth. I'll have to be honest with you guys - I am not a huge fan of DC comics. I know the very typical Batman characters and that stuff but other than that I'm pretty lost. Killer Moth is not a character I am familiar with at all and thus he ranks pretty low with me just based on what I see here. I can imagine he's a hit with kids though, looking all insect/alien-like with wings and red eyes. I do have to mention and also applaud one feature of this guy though and that's the side-printed legs! Sure it's a very basic print with colored, thick lines but still - More of that please!

Then we have the farmer. This poor little guy probably just got up this morning to feed the pigs and plow some fields and then comes this psychopath with a suped up, terror-machine. I'd also be stuck with a screaming face if that happened to me! He's a pretty generic civilian victim that we often see in these supervillian scenarios. There's few details to be found here but you can clearly tell he's a farmer by his dirty tank top and cap. I know it's farfetched but I'd like to have seen some detail on the cap. Maybe some trucker-cap design or a little funny logo on the front would've really knocked this one out of the park!

What would a Batman set be without Batman? Welcome, considering the plethora of Batmen we all have by now! ^_^ Jokes aside - Here we get a special looking Batman all equipped with his gas protection suit and ready to take on the Scarecrow! The gas protection suit has light green details and is almost robotic looking in a way. He also comes with a gas mask accessory that could also be used for a divers breath-mask I guess. His cape is of the new felt material which I think is one of the best new(-ish) changes and I really hope it becomes a standard.

Coming up near the end of the list we have the main villain of the set - The Scarecrow! On a side note - I would've loved to swap this scarecrow with the one from The Wizard of Oz. Poor Dorothy... Muahaha! Anyway, this guy just looks plain evil with his red eyes, stitched mouth and the endearing (but dangerous), harmless scarecrow look.

Last but not least another figure and character which is new to me is the Blue Beetle. I had to look this guy up because I didn't know if he was good or bad. In my defense he doesn't automatically strike me as obviously benevolent! Regardless of my knowledge about the character, this guy looks really cool on his own but if we put on the wings and the neck collar-thing I think I have found one of my new favorite looking figures. As always I do appreciate printed boots, especially in cases like this where the lack of color would make the character look a little dull.

The build

The build process for this set in whole was pain-free and smooth. The only problem I ever had was seeing which way the dark brown pieces were supposed to go on. Maybe it's the room I'm building in but the dark brown color in the instructions is just so dark I can't clearly make it out.

As I briefly mentioned earlier, there is a sticker sheet in this one but worry not - They're all placed on pieces that make it really hard to screw up. And in the cases of the metal plate ones - It doesn't really matter if you put 'em on a bit crooked. Both the tractor and the harvester are supposed to look old, battered and repaired all amateur like anyway so you can't do wrong really!

The completed model

So after a relatively quick build session they were all finished - The bat-copter, the Harvester of Fear and the tractor. While the main draw for me was initially the harvester itself (I love me some evil doomsday-devices!) I must say that the little tractor has found a special place in my heart. It's so simple and yet it has so much character.

Don't get me wrong though, the harvester is every bit as nasty and evil as I had hoped and it shall sow terror unending... Until the bat shows up in his helicopter that is! I do have some opinions on the helicopter which you can read in the "overall opinion"-section but I must admit that it looks really good!

Overall opinion

I am really impressed by this set, as you might have gathered reading up until this point. However I must mention some negative points. Do note that this critique is more personal than anything else so please do not consider them factual.

So, while the helicopter is a really cool and welcome vehicle in this set and in my collection - I feel that it is somewhat redundant. I understand that you need some hero-features to make this set complete but I for one would've been happy with just the harvester and the tractor and their specific driver figures.

I also feel that the helicopter is somewhat over-engineered and turned out quite beefy in comparison to the other vehicles because of it. I understand that this is needed because of the play-feature with the tail activating the side panels. I also do not really play with my legos but rather pose and collect. That might be why I feel the way I do but again - I would've been happy with the harvester, scarecrow, tractor and farmer and that would've meant I would pay less and be even more satisfied.

Aside from that though I feel overall that this was one of my best purchases of 2016 - Easy! It has beautiful models, a lot of minifigures considering the size, a lot of play value with three vehicles and action-features and while maybe not spectacular in terms of parts - There's enough in this package to satisfy pretty much any even remote fan of the Batman franchise.