With Legends of Chima supposedly set to end later this year, this is among the last few sets that any fans of the theme will be able to purchase, unless a revival comes around - although to be fair with the success of Ninjago continuing I wouldn't count on it happening any time soon.

The bird mech sets were what really got me interested in the Legends of Chima theme (see my review of 70003 - Eris' Eagle Interceptor) so when I saw a low price point Phoenix inspired set I knew it was one that I would pick up.

Box/Instructions

The box is what you would expect for the Fire and Ice sub-theme of Chima, flaming orange and reds with an icey blue font depicting something of a sky battle between Flinx riding the Phoenix and Voom-Voom on a small jetpack like thing. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking here, in fact if it weren't for an existing interest in the theme I'd have probably not given it a second look on the shelves.

The instructions are presented in a single, staple bound booklet - I found no obvious errors or parts hard to follow so all in all exactly what you'd want from a smaller set like this.

Parts

For me personally the parts this set added to my collection was great, mainly because it had a high number of parts that are relatively new.

Of particular interest to me personally were;

Brick W. Plate 2X3X1 1/3 (Part 6099909) which so far has only appeared in 5 sets, but I suspect that will grow very quickly

Plate 1X2 W. 2 Shafts ظ 3.2 (Part 6099483) a very useful connector, already in 12 sets (and almost certain to increase very quickly) including cheaply available in some mixels sets.

As well as some new parts I was really pleased to see that the flaming eyes on the Phoenix as done with printing rather than stickers, a flaming pattern on a bowed piece like that could have a lot of uses, so I wouldn't be surprised if it shows up elsewhere in future, but for now this is the only set that contains any. What really sticks out when you empty the bags are the 8 Flame Tribal 3.5X12 W/Cross Axle 21/191(Part 6100700) which won't appeal to everyone but so far they are only available from Chima sets - they do however have a bit of a Bionicle/constraction look to them, so we may see more later in the year.

All in all I probably wouldn't buy this set just for the parts unless I had a specific plan for them, but if I was given a second one I'd be quite content with the extra parts for future builds.

Minifigures

This set comes with two minifigures, unsurprisingly both are birds.

Flinx - I assume from the short leg piece used that he is meant to be a child, but in all honesty I haven't watched any of the Chima TV show so I know nothing about the characters. He is technically exclusive to this set but is only different to his one other appearance (in set 70146 Flying Phoenix Fire Temple) by the addition of wings. He does have two different face prints, which I thought were at least a lot more obviously different than some of the other Chima face prints.

Voom-Voom - One of the vulture tribe, and as with all the vultures he is therefore zombie-fied and partly frozen. I like that there are some trans parts being used for these minifigures, but I've not been a massive fan of the whole Zombie thing with the theme. He has only single sided face print, but to be honest I think the double sided prints for Chima is fairly unnecessary anyway,

The build

While the set is small and therefore did not take long to build, I did find it a rather pleasant build.

The first part takes you through the little jet pack thing, which frankly seems pointless for a winged character. This is pretty straight forward building, but does use one of those nice new pieces early on to add a little more interest.

The main build is far more interesting, there's quite a mix of techniques for those that like the variety. I will warn those of you who dislike constraction with a passion, the legs could be from a Bionicle. I however like the mix of styles, it means that a more varied approach is taken while building and I think teaches more parts and techniques that one might find useful to know about in the future. The head was actually one of the bits I enjoyed building the most, it looked a little small and odd on the main picture but actually assembling it felt quite good.

If you are a fan of Mixels, this felt a lot like building a larger scale Mixel.

The completed model

While this has definitely not taken the place of my favourite bird based build, it was never likely to. It is a relatively nice looking bird when completed, the flame styling might not be for everyone, but there are a lot of ways you could modify that with ease. There are parts that do look a little odd to me - mainly the wrong number of toes on the feet - but as an overall design it does look the part.

Perhaps more important than the look, it has the 'swooshability' that make sets of this size really marketable. The wings can fold out and flap up and down, the tail can move up and down, the ball joint connections on the legs and neck mean that it can be posed nicely too. I should think that any child who likes Chima or even birds could easily have hours of fun with this set.

Overall opinion

While it's not the best set of the theme, it doesn't need to be. It's a solid design, has some interesting parts and is great fun to play with. If your kids love Chima, it's bound to be a hit, if you want an interesting mix of red parts and some interesting conectors it's worth considering. I picked it up at about a third off the retail price and I certainly feel like I got my money's worth.