THE GOLDEN DRAGON nice set so with out further udo sit back and enjoy this review.

Pros

• GOLDEN DRAGON IS BEST DRAGON YET.
• GOLD NINJA IS EPIC AND RARE
• GOOD STONE ARMY FIGURES YOU CAN MAKE A ARMY
• BRILLANT VALUE FOR PRICE

Cons

• GOLD NINJA IS A RARE FIGURE WHY IN A £30 SET
• No other cons.

MAYBE THE LAST DRAGON BECAUSE NEXT WAVE IS WITH CYBORGS SO IF IT IS THE LAST DRAGON THEY HAVE DONE A BRILLANT JOB WELL DONE GOOD MINIFIGURES BUT SHOULD HAVE NOT HAD GOLD NINJA IN THIS SET HE SHOULD BE RARE BUT I GIVE THIS A NINE AND A HALF OUT OF TEN.

By ANTHONY CRAZYCRISPLEGO'S BROTHER

BYE NINJAGO FANS!!

READ MY OTHER REVIEWS OF NINJAGO 2012 AND 2013.

First things first: I was not expecting to get this set. But, as I was scrolling through Amazon and found it ten dollars off, I couldn't resist. Nice selection of gold pieces, 3 minifigures, the cheapest dragon around right now...what's not to like?

So, onto the box. It is a nice size for this set, with instructions loose in the packaging. I don't remember but I think this set had no stickers. The box has some nice art on the front ad the back.

The minifigures included are pretty impressive. First, we have the stone army scout. He has Sensei Wu's hat in red, as well as a bow and a quiver, which I think is new in red. The stone army warrior is AMAZING. He has an awesome helmet, with a headpiece on top and facial armor, as well as armor on his torso and a giant hammer. Both stone army minifigs come with tattoos on their faces. Lloyd is just like any other ninja, but he's golden. He only comes in one other set in his golden form. He wields what looks like The Dragon Sword of Fire.

The little stone army outpost does well with the few pieces it is allotted. It has three weapons on it: a sword, spear, and...dynamite? The outpost also has a little catapult so the scout can apparently fling himself at Lloyd (because the best way to stop a dragon is to throw yourself at it). The outpost has a nice selection of black and red pieces.

Now onto the main part of the set, the dragon. It has an awesome selection of gold parts. The head can shoot a neon green ball, and is highly detailed. The whole thing is pretty poseable, with Technic and ball joints all around.

Overall, this is a really nice set. It has a good selection of minifigures, and has numerous battle scenes for a child to play out.

The Golden Dragon set is apparently the final battle between the ninjas and "Lord G", however, I find myself highly dissapointed with this set. The pieces are, of course, superb: Loads of gold elements, very unique "old asian" style hats and such with bright colors. The 3 minifigures are great with the Golden Ninja himself, perhaps giving away how "Mr. Gold" may almost look in the S10 minifig collection if you happen to find one of the 5,000. However, after building this set, I found myself feeling a little put out. The set is supposed to be appealing to children, and yet is not very playable. The Golden Dragon does look nice, and lets you shoot out balls and flap its wings and such, but apart from that, you cannot move it. There aren't any pieces to pose the creation with, and so, a bit of a let down on the main view of the set. The set also comes with a small side weapons array with a minifig catapulter, which doesn't work well also.

Pros

• Gold Elements, great pieces/weapons
• Good printing on minifigs, and Gold minifig
• Good value for $
• Exclusive-ish figures

Cons

• A bit bulky
• Not very playable
• Immovable Dragon

All in all, not a bad set, but if you are looking for something your kids can play with, chose a different set first.

Set #70503 The Golden Dragon: With the introduction of the Golden Ninja this set was the must have set of 2013 if you wanted him at a cheaper price than the temple set of that same year. However was it really worth picking up for fans of LEGO Dragons? Let’s find out together shall we?

Box/Instructions

This box design really shows off the set in a very detailed and impressive looking way, the dragon is in flight and firing it’s breath weapon at the stone army enemies and Lloyd the Gold Ninja is predominant everywhere, he’s on the upper left corner, he’s on the front and he’s toted as being included in the lower right hand corner. And on the back you get to see him fighting the Stone Warrior and the gimmicks of this set. Lovely design.

The instruction manual is fairly standard from the LEGO Ninjago Theme, without any checklists and cross-promotional images actually this manual doesn’t have any just the parts list at the end. It breaks up the build by the numbered bags in the set and the steps are pretty straightforward. Solid manual for this set.

Parts

You want gold parts, you can’t go wrong with picking this set up. Not only is there the Gold Ninja which is unique because we don’t see this colour of minifigure too often, but you also have six long blades, two shorter blades, the dragon head pieces and assorted other pieces. (Studs and things.) Really a great set for parts that aren’t too common.

Minifigures

Finally a set with 3 Minifigures, up until this point the Ninjago 2013 sets have only featured two figures. Pretty minimal when you consider there are only 6 sets in the entire wave.

Stone Archer: the same as the one found in Kai’s Fire Mech so I don’t have much to tell you here, the printing is the same and the accessories are identical. It’s nice to have two of this minifigure, unfortunately if you want to army build these awesome stone army enemies for your displays you’ll have to go on secondary market sites to buy more.

Stone Warrior: Another familiar looking Minifigure, which isn’t too bad, now you can have two when you pick up all the sets. If you’re not interested in doubles of course. This one has a different weapon option, a brick-built hammer with a long grey handle, this weapon is used to launch the archer at the Golden Dragon with the special minifigure launcher. (Which we’ll be discussing in more detail shortly.)

Lloyd the Gold Ninja: Here is the most sought after minifigure from 2013, because he’s Gold and a Ninja and has all of the power to put an end to Lord Garmadon at last. This minifigure is all gold plastic, he’s wearing the shoulder armour from 2012 Ninjago sets for the ZX Ninjas and has leg printing, a double-sided torso and even a gold face with Lloyd’s signature expression on his face.

As an accessory he’s using the dragon sword of fire, and you get two in this set, as my first exposure to this weapon all I have to say is cool. Really this is a fun accessory and having two of them is just a bonus, because Lloyd can dual-wield the weapons for two-handed battles. The only flaw with this weapon is that Lloyd can’t store it on his back like the regular katana weapons, it’s sculpted awkwardly and too thick to fit on his back in the scabbard element. Oh well, still a cool weapon.

The build

You have three numbered bags in this set for the build, the first bag builds the small stone army catapult and armoury, the minifigures and the dragon’s torso, bag number two has you build the legs, the tail and the head as well as the mounting area for the wings.

The third and final bag has you complete the dragon model by building the wings and that’s it. There are no big difficult parts of this build, also no stickers or anything like that, just an ordinary build. Which is a big change from the other two ninja based sets I’ve reviewed as those ones were loaded with stickers.

The build isn’t bad, however as we’ll discuss shortly there are parts of it I’m not too thrilled with once completed. The build for the stone army launcher is pretty fun too, and you can store some extra accessories here.

The completed model

The stone army launcher is just a neat little model for play value, you get three extra accessories for it, a stick of dynamite, a spear and the huge scimitar that was the main weapon for the warrior on his bike. It works pretty decently too depending on how hard you press down to launch the archer, which it is more designed for as the shorter legs of the archer fit the catapult section better and more securely when on a shelf or tabletop.

The Golden Dragon is ultimately an impressive model, unfortunately it does suffer a few flaws due to the limited design and piece count used for it. First of all there is the issue of the legs, these are similar in design to Eris’ Eagle Interceptor from Chima, which means they don’t have a proper knee, you can turn them and extend them out to the side using the clicky joints pieces, unfortunately you can’t get any decent standing poses because they are shorter than is practical. Also the claws on the end are a solid Technic/Bionicle/Hero Factory style piece and so cannot open and close like Eris’ vehicle.

The wing design here is a bit better, if only because it doesn’t droop from all the weight, unfortunately despite this perk it can’t achieve any decent poses. All of the mobility created by the use of hinged joints is destroyed by the overly long blades used as wings. So really their stuck in a static pose and can’t achieve any flapping action. The claws used on the wingtips are individually jointed so they can move, but not for much more than pretending to make a fist or something.

The tail got the most useful joints, it can move up and down and side to side, though somewhat limitedly. The head can also move decently, even the ball shooter from Bionicle isn’t a bad play feature. And I guess I can’t complain too much considering this set only has so much in the way of pieces, however for something toted as being a Golden Dragon it looks more like a Golden Dragon statue compared to larger models of similar creatures.

In spite of the flaws I still like the overall design of the dragon, though I do wish that they hadn’t chosen to include those stupid flags where Lloyd sits. I understand it’s probably meant to be a fancy saddle, it just looks really off seeing a creature like a dragon with two flags stuck to its back. Also it’s a little on the small side.

Overall opinion

Overall you might be thinking I hate this set, or at least wouldn’t recommend it. You’d be wrong there, while the main design of the dragon suffers from some flaws, the overall package and presentation of the design still sells me on it. Also this set allows you to get Lloyd for a cheaper price, so collecting the Golden Ninja is easy to pull off. It’s also good for expanding the limited number of stone army enemies you get from 2013’s Ninjago sets. And scores an extra half point for avoiding the use of stickers to bulk up the detail work on the dragon. While the printing is limited to the head it’s a nice minimal design that suits the creature well.

The biggest selling point is the sheer number of gold parts in the set that make for a great parts pack. Especially the numerous sloped pieces and small smooth studs. So overall I still recommend picking this one up if you haven’t done so already, you could always try improving on the design by testing your MOC skills and making a more poseable, truly worthy creature of the name Golden Dragon.