Eris' Fire Eagle Flyer has found itself with large amounts of leftover stock at my local toy store, and marked for clearance. How lucky for local Lego fans, because this is actually a great set that took me a bit by surprise. This is sort of an upgrade or addition to a previous set, Eris' Eagle Flyer (70003). That set was the same size, but varies enough from the Fire Eagle to make them both worth owning.

Box/Instructions

Some of the earlier Chima sets with a similar piece count (this one has 330) came with two manuals for seemingly no reason other than to cram lots of Chima ads into the books. I don't have a problem with that, really, but this set appropriately only has one manual - appropriate because there is only one major thing to build.

The box has a good thickness to it, which makes it more sturdy than a lot of other Chima boxes I have. Some of the Chima sets are pretty long and thin, which makes them harder to fit on your shelf and easier to bend.

Parts

A lot of angular and specialized wing pieces along with plenty of technic pieces. I always like when a set has plenty of weird parts that I can't get on pick-a-brick, and this is no exception to that. I also like the selection of weapons that the minifigures get. There's a nice long sword, a claw on a stick, and some kind of large fire crossbow that you build.

Minifigures

I don't watch the Chima show, so I can't comment on whether these characters are likable or not. I can just give my opinion on them purely from a Lego standpoint. For a set of this size, it was nice to get three figures, with all three being from different Chima tribes. Lagravis the lion only appears in a few sets, and he happens to have a cape; always a fun way to distinguish a figure. Strainor the sabre-tooth tiger is a figure that you might have six of if you own all the sets he's in, so there's nothing too exciting in his inclusion, but I don't mind having multiples of the same named Chima figure. That's a good thing because Eris also happens to be in eight sets herself. At least in Eris' case she differs a little more from set to set, so you might not have an Eris that looks like this one. Anyway, I don't see having six Strainors and eight Erises as a negative, but it's worth noting in case this devalues the set for some.

The build

95% of the pieces go towards building the Eagle, which turned out to be a lot of fun to make because of how you gradually develop the moving parts. Seeing how each component connected to each other with the technic bricks and finding out that everything actually moves in unison is always fun for me. Sometimes I build these things and get to a point where I realize that the movement of the parts is going to be heavily restricted when I add in a new component, but that doesn't happen with with this eagle. You keep a pretty large range of motion, which I found to be exciting when anticipating what the final build would be like.

As usual, you do have plenty of stickers to apply. I've never had too much of an issue with stickers because I'd rather pay less money than have printed pieces. That being said, it does concern me that one of the stickers got applied to a non-smooth surface. I always thoroughly press down on the stickers with my fingernail to get the full amount of stick on every part of the sticker, but I'm nervous that the rough surface will result in a less-than-ideal long-term stick.

The completed model

The wings, cockpit, and legs all move together in a way that allows you to position the eagle to be sitting perched upright, or swooping with claws in attack position. I like the way in which the pieces move together because the bird stands balanced just fine in any position, and always looks good no matter which position you have it in. It's easy to play with because you're not going to end up moving different pieces out of sync and having it tip over like what can happen sometimes when you have totally independent legs and arms.

I love the colors, and I think it looks great at a glance. The main complaint is that there are some technic holes easily visible, and a few pegs near the bottom probably should have been smoothed over with additional plates.

I appreciate that it was fairly easy to fit a figure in the cockpit. I have an issue with this on so many sets where the whole minifigure comes apart trying to sit it in its vehicle.

There are spring loaded missiles on each wing that are hard to accidentally to launch. I don't actually like launching these things anyway, but the springs are better than the ones you flick. They go a lot farther, and the projectiles are easier to locate.

Sitting next to a 570 piece Star Wars ship that cost three times as much, the eagle in this set seems almost just as large and impressive.

Almost not worth mentioning: there is a tiny island you're supposed to use to trap Lagravis in a block of ice. I don't like these small prop pieces since they could easily get misplaced, but it uses fewer pieces than Eris' minifigure, so it's not that big of a waste that it was included.

Overall opinion

I highly recommend the set to Chima fans. Even if you have to pay full price, it's a good value. People who enjoy technic sets might also just enjoy the eagle as an eagle, even if they don't like the Chima theme. I like the way it looks, I like the way it plays, and I like the size of it.