Review: 70209 CHI Mungus

[VBBN]

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Set name: CHI Mungus

Set number: 70209

Piece Count: 64

Year Released: 2014

Price: $14.99 USD, 12,99 EUR (?)

Hello everyone and welcome to a review of CHI Mungus. Before I begin, as always I want to thank the people at Lego and Eurobricks staff who made it possible for me to bring you guys these reviews.

My gratitude for this opportunity is furthered due to an unfortunate bit of news that we have all heard by this point: The 2014 Chima Constraction sets will not be released in North America. I have the prices listed above in both EUR and USD, however this is for completion sake and does not mean anything.

Bag Front

The front of the bag features Mungus, as well as some lite set information. The background is a mix or ice and lightning, and looks very attractive- It's sure to catch some eyes on store shelves next to it's polar opposite, the bright orange bags of the fire sets.

Bag Back

The back of the bag is nothing new, but something I found odd; Usually, lego will try to show off the most ridiculous of set functions. Yet they actually missed one with this set- The hammer head spins, which I assume was an intended feature. Otherwise someone grabbed the wrong friction pin and threw a gear in the system.

Instructions

The instructions, showing off the same image as we saw on the bag.

Contents

He has a longer variant of the body structure. We also have two bags of parts and a separate bagged head.

New/Interesting Parts

Glorious Recolors

Being a huge fan of trans light blue, I was ecstatic to see so much with these sets. Mungus not only includes the fist piece and third shortest bone length in the color, but also the spiked mace halves and a Ben 10 foot.

Brown and CHI Orb

We also are greeted by some newly recolored brown pieces and his Chi orb, which is a mix of white and trans light blue.

Printed piece and system part

Each of the ice sets includes one printed piece as seen above (not two like the fire sets, excluding panthar, have) Also, while it's not nearly new, I included the lego system basket as an interesting piece. Certainly it's one of the last things I'd ever expect to see in a constraction set.

Head (view 1)

The new head, which looks very awesome- some bits of skin removed to show a cracked skull beneath it, and you can also see some molded teeth.

Head (view 2)

The Build

Torso

Torso build begins

Legs added on

Due to his long torso and short legs, lego did add in some friction sockets to give a bit more height and help stabilize the big upper half.

Shoulders

Mungus, as well as Sir Fangar, use a new shoulder construction that is an advanced version of what Gorzan used last year.

Bulking

I don't know how I feel about these really wide shoulders and extra long torso. While I understand what they are going for, I can't say the armor really fills him out enough. More armor is added to finish the look of the ice leg, and arms and placed on.

Trunk

The start of the trunk

Completed Trunk

Attached. A molded trunk would have looked better, but this gives us articulation as well as some lovely brown pieces.

Weapon

The weapon is built like so. The tan friction peg allows the top to spin, but I haven't a clue as to why you would want to do that.

Finished Set

Front

The ice arm and ice leg could use some more armor, and I wish we has upper bones in trans colors to make the entire leg iced over.

Side

A side view. While he is wide from a front view, he ends up being rather thin from a profile shot like mostly all of the CHI figures this wave.

Back

A well armored back,

Pose 1

Posed using his weapon as a hammer. The white shoulder parts like to fall off a lot when attempting to pose him this way.

Pose 2

Pose 3

Mungus is an interesting figure. He attempts the torso build that should be on a titan, but doesn't have enough parts to really fill out enough and finish that "mammoth" sized look. I'm not a fan of the spinning weapon and would prefer it to have just been a non-moving piece. Also, while I appreciate what they were trying to do with the white fur on his shoulders, I think it would be better if he didn't have that.It throws the color scheme somewhat and leaves you wishing there was more white overall, or more brown, depending on if you are getting this guy for parts. He does look quite wide, though I wish he didn't have such a thin profile like most of the other Chima figures, but at this pricepoint some sacrifices have to be made I suppose.

What do you think of this set?

VBBN

[WARHEAD]

Woah this guy might actually be my favorite of the wave, as a figure. He looks pretty ok from all angles properly bulky too. A real pleasant surprise, as he seemed pretty lacking the the photos we got back when they were unveiled in Germany.

[Aanchir]

Good review. I like the beefiness of the shoulders, but I am bothered by the fact that the chest is not appropriately beefed up to match. It looks a bit unnatural to have a two-module gap between his inner arm and the sides of his torso. The head, however, looks great, as do his zombified "ice arm" and "ice leg". Very tasteful asymmetry there. And his back is armored quite well!

I don't know whether the white upper arms help the set at all. Honestly, I think it would have been much better if the upper arms instead used the same Reddish Brown shells as his left leg, and perhaps a darker color of fur detail piece — even the black ones used by CHI Panthar. That way we would have gotten more than one of those delicious Reddish Brown shells. Swapping the Titanium Metallic shell from his lower right arm with a Reddish Brown one could also be nice.

The hammer is beautifully designed, which is great since hammers are not a common weapon in constraction sets, nor an easy one to design. The use of System buckets is brilliant and puts my unwieldy hammer design from Kit Martello to shame in terms of economy of design. A hammer is also a great weapon for an asymmetrical character design like this. But I have to agree that the choice of a pin without added friction ridges doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[Mesonak]

Very welcome surprise. He is quite flawed in some ways, but the overall look of the figure works (although I do agree that he would've been better served as a titan). The upper arms and armorless trans-blue limbs strike me as his biggest flaws (along with the spinning hammer). That being said, I think the head/trunk is pulled off quite nicely and you can't break the brown. Overall, I'd get him if he was available in the US, but as it stands, I'm probably not going to bother importing him. :(

[Pate-keetongu]

Thanksagain.

Mungus looks a lot better here than in the previous pics. Definitely cool looking character, but the MOCer inside me (who is around fifty times bigger than the set fan inside me) cried because the asymmetrical limbs ruins the parts selection - Except if I buy two of this guy. That might be wise, if I wasn't as stingy as I am. Gotta wish for clearance, though I have never seen the last wave of ultrabuilds in any sort of sale.

The head is great, brown pieces are always welcome and the weapon is really brlliant, one of the best in the history of constraction. The torso is creative and surprisingly custom-oriented. Now if it only had ben10 feet in same color, two printed shells (excellent for another tribal Toas) and two brown shells. But no.

[Csacsa234]

Thanks for the review! Mungus is surprising, as he looked a bit weird on the pictures, now I see his body is very well built, and I like how beefy he is. The boney ice limbs I think look great, somewhat terrifying and giving the unnatural, half undead beast look to it. However I think the head mold is great, the trunk is really strange, the build of it is not satisfying in both aesthetics and length, and I just don't get why the hammer is rotating, it's annoying. And the most big disappointment is that he should be the biggest, at least two times bigger than any Chima constraction set and yet he turned out to be the smallest.

[Agent Fusion]

I'm loving this set! Definitely my second purchase, after Sir Fangar.

[Aethersprite]

He looks better in this review than he did in previous pics we've seen of him - but still pretty lackluster overall. He would look so much better with a few extra shells to cover up some of his bare limbs.

[ZORK64]

I'm not sure what I should think of Mungus. The mammoth theme itself is really nice, but still, there's something about him lacking for me to really like or care for him. Even though his hammer is pretty cool.

[dviddy]

Definitely my least favorite looking of the entire wave. When I get around to it, I don't think I'll be importing this one.

[MakutaDreadscythe]

Well...this guy…I’m not really sure where to start.

I like the mammoth theme. They’re pretty cool, and considering I just finished Dark Souls II (there’s elephant knights in that game…yep) I’m totally down with that.

The overall execution however…well, it’s an ice zombie mammoth. Don’t get me wrong, I like my zombies. I like my mammoths. I even like zombie mammoths.

This just looks bad. You have a fairly large torso and a cool headpiece, and the weapon is definitely something I would envision an evil mammoth man wielding to smite his enemies in the head with. Just…his limbs…especially his ice peg-leg and left arm. It leaves so much to be desired, not to mention a lot of the cool parts require multiple purchases to get an even number, something I’m not terribly fond of doing.

Okay, give him the ice-leg and ice-arm, give him the nonsensical white fur, just for the love of god bulk up this guy. He really needs it, more than any other set this wave.