Play-abilty is fairly good with this model which lacks no creativity whatsoever. looking at this model now, I can never tell whether its a mechanical vehicle or a real vulture. Either way, Lego made a great set that can be army built like in the animated episodes of Chima and is cost efficient for the number of parts included. I enjoyed buying 3 of these sets and then reusing the parts of one for a MOC and I became a fan of the light blue transparent pieces, especially the large frozen bones. The minifigs are fairly good aswell, there is good print work on them and im fairly sure Lundor is exclusive to the set. Overall, this is a great cost efficient set and was fun to build due to its sheer bulk of a build and how Lego reinforces each piece repeatedly.

Set #70141 Vardy’s Ice Vulture Glider: The hunter tribes feature a lot of impressive vehicles in their first outing with the Legends of Chima Theme. And it really shows how far LEGO designers are willing to go to impress when creating new Chima Tribe vehicles. This set is a wonderful little gem and we’re going to discuss why in the following sections.

Box/Instructions

The fire vs. ice sub-theme takes the cool blue and green colouring of the Chima Box design and changes it into a burning orange colour. The logo has changed the Chima into a frozen ice covered look, unfortunately I would have appreciated a bit more in these box designs. The orange represents the fire tribe quite nicely and really draws your eye on the shelf. I would have preferred to see the reverse choice for the hunter tribes, with an icy crystal blue colour and the logo done in an orange burning fire type.

The Ice Tribe Speedorz packaging actually was different, sadly the boxes didn’t continue with this design choice. Not that there’s anything wrong with the designs, but it would have been nice to see Fire vs. Ice literally being used throughout the entire Theme, even the box designs.

The instructions are pretty decent, they carry the box colours into their design and the steps are easy to follow. This set does not include numbered bags so you’ll have to sort out the pieces before building if you prefer that option. They have a lot of Chima Cross-promotional images, showcasing the sets of the Theme and including a minifigure checklist in the back for this summer wave of 2014. All in all not bad looking and fully functional as many set instructions often are.

Parts

There are many interesting parts in this set, two clear blue rib bone pieces representing frozen bones, six brown wings, a variety of tan, brown and grey parts and four clear blue jewels which are part of the flick-fire missiles. You’ll also find a pair of mason bricks in a light tan and four sloped pieces in a dark maroon/red colour as part of the small fire tribe build in the set. Overall, a decent selection of parts for MOC enthusiasts.

Minifigures

This set includes two minifigures, a hunter tribe vulture and a fire tribe feline guard.

Vardy: The titular tribe member, Vardy is a vulture who features a solid looking double-sided torso print, great detailed leg printing, a transparent arm on the left, transparent blue armour for his chi and a single sided light purple face, with a new vulture styled head piece. His wings are a light dull grey and his accessory is a spear turned into a nice looking bone-scythe with some added parts. It really fits the carrion bird nature of a vulture, who deals primarily with death in certain respects.

Lundor: This is a member of the Fire Tribe believe it or not, at first I thought Cheetah, but he’s actually a Leopard. He’s wearing the heavy armour in gold over his double-sided torso, includes leg printing and features a double-sided face with a new cat head piece, which sees much use in future. Lundor uses fire chi to power up as well as powering up his weapon, a golden staff with a sai on the end… Interesting design choice, not sure how effective it is compared to the weapons emplacement he gets to use in this set.

Overall a nice pair of minifigures in this set, the detailing is on part with the Chima line we’ve seen so far and the new hunter tribes introduce transparent clear limb pieces, legs or arms that add a unique style to their minifigures. Just a shame Vardy only has one side to his face, but we can’t all have double-sided faces.

The build

This set has a pretty decent build, the small fire tribe add-on is a decent enough mini model as you go and uses some nice parts. The main Ice Vulture Glider build does have some flaws in the completed phase, but as you’re building it you won’t see any difficult areas and there isn’t too much repetition. The parts go well together and the build would probably last… twenty-five to thirty minutes tops, all of the detailing in the model unfortunately is stickers instead of printed elements. Something to keep in mind here.

The completed model

The small fire tribe emplacement is a powerful flame thrower guard station, Lundor uses it to launch a massive burst of fire at the glider. It features a piece of fire chi and a small sticker with the phoenix tribe emblem on it. You can detach the main flame thrower part from the small protective barrier to move it around wherever you want.

The Ice Vulture Glider is a powerful looking little mechanical bird, using standard Chi to power it up there are some nice use of parts to show that it was trapped in the ice for a long time and some of the pieces have permanently become frozen. Such as the rib bone parts being used as wing bones or the talons on each claw. This model isn’t very mobile unfortunately, the legs are attached by technic pins so you can’t get a lot of poses out of them, similar to the wings who are using technic axels and can’t achieve any decent flying poses.

The range of motion in the head achieved thanks to the new smaller ball and socket connectors somewhat makes up for it, however I will say that the static pose of the vehicle is a bit of a let down. Sure the wings won’t droop constantly like Eris’ Eagle Interceptor, but you can’t pose them closer to the body very well so it looks weird when the craft has landed.

The hunter tribe has a gimmic where part of their vehicle is designed to detach and become a secondary craft. In this case the small control section can un-clip via two c-clip attachments and become a small getaway glider. It’s a nice feature and the smaller craft integrates well with the larger model however it is a bit on the weak side considering the piece count of the set. It does mean though that you could use your imagination and building talents to find a way to make a pretty decent alternate configuration for the glider, considering the nature of the three hunter tribe vehicles I dare say truly talented builders could use the parts to construct some type of hunter tribe megazord.

Overall opinion

In my mind this is a great little set. The minifigures are just all around awesome and the vehicle, despite some issues due to size and piece count for the overall design is still a solid model. In fact I would say that all three of the Hunter Tribes from this summer wave were must have sets, the sabre-tooth walker, the vulture glider and the mammoth stomper make up a trio of vehicles that should not be missed and really showcase the designers talents with the Chima line. Had it ended here it would have been a much higher note than some of what we’ve seen coming out for the Theme in 2015.

Strongly recommended. As a bonus the sticker sheet is quite small as there are only four stickers in the entire set, so chances of it being damaged during the packaging process are quite slim.

I got this set about a month ago on impulse and saved it for Christmas. Was it worth saving? Or was it proof that Chima failed?

The short answer is yes. This set is excellent. Here's why:

BOX
Standard $20-sized box. The orange and blue go quite nicely together. The back showcases a detachable vehicle, flick missiles, and a flamethrower. There's a 1:1 picture of Vardy on the top.

INSTRUCTIONS
Same picture as on the box, but they're strangely thick. There are no repeated builds in the set, and the instructions add very few parts per step, so we end up with a 70-page book.

MINIFIGS
The figs are the rock stars of the set. Lundor is the only leopard ever made in a Chima set, although he looks pretty much like a generic cat. He gets a big scythe a little orange tile on it to signify it belonging to the fire tribes. Side note: His CHI orb has a little flame print on it. It's a very cool little detail. Vardy is the villain of the set, and he is jam-packed full of cool stuff. Zombie printing? Check. Wings? Check. Lavender? Check. Ridiculously oversized ice scythe? CHECK. Seriously, it's about twice as big as Lundor's.

BUILDING PROCESS
Pretty standard. A bit of Technic, a bit of SNOT, a lot of clipping.

PARTS
There's some very good stuff in this set. There's a fair chunk of dark tan and trans-light blue, and a bit of welcome dark brown. Some lovely Mixels joints too; can't get enough of 'em!

COMPLETE SET
This is the other star of the set, aside from the minifigs. There's a puny little bit of scenery with random dark red slopes and a flashlight, and a three-legged walker with a HUGE flamethrower just because. That thing falls off the base way too easily. The "glider" (it's really a plane, note the rocket boosters on the feet!) is very cool, however. It looks just like a zombie vulture should, and it has bonus missiles and an escape pod hiding in plain sight. The brown feathers, long bone things, and claws make it look perfect... it's just a tad gappy in a few places. The wings are also on ball joints so they fold down for landing mode, an often overlooked feature of the set.

CONCLUSION
This is an excellent set overall, and it seems like the rest of the Summer 2014 sets are just as good. This set is well worth the $20, and most Targets have a massive surplus of the things, so you should have no trouble finding one. 4 out of 5 stars.