City of Styx is a great fun sprawling set with something for everybody to like. It is most closely akin to some of the Fantasy Era Castle sets such as the Skeleton Ship, featuring a full expansive Castle like main building, a small hero vehicle, a very nice mid sized sailing ship and some incredible minifigs. The scene depicted is the tower building occupied by Ronin's Pawn shop near the end of the Possesion story arc, when the harbor city of Styx had been taken over by Morro's Ghost Army. It features the Main tower, 2 smaller outbuildings, the Ghost Ship and Samurai X's speeder.

Box/Instructions - The box is impressive. A huge and imposing box featuring a dark scene of the haunted City of Styx sitting in the water with the Ninja and Ghosts battle throughout. The box trim is standard "Possesion" fare, with red trim and Lloyd's face looking down from the upper right. Honestly the box art is not my favorite of the line. It is a bit too busy, with too much going on, and far too much photoshopped glowy ghost effects, leaving the impression that the pale green parts glow in the dark (which they don't.) The box rear shows a central cluttered set picture surrounded by a number of inset pictures all showing or highlighting various play features. Like the front the art is a bit too busy and crowded. But understandably so. There is a lot of set here to fit into these pictures. The instructions are a single larger square bound book in a sealed plastic bag. There is a sticker sheet. The stickers are mainly used for the speeder, the windmill blades and some details in the pawn shop.

Minifigures - The set includes 9 minifigures

Kai - Kai in his black with red trim suit with the round center emblem. he features his 2 color Ninja hood, the shoulder Armor/Crossed Sword sheath piece in Black. He has Front/Back and Leg printing. He has Kai's standard single sided face.

Jay - Similar to Kai just in Blue trim. 2 color hood. Black Shoulder armor. Nice Front/Back/leg printing. Just a gorgeous fig.

Nya - We get the Samurai X version of Nya. A nice Green armored torso with her phoenix emblem. Front/Back Leg prints. Shoulder armor with the crossed rear sheath. Standard Samurai helm with bucket handle crest. Her head is dual sided. One smiling Nya, One the Samurai X Goggles and mask. One of the better looking Samurai X we have gotten.

Evil Green Ninja - Otherwise known as Lloyd possessed by Morro. And he is a gorgeous figure. Nice dark green main colors. Front/Back/Leg printing. Unique Chest Armor. Unique Cowl. Bright Light green head with Lloyd/Morro face. he stands out. Most interesting is his hood, which is actually painted as opposed to dual molded like the Ninja's.

Chain Master Wrayth - One of the General tier baddies. CMW has the vaporous ghost legs a distinct solid head wrapped with rags covered with a dual color cowl. His weapon is a scythe blade on a chain. Nice figure.

Scythe Master Ghoultar - Very similar to Wrayth and Soul Archer. He has the vapor legs, a distinct torso with shoulder armor. Trans clear head with face wrap and straw hat. His weapon is his horrible looking scythe.

Ghost Warrior and Ghost Ninja - Both are mainly the same. Trans neon green legs. Similar torsos. Warrior has the facemask and Straw Hat. Ninja has the pointed Ninja cowl with the trans green back.

Skeleton - a standard Skellie locked in the dungeon.

Parts - The set has some really interesting parts and colors. Lots of the neon trans green. Lots of the light spring "ghost" green. Lots of dark blue. Some distinct and unusual items in Ronin's Pawn shop. 4 Boat hull pieces in Dark Brown and used in interesting ways.

Model/Build - The model breaks into 5 main sub builds. Nya's Speeder. The Ghost Ship. The main tower and its two outbuildings.

Nya's Speeder - It's a nice little speeder. Very sleek. Very swooshable. Fits in well with Ninjago on general. Has some clever build techniques. It's only downside is it feels a little out of place amongst the low tech setting of City of Stiix. You could leave it out and never miss it. If you display CoS, you wont display this piece of it.

Ghost Ship - Oh what a delight. A small to mid sized Pirate Ship type sailing ship, with some Asian junk type feel and flair. It's not perfect as the center sides could be improved (easily you can do it yourself with a few slopes) It's about half the length of a full size Pirate Ship. About the size of the old school Classic Pirate Runners and such. It reminds me a great deal of the Skeleton Ship from Fantasy Era Castle. In fact the whole set has that same vibe. The Ghost Ship can easily be part of your permanent display. I have 7 Ghosts standing comfortably on mine now, so lots of deck space. Plus this one has lots of room to improve. I don't mean that as a bitch. I mean this little ship can be expended and MOC/MOD'ed into something amazing without too much effort. It's a good starter upgrade project.

After the boat we get the two outbuildings. The Windmill and the cannon tower. They do the job adding places to fight. If you have ever seen the standard Pirates ports and docks. These are like them. Simple 6x6 base towers with ladder bridges connecting them.

And then the rest of teh bags go towards the main tower. With it's water filled basement, Ronins first floor pawn shop made from an old ship The upper study. Once again the comparisons to the Skeleton Ship set from Fantasy Era are overwelming. But masterfully executed. Ronin's shop is well appointed and detailed with hidden things and easter eggs. Plus lots of nice details such as curtains. Every level has play features. Hours of entertainment. The build itself is fantastic with special kudos going to those ratty blue tiled roofs. Some clever builds there. Be aware this is a tall set. With the ball thrower upright it stands about an inch taller than the Monster Fighters Haunted House.

Honestly the only thing that somewhat limits its more permanent display is that they did it in the Ghost colors from when the Ghosts invaded. A normal version of the tower would look right at home in a Ninja village alongside the Airjitsu Temple and Lighthouse Siege sets.

Overall - A truly superb Flagship set. It's big. It's dense. Every square inch of it has something going on. It feels like a followup or homage to those classic Castle Fantasy Era sets done right. If you collect Ninjago this one is strongly recommended. If you are a fantasy or Castle Builder this one is recommended. It will also somewhat work with the two Hobbit Lake Town sets to form a nice coastal town (just take off the Laketown snow.)

Overall 5 bricks : As soon as I saw this set I knew wanted it since it reminded me of one the the great Castle sets I own : the Skeleton Ship Attack ! And using my 10 year old son as an alibi I recently got it. This is another example of the great new waves of Ninjago sets and subthemes, this one being part of the Possession subtheme. And it is definitely a great set being the headquarter of the bad guys, their awesome boat and the small Ninjago attack vessel. That is the big difference between this set and the 2007 Castle set where the boat and the building where owned by opposite factions. It is not a cheap set but considering the content an acceptable price.

Building 5 bricks : Not the easiest built, below 8 years is possible but will be difficult. It starts with the building of the 2 boats of which I love the ghost ship the most, well armed and in great colors. Next is the combination of lookout post and treasure chamber which also has a small kind of wind mill. Third part is the canon outpost. Now you start the built of the really awesome tower. The bottom floor with the small rock parts and prison doors where the rock parts are the doors. On the first floor a nice design trick where 2 boat parts give the set a great look. The first floor is I think some kind of command chamber I think, nice to built and looks great. The second floor has a hidden escape hatch and is I think a kind of store chamber with a crane on which an outside prison is detached. On the top floor a secret tile is hidden, probably a Ghost treasure or book. A great result when finished thanks to the great design an fabulous color mix of black, dark blue and yellowish green.

Parts 5 bricks : First of the all the mini figures with an outstanding team of 4 Ghost Warriors. Beside that a huge variety of useful parts in excellent colors but still useful in all kind of MOC's.

Playability 5 bricks : I could write 10 lines here how great this set is to play with but the pictures tell the whole story. Definitely 5 bricks with an exclamation mark.

Value 5 bricks : Of course €100,00 is a lot of money but this set is worth every cent of it. It offers everything you want of a Lego set and both MISB or used will raise in value over the years.

I am writing this review as I build so there may be some inconsistencies/contradictions in my opinion as the review goes on. At 1020 parts and 9 minifigures for $100, though, this is already a great set in terms of value. I don't have any pictures so bear with me.

Parts/Minifigures

If you can get over the general silliness of the Ninjago theme, there are actually some really well-designed and molded figs here. The printing is excellent across the board, the color scheme is great, and though about half the elements (trans-lime green legs, trans-lime green heads, that weird angry blob thing with the hot dog) aren't all that practical for MOCing, the other half is all high quality: ninja masks (? don't know what they're called), katanas, a neckpiece that can sheath two swords, bandanas on the ghosts, and lots of purple.

There are honestly way too many great parts here for me to list. The most notable parts are the exclusive navy blue sail on the ghost ship, the trans-lime green 2x5 pillars, 5 of these large ship hull pieces, 5 1x6x5 "x" supports, and a total of 19 of these 1x4 "half-tiles". Besides these there are tons of trans-lime green, dark and normal reddish brown, and dark blue elements.

5/5 for Parts.

Building Experience

The build starts with the ninja speeder-thing. I usually don't apply stickers to any of my sets, and luckily this looks fine without them. There is a control panel printed on a 1x2 slope in the cockpit which looks fantastic. The speeder is very swooshable and fun to play with. My only issue with it is that the giant flame coming out the back is attached to one of these blue 1/2 long pins, a color which doesn't match the color scheme and looks honestly pretty bad. The problem could easily be solved with a 2x2 circular tile with a hole in the center or one of the new 1x1 studs with a hole in the center.

Next comes the ghost ship. It is much bigger than it looks on the box and aesthetically is probably my favorite part of this set. It is armed with 4 stud shooters, 2 on each side. Unfortunately, the center of the ship is pretty bare, and you can see several gaps in the hull, as well as 2 exposed technic beams. But there is a lot of room for an actual floor to be built in the center of the ship and I will definitely do that once I get the chance. There is a prison cell in the back of the ship which once again has a lot of gaps, but these are not as obvious as the holes in the center.

The third part of the build finishes the windmill and cannon platform to the left of the main structure. These make good use of the 1x6x5 supports and various rock elements. A treasure chest is hidden beneath the windmill (or whatever it is) that contains 6 gems: trans-red, green, yellow, blue, white, and light blue. I feel like the gem element is rare in yellow so it is nice to get one here. The only con here is that the windmill is built on a tower of technic beams which are quite obvious and ugly from the back. Definitely keep these front facing forward if you plan on displaying it.

Last but not least is the main structure. The two LURP's at the base of the building are actually doors which slide open via a basic gear system, with a handle inside to operate them. The room they lead to is apparently a jail or something like that, with a skeleton inside and prison-style bars.

On the floor of the main building is a 2x4 medium nougat tile with a sticker that has an oriental rug design on it.This room is full of items which I'm sure must be references to things in the TV show: a trans-green bottle (made of a gem attached to a 1x1 cylinder), a tophat+mustache, a bag (like the Santa minifig has), a golden dragon statue, and a golden book with a Ninjago trading card inside it. I decided to apply stickers to the book because it looked so plain without them, and of course the card is a sticker on a 1x2 tile so I put that one on too. The card is a bit of a pain to apply straight. I just hope the stickers won't peel off in a couple years. There is a big banner stickered onto a part which I don't know how to describe hanging behind this first room. It looks very plain without the sticker but I plan on using this piece in MOCing so I prefer it plain for now.

On the second floor there is a trapdoor supported by a technic pin. It's too much fun pulling out the pin and knocking a minifigure down to the first floor. Besides this trapdoor the second floor only contains a desk and chair with a goblet and a bottle.

The third floor contains only a lectern with a sketch of a fossil or dead thing. The roof here has a very prominent HF/Bionicle style sphere launcher, which looks fine in the right position, but otherwise completely ruins the appearance of this part of the build. I probably will remove it at some point.

The dark blue roof sections are pretty tedious, with 6 or 7 of them built basically the same way, but they all look amazing - the half-tiles are used excellently to create a tattered look to them.

The cage is a great feature too, and like almost everything else in this set is a ton of fun.

4.5/5 for Building Experience (-.5 for the roof sections).

Completed Model

The completed set looks excellent and is actually quite big for a $100 set. I wish I had pictures to illustrate this. Next to my Grand Emporium it doesn't look too small, if that's any help.

Playability

There is SO MUCH to do with this set. There's trapdoors, cannons, cages, stud shooters, prisons, hidden doors, and more. I haven't "played" with LEGO in years and I might actually do that with this set.

5/5 for Playability.

Value for Money

This is probably one of the best sets I have in the $100+ price range. It is well-designed and well-constructed, with lots of rare/unique parts, quality minifigures, and pure funness. The only reason it doesn't get a 5 is because there are some small gaps in various parts of the build that could have been patched very easily. Overall though, this set is an easy 5/5. I'm not really a fan of Ninjago but I definitely recommend this set to anybody who is, and for anybody who needs a steampunk parts pack or just rare parts in general this is an excellent set for that. Thanks for reading, and have a great 2016!
- Teriyaqi

A "surprise" set that was released without further notice and that really caught my attention.

Thematically, though based around Ninjas, it instantly reminded me of the set 7029 Skeleton Ship Attack from 2007 which I liked a lot.

The size of the box seems to be appropriate for this large set. It is made of a really sturdy type of cardboard, however visually I didn't find it that appealing. Judging by its presentation the set is clearly geared towards children/younger teens.

Parts-wise this set is a total winner. It is one of the sets in my collection that feature a very great and useful selection of parts. There is an abundance of dark blue 1x3 plates for the roof, a good assortment of brown and dark brown parts, maritime parts like the Fabuland tub and ship wheel, a cannon, treasure chest, tridents, awesome yellow/green translucent parts, two golden fezes, a moustache, mini masks, a golden book, 12 x 10 stern parts, a custom made sail for this set and much more.

There are eight minifigures and a skeleton: three Ninjago guys and five ghosts. Those wraiths looks rather good, however I am not too fond of all the chest gear and built weapon stuff which makes them really bulky if you want to put them in the building and interact with the set. The same goes for the Ninjas. The trans-neon parts on them are cool, of course.

The built is a lot of fun and takes a while from start to finish. Again, when opening the bags you will be surprised of all the good parts you get. It was fun furnishing the little shop on the first floor with all the goodies and building and attaching the dark blue roof parts to the tower really make the whole thing look more substantial. In the cave there is a clever door mechanism whose set up one might use in own creations.Putting all the little details on the small pirate ship was also fun.

Whilst the completed model looks impressive due to its sheer size and intimidating colour scheme it doesn't really appear to me as a display piece like, for example, "The Lonely Mountain" or "Tower of Orthanc" sets. It is rather open and some of the building steps feel a bit random. I think this is more of a playset. The topmost part of the tower can be detached and put someplace else as a little shrine. I like the overall concept of the set which appears to be a wrecked and abandoned ship that was used for building a hideout in the sea. It is somewhat similar to the alternate build suggestions on the back of the boxes on sets like the "Black Seas Barracuda"and the like. Again this is a high-value set and I recommend it to fans of the castle and pirate themes.