REVIEW | Nexo Knights | 30378 Shrunken Headquarters

[ZORK64]

I'd like to start this review with an apology. I promised to write this review a few weeks ago, but thanks to some Real Life stuff, I had to delay it. But now I've got some time, and I'll make good use of it.

 

Similiar to the Mini Fortrex we got in Nexo Knight's first year as a freebie, LEGO offers currently a miniature version of the Headquarters (or Jestro's Monstrous Monster Mobile, to literally translate the German name which I frankly adore because it gets shortened as "MoMoMo"), the biggest set of the current Nexo Knight wave.

But how well does this set fare compared to its monstrous inspiration? Let's find out!

 

Set number & name: 30378 Shrunken Headquarters

Price: This set is currently free, but can only be obtained along with another Nexo Knights set

Parts: 44 parts and 1 minifig (according to BrickLink)

Release: Late 2016/Early 2017

 

The bag

The front of the bag shows us the set and its pilot, a regular Stone Stomper. I'd like to mention that I generally like the visuals of the background used for this wave. All these blueish ruins give off a very eery and spooky vibe, which fits nicely with the bad guys (while the heroic knights provide some nice contrast).

The bag is naturally nowhere as interesting. Well anyway, let's open the bag!

 

The parts

Here's the parts overview of the set. Since I'm not really willing to count the parts myself (which I used to do in my reviews of the constraction sets), I cheated and checked BrickLink. According to them, the Shrunken Headquarter contains a total of 44 parts. It's kinda surprising to me that the amount of purple and dark stone grey (the two colours which make most of the color scheme of the baddies) is so short in this set.

The building instructions are a folded poster, which is quite common for small sets like this one.

 

Pieces of interest

The supposed action feature of the Shrunken Headquarters is a catapult. I'm not sure how old this piece is (EDIT: It debuted in 2010's Kingdoms line), but here's a picture of it for the little catapult enthusiast in all of us.

 

This little TECHNIC-esque piece on the other hand is familiar to me, as it was also used in various G2 Bionicle sets (it might even have debuted in them?). It's a pretty cool-looking part, and I'm happy to get it now in black too. Another nice bonus: The Shrunken Headquarters comes with a total of three of these, but one of them is a spare part, so even if you kept the set built, you'll get one of these connectors for your parts collection.

 

This brick is part of the catapult, and it's a rather exotic piece (at least for me...).

 

Oh hey, a Mixel Ball joint! Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but could the Shrunken Headquartes be the first set to use one of those in a vehicle, just like how the older plates with balls were already used for decades? Either way, it's a pleasant surprise, considering that I actively collect these joints, what with being a constraction nerd.

 

I generally like 1x2 plates in this style, I think the first time I spotted this variant was in the Mini Snowspeeder. The Shrunken Headquarters uses two of these to connect to steam roller-like front section.

 

The Minifig

Instead of featuring a specific character like Jestro (similiar to how the Mini Fortrex was piloted by Robin), the Shrunken Headquarters is piloted by a Stone Stomper, which are apparently the lowest-ranking mooks of Jestro's new army. As this picture shows, Stone Stompers are Gargoyle-like humanoids.

A front and back view of the figure itself. As you can see, the Stone Stomper got overall some nice printing.

He also comes with an alternative facial expression, so it's up to you if the Stone Stomper sports a evil grin or a more aggressive expression.

Here's a comparison with one of the mooks of the past wave (my apologies for not knowing his title though).

Given the versatility of the color black, the Stone Stomper looks good if you swap the gear around, while the combination of bright red and purple is kinda odd.

 

Building the set

The build of the Shrunken Headquarters is rather simple and straight-forward, starting with the front section, followed by the back section, and once both sections are completed, they get united. I think I can let the pictures speak for the most part here.

This picture shows you how the roller in the front is assembled. The instructions themselves of course expect you to first assemble the roller completely before you attach it to the vehicle, so I kinda cheated the instructions here to give you a better insight of how it is built.

The front section, completed!

Now we also got the back section done, so once we've combined both, we get...

 

The finished set

Behold, the evil Miniature Monster Mobile (MiMoMo)!

Oh right, spare parts.

 

Design and playability

As the name implies, the Shrunken Headquarters is based on Jestro's Headquarters, the larges set of this wave. It comes probably to nobody's surprise that a polybag set doesn't emulate every play feature of it's bigger brother, but I think the set does manage to evoke the shape of the MoMoMo.

One feature I like about it is how you can alter the height of the front roller.

Since I don't own Jestro's Headquarters, I'm not certain if this feature is inspired by a similiar trick of it or not, but it's still a cute little feature.

The set's other play feature, the catapult, leaves something to be desired though. Not only is the Stone Stomper in the way of the catapult, the bricks you can fling with it also fly in a rather low arc, and thus, not very far. So good luck hitting anything besides a miniature town with it.

Of course, as a miniature set, the Shrunken Headquarters may not be really up to challenge the Nexo Knights - or at least not their Action Suits...

...except for other polybags I guess. While I would have loved to show the Shrunken Headquarters next to the Mini Fortrex, I unfortunately don't own this set, so I went with another polybag instead.

 

Final thoughts

Truth be told, I was initially not really interested in this set, mostly because another polybag which popped up around the same time in the Nexo Knights 2017 thread, looked far more appealing to me. However, once I opened the bag and built the set, the Shrunken Headquarters managed to win me over, as the set still has a rather neat design and comes with plenty of unique parts that will be very great for my parts collection.

So if you want buy some Nexo Knights in the foreseeable future, make sure to also get this polybag with it. It's a neat little set that I can recommend.

Edited January 30, 2017 by ZORK64
Forgot a picture

[BrickJagger]

Thanks for the review, Zork. Hopefully these are available for purchase soon, I can't seem to get my hands on any of the NK polybags save for the Lava Slinger.

 

In case you want to add it into the review, the catapult piece was introduced in the Kingdoms line in 2010. 

[Aanchir]

14 hours ago, ZORK64 said:

Oh hey, a Mixel Ball joint! Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but could the Shrunken Headquartes be the first set to use one of those in a vehicle, just like how the older plates with balls were already used for decades? Either way, it's a pleasant surprise, considering that I actively collect these joints, what with being a constraction nerd.

Not quite. The 2015 City Advent Calendar was the first to use that piece as a vehicle coupler like this set does. Last year's Party Train and Amusement Park Roller Coaster from LEGO Friends and Kanan's Speeder Bike from LEGO Star Wars also used it as a coupler.

When I first saw pictures of this set, I wasn't super impressed, since I feel like the Headquarters didn't translate to this smaller size as well as the Fortrex did. It really loses its rocky aesthetic, it doesn't have quite the same cutesy Power Wheels look, and even the head that gives it its name is not all that recognizable unless you know what it's supposed to be. On the other hand, it looks decently playable, it's a good parts pack, and the name is a brilliant play on words. Also, importantly, I don't really know how it could have been done any better without unique printing or stickers, which are usually outside the scope of a polybag set of this sort. So while it's not a set I'd really have any interest in, it's alright for what it is: a freebie or impulse buy.

Thanks for the review!

[ZORK64]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

On 29.1.2017 at 2:18 AM, BrickJagger said:

In case you want to add it into the review, the catapult piece was introduced in the Kingdoms line in 2010. 

Thanks for the hint, I added it to the review

On 29.1.2017 at 4:05 PM, Aanchir said:

Not quite. The 2015 City Advent Calendar was the first to use that piece as a vehicle coupler like this set does. Last year's Party Train and Amusement Park Roller Coaster from LEGO Friends and Kanan's Speeder Bike from LEGO Star Wars also used it as a coupler.

When I first saw pictures of this set, I wasn't super impressed, since I feel like the Headquarters didn't translate to this smaller size as well as the Fortrex did. It really loses its rocky aesthetic, it doesn't have quite the same cutesy Power Wheels look, and even the head that gives it its name is not all that recognizable unless you know what it's supposed to be. On the other hand, it looks decently playable, it's a good parts pack, and the name is a brilliant play on words. Also, importantly, I don't really know how it could have been done any better without unique printing or stickers, which are usually outside the scope of a polybag set of this sort. So while it's not a set I'd really have any interest in, it's alright for what it is: a freebie or impulse buy.

Thanks for the review!

So it still took almost a year for the Mixel joint to be used as a coupler... well, since I'm not paying much attention to vehicle-sets (like the City-Line), I more or less just guessed, as the Shrunken Headquarters was the first set I came along to use it as a coupler (which is not surprising, considering that the list of sets which does so is apparently still rather small).

Also, on that note, thank you for mentioning the word "coupler". Even though I'm rather fluent in English nowadays, every once in a while I encounter the problem of not knowing the proper word for the most mundane things (ironically enough, the German word "Kupplung" is phonetically very similiar, but it slept my mind as well while writing the review).

I think the only thing that could've been done to make the Shrunken Headquarters more evocative of its original would've been to add actual eyes (printed on 1x1 round studs), but I guess that would've make it look a bit too cartoonish.

[OC_Architect]

Hey thanks for the review @ZORK64 much appreciated. I really like this small little set and it has yet to make its rounds to the US so am eagerly awaiting its arrival.

From your pic I counted 51 pieces and with 3 spare that would make the piece count 48 - anyone else with enough time on their hands to verify? (I am keeping a tabulation of parts within the Nexo Knights realms - it's what I do)

[WhiteFang]

Thanks for sharing this polybag review. Great to see some good details in there. The name of the polybag made me thought it could be something big or impressive. Well, I am mistaken by my own expectations. It is a combination of something like a steam roller equipped with a rear mini castle catapult. I could think, or at least in my case, is to have this polybag for the purpose of sampling of this new villain minifigure in this current Nexo Knights release.