LEGO NINJAGO 71861 The Old Town revealed!

OK, so I’ll be that guy for a second - didn’t Garmadon get his extra arms when he was bitten by the Great Devourer as a child? And if that’s the case, shouldn’t the minifigure have at least medium legs?

Anyway, this looks great.

Sold my Krux and Acronix minifigures literally yesterday lol, just in time.

@Sandinista said:
"blah blah PRICE blah blah LOOKS COOL blah blah EXPENSIVE blah"

Agreed on all counts. Well said.

Ah, so that's why they released the blacksmith pseudo-GWP ahead of this, you must buy both for completeness.

I'm not a die hard Ninjago fan, but really enjoyed the (Mad Max) Hunted series & the Hydro bounty with all 6 Ninja in underwater form w/unique weapons.

My question is, it appears this set is referencing many things from across all of Ninjago's history, just look at the busy minifigure designs they don't feel coherent or fitting to the "old town" set.

So in the spirit of something like Lion Knight's castle, wouldn't you rather have a COHERENT full Asian inspired town with the main ninja & town folk? Something more traditional that has a sense of story or setting?

Ninjago fans let me know what you think, thanks!

@Goujon said:
"good god it's beautiful "

@Lego said:
"Agreed. Now give me all your money. Quick!"
Also, when is the last time the postman appeared in a lego set?

If everyone's a main character, no one is.

Interesting and disappointing at the same time.

TLG usually does well with their marketing photos, but this one is odd... That's a weird 30-year-old-teen.

This might be the first "Ninjago city set" I get. I like it. Price is a bit steep, but doesn't seem bad for what's in the box. I just don't have any place to put it.

Looks very cool, so many details everywhere. I just think it has a bit less floor space than I imagined. But on the review will tell us.

I hope we get even more smaller sets in the future that integrate into that system and style.

@Denmark_Dragon said:
"If everyone's a main character, no one is."

Or you call it "ensemble" instead.

I just watched both videos on the LEGO website and, let's just say the music is not what I was expecting in one of them.

@ALegoFan said:
" @Goujon said:
"good god it's beautiful "

@Lego said:
"Agreed. Now give me all your money. Quick!"
Also, when is the last time the postman appeared in a lego set?"

Last time was the Temple of Airjitzu

@BuisnessOcelot said:
" @Denmark_Dragon said:
"So in the spirit of something like Lion Knight's castle, wouldn't you rather have a COHERENT full Asian inspired town with the main ninja & town folk? Something more traditional that has a sense of story or setting?

Ninjago fans let me know what you think, thanks!"

As somebody who has been a Ninjago fan since 2011, this is kind of exactly what I wanted. I collect all the modern city sets because I love the niche part usages, interesting techniques, varied architecture, and general business and chaos of those builds. Those are all things I get here, with the added bonus of a unique layout with lots of good angles. When it comes to minifgures, I think this was the perfect direction to go, because you see the feedback of sets like the city workshops where people wanted more figures and mote characters from Ninjago's history, which is EXACTLY what they've done here. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but for this Ninjago fan it reeeeally hits the mark"

Thanks for the response it's good to know what NINJAGO fans are up to, if the shoe fits then I applaud LEGO for their efforts, and wish you a very happy build when you get the set! Congrats!

Now this is a complete village for once.

$300 minifigure pack

January is looking to be an expensive month! Thankfully the price is great!

Oddly, what I love about this set is the reason why I am hesitant to purchase it… I don’t have the space to display this. I have gravitated to the Ninjago City sets largely because they have been massively detailed yet confined to baseplates. But this layout is amazingly fun

I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the layout, but I like the individual pieces. I'm going to try and integrate this into Ninjago City...
But the minifigs... Holy cow. Crazy selection.
I'll get it eventually, but I might consider a day-one purchase!

I'd have prefered an extension of Ninjago City now that I've created the extra shelfspace to house it.

When I learned about this I thought it was going to be a modular, so I was disappointed to see it when it was revealed. Although, it does save me some money so that's a relief.

I look forward to seeing a review to see it in detail, but I doubt I'll be getting it.

@ACubeInABox said:
"$300 minifigure pack"

$300 beautiful building pack, who cares about the figs.

What a jumbled mess. It's not a modular building anymore, either.
Where are the nearly 5000 pieces gone? Ultramicrobuild.
No. No thanks and no.

@Kalhiki said:
"I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the layout, but I like the individual pieces."

Same, I don't like the loop and it feels too messy. The detail is amazing but this one is not for me. I will need to hunt down the instructions for those amazing buildings in it though because those are beautiful.

@emQ said:
"TLG usually does well with their marketing photos, but this one is odd... That's a weird 30-year-old-teen."

With that attire he looks more like a monkey kid.

Very impressive, but a little too chaotic for my tastes.

I'll stick to the Blacksmith to celebrate the 15th anniversary.

This is amazing looking, and seems to be a very good value for the price. But dang... it's big. I want to get it, but finding a display space for it (separate from my Ninjago City and other previous large Ninjago displays) is going to be tricky! I'm glad at least that it can be separated and rearranged into a horizontal display, since while it looks great in the circular arrangement it'd be hard to fit something of that depth on any of my current shelves.

@eiffel006 said:
"I've never watched NINJAGO once in my lifetime and I could not care less about the lore. Yet, I have the five city sets, two Temple Bounties (the most recent one and the one from the film), the Temple of Airjitzu which is one of my favourite set ever, several other locations sets, and god I love them! I've also built custom sets to go with the city sets. To me, NINJAGO is LEGO at its best (and at its worst, since I don't care for mechs).

I'm so looking forward to getting that set! I'm running out of room, but I'll find a way."

I'm the same, know nothing about Ninjago but picked up the modular sets. This does look good, but not sure I'll pick it up. I'll probably do my usual trick of ignoring it until it's about to retire and then pick it up due to fomo.

The figures look great too.

I've always liked the traditional design and japanesque buildings aspect of Ninjago so this is a must buy for me. Quite breathtaking in scale. Hope they have fixed the brown bricks problem. -_-

It's neat, but I think I would have preferred something like Jamanakai Village from the first season.

Its a great set I would have loved to play with when my daughter was into Ninjago 9 years ago. We would have had hours of storytelling fun.

For me i dont know how i would display it. Questioning if I would ever get around to converting it to a modular or if it would sit in a box (i think i know the answer). So only on discount for me i think.

If you have some display risers or enough bricks & plates to build a brick-built version it may be possible to do a 2-level 3D diorama style display orientation that'll fit on a mid depth shelf… just an idea. =)

@Weepy_Donuts said:
"Oddly, what I love about this set is the reason why I am hesitant to purchase it… I don’t have the space to display this. I have gravitated to the Ninjago City sets largely because they have been massively detailed yet confined to baseplates. But this layout is amazingly fun"

Any one need/want 20 or so Ninjago minifigs? I'm just interested in the buildings.

@MTimes3 said:
"Any one need/want 20 or so Ninjago minifigs? I'm just interested in the buildings."

I'm sure you could help recoup some of the cost of the set by selling them. There are probably plenty of Ninjago fans out there who feel the opposite, desiring some of the exclusive figs but not interested in buying a whole set this size.

Very niche use, but I suspect many vintage fans will be glad to see another use of the black parrot. I see it came in two sets in 2025, but the original one runs quite a lot if you're trying to complete King's Mountain Fortress. Or build out anything fun for Black Falcons.

I wasn't a fan of this at first when I first saw the blurry leaked photos as it looked unfinished with the large gap in the middle. But having seen the full release, both the statue in the middle of the circular layout and especially the long row layout option really elevate this for me. I think it's a great set.

I also watched the first 10 minutes of this interview with the set designer which I think is very insightful and his enthusiasm for it is infectious - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmRSFPj8Z0k

See the roofs at the gate entrance and the watch towers? They could have done that for the blacksmith shop. That would have been closer to the source material.

Aside from the modulars, I have very little 'buying' interest in Ninjago - I like the sets and I follow the press releases and reviews but I don't follow the story, so. To me, the best figs on those sets are the generic ones. I like this but this is very sprawling - displaying it becomes a serious issue. I'll wait to see the price in Canada and the reviews. It does not look like there are as many new interesting build techniques as the modulars but that has to be expected: eventually, there are only so many new clever techniques you can come by in a given year. Like @squiz18, I'll try to ignore it until it's near retirement and see where it sits on my want list.

This is a nice looking set! I prefer the Ninjago city modulars, and would have preferred this be Jamanakai village, but that's not what this was supposed to be. I'm curious to see how big and detailed it truly is because I often have trouble imagining scale from the press releases. The minifigs have a very good selection although I would have switched out the two current villain characters. It's nice finally getting Dr. Julien and Mystake, as well as remasters of the postman, Faith, and serpentine war renditions of the time twins. Shame that they couldn't bring back the time blades. Young Wu and Garmadon are fabulous.
Also, anyone else notice the similarities between the postman and the FSM...? Maybe that fan theory is right...

Last thing, I hate the choice of the parrot for the falcon. While I like its resting position, it needs printing otherwise it looks dead.

This does look very beautiful, but did they really not put on Wu's head correctly? His mouth and "facial hair" are both sticking out over his beard in multiple pictures!

Right, well, I'm gonna be that one long-time Ninjago fan who says it: I hate this set.

It's a gigantic, jumbled mess of ... stuff (highly detailed and finely crafted stuff, yes, but stuff nonetheless) with a ton of show-inaccurate minifigs. For once, I don't see where 5,000 pieces went into this. Why couldn't we have gotten a location from the show? A show-accurate Ninjago City (instead of that horrible movie-Modular version)? Jamanakai village? A proper UCS monastery with an interior for once? Not to mention all the issues with the minifigs:
-Kai's hair (as always)
-All the Ninja have the wrong (new) faces
-The ZX armor is wrong on Cole and Lloyd
-If this is a Legacy set, why are there characters from the Dragons Rising seasons here? (looking at the 2 hooded, over-detailed minifigs)
-The Time Blades are represented by mere 1x1 round plates
-Who the heck is the random female cop? And the random blacksmith guy?

For all the effort put into designing these sets, I don't understand why they can't bother to do a location from the show, with show-accurate designs. There are so many things from the older seasons that never made it into sets. And I get that the molds for Kai's old hair and the Time Blades are long gone, but surely a better attempt could have been made. As it is, this set, along with the other 15th-anniversary sets, doesn't feel like a real celebration of the Ninjago that came before. It feels like a cash-grab, angled to attract non-fan AFOLs while nostalgia-baiting Ninjago fans. And, judging by the comments here, it will succeed with that. So I hate it.

Unfortunately, I need this.

@ThunderCracker81 said:
"OK, so I’ll be that guy for a second - didn’t Garmadon get his extra arms when he was bitten by the Great Devourer as a child? And if that’s the case, shouldn’t the minifigure have at least medium legs?

Anyway, this looks great."

No. He got bit by snake that was bit by a spider.

@PhantomBricks said:
"I hate the choice of the parrot for the falcon. While I like its resting position, it needs printing otherwise it looks dead."

This parrot is dead. It is resting. It is stunned. It is deceased. It is tired out following a prolonged sqwark. It is pinning for the Fjords. It has demised. It has passed on. It has ceased to be. It has gone to meet it's maker. It is a stiff. It is bereft of life, he rests in peace. It has kicked the bucket. It has shuffled off his mortal coil. It is an ex-parrot.