J.A.F. Team

I don't like that Furty's tail is attached by the neck. With a gap. That annoys me to no end. That alone is the main reason why I haven't bought him yet. XD

I liked the Ninjago spinner sets better than the Speedorz sets, myself. The Speedorz sets have more complex builds, but in temrs of gameplay ther'es a STEEP learning curve, whereas with Ninjago spinner sets, it was easy to just start spinning with whatever minifigures or weapons you have on hand.

 

The Ninjago cards were better integrated with the gameplay than the Chima cards, too. The Chima cards do a better job than the ones in the old Knights' Kingdom sets (where the card game and the toys had NO CONNECTION besides that you could use the cards as an alternate shield when not playing the card game), but when you're playing the card game, the ONLY thing you use the Speedorz matches for is to determine who starts out with more Chi and who gets to play their card first. You could just as easily play the game by replacing all the toy components besides the CHI tokens with a series of coin flips.

 

Contrast that with the Ninjago spinner sets, where the cards would actually affect the spinner battle itself. Some would be placed in the arena as goals or hazards. Others would instruct you to modify the minifigures or spinners in some way before the next match. "Scroll cards" replaced "battle" with "competition" in the next match, setting up elaborate courses using just the few parts and cards in the set and setting a new, clear objective for both players. It was elegant, it was clever, and the toy itself — which should be the core of any set — was fundamental to the gameplay rather than just a complicated means to an end.

 

Overall, Speedorz have a lot of potential. But they have not lived up to that potential to my satisfaction.

Maybe it's just because I've never found anybody to actually play the Ninjago spinner game with, but the spinners themselves felt more clunky than the Speedorz. But, as I said, Ninjago spinners came with some more of the rarer figs, which is how i got Nya and Garmadon without buying the most expensive sets. Just my take on it; as a collector, i'm really going for the figs and pieces and less for the design and gameplay.

 

Also, both the Skunk and Fox have the same tail piece in different colors, and it's annoying that they're not as good as say the Godzilla fig from S5 Collectible Figs, which fit nicely down the back.

 

I thought this was going to lead up to a joke about what the skunk says. I know what foxes say, but skunks remain a mystery.

Maybe it's just because I've never found anybody to actually play the Ninjago spinner game with, but the spinners themselves felt more clunky than the Speedorz. But, as I said, Ninjago spinners came with some more of the rarer figs, which is how i got Nya and Garmadon without buying the most expensive sets. Just my take on it; as a collector, i'm really going for the figs and pieces and less for the design and gameplay.

 

Also, both the Skunk and Fox have the same tail piece in different colors, and it's annoying that they're not as good as say the Godzilla fig from S5 Collectible Figs, which fit nicely down the back.

 

I never really considered the spinners a really efficient way to get the figures. They're cheaper than the model sets overall, but unless you actually intend to use the spinners a great deal, you get far less value for your money than you'd get from a model set.

 

For instance, the Fire Temple set costs $120, but nets you seven figs. Only five of those figs are available in spinner sets (that's $50 total for just 107 pieces, including five functionally-identical spinners you may never need). And if you want ALL the figs from the set, including Kai DX and Samukai, the cheapest option is to buy Garmadon's Dark Fortress ($70 for 518 pieces), the Mountain Shrine set ($20 for 169 pieces), the Sensei Wu spinner set ($10 for 20 pieces), the Kruncha spinner set ($10 for 24 pieces), and the Zane glider polybag ($3.50 for 26 pieces — seven more pieces than the $10 Zane spinner set). For $6.50 less than the Fire Temple, this will also net you a standard Kai minifigure, a Bonezai minifigure without armor, a Chopov minifigure without armor or headgear, and a training dummy minifigure — plus you'll still be getting all four golden weapons. But you will also be getting just 757 pieces, versus 1180. A couple spinner sets were enough to take a huge bite out of the parts value you get for close to the same exact price.

 

In contrast, if you bought the Fire Temple, it wouldn't be difficult at all to add the Kai, Bonezai, and Chopov minifigures to your collection — two of the smallest sets, Ninja Ambush ($7 for 71 pieces) and Skull Motorbike ($15 for 157 pieces) have all three of those figs at a price per piece that is much more equitable than any spinner set or even Garmadon's Dark Fortress, and you'll also get Chopov's body armor and helmet and the Jay minifigure. $142 in model sets alone gets you 1408 pieces including ten figs — half the figs for the year. Buying just the lowest-price sets that get you those same ten figs will cost you $117 for just 789 pieces.

 

Generally the first thing my brother and I did any year for Ninjago was decide what figs and models we were committed to getting and put together a spreadsheet to find out the most efficient way of getting those while minimizing duplicates. Then we waited until Brickfair 2011 to make most of our purchases so that we could get 30% off the total price. Sadly, that amazing sale is no longer happening at today's LEGO conventions, but by saving your money and keeping an eye out for good sales you can still get a lot more value for money than from making smaller individual purchases

 

The spinner sets were even less essential back in 2011, since if you really wanted to try out the spinners, all of the store exclusive sets that year had them with a better price per piece. There are only five spinner sets with figs you can't get in model sets: 2115 (only set where Bonezai has his shoulderpads), 9570 (only set with NRG Jay), 9572 (only set with NRG Cole), 9590 (only set with NRG Zane), 9591 (only set with NRG Kai). The latter four also have some extremely good-looking spinners (I used one in a MOC) and great accessories.

You've thought about this before?

 

I only ever got five spinner sets, and all were reletively unique figs that were otherwise only availible in larger sets. Yes, they weren't the best value (besides the Mountain Shrine) but I was primarily after the fig, and I didn't have $130 to spend on the Fire Temple even tho that was at the top of my wanted list for sure.

 

I only got Nya, Garamdon (that one on sale, I believe), Samuri X, and Lloyd ZX. (Plus Kai DX in the Mountain Shrine, but I got that for the build and not the fig, really.) The spinners that had more common figs (especially some of the skeleton ones) never interested me, and the same goes for most of the figs in the Speedorz sets too. (I did however get my first copy of Zane via that polybag you mentioned.)

 

In the end, being a minifig collector and a cheapskate don't go hand in hand, and if you want a collection, you had to sacrifise something. For the spinners, I chose parts value. (And even then, some of the rare weapons pieces were good too.)