I recently purchased this set, after much hesitation over the large price tag, and it arrived today. After building the set, I find that its surprisingly good.

Box/Instructions

Due to it being a larger set than average, it comes in a box rather than a plastic resealable bag. The box is quite small and is quite nice.

Across the top it has the LEGO logo and the Hero Factory title along with some comic styled artwork showing Evo and Furno battling the Queen Beast. In case you didn't know, it also has the theme name written at the top of the box too.

The main part of the front is taken up by the set arranged in what should be a dynamic pose; my preliminary fears over its look are to be blamed on this box art, and after building the set I realized it really doesn't display how acceptable the set really is. The angle the shot of the Queen has been taken at, and the lack of posing in her lower legs, does not help her appearance- it shows off the gap under her upper torso and makes it seem as if her body has been badly connected. It also draws far too much attention to her skinny legs! A funny (and strange) thing to note about the box art is that Stormer has been positioned bursting out from the Queen's abdomen..! At the bottom of the front there is the set name and a line-up of the figures included (Furno, Evo and Stormer- more on them later) along with the jumper and the cocoon. The sides of the box have the usual decoration of a choking warnings in a million languages, a Lego Club advert, and a 1:1 display of Stormer. I was pleased to also discover that the cardboard had been FSC rated as 'MIX-packaging from responsible sources' which is good to know, as it means that I'm not being completely cruel to the environment by buying this box of plastic..!

There is one instruction manual for this set, larger than average, but not very thick- HF sets can appear large but they use very few pieces. The colour differentiation was perfect, and the steps were easy to follow. The pages had a nice faded blue background with a washed out cracked floor design with a jumper outlined in the corner, a detail that I appreciate as it shows that some thought and effort went into (at least one part of) the set. The manual features a short comic, which is far superior to those seen in other themes, being detailed artwork rather than a computer generated product. The comic displays the sets in a vibrant, ‘active’ fashion, and makes the advert for the combiner models look quite out of place and crude alongside. Thankfully, the screaming WIN child has gone, and now on the rear of the manual there is a WIN robot. One thing to spot in the manual is a small inconsistency at the very start; when you are assembling the figures you are instructed to put the lighter blue head on Stormer and the normal (darker) blue head on Furno. When looking back at the first wave of sets, Stormer had a normal blue head, and Furno had a lighter blue head.

Parts

The parts are pleasing in this set, although there appear not to be many at all when you empty the plastic bags. Parts worth the mention are the printed torso enhancer on the Queen, the new-for-this-wave cocoon 'petals' which come in green and blue in this set, the printed plate used for all of the Evo mechs, gold spikes on the staff, the transparent plates on the Queen, the recoloured jumper upper body part (now in blue), the big wing 'spikes' (if you like that kind of thing) and last, but certainly not least, the head pieces for the Queen.

The printed part on the Queen's head is the shorter 'jaw', so when assembled she has an under bite. It's very splendidly printed, with 6 eyes flecked with red, and small thin golden lines.

When looking at the part selection you'll notice that there is no standard torso there, and no standard torso plate. The designers used the smallest torso piece instead, which is quite commendable as it makes the design more interesting, and probably made their work slightly harder.

Minifigures

The figures are not the most interesting I'm afraid, being figures from the first wave of sets. If you've bought all of the first wave of sets you'll already have 3 Evos, a Furno and a Stormer, so getting more of them isn't good. It would have been more gratifying if they'd actually put new characters in this set. Still, the figures are satisfactory; they are constructed using the armour/torso piece (created for the first wave) over a black skeleton body with arms and legs (also created for the last wave) attached; they use a standard minifigure head (no printing) and each character has their own helmet (and individual colour scheme).

The weapons aren't the most interesting either I'm afraid, Furno is not even given one, Stormer has a standard space blaster with binoculars at the end to make it more of a space rifle/shotgun type of thing, and Evo gets the stud firing gun, which is new to being introduced to this theme but was first introduced in the Star Wars theme some time last year. The stud firing gun is a welcome inclusion in this theme, as actually the comic supersize to it and the added function fit comfortably in the slightly manga-and-comic vibe it has.

The build

The build is simple, due to the clear instructions to follow, but is not the standard type. The small machine for Evo is a different build as it is small with six legs, not tall and two legged, and it has a great strong frame that still manages to be easy to put together.

The Queen is a different to standard build too, as she has eight limbs (4 legs, a pair of arms and a pair of wings) and uses small torsos in her design, rather than the standard (fairly large) torso.

There is some repetition though when it comes to limb building in this set, and there are quite a few limbs. But seeing as the limbs are all slightly different builds, there are no stupid amounts of repetition to be found (i.e. repeat this step 10 times), and the builds are short so it’s not annoying.

The completed model

Part One- the Machine for Evo

One thing that has been highlighted, as a negative, is the fact that this is a machine for Evo, who has already got two from the first wave, but I'm not too bothered about this personally. This is quite a nice machine, and is a decent size- I was surprised how many parts it ate up! Unlike the Evo turret from the first wave, it looks good without 'feet', and the legs give it a bug-like appearance. The cockpit isn't too intrusive on the design (not as it can be on flying machines that are meant to be streamlined), but the canister on the back is rather oversized.

In fact, it's far too huge! It looks slightly silly from every angle because of it, especially the sides, and the rear isn't too good either...

I think the inclusion of the machine is both a good and a bad thing. Bad because it bumped up the price point and/or detracted from making the Queen bigger or bulkier, good because it adds a bit more to the story going on in the set and makes the play value better.

In conclusion I think that this machine is decent, but I'm sure there is room for tweaks and improvements.

Part Two- the Queen

The first thing that struck me about the Queen when I saw her in images was that the proportions looked a bit weird, the wings were rather poor and that the colour scheme was crazy! The box art does nothing to lessen these impressions, only strengthen them.

When looking at her in the plastic, despite the two different blues (three if we include the technic pins), the black, the dark grey, the odd trans bright green-yellow, the gold, the lime, the orange, and the small amount of red and dark brown (on a couple of technic bits), her colour scheme works rather nicely, although I have a few niggles about the gold and the dark grey.

The transparent green-yellow plates add some nice brightness, and the blue, lime, and orange keep her looking like her 'offspring' Splitter Beast and Crystal Beast. While talking of similarities it's worth drawing attention to the fact that her four legged body creates a link with Tunneler beast and the wings are a similarity with Flyer Beast; so it’s rather clever how she has been designed to relate to nearly every beast (Jaw beast has a slightly less visual resemblance).

She is shaped rather like an 'L' torso wise, i.e. she is taller than she is long. I am afraid I cannot tell you how she fares size wise up against other beasts as I have already broken them up for their parts.

Her body doesn't look too bad, there are a few gaps in places and the legs could have done with longer plates to cover the bones up, but she's decent. The way that a cocoon has been used is clever, and the use of this piece creates a nice smooth transition from the body to the (cocoon) abdomen. However that smooth affect would have been better had the piece used been black rather than gold. There were plenty of colours in the set already without adding gold, as it looks more out of place than any of the other colours. It’s a minor niggle, and we can't really expect them to recolour that piece so soon after it’s been introduced. HOWEVER, I can complain and be expectant for TLG to recolour the extra friction joints, parts that are really useful, but stupidly only come in dark grey. The dark grey friction joints have looked out of place on every set I've seen them in, and they are noticeably nasty on the legs in this set- they need to come in black! If they came in black then they'd be no need for any of the other dark grey pieces in this set either, and it would be nicer without them.

Overall opinion

I worried I might have regretted buying this set for full price, and I was even more concerned about it when I saw the amount of pieces (it looked very small) that came with it..! However, I am rather happy with this set. It has a few problems, but it could be worse. The Price per Piece isn't as horrendous as you might think, and I like a set that has some room for improvement. It means that after I've built it and messed about with it for a while I can MOD it, thus giving me more usage time out of the set.

Instructions- 5/5- Clear and easy to follow

Parts- 4/5- A nice selection of parts, although some recolours would have been nice.

Build and Design- 4/5- Some small amounts of repitition, an easy build and a decent design overall.

Minifigures- 3/5- Not amazing, but not terrible.

Playability/play value- 4/5- Good guys, a big monster, a couple of functions and the set is (rather) strong to be played with.

Price- 4/5- This one's hard to decide on; although it seems like a high price to pay the PpP isn't too bad. Splitter Beast had a slightly higher PpP, Crystal Beast is close behind, Furno Jet Machine is more, and Jaw Beast and Evo Walker are quite a bit more!!! So the PpP isn't bad in comparison to those sets, but there are cheaper PpP's on recent HF sets, so I'll (only) deduct one star.

Overall rating- 4/5.

This set IS worth getting, it's a nice set and I reckon I'll have a load of fun with it, as would someone younger than myself (maybe even more so!!). If however you don't want to part with £35 all in one go, it's understandable, but don't miss out!!! If you see this set with any reduction on it at all, seize the chance and buy it, otherwise before you know it it'll be gone!