Set #70314 Beast Master’s Chaos Chariot: This set was one of the must haves from Nexo Knights in my opinion, just like with Lance’s Mecha Horse the entire set just looks impressive and is a decently designed vehicle which stands out. Once you build it and start playing with the gimmick you can really appreciate what went into the design of it.

Box/Instructions

Box: Again the entire box design is a bit lacking, but I do enjoy the imagery for showcasing the sets, as I may have mentioned before they do a very adequate job of showing off the sets.

Instructions: There are two numbered manuals for the numbered bags in the set. A smaller manual for the first bag and a larger one for the second. They’re fairly basic, with all the usual amenities and refinements.

Parts

A few more Technic elements in this set for the look of the vehicle. Not much stood out to me as rare, however you’ll find some flaming rock pieces, a few fire parts and some printed Globlins that people might find alternative uses for. The large printed spheres look menacing and good for a demonic Pac-Man idea. The translucent orange chains are a really nice piece too, very impressive.

Minifigures

Beast Master: This is pretty much the same as the Ultimate release as far as print and detailing is concerned. The Beast Master wields two small chains with Globlins attached to the end, I love the fun printed detail of the heads on these simple orange ball pieces. They’re a fun looking accessory and a real treat.

Macy: Like with the other Ultimate knights Macy is given a different looking colour combination, her armour is silver here with red highlights on the print. I love the overall look of Macy and am pleased to see a female knight torso, it’d be nice to see it used again and again in future for even more characters. Her weapon is a massive mace, built in a similar fashion to the mace in her Ultimate form.

Clapper Claw Nexo Power: This NEXO Power features a chicken leg reaching up to the sky printed on the shield, looks like a chicken wants to do some damage. I have no idea what kind of power it unleashes, but it looks so off-the-wall I’d say it’s going to be funny.

Magnetize Nexo Power: Axl had this NEXO Power in his Ultimate Form, the print and colouring is identical here. This was its first use however as Ultimate Axl was in the second wave of the first year.

Book of Deception: The Book of Deception uses a translucent yellow cover with a printed question mark surrounded by a circular design. The tile inside features a flaming face of some kind, this is definitely a Book the Knights can’t afford to have captured. A fun little book.

The build

Bag 1: Macy and the Beast Master are in this bag. They can work against one another to see who can build their models the fastest, or team up to prepare for the battle for the Book of Deception. The robo steed is quick to build and follows the same steps as in the Infernox set. Very easy to build and fast.

The larger portion of pieces is used to build the main body of the Chaos Chariot, it’s a relatively simple to follow along build, though there are moments where assistance may be required. Mostly during the construction of the front area where the Technic axles need to go in and the launching gimmick for the rear catapult. I’m not sure what it is, but even as an AFOL I find it tricky to get the axle to fit in properly so it’s correctly centered when dealing with multiple parts.

Bag 2: The detailing and large play feature are built up here completing the full look of the Chaos Chariot. Some of this build is highly repetitive when constructing the lower jaws of the two large opening Globlins or even the build for the sides of the driving area. Nothing really tricky during this build though, just samey. It’s really fun to build the large Globlins, love the lower jaw section, it’s a really great job making a spherical mouth out of LEGO bricks without using simple circular bricks.

The completed model

Robo Steed: This is just like the robotic horse in the Infernox set, in fact it’s built pretty much the same as well with only red pieces used to accentuate the model instead of Aaron’s primary green colour. I am a huge fan of these little mini-models, I’d love to see more of them, one for Lance, Clay and even Axl, sadly I don’t believe all of the knights were given this model in sets. Still it’s a solid looking model and a means of escape for Macy from the evil Chaos Chariot.

Chaos Chariot: This Lava Monster vehicle looks extremely impressive. I love the overall design of the model, it’s an evil fantasy-era style Pod Racer. The design of the large spheres on the front just rock and the chain gimmick that lets you open and close the mouths while charging after Macy is just super fun.

The Globlin launcher on the back is extremely powerful, be aware of this when using it because your little Globlins are going to fly everywhere. Stickers are used to enhance the model’s detail, but the large heads on the front are printed, and the method for building the lower jaw is just all-around fun.

A great model, fun to swoosh around with too. I guess the consensus is fun.

Overall opinion

This set is truly worth the asking price. It was a must own set from day one of seeing it and I highly recommend it. This would fit in quite nicely with any Ninjago displays as well, it’s a suitably impressive model that functions great, has decent build techniques that aren’t a problem to follow along with and includes two great Minifigures as well as an impressive book piece. For the price though I do think LEGO could have included another Minifigure, or even just a Scurrier to add further to the playability.

Cool set! I loved the globlins even before i got this set and to have a set based all about them is awesome. One of the only things i don't like about this set is that the globlin's faces face backwards and just look odd.

Box/Instructions

Same old same old. Normal box, numbered instructions nothing out of the ordinary here.

Parts

It has a lot of new prints on parts like the large globlin face. The chariot mainly uses black and brown pieces with the occasional orange or red part.

Minifigures

I adore the beast master and the globlins although they have the back to front face prints. Macey, on the other hand, is just a regular looking Nexo Knight ad nothing really stands out about her apart from her helmet, her and her mace.

The build

I really enjoyed the build, especially the main chariot that the Beast Master sits (he actually stands). I also enjoyed building the giant globlins more that i expected too!

The completed model

You just can't go wrong with the completed model. It's a cool, experimental model that is just great to look at and even though it really out of the ordinary, it still kind of resembles a chariot of some kind. Kind of.

Overall opinion

I love this set! It's just so cool and looks good from almost every angle! a great set to start of 2016!

When I first heard about a new Castle-theme coming, I was very excited. You see I'm a late arrival to the LEGO-hobby so I've missed out on a lot of castle themes and I'd love to have a big castle, trolls, knights, dragons, kings, queens and whatnot.

...And then they announced Nexo Knights. Truth be told - My first impression of the images was not great.

However, I warmed up to the idea of this theme and went and got my first NK-set: The Beastmaster Chariot! Let's see how it turned out..

Box/Instructions

The box is clad in a deep-blue and bright orange color-theme. As we all know by now this is very pleasing to the eye and combined with the set in action it all comes together nicely. You've also got Jestro, the main bad-guy of the theme, poking out his head in the bottom-left corner.

The instructions come in two parts and they've got the same image as the box. I noticed that the second part was also larger than the first. I guess it's because they wanted to include larger images of the other sets in the theme and also the instructions on how to get started with the mobile game.

Parts

The set has a lot of black and dark brown parts to make up the base chariot. The details of the chariot however are mostly in red or orange along with some beautifully sculpted lava and fire pieces that I believe are new with this theme.

There's also a bit of silver and blue bits in here and they make up the smaller vehicle - The knights robot-horse.

You've also got the monster pieces which all have printed faces on them.

There's also a sticker sheet with nine stickers.

If I could make one change in the pieces included it would be to take out the blue technic pieces and include red ones instead. On some parts of this build you can see the blue pieces sticking out and to me it would make a lot more sense to have red ones instead. The whole thing about the lavamonsters are that they're... Lavamonsters. Lava, fire, red, y'know?

Minifigures

This is the reason why I warmed up (no pun intended) to this lavamonster vs tech-knights set - The minifigs! We've got two in this set and it's the evil Beastmaster and the brave princess-knight Macy.

First we've got the Beastmaster and he's this... Well, master of beasts! The big red, teethy spheres in front of the chariot, the little catapult ammo and his personal weapons are all little monsters with really cool printed faces on them and the Beastmaster is the one who's pulling their leash, sending them to do his evil bidding!

I'm the kinda guy you see rooting for the bad-guys in movies and I really like the design of the lavamonsters in this theme. They kind of remind me of the Uruks in the Lord of the Rings sets. The Beastmaster has bright red lava-skin and is sporting a barbaric-looking harness and loincloth along with a hood (Those textiles would make amazing fire-fighter outfits). There's some really nice details here such as the eyepatch and the little claws on his feet. You can tell this guy ain't your well mannered neighbour that signs for your packages when you're not home and doesn't open them. He'd open them... Oh yes he would!

His personal weapons are little orange beasts with chained leashes that the Beastmaster holds in his hands.

The second minifigure in the set is Macy! She's not only a tough knight but according to the story she's also a princess. She's apparently frustrated because her father, King Halbert, will not acknowledge her as a knight and she'll do anything to prove her worth!

Each knight in the set seems to have its own color and Macy is the red knight. She's wearing a heavy steel/gray armor with red tech-details such as the stomach plates, boots and digital shoulder plates. In the middle of her chest is her dragon icon, probably fitting because of her temperament. She's got a shield with exchangeable front plates and as a weapon she's got a big, spikey mace.

The build

Building this set was a breeze. With only two bags and 314 pieces I can't imagine it will take anyone, regardless of skill, much time to assemble the two vehicles and the minifgures included in this set.

However I did, as I often do, manage to put a couple of pieces wrong. Due to the relative simplicity of the build it didn't take me long to repair the damage to get back on track.

The completed model

So once you've finished that second bag you've got the Beastmaster of the lavamonsters and his personal chariot. To oppose him you've got the knight Macy along with her personal transport - The mecha-horse-bike-thing.

The chariot has a two main playable features and right behind the Beastmasters seat you've got this big catapult to fling the little red monsters at his foes. The second and most fun feature would be the big chomping lavamonsters in the front. Turning the little platform in front of the Beastmaster opens and closes the mouths of the lavamonsters. The action is very smooth and when the monsters close their mouths there's a satisfying little clap or chomp-noise!

There's also a little demon-book that you assemble that the Beastmaster is supposed to protect. If I'm not mistaken it's one of the demon books Jestro uses to summon vicious fiends to his side.

So there some good play-value to be had here. You've got the Macy swooshing around on her hover-bike and closing in on her there's the Beastmaster with his lava-monsters chomping away!

Overall opinion

Like I said in my introduction I was not very convinced about the Nexo Knights theme at first. The tech stuff mixed with classic knight stuff seemed a bit silly and there was a lot of bright, transparent pieces that was supposed to be digital weaporny and armor. Yeah...

In retrospect though I must admit I was wrong! The tech-knight stuff blends into this unique and fun theme with a classic looking villain army that also works well with other sets.

I have not yet played the game so I can't really say anything about the game or the powers that are included in this set. However I will say that it seems like a fun way to interact with the theme and of course there's a "collect 'em all"-component here that will drive serious players to buy every set.

I look forward to getting more sets in this theme! I really like the lava army and will look to get more sets that are centered around that portion of the theme but I'm starting to get around to liking the knights as well :)