I’ve not played World of Warcraft in my life for even a half of a second, but there are some things from the franchise that are just so iconic that even I can recognize them. The Orcs are one instantly-recognizable element of Warcraft, but the Horde Goblin Zeppelin is another. I thought I paid zero attention to Warcraft, but this Goblin Zeppelin is so legendary that it seems to have even permeated my consciousness. With a retail price of $65-$70, the 310-piece World of Warcraft Mega Bloks Goblin Zeppelin 91014 is a large investment. But it’s also the true centerpiece of the new WoW Mega Bloks theme, and an absolute “must-buy” set…

The Right:

There are a lot of things I want to talk about with regard to Mega Bloks Set 91014, but let’s jump straight to the main event: the legendary Horde Goblin Zeppelin itself!

Though this is a mammoth of a ship, it’s well under 300 pieces. 75% of the Goblin Zeppelin consists of the three brown base pieces of the ship and the two purple “shell” pieces of the blimp itself. Most of the rest of the build consists of building around these five pieces. The actual build of the Goblin Zeppelin will take most builders a little over an hour, though I’m a slow builder, so it took me closer to two hours. If you want to see an in-depth photo construction of the build of the Mega Bloks Goblin Zeppelin Ambush 91014, be sure to check out the 25+ in-progress photographs I posted in the set preview earlier this week!

Considering that Warcraft Mega Bloks are a bit of an unknown sales commodity, MEGA Brands didn’t pull any punches (or centimeters) with the design of this set. The Goblin Zeppelin is positively enormous, as it’s over a foot long and also over a foot tall! Despite being one of the first Warcraft Mega Bloks sets, the Zeppelin is bigger than all but the largest Halo Mega Bloks sets!The propeller for the Zeppelin is a complex build in its own right, and looks about as cool as you can expect a propeller to. It fits tightly into the Zeppelin with no risk of falling out, and it’s more amusing than you might think to spin the giant propeller will flying the Horde Goblin Zeppelin around your living room.

There are ballast bags surrounding the perimeter of the ship, though if you like you can pretend they’re explosives to flick off and bomb the Alliance with. There are also various appendages on the ship that can be moved and rotated, though the ailerons fall off the ship far too easily and it gets a little bit annoying. The soft goods tarp in the aft portion of the airship looks great, though I wish there were clamps to keep the soft goods from blowing off if there’s a breeze.

The front of the Zeppelin looks outright terrifying, as it appears that a humongous shark-like creature is coming to devour you! The rope ladders are quite fun, as you can attach your figure and enact a sword fight. The front-mounted cannon launcher fires well, but I don’t like the big red button attached to the back of it. The moving spotlights on the front of the ship are a nice touch for covert night raids, and the giant blade on the front of the gondola is a deadly and intimidating touch.

The secondary build of the Goblin Zeppelin Ambush is where the set earns the “Ambush” part of its name: the Alliance Crossbow! The Alliance Crossbow is far, far smaller than the Goblin Zeppelin, but it’s still a worthwhile and fun accessory in its own right. I anticipated it being a a couple pre-assembled pieces like the cannon launcher on the Zeppelin, but it’s actually a decently-complex small build that takes a few minutes to put together.The rubber band gets stretched double-tight around the bow, and the launching action of the Alliance Crossbow is seriously powerful–watch out!!

There are only a couple sets in the World of Warcraft Mega Bloks Fall 2012 assortment that have three or more figures in them, and luckily, the Goblin Zeppelin Ambush 91014 is one of them! The World of Warcraft Mega Bloks Goblin Zeppelin Ambush includes three Mega Bloks Warcraft figures: the Goblin Rogue Krazzle, the Tauren Paladin Light Hoof, and Worgen Rogue Darkhowl.

My personal favorite figure in this set (and perhaps the Fall 2012 World of Warcraft Mega Bloks line overall) is Lighthoof the Tauren Paladin. The paint deco on this figure is outright insane–I cannot believe the sheer number of paint applications on this figure and the quality with which the paint was applied. My only complaint with Scarbuck the Tauren Hunter from the Swift Wyvern set was horrid paintwork. That’s absolutely not the case here. Lighthoof just looks amazing all-around and is a true beauty of a Mega Bloks figure. Not only is Lighthoof gorgeous, but he’s also a juggernaut of a Mega Bloks figure! He absolutely towers over the new Halo Brute Chieftain!!

One thing I love about this figure selection is that all three races of characters represented in this set are also available in the far cheaper Mounts series, so if you just want a Worgen or Tauren for $13-$15, you can have one without having to pay the quasi-big bucks this set costs. However, these three figures are simply exquisite, so you’re going to want them even if you have their fellow race members from the Mounts sets!

As with almost every Mega Bloks Warcraft figure, each figure includes one weapon. Darkhowl has a short sword glowing with some sort of green energy or magic, Krazzle has a sword that’s proportionately enormous compared to what you’d expect him to wield, and Lighthoof has a nicely-detailed battle axe.

Like all of the World of Warcraft Mega Bloks figures, all three figures in this set have interchangeable, customizable armor! There’s a photo below showing my favorite armor configurations I came up with for the figures. I think Darkhowl looks terrific with the shoulder armor and sword from Ragerock, and I gave him the red tunic from Krazzle to match. I liked dressing up Krazzle in Judgment Armor and with Darkhowl’s short, green sword. Light Hoof was a lot harder, as he has non-removable robes on his lower body, but I settled for Valoren’s tunic and Ironoak’s shoulder pads. However, Light Hoof definitely looks best in his default Judgment Paladin armor, and I intend to keep him dressed up in it.

Finally, the box for the Halo Mega Bloks Goblin Zeppelin Ambush 91014 is fantastic, just as the packaging for every set in this Mega Bloks theme. Seeing the Horde Goblin Zeppelin flying out at you gives a sense of awe at the mammoth scale of the ship, and I adore the raised cardboard texture on the Mega Bloks World of Warcraft boxes. No one should ever keep a Mega Bloks set sealed in its box, but I’ll definitely be keeping my opened World of Warcraft Mega Bloks boxes for display.

From World of Warcraft by Mega Bloks, build and customize the Goblin Zeppelin airship, featuring a unique balloon and a brick-blasting cannon launcher. Get ready for battle with Krazzle, the Goblin Rogue, and Light Hoof, the Tauren Paladin, featuring the highly collectable Judgement armor. Or stage a counter attack with Darkhowl, the Worgen Rogue, with his buildable Alliance crossbow as he plans a sneak assault on the Zeppelin. Also includes a random loot drop – armor or weapons – to add to your collection!

• Buildable and iconic Horde Goblin Zeppelin with cannon launcher.
• Buildable large Alliance crossbow with working launcher

The Wrong:

Given that the giant purple “shell” piece that make up the majority of this blimp are a crucial part of this set, you’d expect that their quality-control would be of the utmost concern to MEGA Brands. And it appears that it is–both halves of the shell are individually packaged in sealed plastic bags to prevent damage and scratching from other pieces in the box. Trouble is, the precautions are for naught–my giant purple blimp pieces came badly damaged with lots of white scratches on them. I don’t know how that’s possible since the pieces are in plastic bags, but they came out of the plastic bags very noticeably scratched up.

Worse yet, the paint deco on the purple shell pieces is terrible. There’s yellow paint slop coming off the bright yellow eyes of the blimp, and huge splotches of uneven paint on the whitish light-lavender underside of the blimp. It just looks bad. With my OCD, I can’t cope, either. I completed the build for this review and I’m trying to look past the defective pieces here, but I already contacted MEGA Brands about replacement pieces. I don’t know if they’ll send replacements for such large parts, but I’m going to request them anyway, because the QC here is just bad.

Secondly, I want to stop and talk for a moment about one of the big gimmicks of the World of Warcraft Mega Bloks line: the Secret Loot. In my Goblin Zeppelin Ambush unboxing last week, I teased readers with the sealed bag of Secret Loot. Now, the truth can finally be revealed. The Secret Loot included with my Mega Bloks 91014 set is…

…the same jagged, purple sword that came with the Ragerock Orc Warrior 91003 figure I reviewed a few weeks ago. Wow. That was anticlimactic. I understand that, much like in an RPG, there are going to be super-common and undesirable items and ultra-rare and highly sought-after items. But I wish the random Secret Loot items were at least unique to the Secret Loot bags. If this sword had been painted blue or green or silver or any other color, I’d have been really happy with it. But as a special incentive in the higher-priced World of Warcraft Mega Bloks sets, I really feel like even the “common” items should be unique to the Secret Loot bags.

[UPDATE: Astute reader b00sted caught something that I missed–the Secret Loot sword’s colors have been slightly inverted from the regular release, making it a unique item. Even so, I had to take the sword into direct light and stare at it side-by-side with the regular one to spot the minor palette differences. I like that the sword is a tiny bit different, but I wish something different had been done with the colors to make it a little more noticeable.]

“Where Can I Buy It?!”

I pre-ordered my World of Warcraft Goblin Zeppelin Ambush from BA Toys, and as a result I got it delivered to my door two weeks before it hit any retail store. The set should be available in most large retail chains in August 2012, although this set may be difficult to find, as I expect this to be one of the more popular and hard-to-find sets from the World of Warcraft Mega Bloks 2012 assortment.

Overall: I would have given this set a full ‘A’ had my Goblin Zeppelin not come with horribly deco on the blimp part. But it did. However, aside from those issues, the Goblin Zeppelin Ambush Mega Bloks set is downright spectacular. The figures that come with this set are killer–I honestly love all three figures better than their racial counterparts from the cheaper sets. The towering Tauren Paladin, Light Hoof, is particularly awesome and definitely is going to challenge for the position as my favorite Mega Bloks figure this year. The Alliance Crossbow is a simple, but fun, accessory that has a truly impressive shooting feature.

And oh yeah–the Goblin Zeppelin itself is astoundingly huge, well-designed, and crazy fun to play with. There are the aforementioned paint deco issues and a few pieces which don’t lock into place securely, but those are the extent of the problems with this set. In my eyes, this set is the centerpiece of World of Warcraft Mega Bloks Series 1, and it definitely managed to impress me and get me to really view the World of Warcraft as a burgeoning theme for Mega Bloks. The World of Warcraft Mega Bloks Goblin Zeppelin Ambush 91014 is an excellent showcase for the kinds of unique and expansive fantasy sets we’ll hopefully see more of as the line goes on, and earns itself a strong recommendation.

GRADE: A-