REVIEW: 76294 X-Men: The X-Mansion

Here is my review on 76294 X-Men: The X-Mansion:

THE GOOD:

• Looks great standalone with lots of areas to make the set extremely lively.
• An easter egg on the famous Wolverine meme.
• Gambit minifigure.
• Great Sentinel build.

THE NOT SO GOOD:

• The 3 half base plates configuration makes it difficult to transport given the the top levels not having any connection to the section next to it.
  • Also have visible gaps some times between the section.
• If you own earlier version of the charecters minifigiures. the minifigs selection might disappoint you.
• Doesn't fit with other modulars in terms of its size.

It's one of my most anticipated sets this year and while it has some issues, I still enjoyed the build and like the completed model.  First as a standalone piece, it looks very good with tons of details both around the courtyard and the exterior of the mansion.  It has lots of areas ready for some battle effects, and joints allow you to place minifigures to pretend flying.  This allows the build to look very lively.  Personal preference is to have it more static, and you can easily do that by replacing some of the bricks.  The interior is also packs with details and easter eggs despite it does feel a bit tight with the spaces.  Highlights for me are the lab, main hall and the danger room.  The dorm & class room are just a bit too small but still have some cool references.  And rarely for a D2C set, it also features some exciting play features like the exploding roof.  The building experience is not at expert level and is quite straight forward but the moment you noticed a reference it increases the enjoyment.  Now, if you place this next to a standard modular, or even all the marvel ones, it does feel the odd one out.  But if LEGO decides to go with same scale, I do not think the 3 x half base plates configuration would work and it will significantly increase the piece count and price.  The minifigures are great, it's nice to finally have Gambit, unfortunately his cards are stickers which is not helpful if you keep switching between effect or simply holding in Gambit's hands.  I did not buy the X-Jet, so I'm very satisfied with the minifigs included, for some this could be repetitive as you get Cyclops and Rogue again despite the versions in this mansion have more details.  Some of the noticeable flaws apart from lack of rooms and space, is the 3 base plates configurations.  While the middle and the section of each side are fairly secured with some techniq pieces hidden in the foundation but because the playability as modular, the upper levels do not have any connected bricks which made this set a challenge to move around and also depending on how you place it, there might be visible gaps between each section.  At 550NZD, it does lean towards the higher end of the price, with the Cerebro GWP being independent to this set, and this  is likely to be available from retail stores, I would suggest if you are interested, try hold off until you see a sale.  Otherwise if you desperately need some of the fig or the mansion and a fan of X-Men then this is a set for you,.