Box/Instructions

The box is the new standard size for the price range of sets. It has outstanding graphics on all sides with the front showing the overall set and the back showing some more features. Nothing special, just the great quality you expect from a LEGO set box. I am especially satisfied with the Legends of Chima boxing.

The instructions are again standard sizing for a set in this price range. Again exceptional graphics and easy to follow instructions. Again, just great LEGO quality you have come to expect from such items.

Overall: 4/5 nothing wrong, exactly what I expected it should be, nothing stood out.

Parts

What drew me to the set were the minifigures *more on that next. In the set their are some great purple and lime green pieces that are great since they do not come in large amounts in any set, especially purple. There are some great and useful parts that come with the set for such a small and inexpensive set.

Overall: 4/5 great selection of pieces, nothing outstanding that is exclusive to the set.

Minifigures

The reason I wanted the set was for Braptor. There are only 3 bat minifigures in the Legend of Chima line, with Braptor in this set, and only this set. So he is an exclusive here. And Blista, the other bat, being in two sets, 70134: Lavertus' Outland Base, and 70137: Bat Strike (speedor set). Thus the set is worth the purchase just for Braptor himself. The Chima minifigures are some of my favorites that I own and I have been collecting since the mid 90s. They ar fantastically designed and produced and have great playability and poseability.

Eris is also in this set but shows up in 7 other sets (being different variants). However in this set Eris has some Silver Armor on the body design. Thus she is a unique figure in this set as well.

Overall: 5/5 two unique figures. One in a new edition and one exclusive to this set.

The Build

The build is not anything to marvel about. It is the smallest set in this Chima release. However the build of the "Bat" plane is a great one non-the-less. The head of the bat has a great build technique that helps in the overall look. The end plane was alot bigger than I thought it was going to be from the images, not anything bad though. I do like the playability of the wings on the plane.

Overall: 4/5 nothing standing out, but still a great quick build.

The Completed Model

The set is a great one to add to any collection. Whether you are just starting a Chima collection, or are just looking for a great set. The completed model provides for great playability as Eris tries to keep Braptor from getting the Chi and allows for great poseability as it looks great in a display.

Overall: 4/5 good set for price.

Price

Price for this set is US $14.99. Piece count is 146 with 2 minifigures.

Price-per-Piece: $0.102 per piece. This is just over the $0.10 benchmark I usually will hold for many LEGO sets. Has a better P/P ratio since it is a LEGO only product and not licensed. Thus Chima in general is a great theme to collect.

Counting in Minifigures: 2 minifigures (10 pieces each) (legs, body, head, helmet, chestplate, chi, wings and clips) I count a minifigure at $3.00. Thus total price of the rest of the set alone comes to: $8.99 and 126 pieces. Price-per-Piece: $0.07 which is a great price for pieces.

Overall: 4.5/5 With both minifigures being uniques and one an exclusive the price is great!

*Sidenote: I was able to purchase it for just over $10 from Amazon. So the pricing was even better. However my analysis was based off of regular price.

Overall Opinion

This one is a great one to get. Minifigure collecting is one thing I focus on, so I will get a set if I don not have a specific minifigure yet. Thus having two uniques in this set is great!

I recommend the set to any child for playability and great minifigures and to any AFOL for the great minifigures again and the value.

Overall: 4/5 Great set, just nothing stood out, but that's ok its only a $14.99 set.

Set #70128 Braptor’s Wing Striker: As far as Legends of Chima sets go this one is fairly average, with this review we’ll discuss why. However first I just wanted to say one thing, next year, we need more bats LEGO, and a bigger, badder Bat vehicle because these Tribes shouldn’t be forgotten and while I enjoy the fire and ice sub-theme I’m just more partial to the darker tribes in Chima.

And now on to the review.

Box/Instructions

The box design looks nice on the shelf, it captures your attention at least and successfully demonstrates the look and feel of the set. It matches the rest of the Theme and shows off the set adequately. It’s just unfortunate that this set really doesn’t have much to offer.

The instructions show you step by step how to build the set. They are easy to follow and do a great job, this set doesn’t have numbered bags so you have to sort the parts before you build. The minifigure checklist and set cross promotion adverts inside the manual are really impressive, they should have been saved for the end of the book though as unfortunately they show up and break up the flow of the build.

I like the designs for Chima instruction manuals and am glad to see that LEGO does a great job with them mostly. There are just some areas they could use a bit of improvement, the placement of the ads and other minor issues like when they break a small model up between two manuals for no real reason like Razcal’s Glider.

Parts

This set features a few useful parts, you get the two bat wings for a Minifigure, some large green grass type pieces, four large bat wings and some decent purple parts. I really can’t say much else about the pieces in the set because honestly, I think this set is lacking in the piece count.

Minifigures

In this set we have two minifigures, Braptor the Bat and Eris the Eagle Tribe member. For the price of this set I didn’t expect more than two, but I did hope we’d at least get to see more for Eris to use in this set as far as builds come.

Braptor: As a new Chima based animal tribe member Braptor looks suitably impressive. The level of detail for his print is what you’d expect from this Theme, you’ve got the double-sided torso, the leg printing, a single sided face (slightly disappointing) and a unique head piece designed to look like a bat. A much better sculpt compared to the LEGO DC Super Heroes Man-Bat head piece. The wings are larger, the print work is great and he kind of resembles a Klingon with the ridges on top of his head.

The best part about Braptor is his coloring choice, he’s a nice light blue-grey colour that matches what you’d expect from a bat and his dark blue hands are very unique. For an accessory he includes a sonic based weapon of some type, or at least what I assume is a sonic based weapon. I really dig his print details too, he just looks so Horde like, as a fan of Masters of the Universe I again feel that Chima captures elements of it in their own IP Theme quite nicely and would make great MOC Figures for a Masters of the Universe Theme someday. I do wish we’d gotten more Bats though.

Eris: For the Spring Wave of 2014 sets Eris is given a brand new look in her print with some nice silver looking armour. Other than the print she’s pretty much identical to what you’d expect from the character. She has the leg printing, the dual-sided face, the double-sided torso and the silver chest armour that allows you to attach her wings.

Her accessory is a long axe weapon, a Chi Blade is used for the axe head and she has a golden sai on top, I’m not sure what this weapon is meant to be called, as I still have to pick up the Character Encyclopedia where I’d wager all the names are found. But I dig the look of it, it’s this massive weapon that looks suitable for defending the Chi from Braptor.

Overall both Minifigures are must own from this set and look perfect next to the rest of the characters in the Chima world.

The build

In this set the build is done fairly quickly, there are stickers for the design and the vehicle is rather on the small side since it only uses 146 pieces give or take. There really isn’t much to discuss about the build since it’s extremely compact as far as vehicles based on animals are concerned.

The completed model

The completed model is, decent, but could be better. The design of the bat vehicle is simplistic, there is no pilot controls for Braptor, making me think this could be a glider type vehicle. And the overall look of the model suffers due to the play gimmic. Moving the wings back and forth to grasp Chi crystals can be fun for a little while, but the gimmic hinders what could have been a great mechanized animal build.

The best aspect of the build by far has to be the bat head, it stands out as a great looking overall model. The rest of the body of the craft unfortunately suffers due to the piece count and the use of stickers instead of printed detail. It’s a half-finished build that should probably go back to the design phase.

The small Chi hiding thing that Eris uses to protect the crystal is an interesting build to which suffers due to having too few parts.

Overall opinion

I recommend this set more for the minifigures than the actual build, I am a huge fan of the Eagle, Raven and Vulture tribes vehicles, unfortunately the Bat Tribe vehicle just doesn’t live up to those others. It makes for a great play model, but for a worthy bat vehicle it is merely adequate and definitely needs some tweaking to be a much better design.

Use this set for a parts pack and you might like it, especially for all the rich dark purple parts. A better wing design with a larger torso would have done wonders for this set. Somewhat recommended.