Review: Chima tribe packs - Ice
Posted by Huw,
As the battle between fire and ice rages in the Chima universe, LEGO has released four 'battle packs' to enable both sides to reinforce their troops. Each one consists of three minifigs, a tribal flag and a disc-shooting machine and are priced at £7.99 in the UK.
The tribes with an allegiance to fire are represented by lions and crocodiles which I have plenty of already so I bought the ice tribes: ice bears and sabre-tooth tigers which look much cooler. (excuse the pun :))
Here's what's in the box of 70230 Ice Bear tribe:
The main reason for buying these sets is, of course, for the minifigs and they do not disappoint. All three are new. The central one is Icerlot, who's a new character. The other two do not have names but are just as detailed. The one on the left is armed with a 1x1 plate shooter, the one on the right sports a sword and shield.
Without heads and weapons you can appreciate the superb head and torso printing and details.
Even more impressive is that the backs of their heads have been printed, but not with alternative expressions. Totally unnecessary given they normally sport their animal heads but a great addition nevertheless.
LEGO seems to be hell-bent on making it possible to fire all manner of projectiles across the room at your siblings and these sets introduce a new part that facilitates the shooting of 2x2 round tiles. It's embedded in a machine that's fashioned like a bear's head. A tile is loaded at the front then shot by pressing the axle at the back. They can be fired an impressive distance, usually several metres or so.
Here's the guts of the mechanism. The spring-loaded clips at the side keep the tile in place until it's pushed from the back or front.
Let's move onto 70232 Sabre-Tooth Tigers. The flag is made from the semi-translucent plastic sheet that's been used for similar parts in the past.
The tribe is headed-up by Sirox who also appears to be a new character. He's accompanied by two unnamed warriors. The 1x1 round plate shooter makes an appearance again in one of their weapons.
Again, the level of detail of head, torso and leg printing is superb although, unlike the Ice Bears, the warriors have the same head and torso.
The warriors have alternative faces but surprisingly Sirox has a blank back of head.
Verdict
I had no intention of buying many Chima sets this year but the attractive boxes and price point encouraged me to grab these as soon as I saw them.
I don't regret having done so: the minifigs are all superb and, while I won't get much use out of the tile shooter, I can see that it will add a lot of play value to the set. I haven't tried it, but I suspect that the considerable velocity of a 2x2 round tile jettisoned from the mechanism will be sufficient to topple a minifig from a distance of 1m or so which I am sure will be a great game for the target age group.
In my opinion, of these two, the Ice Bears is the better set: the minifig components are all different and the disc-shooter looks better, but there's not much in it.
So, these will make great impulse purchases and gifts, particularly if you or the recipient don't have many minifig representatives from the tribes featured. It's a shame then that there are no mammoths. I have none of them...
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23 comments on this article
Looks awesome, I really want these two sets and the Crocodile one. :P
They look really good for the price. Definitely worth picking some of these up.
"LEGO seems to be hell-bent on making it possible to fire all manner of projectiles across the room at your siblings"
Great quote.
I must admit I'm not quite up-to-date on the Chima story, but are the Ice triibes zombies or something? A lot of them seem to be missing flesh...
^ I wish I could tell you :)
I think the old adversaries from year 1 teamed up to fight the scorpions/bats/spiders from first half of year 2 and also to fend off ice age beasts that were awakened somehow.
No doubt someone will fill us in :-)
^I see I'm not the only one. :P I looked again, and some of the sabertooths look like mummies, too. Seems kinda overly scary for the target age, if that's correct.
I can fill some details: Spoilers follow
After rescuing the legend beast the Scorpion King threw the Chima ord into a chasm inside a cave, that awoke the leader of the ice creatures (that consisted of vultures, mammoths and Sabre Tooth Tigers) called The Hunters. As they have spent a lot of time frozen they lost pieces of flesh (giving them the zombie look) and went on to capture the: bats, scorpions and spiders in ice. The rest is a little more complicated on how the good guys got their fire look.
If only they had battle packs for LotR and Hobbit... *sigh*
N MAMMOTHS?!?! I got all the Mammoths at once on CHRISTMAS!
^^ My thoughts exactly. Especially Gondor.
Well they did make LOTR BPs sorta , they were just 30$ and included a named character (eomer for the Uruk pack , thranduil for the elves pack). But yeah , cheaper BPs with only generic uruks , orcs and soldiers would've been a great addition , especially considering we are most likely to never get gondor/ROTK sets now.
Anyway , those white guys in the first pack look like white walkers from GOT (game of thrones on HBO) , at least the farthest right one. These are neat , but they don't have 4 figures! Every other battle pack set for other themes has 4 figures , not three. Those disc shooters are cool. Too bad they aren't like the ones from exo-force with the large tube magazine constantly supplying ammunition. Now that would be fun to hit a sibling with. I'm sure they'll be useful though.
^Well, you don't get 4 figures, but you do actually get something for them to fight with, and some small structures, unlike recent BPs that just have figures and accessories.
Um, I've got to ask- do you have any of those Exo-Force launchers? They were simply the worst launchers LEGO has made to date. :P They were triple-shot launchers, though two of those would be out the top. They would also break fairly easily, and didn't have great range.
Ah , I see. Only ever played with one at a friends house , and there it worked well (then again , rose glasses and only fired it once before we just started mashing mechs into each other)
Huw... I must say that your pun that you made was unBEARable.
Those faces on the Sabertooth look like they could be used for some undead alien or something. Gives me an idea for a clone trooper MOC where they come across a strange rocky planet with purple foliage and have to defend themselves from these mysterious creatures coming out of a large, tall cave with rock spires the same height all around. The vision just came to me right away :P
^^^ They worked fine-ish if they were half-full.
Yeah , they only had like 1 of them in it with 1 in the tube...
Man , childhood makes everything look cooler.
^ Ah, then they'd work just fine, as long as you were gentle on the trigger.
Yeah, but _nothing_ can help those squid launchers :P
Yeah those were HORRIBLE..
Although those Kordax dart launcher things from the same year (those Gatling guns that there were two of on the green dude) were one of the best launchers Lego has ever made.
Talk about crap weapons. What about any flick fired missiles.
I'd say that Zamor Sphere launchers are the best, since I can use them on my Mindstorms. :P
Flick missiles, hallelujah, have been replaced by mini dart launchers.
Wow, that disc shooter is very nice! Fits right in with the other three new projectile launchers. :P But aside from the disc shooters and nice minifigs there's not much to them. If there was a Mammoth tribe pack I would buy dozens...
"LEGO seems to be hell-bent on making it possible to fire all manner of projectiles across the room at your siblings..."
That statement basically made my day.