I can honestly say that in all of my LEGO building days, I have never built a construction set quite like this one. I was so excited for the 2013 LEGO Legends of Chima theme that I was almost camping out at the LEGO Store as we approached the Chima sets launch date of 1/1/13. But while I got my LEGO Chima sets within hours of their release, it’s taken me a little longer to find the time to build them. This weekend I finally had the opportunity to build my first full-sized Chima set: the LEGO Legends of Chima Lennox’ Lion Attack Attack 70002. And let me just say, this is one wild and crazy LEGO set…

The Right:

What’s really going to sell these LEGO Chima sets to kids isn’t the vehicles in the sets–it’s the minifigures. From Battle Beasts to Thundercats to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, kids have always loved warrior anthropomorphic animals, and LEGO seems ready to capitalize on this in full with their original Legends of Chima 2013 theme.

With LEGO 70002 Lennox’ Lion Attack, you get two Legends of Chima minifigures in LEGO 70002: Lennox of the Lion Tribe and Crug of the Crocodile Tribe. Though they are of wildly diverse animal races, both minifigures of course share the standard LEGO body.

Crug and Lennox each have impressively complicated prints of their legs, heads, and torsos, but what really makes the figures unique is their extra head pieces. Crug has an extra piece that gives him his characteristic long crocodile nose and mouth, while Lennox’s additional piece gives him an anime-like mane of hair.

There are printed faces on the non add-on heads of each minifigure (including a cool reversible head on Lennox), and I actually think Lennox looks far more adorable without his add-on “helmet” head. Crug comes with a great multi-part blaster gun, while Lennox comes with, well… just a CHI crystal.

Both minifigures are really fun, and while the Lion Tribe is the least exciting of the Chima tribes minifigures I’ve played with so far, the Crocodile Tribe minifigures look great and I like them nearly as much as the excellent Eagle tribe members like the Ewar minifigure from the Ewar’s Acro Fighter set I reviewed on New Year’s Day.

The Lion Attack vehicle is pretty much insane, and it is positively loaded with weapons. Seriously, this four-wheeled vehicle is an offensive powerhouse packing more weapons and attack features than all but the largest LEGO Star Wars vehicles.

The “front” of the Lion Attack vehicle features a big ol’ lion head with a jointed jaw that opens and closes. While there’s not much that’s more fun than having a mechanical lion head chomp down on Crug the Crocodile man, there’s an extra feature with the lion head. You can open the imposing mouth and launch rubber band-powered discs out of the lion head’s mouth! I wasn’t sure this action feature was going to work properly, but you can fire discs rapidly with no problems at all.

But that’s not all! Lennox’s Lion Attack vehicle also has hydraulic claws on the front that can swivel around to capture and slash at Crocodile Tribe members and other enemies!

The Lion Attack vehicle also has dual mounted blaster cannons that have a huge range of mobility and a pair of launching flickfire missiles. I never like flickfire missiles personally, but they don’t look that distracting on the Lion Attack vehicle and I think kids will enjoy them.

I thought that Lennox’ Lion Attack was going to be a really easy little $25 build, but it ended up being a lot more complex than I’d anticipated. I easily spent well over an hour building the Lion Attack vehicle, and I made an inordinate number of mistakes during the build. For a 230 piece set, the build was more involved and interesting than I expected.

The Wrong:

I’m really kind of irritated with the way that LEGO is packing in the LEGO Chima minifigures. If you want Crug the Crocodile, you’re obligated to purchase this Lennox’ Lion Attack 70002 set. But the other figure in the set, Lennox the Lion, is available in a whopping four sets just in this initial wave of Legends of Chima! That’s pretty ridiculous, and if you want one of every minifigure in Chima Series 1, LEGO is requiring you to purchase multiples of the Lennox minifigure. I hate that kind of extortion.

In addition, I think it’s pretty cheap of LEGO to not even include one weapon of any kind for Lennox beyond his Lion Attack vehicle. It’s pretty unusual for a minifigure in a LEGO Star Wars set or any other action theme to not even have a hand-held weapon, so I really think Lennox should have gotten one of his own as well. At $24.99 for a set with 230 pieces, LEGO certainly. Oils have afforded to give Lennox something to defend himself with when he’s not driving around.

“Where Can I Buy It!?”
The LEGO Legends of Chima Lennox’ Lion Attack 70002 set should now be available at most retail stores. If you don’t feel like leaving home to pick it up, Amazon will deliver it with no tax and free shipping for $24.99 within the United States.

Overall: One thing’s for certain: if you like realism in your LEGO sets, you’re going to totally hate the whole LEGO Legends of Chima theme, including Lennox’ Lion Attack 70002. This set is about as crazy as I’ve seen for a LEGO set. However, if you’re able to get past the fantastical elements of this theme, Lennox’ Lion Attack is a hugely fun set with more action-packed features than I’ve seen in a LEGO vehicle in quite some time. The Chima animal tribes minifigures are a blast, even if LEGO is forcing collectors to get multiples of Lennox for some reason. I wasn’t at all sure what to make of this crazy Lion Attack vehicle once I finished building it, but after spending some time with it I can recommend it as a solid (but strange) LEGO Chima set.

GRADE: B+