71854 Cole's Mission Mech & Dragon Zane LEGO Review - Ninjago, 2026

A comparatively-inexpensive way to get a dragon-form ninja.

TL;DR:

• Original Price: $29.99
• Pieces: 364
• Minifigure(s): Cole, Acid Monster, Zane Dragon Form
• Sticker Sheet: No
  
• Pros: cheapest set with a dragon form, some interesting mech build techniques
• Cons: mech has limited flexibility, no environmental builds

Assembly: 

Bag #1 - Cole, Acid Monster, mech torso

Bag #2 - Zane Dragon Form, mech legs

Bag #3 - Mech arms & weapons

 Leftover Pieces

• Interesting Steps:
• 30: it always feels weird using only one clip when a piece has two, but since these flag pieces merely fold around the chestplate and aren't structural otherwise, there isn't too much of a connection issue (and it means that the chest piece didn't need to be built out further just to add more angled bars to clip onto).

• Interesting Techniques:
• Overlapping 1x2 tan round plates are used to lock the mechanical claw in place, which creates a very sturdy hold (unlike using a single clip to hold the claw's bar).

• The thick two-fingers-and-thumb design of the mech's hands are fitting for Cole, adding to the mech's rock golem vibe.

• A 1x2 plate with door rail is inserted in the "palm" of the mech's hands, just above the Technic pin (as you can see in the image above). This does an excellent job of securing any weapon to be gripped, keeping it from flopping around.

• I appreciate that the cockpit is designed to accommodate the studs on the back of Cole's shoulder pads, giving him ample room to be put in place without needing to remove them every time.

• Interesting Pieces:
• Printed black 33º double inverted slope 2x2

• Pain Points:
• Dragon Zane is too powerful! He cannot be contained by mere ink and paper! In actuality, the printing on the manual in this set leaves something to be desired, registration-wise, resulting in images that seem to vibrate (you can tell it's not just a blurry photo by how sharp some of the elements are, like the step number and "rotate" symbol)

• The cockpit is clearly designed to completely enfold the pilot, making less like an exo-suit (like most of the LEGO mechs I've built thus far) and more like a complete mech (of the sort shown in Evangelion or Pacific Rim), where the pilot effectively becomes the mech. I could see Cole using his elemental power to pull rocks and metal around himself, until only the glowing eyes of the head reveal any trace of his emotion (since as of writing we're still 1 day away from the release date of the new season, I can't be certain). That said, the effect is marred by the fact that it doesn't fully enclose him, leaving some of his hair still visible beneath the mech's chin. A few black pieces attached either to the head or chest to act as a gorget would have taken care of this issue, which makes the build feel rather first-drafty.

• While the ball and socket shoulder joints allow for the mech's arms to be posed, they don't have enough gripping power to keep the arm in place when it's holding the very heavy gun attachment. There are 8 seconds between these two photos, showing the droop that happens once the posed arm is released and left to stand on its own. A click-hinge (such as is used in the leg joints of big mechs like 80043 "Yellow Tusk Elephant") might be too robust for such a small build (especially since its hips have the same ball joints), so perhaps the solution would be scaling back the weight of the arms and gun?

• I've never been a fan of fake joint pieces—both the 2x6x2/3 bent plates used for knee and elbow "joints" here, and the A-shape plates used elsewhere (for example, in 76185 "Spider-Man at the Sanctum Workshop"). They feel, to me, like half-measures, cost-cutting or build-simplifying where actual hinges and joints would have been more enjoyable. These also allow this mech to have almost feral dog-leg-style knee joints, which seem a bit odd. After all, if this were an actual machine, that would be putting a lot of stress on the joints involved, but without much mechanical advantage that I can see. That said, like the two-fingered hands, it definitely gives the mech a more feral look.

• Play Features: 
  
• I wasn't sure whether to class this under "Interesting Techniques" or "Pain Points"...but technically it's a play feature, so I'll list it here: the weapons are interchangeable. The interesting part is that they're built with Technic pin holes to be able to gripped by the mech's hands, the pins on its back, or even grown-up Riyu's mouth and tail (set 71855); the painful part is that the 3L frictionless Technic pins on the mech's back are limp and floppy. If they had been standard black friction pins, they would have allowed any weapons stored back there to be posed as well, but here they just swing around and get in the way.

• Overall:  This was a quick build (about 2 hours, to judge by the timestamps on my photos) and has the problem I've often seen, where the build and figures are basically floating in the ether, without any environmental pieces to ground them (a bit of jungle, or a 6x6 ruined temple wall, or anything to give a sense of where they are and what they're doing). This also means that the set is just three minifigs and a mech. 

Despite the structural and design limitations I've listed above, Cole's mech does look pretty cool; I could see it being a jumping off point for further modifications (a rock-ball fist, for example, or lighter weapons). That's one of the advantages of sets that don't feel quite perfect: they're less "precious" and it's easier to rebuild and adapt them to your own purpose and style (as I did with set 31025 for my "I Like Trains" House). 

The Cole and Acid Monster minifigs are fine, but the real star is the Zane dragon form minifig. Since each ninja's dragon form is restricted (at this point) to a single set, a collector has to get the whole Dragons Rising Season 4 line to be able to claim them all (or spend a hundred dollars or more to buy them from sellers on eBay who've done the collecting for them). It'll be interesting to see what the new season brings and how the dragon forms look "live." My two complaints with the dragon form minifigures is (as I'd mentioned in a previous review) that the tails' undersides are hollow, and that they are given ninja headwraps (a sort of combination zukin and hachigane) that look dragony...instead of having molded dragon heads that reinterpret each character's human form into a more draconic visage. That would have been cool.

But still the set isn't too bad, and is a good pick for completionists as well as new Ninjago fans. $30 is a pretty fair price point, though I could see it easily being $25 (or else adding a $5 little microbuild of some scenery). There aren't a lot of special pieces—with the exception of the Acid Monster and Zane Dragon Form, the only unique element I noticed was the printed brick listed above—and while there are some unusual build techniques, it doesn't stand out as a fantastic set.

Score (out of 5 🧱):

• Price: 🧱🧱🧱🧱
• Process: 🧱🧱🧱
• Presentation: 🧱🧱🧱
• Play: 🧱🧱🧱🧱
• Pieces: 🧱🧱

• Total: 🧱🧱🧱

Lego Instructions: here