Set Review: 70134 Lavertus' Outland Base

[Hapori Tohu]

Chima Month has almost ended, but there's still some sets to review. Today we're taking a look at 70134 Lavertus' Outland Base, the biggest model in the first wave of 2014 Legends of Chima sets. Is it worth shelling out your hard-earned dollars for, or will you pick up one of the many other sets that we've looked at? Read and watch on to decide!

 

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[dotcom]

This set looks pretty interesting and I like the parts, but I have to say that the minifigures here are a definite letdown. The bigger Chima sets usually have rare/just cool minifigures as a major draw, but here for some reason they default to the generic stuff? Sparratus (who is by far the most boring spider) is in 2 other sets (while both of the other Spiders only appear in one set) and Blista....well, actually, Blista is only about 3 dollars more common than Braptor, but Braptor still has the advantage over him when it looks to looks, since he has more printing on his head. The villains here are kind of boring, honestly, and that's pretty unfortunate. If they had at least gone for the outlands tribe triumvirate and have Scolder here it might have worked better, but this...nah. Lavertus is obviously required, and he's awesome, but the other guy...I see the logic in having Laval, but that guy isn't all that rare (this variant is, but not Laval himself) I would have preferred Worriz or Razar, who were about completely ignored this wave, but even those guys aren't that exciting. Best case scenario would have been Bladvic, either as a replacement of or in addition to Laval/whoever. (I think it might just be the 4 minifigures I take issue with. at $60, 5 would have been fair, I think.)

[Aanchir]

I don't know what you mean about the flick missiles not working well. Looks to me like they get some pretty good distance in both pictures. I can't imagine why you might need them to shoot much farther than that considering the scale you're dealing with.

 

Laval's torso decoration isn't actually all that exclusive, as it's shared by Gorzan in 70130 and 70136 and Cragger in 70132. But his legs in this set do only appear in the Laval minifigures in this set and 70132, so as a whole the Laval minifigure is reasonably exclusive.

 

The 8M Hero Factory shells in this set are an interesting part to include, because there haven't been any 8M shells in Hero Factory since Waspix or any Flame Yellowish Orange (Keetorange) shells in Hero Factory since Stringer 3.0. Overall, this year's Chima sets are quite generous with constraction parts — the summer will also include Flame Yellowish Orange "paw" shells and Reddish Brown beast talons in 70144, a Dark Brown torso shell in 70145.

 

Great review overall! I agree that this is a quite nice set that really gives the impression of an isolated bunker or hideout. Not interested in owning it or any of this year's Chima playsets personally — too many other great themes to collect this year — but it's still mighty impressive!