this is the best power miners set in 2010 its very fun to play with here are the pros and cons

pros

-2 lava monsters (one small one big)

-awsome features (such as cool drinks)

-lots of uncommon parts ( water balls)

-very fun to play with

-its cheap

cons

-the claw is too small

-water ball falls out of the shooter easily

-theres only 2 crystals

-too easy to build

overall

5/5 this set wont disapoint you

I bought this set to put together with my son. We both found it to be a pretty boring set to put together, and we were very disappointed that the claw doesn't really pick up anything, but once together it's very attractive, and he has a lot of fun playing with it.

• Pros

• Looks great when put together
• Big monster
• Working vending machine
• Lots of cool elements
• Cool little vehicle

• Cons

• Not that fun to build
• Claw won't actually grab or pick up anything

This set is great and has really neat peices. The vending machine is coolest feature that Lego has ever invented. Eruptorr is awesome and his little friend Firax is cool too. the base itself is amazing and here are its pros and cons.

Pros:

Is pretty big

Water ball cannon fires really far and powerful

Crane easily slides from side to side

Working vending machine

You can brake cage fence and rocky all with by pushing two different levers

Lava rover

Comes with a lot of cool peices

Comes with a stick of dynamite, two orange crystals, an one hundred dollar bill, and one soda

Has two minifigures and Eruptorr and Firax lava monsters

Cons:

Should have came with two soda cans

Doc doesn't have a star on his uniform

Crane can't hold something without you holding on to it too

Didn't come with the water spraying out of the hoses (I added some to my set)

Overall, not a bad set, I give it a 4.5/5 or 9/10. This a fun set to play with and if you have the money, buy it!

i bought this set from a local toy store and it took around 50 minutes to build. It includes two minor figures in cool metalic style uniform and a small and large rock monster both of which are amazing.

The set mainly consists of a hideout/jail/ structure which can be halved. The right part of the set is a jail like strucutre which has four big strong fence pieces around at the bottum which is the monster jail. Slightly behind is the monster crane which is used to put monsters in and out of the jail. The crane can rotate 360 degrees and can move left and right a bit too.

The left part of the hidout/jail has two levels one of which has stairs up to it. up there is a vending machine which drinks can come out using the lego money piece provided. The lower level has a detachable water shooter with water bombs and storage on the floor. There is also a small hidden cave below the upper level which also has a exploding entrance for the rock monsters to come in and out.

There is also a smallish mining vehicle which has a built in water blaster ,dynamite missile and a shovel at the front to move rock. The shovel can lift up to put the driver in and out.

For £35 the set is quite reasonable baring in mind lego has been really expensive recently.

The only down sides are that the bombs fall out of their place easily and that there should be some more crystals included.

But overall it is one of the best power miner sets done yet. I recomend it to all power miner fans and those of genuine lego.

Hi Brickset community, this is my first review after joining this wonderful place. Thought I start out on a set that is available currently but has not had enough reviews. I'm not exactly a straight forward pro and con kind of guy, so bear with me here.

Overall: When you buy a set, the picture on the box is what's gonna appeal to you (or turn you off.) This set, for its intended age group, has a great color scheme, a crane, a vehicle, and of course the Rock monsters. For older fans like me, the main attraction is probably just the Rock monster. One now buildable scene especially came to mind:YOU SHALL NOT PASS!! (Lord of the Ring reference, for those in the dark. BTW, with the Series 3 elves coming out, I am putting pretty much all the money I will make in the next 15 years into a Battle of Helms Deep.) A minor attraction is the crane; we usually only see use of the crane in city sets (port, coast guard etc), so it was interesting to see it here. The crane, however, turned out to be a big negative, as I'll explain below. And finally for those with "need for piece", the lime bricks, and the dark grey web thingy that always come in handy when Castle MOCing.

Minifigs: First of all, to those just diving into the new magma series of PM, I must say that these figures are NOT backward compatible with the rock grinding crew of last year. The entire color scheme, torso and helmet-wise, are much different than the blue and white we saw on the previous crew. I guess what I'm trying to say is if you want to maximize your army of miners, carefully consider which crew (sub-theme) you're getting. They are not meant to be placed in the same build.

The rock monsters don't have the grey colored patches on them anymore, they are all transparent, but they look somewhat compatible next to each other. Eruptorr, however, doesn't look like his distant rock cousins at all, with no studs on his back to place the mined crystals. IMO, his mold is more like a Fantasy Era giant troll. Definitely worth getting, as he can be used in other themes, such as Castle and Space.

These minfigs are well printed, having that shiny feel although I thought it would have been nice if they gave them real magma armor like in sets 8189 and 8190. Overall the minifigs add a lot to this set.

Building Experience: This set was an easy build, no more than 45 mins for the casual builder, and has a few interesting components to it.
The vehicle was average compared to the much better designed 8188, but I guess it was there for the sake of being there. Realistically speaking, how would the shovel be used? It certainly doesn't look like an attack vehicle, so I'm guessing for pushing magma and lava or even rock monsters? Which makes very little sense since a shovel isn't the tool you would use for all three of these things. Also, the water spray would have been much better if they just included a piece of water to come out of the hose, seeing this is the only defense mechanism available, but this is easily fixable with your own piece of water. A negative nonetheless, though.
The Water Ball Shooter is detachable from the base, and like the crane, uses Bionicle weapon parts. I have to say this part of the set surprised me with its simple yet powerful function. It shoots extremely hard and far, much better than any catapult/launcher/cannon I own, even better than some Bionicle sets. It is, however, extremely fragile when attached to the base (a recurring theme in this set), as there is only a two stud connection with no support. As a stand alone weapon it is great, and its simple build allows you to build multiples from other pieces you own, meaning you can probably set up a sentry with three or four of these around the base.
Next up I have to say is the thing that really stands out in this set --- the vending machine. I am not an expert builder, so I have to say this working vending machine was a great lesson in the magic of Lego for me. You simply push the bill in, and the snack pops out. I can't explain the mechanism because I don't know how, but it works great, and you can use this concept to build vending machines on the streets of your Fire Station, Cafe Corner, Green Grocer etc. HOWEVER, again being realistic, this base being an non-confined area and jail of one angry monster, I find it hard to believe someone would set up a vending machine here. If there was a resting quarters it would make sense, but as the set is it is absurd to have this here.
The left side of the base is poorly built IMO. It is fragile, as the connection between the tiles are usually just two studs on each side, and juniorized by the large web thingy. The storage for the water bombs was poor, too, as the bombs constantly rolled out. I fixed this problem by adding levers to both side, as they look like a realistic way to get the water bombs. The red crystals are also poorly place straight beneath the vending machine, in what I suppose is a lava pool. The only way you can get them is by the rover, via breaking down the "exploding" rock piece, which in no way is a mission for a shoveling rover. Again, the vehicle comes back to haunt this set.
The crane and cage were a big disappointment. The crane operating booth can move from side to side, and the crane itself can move up and down, which is good, but the claws of the crane, while a creative use of the pieces, CANNOT GRAB ANYTHING. At first I though it was just me, then I read the other reviews and found others had the same problem as me. It can barely handle minifigs, so don't even try to it on the big bad Erouptorr. And because of the crane, there is no top for the cage/jail. so it is just the cage pieces hanging there by themselves. Eruptorr doesn't even need Firax to use the "exploding" function, he can probably break it all apart himself. Also, there are no plates supporting the jail, although Eruptorr doesn't really need them to stand. However, this makes the jail quite fragile.

Playability: As I previously stated, I can see this set being popular with kids. A vending machine, a cannon, a crane, a cage, two exploding functions, a vehicle, and of course both good and bad guys make this set worth at least a couple days of afternoon fun. Add 8188 or 8189 and the kids will have a blast. In a AFOL playability sense, this set offers a good base/concept to build upon, and if you like making stories or movies it is just a couple twitches away from being usable. I gave it a three brick, but for kids I'd add another brick. The reason it's not a five is because there are not enough miners, it would be more reasonable it one miner took the rover, one operated the crane, and one was on patrol/water cannon/off duty using the vending machine. You'd think this base, with its name clearly geared towards a jail concept, would be more heavily guarded.

Price: Out in Taiwan we have our Lego at a extremely high premium, for example the sets priced 99.99 USD are usually MSRPed at least 160 USD here, although on the web you can usually get around 25-30% off before shipping. I got this set for sale at about 53 USD. It was a bit expensive, but compared to other sets it was quite a bargain, and I just had to get Eruptorr. Poor Taiwan AFOLs... For the US price, I'd say it is at least $5 too high. I understand the pricing must have something to do with the exclusive Eruptorr mold, but an extra miner and more plates for the base of the jail would have justified it.

Conclusion: A great concept that turned out poor. This set feels more like a bunch on mini ideas that designers could not incoporate elsewhere, so they stuck it to this set. Get it if it's on sale, the minifigs and rock monsters won't disappoint. For those who liked the previous PM sets, I recommend waiting it out a bit to see if Lego expands the magma sub-theme, as the sets currently available are a bit weak. To people who are just getting interested in Power Miners, I would recommend the previous crew (although some are hard to find now), as the sub-theme is more complete, and the vehicles are well-designed.

All done for my first review, hope I can free up more time to give back to the Lego online community. Thanks for the read!