LEGO Legends of Chima is ending this summer, but before the toy line goes on (perhaps permanent) hiatus, LEGO has one more big Chima set in store for collectors! Headlining the Chima Summer 2015 sets, it’s the 70227 King Crominus’ Rescue! You will believe a giant crocodile can fly!

Maybe I’m prejudiced against cold-blooded animals (or maybe it’s the way they were vilified in the first season of the Legends of Chima cartoon), but the Crocodile Tribe has always been one of my least favorite Chima tribes. As such, I’ve rarely gotten excited when A new Chima Crocodile Tribe vehicle has been revealed.

But then again, none of the previous crocodile-themed LEGO Chima sets has been centered around a huge, flying crocodile copter!

It only seems right that one of the three final Chima sets be themed after one of the original handful of tribes, and while I would not have picked the Crocodile Tribe myself, it turns out that the Crocs were saving their best for last!

The “plot” for this set is pretty simple: the Sabre-tooth Tribe has Crocodile Tribe King Crominus on ice, and the core friends of the Legends of Chima storyline (Cragger and Laval) turn up to liberate Cragger’s father with the last Crocodile and Lion vehicles to be released!

The Crocodile Helicopter is basically just a big brick-built crocodile walker–one that just happens to be able to go into Fire CHI Mode, shoot missiles and fly around with flaming wings! In addition, it’s got the standard opening and closing crocodile jaw. Like I said, I’ve never been one for the Crocodile Tribe–but this is one hot vehicle.

The set also includes the umpteenth disc-shooting Lion Tribe treaded vehicle. It can be connected to and deployed from the underside of the Crocodile helicopter, which I think is a neat twist, but this particular vehicle does feel a bet rehashed. Still, it’s great to see Laval and Cragger working together one more time!

I really feel sort of bad here for the three Sabre-tooth tribe figures, as they are utterly and hopelessly outmatched by these two fire-powered vehicles. On the bright side, at least we finally get a Saraw minifigure, which is exclusive to this set.

The set includes six total Chima minifigures: Laval, Crominus, Cragger, Icepaw, Strainor and the exclusive Saraw figure. It’s too bad that there aren’t more unique characters included with this set, but it would also be a mite weird if a load of new characters turned up during the final battle.

LEGO 70227 contains 863 pieces for a retail price of $89.99, making the set a solid value at about 10.4 cents per piece. It’s slightly over my ideal target value, but there are some large and specialized pieces present–and this is the final large set in the theme–so I’m not going to get all lawyer-like over pennies.

With the Chima theme ending, don’t expect this set to get a full two-year lifespan on shelves–I have a feeling it’ll be retired after under a year, so get one early if you want it.

The LEGO King Crominus Rescue 70227 set is part of the finale Summer 2015 sets wave of Legends of Chima, and is scheduled to be released in August 2015 (or more likely July 2015, with the nature of release dates).

What do you think of the LEGO Legends of Chima King Crominus’ Rescue 70227 set, Chima fans? Are you looking forward to owning this last Crocodile Tribe mega-set, or were you hoping for something a bit different for Chima’s swan-song?