NINJAGO is a strange theme for me because of the age ranges the theme spans. There’s the small 100 piece sets for 4+ and all the ninja themed sets for the older pre-teens, which hold no interest to me at all. But at the other end of the scale, there’s the 5000 and 6000+ piece NINJAGO City sets which are some of the biggest and best sets outside of the “prestige” themes like Modular or Icons. The big sets are always full of so much colour and detail, so it’s really interesting to see how they scale down to a mere 339 pieces as is the case with Lego 40703: Micro NINJAGO City.
Currently it is only available for 2700 Insiders Points from the Lego website along with the other 3 Micro NINJAGO City sets which cost 2300 points each. It does require a lot of points to get all four which can be joined together to for a NINJAGO city, but if you’re like me, and aren’t that interested in the display aspect of Lego, then it’s a fun set to build and has a nice assortment of different coloured bricks to add to your collection. More trans light blue tiles and headlight bricks are always welcome in my collection.
Obviously, with microscale sets most of the pieces are small and there’s not a lot of pieces here that aren’t available elsewhere, but it really is nice to build a set that isn’t primarily a monotone colour. The full rainbow of colours is here, spread over 7 bags and with over 100 steps in the instructions, it’s still an involved build.
The build works its way up through the levels, starting with the dock and the back bay shops with the start of the (non-functional) lift that runs the whole way to the upper floors. Even though the shops and buildings are recreated in 1×1 bricks and headlights, they still look individual and have character – the 1×2 rock plate adds the feeling of a tattered canopy to one. In the bay sails a microscale boat perfectly designed with a single curved 1×1 brick on a round 1×2 plate. (The set packaging warns us that the boat does not float, but this is a lie, it does)
Two storeys up, and the centrepiece of the city is the crab restaurant which fills most of the 3rd and a large costume shop on the 4th storey. The entrance to the crab restaurant is a beautiful piece made from red 2×1 grills and trans-orange 1×1 bricks, and it contains two of the nicest design flourishes in the set. The red grills sit on top of two tan ingot tiles, and the ingots give a subtle bevel to the whole thing that just looks really neat. The top of the doorway uses a 2×1 slope with a cut out to create the perfect 45 degree angle for the entrance way. I like little design touches like that. A lot.
One other nice piece of design is how the advertising boards are connected. In the full size model they were attached to railing pieces which framed them. The obvious choice here would be to use a grey 2×1 bracket, but instead they’re attached using minifig neck brackets which are longer than the adverts they hold (2×1 plates and tiles) so retain the framing found in the original.
The costume shop on the 4th storey is a different matter though, and to be honest, this is the only weak spot of the model. In the original this was a large glass fronted affair, and while this has mostly been faithfully recreated in trans-clear bricks, the corner curve uses a trans-clear 1×1 round brick and the central column of that brick obscures the openness of the rest of the trans-clear bricks and makes the front corner look very cluttered. A trans-clear 2×2 curved macaroni brick would have maybe improved things but maybe they’re not available for designs anymore.
The roof above, the sushi restaurant in the original, has some nice detailing with the black curved slopes interspersed with a red brick and a cheese slope. It’s a nice touch, and one that’s simple and effective. Also present is the table lamp which acted as a play feature in the original but, just like the ball joint that represented the fire control in the original, remains here in a purely decorative capacity.
And finally at the top is the impressive large sand green sign, that increases the height of the model by about 2 and a half storeys. While it’s made very well out of brackets and curves, and has the 6 golden blades fanning out from behind, I do kind of wish it had retained the hole from the original but in a microscale model, some sacrifices have to be made.
It’s a very nice model that was enjoyable to build, with some nice building techniques that, while not mind-blowing, still made me think “oh, that’s neat.” I don’t know how well it would work as a display model because I don’t do that and maybe you’d have to explain to someone what it was the first time they saw it – a conversation piece can be good, right? As someone who likes to build the model, look at it for a few days and then dismantle it and use the parts in something else there’s a lot of bricks in it that I’m eyeing up for other creations. A lot of transparent pieces of all colours, headlights, a few of those new (ish) 2/3 height 1×1 bricks that I’m always grateful for and more minifig brackets that can be very useful in builds.
As mentioned earlier, the Lego Micro NINJAGO City set is only available as a Lego Insiders award for 2700 points, more details at https://www.lego.com/en-us/reward/micro-ninjago-city-3e50f5mxum?icmp=LP-SHCC-Standard-NO_CC_Block_Insiders_Welcome_Rewards_LP-P-NO-JP77V05P5F
