This set just strikes that perfect balance between organic animal shaping and high tech SciFi fighter. The result is one of the most swooshable sets Lego has ever put out. Fans of the classic Buck Rogers TV show may feel really at home with this one as it calls to mind Hawk's Fighter from that show. Those same bird lines and grace. The set makes extremely good use of all the pieces that were new for Chima, especially the feathers.

Box/Instructions - The box is pretty standard first wave Chima. Blue trim, an Eagle looking down from the corner. The actual main picture is ok and does the job, but feels a little flat. Not as dynamic as it could have been. The back shows off the features nicely. The instructions are a staples and mutilated booklet as always. Stickers are minimal, being just the 4 2x2 round tile decorations 2 stripes on the Raven flyer and Eris's cockpit panel.

Minifigs - The set comes with three minifigs. While I am not a huge fan of Chima figures, these are some of the better ones. I do love how they incorporated wings onto the figures using the armor.

Eris the Eagle - One of our main characters and the main draw for the set. She is gorgeously printed. front and back printing plus leg and toe printing. She has a dual sided head, which never made much sense to me as they are always fully covered up by the masklike animal heads? Similarly most of the nice torso printing is covered up by her pearlgold armor, which needs to be in place to mount her wings. There is a ton of detail work on this figure. It's gorgeous. (Now if only someone could explain why a female bird has breasts and a belly button?)

Rizzo the Raven - The cyborged out raven with the metal peg leg. He is a cool figure. Once again incredibly detailed torso. No leg printing. His face has the markings for his metalic implants and eye. His left hand is a hook. he wears silver armor and has black wings.

General Razar - The Raven General. Once again a stunning figure. He stands out with some striking red markings on his face and torso. he also has leg and hip printing. Once again silver armor.

Parts - This set was a first wave Chima set so introduced a ton of new Chima specific parts. From the Chi pieces to the new feathers in Dark Blue, Azure and Black. Lots of other little goodies.

Build and Model - The build is pretty straightforward. No shocking surprises. The weakest area is probably the legs as they are a bit thick and don't move or pose well. The shaping of the head and its beak is fantastic. And how all the wings go together is also great. The ship has a place to clip Eris's wings while she is seated in the cockpit. The small Raven flyer is meh, but it is not better or worse than the dozens of other similar little adversary flyers you likely have. It does the job and is better than most.

Overall - A fantastic set and amazing value for its price. One that I still keep out on display years later. Just a fun fantasy SF ship. (Oh and comic book Super Hero fans. This makes a great Hawkman ship as well.)

When the Chima theme first came out I really didn't like it, at all. I accepted it as a theme fit for purpose, entertaining kids, but completely not for me. It wasn't until I picked this set up in a sale on a complete whim that it started to make sense.

Box/Instructions

The box art is completely fitting to the theme, and looks fairly standard to what you'd expect. My only real constant gripe with current Lego sets is that the pictures of the set almost never do the finished product justice. I wouldn't say its absolutely why I didn't have much interest in Chima to begin with, but I do think it is part of the reason.

The instructions are clear and easy to follow as is generally the case, only towards the end of the main build did I find I was having to double check things like positioning, but I think that says more about me than anything else.

Parts

I'm an absolute sucker for a really good colour palette, and this set definitely hit the mark on that front. It has a beautiful mix of blues which are complemented excellently by the whites. If you want a good parts pack for blue spaceships this set is a great choice.

Minifigures

Minifigures are a big part of the Lego experience for me, it's another part if the reason this set jumped out of the Chima theme to me. I have a keen interest in birds so figured that even if I liked nothing else of the set the bird themed minifigure parts could be useful for all sorts of MOCs. While I'm not a massive fan of the wings attaching to the armour, the wing pieces themselves are fantastic. The fact that Eris has to have them removed to fit into the cockpit shows the biggest weakness of the minifigure design, but it's very easy to overlook, all things considered.

The build

This was really where I was won over on the Chima theme. The set has a lot of nice techniques to give the model both some great play features and a very satisfying finish. At first look it seems a very straight forward build, but when you actually approach it there's far more than it seems.

The completed model

Having previously worked with birds of prey I was really pleased with all the proportions of the finished model. I suspect quite a bit of time was spent getting the shape accurate to the source of an eagle. I genuinely expected to quickly break the model apart for parts, but it won me over and is now one of my favourite sets of it's price range.

Overall opinion

This set actually changed the way I look at what I want from a Lego set, and I think that really says it all. Definitely a gem of the theme, with great playability and actually a nice small display piece. I absolutely love it, and as a result it made me want all the other bird mech sets of the Chima theme.

Replace this text with your introduction. You can insert images into your reviews: click on the Image icon. Please make sure they are less than about 500px wide.

Box/Instructions

Excellent

Parts

Great

Minifigures

Wonderful

The build

Very very nice

The completed model

Beautiful

Overall opinion

Cool

Set #70003 Eris' Eagle Interceptor: Legend of Chima was originally not something on my radar, in fact I was kind of trying to keep the number of Themes I started from 2013 down. It was really good I changed my mind, this set is one of the best sets in my opinion from 2013. I don't really enjoy the overall design of the lion tribe vehicles or, really, any of the land based animal tribes vehicles. Gorzan's Gorilla Striker and Cragger's Command Ship are two that aren't too bad, the designs of the others however are just not my cup of tea.

The Eagle tribe is just pure win, even some of their more questionably designed sets are still fun to look at. Anyway, it's taken me a while, but here are my thoughts on this awesome set.

Box/Instructions

Having already recycled the box, unlike most of the sets still waiting in the review que I'm afraid I can't say much about the overall box design of the sets. However I will say this, they draw your eye and do a pretty decent job of showcasing what you get. Much like many of LEGO's box designs in recent years.

The instruction manual is a pure work of art, it allows you to follow the steps of the build quite nicely and shows off the great design cues for the Legends of Chima Theme. The only flaw I have with them is that the Mini-Figure checklist is situated right slap in the middle of the manual instead of at the end, making it break up the flow of the build slightly. Still there's a lot of good outweighing this one flaw in the design choice.

Parts

The pieces in this set, where do I begin? Ok first off there are a large number of the new feather pieces, 9 in dark blue and 2 in a lighter blue colour. The set introduces a LEGO Technic socket style piece for LEGO axles with a clip on the end. At least I believe this part is a new one for this set, it's used to make the talons for the eagle, and there's one spare included which gives you 5 in total. This is an interesting new piece that opens up a world of potential when MOCing.

There are also ball and socket joints along with the click style joints, and a slew of other parts that naming them all would take far too long, mostly because I'd have to track down exact names for them. Suffice it to say this is a great set for parts.

Minifigures

Chima Mini-Figures are some of the best, the level of detail and consistency of the prints between each set just stands out as some of the best that LEGO have ever produced. And 2014 seems to be another year for great Chima Mini-Figures.

Who do you get in this set?

First is Razar, also found in Razar's CHI Raider; this Mini-Figure is a member of the Raven tribe. The Raven and Eagle tribe members are the ones I am consistently impressed by and really love, each one has its own unique look. Razar is no different, he's got a double-sided torso, a double-sided facial print, leg printing and the special chest armor piece with rear studs to attach the wings. He's also got a small vehicle in this set and a large silver bladed weapon.

Next we have Rizzo (who shares a name with a Muppet), this member of the Raven Tribe continues all of the impressive level of detail in the Chima Mini-Figures and goes one step further by incorporating the LEGO Peg-leg leg piece. Unfortunately this means that he doesn't have leg printing and I believe is the only Chima Mini-Figure without leg printing.

Besides missing a leg he's also got a metal eye-patch, most of the Raven tribe are missing body parts and have replaced them with shiny metal things, a character trait of all the Ravens. He's got this odd weapon using the rubbery beak piece from Razcal's Glider in black, I'm not sure if it's supposed to be some sort of energy blasting device or a sensor unit for tracking Chi. Maybe it's both, it's a really strange looking weapon.

Eris is the Eagle Tribe member being chased by the two Ravens. She's the first female Chima Mini-Figure to be made available with Crooler being number 2, I believe she's the daughter of Ewald and her print is just as detailed and impressive as the other Eagle tribe members. I'd go into greater detail, but that could take a long while because I have a hard time reigning in my urge to gush endlessly over these prints.

She's got this double-sided axe thing... I honestly don't know it's name, all I know is that it's a nice unique weapon built out of a brown bar and a golden sculpted piece that works nicely. You can attach two Chi studs onto both sides showing that it can be powered up to do even more damage.

The build

This set has 3 numbered bags, each one builds a different section of the Eagle Interceptor. The 1st bag has a smaller build besides the front/cockpit section of Eris' vehicle. This is a simple little Raven Tribe glider or something that sort of looks like a small raven when finished.

Bag 2 builds the body of the vehicle and bag 3 does the wings and legs. This build is really impressive, the techniques used are great and as you work to build the Interceptor you get to see the Eagle part grow quite nicely. In my opinion this is the best vehicle out of the first batch of Eagle based vehicles. And the build just enhances this opinion.

The completed model

The small Raven tribe vehicle isn't as good as Razcal's Glider, still it works as a swifter moving assault vehicle to steal the Chi from Eris. I like it.

The Eagle Interceptor is pure poetry in LEGO form. It is the closest to looking like a real eagle poised to strike when built, and the features work well and don't hinder it too much. I will admit though that after a few months of sitting on the shelf I've noticed that the balljointed areas for the wings seem to be a bit loose and don't hold poses as well as they did. Possibly because the wing builds are too heavy for the single joints.

This model is just all around great though, even the fact that it features flick-fire missiles doesn't bother me too much. The cockpit even can detach to form a smaller escape pod vehicle for Eris. The talons on the Interceptor can be posed individually and all of the feathers can be moved around to strike any kind of pose you'd like within their range of motion of course. The one downside, you have to detach Eris' wings in order for her to fit inside the cockpit, the wings are then incorporated into the build of the vehicle attached as extra feathers for the Interceptor's wings... They just don't fit in to the overall design of the wings and I think you could leave them off.

Summary

Overall, if like me you've not really felt the Legends of Chima Theme and are still, even now shying away from it I'd say you have to at least do yourself a favour and pick this set up. At 40$ it is a great deal, the Mini-Figures are chock full of detail and the set itself is really one of the best from the Chima Theme. I'd say it stands up there with Cragger's Command Ship and Gorzan's Gorilla Striker as must own from this Theme.

I would note though that there are a few slight problems, these can easily be corrected by modifying the build slightly if you'd care to try. The mobility of the legs is a bit limited due to how it's built, still they make it quite sturdy and it will stand up in any pose you'd care to place it as long as you don't overbalance one side.

Definitely recommend this one for fans of great looking models, even if you don't like the Chima Theme I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not picking this one up. (Plus it'll look great facing off against the new Baraptor vehicle coming in 2014's first wave of Chima sets.)

After seeing the prototypes of this model at Brickvention 2013 and now having the real deal in my hand I just have to add my rating to this set: it is simply stunning and has soared to the top of my favourite list together with a few other of Mark's designs.

The long reviews above cover all the details so I will just add my personal opinion to push this beauty up in the rankings.

Pros

• The unit is sturdy. Typically thing disintegrate easily when playing with it (which then gives me a good excuse to clear them off the shelf) but not so much with this one.
  
• I looks like an eagle but not because of some massive custom parts.
  
• The Chima minifigs are sooooooo cute! *ehm* I mean cool. I said cool, didn't I?
• The bird can really stand on it's feet very well.
  
• as Mark wrote on my son's instruction booklet: "Eris rules!"
  

Cons

• I only have one of them (so far)
  
• The bad guys look a bit scary (? if that can be considered a con)
  

The title says it all: Eris Rules. I am intent on getting more of this set just because it is SO good.