Last week I made a mega-post chronicling my discovery of every one of the LEGO Star Wars Summer 2014 sets at my local LEGO Store. But, well… that wasn’t all I found, and it also wasn’t what I spent most of my money on during that trip. With a huge smile etched on my face, I got to check out (and photograph!) the entirety of the LEGO Legends of Chima Summer 2014 sets wave…

I can’t explain why, exactly, but I am insanely into the LEGO Legends of Chima toys. In fact, I would go so far as to say that LEGO Chima is my favorite current LEGO theme, even beating out juggernaut licenses like LEGO Marvel, LEGO Batman and LEGO Star Wars. I just find the LEGO Chima toys to be fun, different and refreshing.

So my zealot-like trips to the nearby LEGO Stores throughout this month were partially motivated by wanting to see the new summer LEGO Star Wars sets, but primarily out of my insatiable appetite for more LEGO Legends of Chima figures and sets. Thankfully, I was finally able to track down the rest of the 2014 LEGO Chima sets at the end of last week!

The summer wave of Chima LEGO sets is mostly composed of expensive $40+ sets, and the most expensive of all is the gorgeous LEGO Flying Phoenix Temple, which retails for $119.99. I don’t think anyone can understand how much willpower I had to expend to keep myself from checking out with this $120 beauty.

If you want LEGO Phoenix Tribe Minifigures, the LEGO Chima Flying Phoenix Fortress is the only regular set to include them other than promos and Speedorz. This is probably the single coolest LEGO Summer 2014 Chima set, and I expect it to sell great this holiday season.

Not quite as large, but still very cool, is the LEGO Chima Maula’s Ice Mammoth Stomper 70145 set. With two LEGO Mammoth Tribe figures included and a cool AT-AT-like Mammoth Walker, this set is one of the most fun ones LEGO has devised for one of the “villain” tribes.

Whether or not the 70145 LEGO Maula’s Mammoth Ice Stomper set will sell better than previous high-priced Chima “bad guy” sets remains to be seen, however. Previous major villain Chima sets have all ended up on sale at heavily-slashed clearance prices.

If you’re looking for a cheaper set packing a LEGO Mammoth Tribe Minifigure, Laval’s Fire Lion 70144 may be the set you’re looking for. This set includes the oversized LEGO Mungus Minifigure, the largest (and scariest) member of the Chima Mammoth Tribe.

The 70144 LEGO Laval’s Fire Lion set itself is sort of bizarre–a cross between a lion mech and a flaming tank–but the more bizarre the LEGO Legends of Chima vehicles are, the better I tend to like them. Wildly creative–love it!

The new LEGO Chima Vulture Tribe gets the cheapest regular Chima set of the summer in the form of LEGO Vardy’s Ice Vulture Glider 70141. This was the first summer 2014 LEGO Legends of Chima set that I built (review coming soon), and it is an absolute steal for $19.99.

I think that the Vulture Tribe Minifigures are rather ugly themselves, but the LEGO Lundor Leopard minifigure is way cool. As the lowest-priced of the new LEGO Chima sets, I imagine this will sell just fine this year (despite being a vehicle for the sure-to-be-unpopular Vulture Tribe).

The only other LEGO Legends of Chima sub-$30 set for the summer is LEGO Eris’ Fire Eagle Flyer 70142. This set looks quite a bit deadlier than your usual LEGO Eagle Tribe set, which ought to couple with the low price to make this set popular at retail.

The “good” Minifigures in LEGO 70142 are a bit plain–just Fire Eris and Fire Lagravis iterations. Even the Sabertooth Tribe Strainor minifigure is a boring choice, as he’s also available in another set.

The Sabertooth Tribe’s sole vehicle in the Legends of Chima LEGO summer wave will be the Sir Fangar’s Sabertooth Walker 70143. In concept this vehicle sounds super-cool, but the brown coloration of the Chima Sabertooth Walker vehicle makes it look more like an angry beaver to me than a killer sabertooth tiger.

As all of the minifigures in LEGO 70143 are available in other sets, I’m going to wait until I read some reviews and see some user photos of the Sabertooth Walker set before I decide if it’s a set that I want in my collection. Sadly, with the sheer mass of expensive LEGO sets coming out this year, sacrifices must be made, and this $40 set may be one of them for me (although you’re welcome to send me this for Christmas, loyal readers!).

The first of two retailer exclusives is LEGO 70135 Cragger’s Fire Striker set. I talked about this set back when photos of it first leaked in Spring 2014.

I’m not a Crocodile Tribe fan at all, but I definitely can see the appeal of a crazy flaming crocodile attack race car.

Finally, we’ve got the store-exclusive LEGO Chima Sir Fangar’s Ice Fortress 70147. This set is an average value of 670 pieces for $69.99, but I can never resist arctic-themed LEGO playsets.

This is the other set that the aforementioned LEGO Strainor minifigure comes in, as well as Minifigures of Sir Fangar, Fire Gorzan, Fire Worriz and Voom Voom. This is a good set for LEGO to choose for a retailer exclusive, as it isn’t going to be a priority for many LEGO collectors.

In addition to the regular 2014 summer LEGO Legends of Chima sets, there’s also several new Fire vs. Ice themed Speedorz sets out, including Frozen Spikes with Voom Voom of the Vulture Tribe and Flaming Claws with the Fire Armor Cragger minifigure.

The LEGO Chima summer 2014 sets have now been released at the LEGO Stores, and should be hitting local Toys R Us stores shortly. Look for the summer 2014 LEGO Chima sets to be widespread at mass retail by the end of August 2014.

Anyone else out there as excited about the Legends of Chima LEGO summer sets as I am? Which sets–if any–will you be picking up from this new wave?