LEGO Ninjago 2021

[Umbrage82]

31 minutes ago, cosmic said:

Took me long enough but I’ve finally compiled a list of all the Ninjago sets I want. it resulted in 53 sets I need in my collection and 4 sets that I have some interest in. Funny enough I want a set from every year but 2012. Originally the 2012 wave never appealed to me besides the Epic Dragon Battle. But I lost interest in the dragon and only really like the giant green snake and dungeon build so I passed on including it. So I will end up having sets from every year and most waves besides 2012. Very excited to start collecting this theme as the structures specifically that have released over time have really spoken to me. The 3 Ninjago city sets, Lighthouse Siege, Skull Dungeon sets and the Airjitzu Temple are what I am most excited to start ordering.can’t wait to be a Ninjago stan haha.

Which raiders made the list!? The legacy one is the one I’ve decided to go with since I’m intent on the rest of the golden fig sets...

[cosmic]

2 minutes ago, Umbrage82 said:

Which raiders made the list!? The legacy one is the one I’ve decided to go with since I’m intent on the rest of the golden fig sets...

None because I already own my favorite raider. 70595 is to me the best and I’m very fortunate to own it. The dino side build, the slickness of the cockpit and the best figure selection (3 pretty good villains) makes it the best of the 3. The second has the best figure selection imo. The first and third are alright.

[Umbrage82]

1 hour ago, cosmic said:

None because I already own my favorite raider. 70595 is to me the best and I’m very fortunate to own it. The dino side build, the slickness of the cockpit and the best figure selection (3 pretty good villains) makes it the best of the 3. The second has the best figure selection imo. The first and third are alright.

Ah - agree with you there for sure; if it were a straight choice at msrp I’d go the same

[cosmic]

11 hours ago, Umbrage82 said:

Ah - agree with you there for sure; if it were a straight choice at msrp I’d go the same

Do you own any raider?

one thing I noticed as I went through every Ninjago release by year on bricklink (the most convenient place to make a list of sets you want) I realized that Ninjago as a theme started solidly but really improved over the years. It maintained elements of its original release while innovating on character and villain designs and the builds got stronger. I think many themes struggle to make it out of their second and third waves because the attention to detail and quality is not maintained the way it was here. I guess Hidden Side remained solid but themes like Chima couldn’t continue because their last few waves were weak.

[Umbrage82]

22 minutes ago, cosmic said:

Do you own any raider?

one thing I noticed as I went through every Ninjago release by year on bricklink (the most convenient place to make a list of sets you want) I realized that Ninjago as a theme started solidly but really improved over the years. It maintained elements of its original release while innovating on character and villain designs and the builds got stronger. I think many themes struggle to make it out of their second and third waves because the attention to detail and quality is not maintained the way it was here. I guess Hidden Side remained solid but themes like Chima couldn’t continue because their last few waves were weak.

Nope! Ninjago was nearly entirely during my dark ages and I’ve been playing catch-up during COVID; prices feel like they’re 20-50% higher for old sets than they were a year ago and even then I needed to be choosey because of how many great sets or rare figs I wanted (Lookin at you, Time Twins). I wanted 70595 but other sets were higher priority like the ninjago city and docks, and I still have quite the backlog hence going for the cheaper new version.

I think it’s a bit chicken or egg with set quality over time; my guess is they put their best designers on first waves of new themes and then choose to continue investing in that theme or move them on to new ones as they see how they perform. Actually the main sets I owned before getting back into Ninjago were Chima; I own basically every nonracer set. I wouldn’t say the design quality went down over time per se, but the theme just got a bit repetitive too quickly. Some of my favorite designs were in the fire and ice wave; the ice bear mech especially!

[cosmic]

3 hours ago, Umbrage82 said:

Nope! Ninjago was nearly entirely during my dark ages and I’ve been playing catch-up during COVID; prices feel like they’re 20-50% higher for old sets than they were a year ago and even then I needed to be choosey because of how many great sets or rare figs I wanted (Lookin at you, Time Twins). I wanted 70595 but other sets were higher priority like the ninjago city and docks, and I still have quite the backlog hence going for the cheaper new version.

I think it’s a bit chicken or egg with set quality over time; my guess is they put their best designers on first waves of new themes and then choose to continue investing in that theme or move them on to new ones as they see how they perform. Actually the main sets I owned before getting back into Ninjago were Chima; I own basically every nonracer set. I wouldn’t say the design quality went down over time per se, but the theme just got a bit repetitive too quickly. Some of my favorite designs were in the fire and ice wave; the ice bear mech especially!

Oh how we disagree. I thought the Fire and Ice sub theme is what killed chima. It was nice for one wave but the last 3 focused on that and it killed the fun of the license for me. The tribes receiving bases and vehicles and mechs for their tribe on their own was an exciting way to flesh out the theme. But fire and ice versions of each tribe made the newer bear and beaver figs feel like variants and not accurate depictions of these tribes in their own environment. Does that make sense? I also didn’t think the structures and builds in those last few waves compared to what kicked chima off. To each his own but I was not satisfied with the fire and ice subtheme and think they dragged it out for so long the themes build and aesthetic started to fall apart.

[Umbrage82]

17 minutes ago, cosmic said:

Oh how we disagree. I thought the Fire and Ice sub theme is what killed chima. 

I mean, I feel like Chima fans are a rare breed so I’ll take the W even if we disagree in details :p I get what you’re saying though- I certainly would have preferred if they maintained the sort of base/vehicle pattern and kept expanding into new animals types in later waves. Part of the difference in opinion may also be how I experienced it temporally — I collected them and only after the series ended did I start opening sets based on what I liked; certainly a lot of the early waves were in those Initially but ice mammoth and other F&I made appearances too

[cosmic]

1 hour ago, Umbrage82 said:

I mean, I feel like Chima fans are a rare breed so I’ll take the W even if we disagree in details :p I get what you’re saying though- I certainly would have preferred if they maintained the sort of base/vehicle pattern and kept expanding into new animals types in later waves. Part of the difference in opinion may also be how I experienced it temporally — I collected them and only after the series ended did I start opening sets based on what I liked; certainly a lot of the early waves were in those Initially but ice mammoth and other F&I made appearances too

Eh besides the Ice Mammoth and Fire Temple, Vardy Vulture and the battle packs the fire and ice theme was pretty bad. The ice lairs were all so ugly the vehicles got repetitive and I got to a point where I was bored with the color scheme and wanted to see the tribes in their own element or with a new foe but thats the note the theme ended on. I didn’t know Chima fans were rare I assumed a decent portion of us enjoyed the theme but maybe it sold poorly and never got a following? I guess after any discontinuation a theme is bound to lose its hype. I’d love to see an action theme in the future that either includes characters from or has nods to the action themes of the past and includes them all in some way. But its more accurate to say I want Monster Fighters reboot. I wish I was a lego designer I have some cool ideas for a Monster Fighters reboot. 
 

As far as Ninjago goes, a good portion of what I listed is structures and dragons and mechs but a few vehicles got thrown in there too. There’s even 5 sets I listed as unsure bc I like them but don’t know if I quite need them in my collection. But its all subjective I guess i don’t “need” any of them. I just try and be strategic about the sets I get and how well they cover the strongest elements of each theme.

Edited May 15, 2021 by cosmic

[Bloquerto]

Has anyone seen the new Daily Bugle set from Marvel? Because I saw a picture and it bring me hope that TLG make a D2C Borg Tower as the same size of the Daily Bugle set.

[Umbrage82]

fair enough! I’d be excited about a monsters reboot too as I missed that theme too. I’m a Magic:The Gathering fan and like the aesthetics of “cycles”, and I really like the idea of ninja set lineup cycles, which means a lot of my ninjago list is trying to find a mech, wheeled vehicle and dragon for each ninja (and sometimes wu). I leverage a lot of ninjago movie sets; overall i feel like Jay is the odd one out surprisingly frequently (at least for big mechs and vehicles). 

[Fenghuang0296]

1 minute ago, Umbrage82 said:

fair enough! I’d be excited about a monsters reboot too as I missed that theme too. I’m a Magic:The Gathering fan and like the aesthetics of “cycles”, and I really like the idea of ninja set lineup cycles, which means a lot of my ninjago list is trying to find a mech, wheeled vehicle and dragon for each ninja (and sometimes wu). I leverage a lot of ninjago movie sets; overall i feel like Jay is the odd one out surprisingly frequently (at least for big mechs and vehicles). 

Hey, clever. Do you treat the Fire Stone Mech as a Kai Mech or Cole Mech? We really should expect a large-scale Mech for Jay; the closest we’ve had so far is the ToE Electromech and that’s just nowhere near the scale of Lloyd’s Mech from SoFS, Zane’s Titan Mech or Kai’s Mech from the Movie. (Speaking of, do you count Garmadon as an ‘evil Ninja’? Because between the Movie’s Garma Mecha Man (or even the Oni Titan), the Garma-Tron and the Overlord Dragon, I think that’s doable.)

[Umbrage82]

 

On 5/15/2021 at 5:49 PM, Fenghuang0296 said:

Hey, clever. Do you treat the Fire Stone Mech as a Kai Mech or Cole Mech? We really should expect a large-scale Mech for Jay; the closest we’ve had so far is the ToE Electromech and that’s just nowhere near the scale of Lloyd’s Mech from SoFS, Zane’s Titan Mech or Kai’s Mech from the Movie. (Speaking of, do you count Garmadon as an ‘evil Ninja’? Because between the Movie’s Garma Mecha Man (or even the Oni Titan), the Garma-Tron and the Overlord Dragon, I think that’s doable.)

Neither actually — I use the movie mechs for Cole and Kai; I got the idea after buying those :P

My WIP list (using ones I own/plan to buy on release):

Maybe I should do a cycle of bikes...

Edited May 17, 2021 by Umbrage82
Formatting

[Fenghuang0296]

15 minutes ago, Umbrage82 said:

Neither actually — I use the movie mechs for Cole and Kai; I got the idea after buying those :P

My WIP list (using ones I own/plan to buy on release)

on phone apologies..

(Kai/Cole/Lloyd/Jay/Zane/Nya/Garna/Wu)

“Big” Mechs (ill pbbly do a small mech cycle later): Movie/Movie/Titan/TBD/Titan Legacy/Waterstrider/Movie/TBD

Dragons: Hunted/TBD/ GreenMechDragon/Hunted/TBD (Titanium feels small..don’t own it)/New Water/ Overlord/ Master Wu Dragon

Wheeled Vehicles: Charger X/Rock Roader/Ninja Nightcrawler/TBD (Jay One?!)/Titanium Tumbler/TBD/TBD (I like the tank idea!!)/TBD

Maybe I should do a cycle of bikes...

Good picks, but I’d have taken the Cyber Dragon for Jay over the Stormbringer. It was much more plot-relevant and iconic, while Stormbringer was basically only there as an accessory to Firstborne. Also, for Zane’s dragon, you could try to get the Ice Emperor’s palace and have Boreal? Though that might be expensive on the aftermarket . . plus we are sorta due for a Zane dragon. Kai, Lloyd and Nya all got dragons this year, and Wu and Jay last year . . I would like a Cole dragon but Cole usually gets shafted. (Maybe see if you can get Rocky, the original Earth dragon from 2011 for him? I wouldn’t count on Cole getting a new dragon.) Speaking of Cole, I can see why you’d use the movie mech for him over the FireStone mech, it is a hefty piece even though personally I think it’s one of the all-time stupidest vehicles .  . 

Say, maybe you could add Pixal? She had a Mech in SOG and that car in HoT . . she’ll probably never have a dragon though given she hasn’t even been in the sets since 2019 . . just my two cents but that’d probably be more interesting than getting a motorbike for each ninja.

[lego_guyon02]

I'll personally wait for it's proper release next friday but a very poor quality version of the Legacy short "Golden Hour" (the one with Wu and the Time Twins) has leaked.

[a guy from somewhere]

So somebody actually got it early. I’ll check if they have any other sets now

Ok they don’t. 

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

12 hours ago, Fenghuang0296 said:

Good picks, but I’d have taken the Cyber Dragon for Jay over the Stormbringer. It was much more plot-relevant and iconic, while Stormbringer was basically only there as an accessory to Firstborne. Also, for Zane’s dragon, you could try to get the Ice Emperor’s palace and have Boreal? Though that might be expensive on the aftermarket . . plus we are sorta due for a Zane dragon. Kai, Lloyd and Nya all got dragons this year, and Wu and Jay last year . . I would like a Cole dragon but Cole usually gets shafted. (Maybe see if you can get Rocky, the original Earth dragon from 2011 for him? I wouldn’t count on Cole getting a new dragon.) Speaking of Cole, I can see why you’d use the movie mech for him over the FireStone mech, it is a hefty piece even though personally I think it’s one of the all-time stupidest vehicles .  . 

Say, maybe you could add Pixal? She had a Mech in SOG and that car in HoT . . she’ll probably never have a dragon though given she hasn’t even been in the sets since 2019 . . just my two cents but that’d probably be more interesting than getting a motorbike for each ninja.

it's so nice how civil discussions are here, compared to other subs

 

 

21 minutes ago, a guy from somewhere said:

So somebody actually got it early. I’ll check if they have any other sets now

Ok they don’t. 

Still no clarity about the function of the belt piece - so the scabard + oxygen tank and breathing mask are somehow connected to belt and neck. I still wonder how exactly the piece or pieces work..

 

[a guy from somewhere]

4 minutes ago, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

 

Still no clarity about the function of the belt piece - so the scabard + oxygen tank and breathing mask are somehow connected to belt and neck. I still wonder how exactly the piece or pieces work..

 

I’m not sure if they are actually one piece, however they may be due to the plastic and the fact that the O2 tank comes down to the belt height. Maybe the tank is like a flexible rubber piece, where you slot the belt but onto the legs, bent the rebreather part up and slot the torso in, then bend the rubber but back down and put the head on? But that would cause stress on the part. Confusing!

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

1 hour ago, a guy from somewhere said:

I’m not sure if they are actually one piece, however they may be due to the plastic and the fact that the O2 tank comes down to the belt height. Maybe the tank is like a flexible rubber piece, where you slot the belt but onto the legs, bent the rebreather part up and slot the torso in, then bend the rubber but back down and put the head on? But that would cause stress on the part. Confusing!

yes

not to forget - ruber pieces may not contain the swords properly.

Let's see - it's crazy the sets will release in 15 days.

[Takanuinuva]

I asked the person in the video. They said the belt and tank are seperate pieces. 

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

32 minutes ago, Takanuinuva said:

I asked the person in the video. They said the belt and tank are seperate pieces. 

thx man!

I wonder then why they even did these belt pieces. For sure cool bonus to get so many of them though.

[Umbrage82]

23 hours ago, Fenghuang0296 said:

Good picks, but I’d have taken the Cyber Dragon for Jay over the Stormbringer. It was much more plot-relevant and iconic, while Stormbringer was basically only there as an accessory to Firstborne. Also, for Zane’s dragon, you could try to get the Ice Emperor’s palace and have Boreal? Though that might be expensive on the aftermarket . . plus we are sorta due for a Zane dragon. Kai, Lloyd and Nya all got dragons this year, and Wu and Jay last year . . I would like a Cole dragon but Cole usually gets shafted. (Maybe see if you can get Rocky, the original Earth dragon from 2011 for him? I wouldn’t count on Cole getting a new dragon.) Speaking of Cole, I can see why you’d use the movie mech for him over the FireStone mech, it is a hefty piece even though personally I think it’s one of the all-time stupidest vehicles .  . 

Say, maybe you could add Pixal? She had a Mech in SOG and that car in HoT . . she’ll probably never have a dragon though given she hasn’t even been in the sets since 2019 . . just my two cents but that’d probably be more interesting than getting a motorbike for each ninja.

Dig it! I have the VXL but not the SoG mech (I think that sets expensive due to bigfig?)

Definitely been eyeing the Ice Emperor Dragon; I'm okay having a coupla TBDs to maybe MOC if I ever find the time. I like the Cyber Dragon a lot I just preferred the consistent aesthetic of more fantasy-esque dragons (which is why I may go Jungle Dragon - though I haven't seen those episodes I assume it's Lloyd's...)

[Fenghuang0296]

1 hour ago, Umbrage82 said:

Dig it! I have the VXL but not the SoG mech (I think that sets expensive due to bigfig?)

Definitely been eyeing the Ice Emperor Dragon; I'm okay having a coupla TBDs to maybe MOC if I ever find the time. I like the Cyber Dragon a lot I just preferred the consistent aesthetic of more fantasy-esque dragons (which is why I may go Jungle Dragon - though I haven't seen those episodes I assume it's Lloyd's...)

Eh, sorta? Zippy’a more Lloyd’s than any other ninja’s, but it’s not really ‘his’, though he does interact with Zippy more than any other ninja . . I’d say just watch the show and make up your mind, but out of the Ultra Dragon, Golden Dragon, 2016 NRG Dragon, the Mech Dragon, Zippy is at the absolute bottom of the list in terms of ‘dragons associated with Lloyd’. Unlike the other four, Lloyd never even rode Zippy - that saddle and all those promotional images of Lloyd saddling him up? About as non-canon as Zane’s Tournament outfit,

[Umbrage82]

1 minute ago, Fenghuang0296 said:

Eh, sorta? Zippy’a more Lloyd’s than any other ninja’s, but it’s not really ‘his’, though he does interact with Zippy more than any other ninja . . I’d say just watch the show and make up your mind, but out of the Ultra Dragon, Golden Dragon, 2016 NRG Dragon, the Mech Dragon, Zippy is at the absolute bottom of the list in terms of ‘dragons associated with Lloyd’. Unlike the other four, Lloyd never even rode Zippy - that saddle and all those promotional images of Lloyd saddling him up? About as non-canon as Zane’s Tournament outfit,

Gotcha lol ty for the context 

[Takanuinuva]

 Bit low quality. But I believe this is the only canon one of these shorts.

[Lego David]

On 5/15/2021 at 8:53 PM, cosmic said:

one thing I noticed as I went through every Ninjago release by year on bricklink (the most convenient place to make a list of sets you want) I realized that Ninjago as a theme started solidly but really improved over the years. It maintained elements of its original release while innovating on character and villain designs and the builds got stronger. I think many themes struggle to make it out of their second and third waves because the attention to detail and quality is not maintained the way it was here. I guess Hidden Side remained solid but themes like Chima couldn’t continue because their last few waves were weak.

This might be a controversial opinion, but I think Ninjago was never a particularly good theme set-wise. The first wave, despite being my favorite because of the feudal Japan vibe and nice contrast between heroes with dragons and villains with vehicles, was still pretty sub-par compared to other themes that came out at the same time, such as Pharaoh's Quest, and a lot of its success could be attributed to the Spinners gimmick , which hit at the right moment when the Beyblade craze was at its highest. 

The second wave saw the Spinners taking a step back and more focus on the actual sets, and I have to admit, they have indeed improved upon what they had in wave 1, but that came at the expense of the contrast between heroes and villains, and from this point on, realizing how profitable they are with kids, LEGO has never stopped pumping out repetitive oversized hero vehicles. 

The third wave was in my opinion the worst, being clearly thrown together at the last minute. If it weren't for the TV Series being popular, Ninjago as we know it would have ended there.

Rebooted was another quickly thrown together wave after LEGO realized their mistake and uncancelled the theme, and we wouldn't start getting set waves with proper development time until 2015. 

Most people say that the theme has gotten better and better since, but to be fair, the line has never moved passed the oversized hero vehicles trend, with just some occasional good villains. The only genuinely great set wave we have gotten was the LEGO Ninjago Movie wave, but everything else is pretty standard. 

The TV Show is the only reason Ninjago has endured for so long, because there is no way the sets alone can carry a theme like this, especially when barely a few out of the hundreds of Ninjago sets even stand out. 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Lego David