70113 CHI Battles LEGO Review - Chima, 2013

A small set for the price, but comes with a variety of play options...for two players.

TL;DR:

• Original Price:  $19.99
• Pieces: 92
• Minifigure(s): Longtooth, Wakz
• Sticker Sheet: No
  
• Pros: Several different ways to play
• Cons: Minimal build with few parts

 Leftover Pieces

• Interesting Steps:
• description
• Interesting Techniques:
• The top (made, in part, from an inverted conical minifigure hat) fits neatly into the inverted radar dish atop the jungle pillar. I'm not sure how this might be used in other builds, but it's always satisfying to see pieces fitting together even if they weren't explicitly designed to.

• Interesting Pieces:
• The cards are beautifully illustrated, and a great addition to my collection...even if I've never actually played them.

• The Speedorz flywheels are heavy and likely represent the bulk of cost in this set. They were used across 22 other sets, all in the Chima line, and then abandoned. While it would be difficult to incorporate the ripcord action into a larger build, they might make for good wheels, perhaps outriggers for stability.

• The flywheel fairings, designed to evoke the species of their riders, have good printing. They were also each only available in this set, so that might also represent a significant portion of the production cost.

• Pain Points:
• The card layouts seem rather complicated, even with the explanatory diagram in the back of the booklet:

• As someone who—both as a child and an adult—places value on playing games "the right way," I imagine I might have been frustrated by the lack of description with the various gameplay options described in Play Features below. With the exception of the card diagram, the instruction booklet is as word-free as other LEGO offerings (obviously to increase the number of territories the set can be sold in without needing costly translations), which means that players need to interpret the comic book-style pictures to determine how even to play with the toy. The official LEGO Chima webpage has long ago been taken down, and not even the Wayback Machine can find it, leaving only one or two 3rd party websites still hosting the decade-old instructions. While some of the details are simple enough, it could still benefit from a bit more explanation, especially where the cards are concerned.
• The ramps in the third "Ball capture" game are particularly tricky. On a flat, smooth surface, like the Speedorz run best on, the SNOT bracket giving them their angle will scoot along, whereas on a carpeted floor the ramps will stay put but the Speedorz won't be able to run up them. I don't think I had a single run (on any surface) where I got the Speedorz to launch as shown in the instructions. Perhaps adding a rubber element would have kept them in place better. I also wonder if the studs on the edges of the 4x6 plate would cause issues with the launch, assuming there were some way to get the Speedorz to run up them in the first place. It's interesting that the most complicated of the three games is also the one with the most complicated build.
• Play Features: 
  
• Flywheels are activated by round ripcords, thus allowing the teeth to engage no matter which direction the ripcord is held, and their tires have sufficient grip to pull the little vehicles across the (non-carpeted) floor.

• The battle play in this set (and the 21 other themed sets released between 2013 and 2014) was designed to replicate—and replace—Ninjago line's spinjitzu, using themed "Speedorz" to duel with another player. It also is supposed to tie in with the show, where characters fight over Chi (as represented by the crystals won in the duels here, as well as the ball captured in game 3). Here are the three games shown in the booklet, as far as I can determine:
• 1: Top attack - The top is spun, and both players try to hit it with their Speedorz. Whoever hits it wins.

• 2: Bowling - Claw-top pins are set up, and the players take turns trying to knock them all down. Whoever gets the most in a single round wins.

• 3: Ball capture - The jungle tower is set up with a Chi ball underneath, and both players drive their Speedorz up the ramps as they try to knock the tower over, spilling the ball. Then both players scramble to catch the ball, the winner being the one who succeeds. (In retrospect, it might be be easier to catch the ball if it were placed in the top cup of the tower instead).

• Keeping score -  This is where the instructions are very...open to interpretation. According to the 3rd party link above, once one of the games has been completed, each player draws a card and the winner of that game picks which trait (Instinct, Speed, Courage, or Strength) they wish to challenge on. Both players reveal their cards and whichever player has the highest card value for that trait (50 for Strength in the picture) wins two Chi crystals. The first player to get six Chi crystals wins. This could mean, depending on how the various rounds go, that a game could last as few as three or as many as five rounds.
• As mentioned in the link, the cards are almost unneeded: it would be simpler to just give the winner of each round two crystals straight off, rather than have them potentially lose based on a card draw.
• Furthermore, why is it two crystals? Why not just have each round's reward be one crystal? It is nice, I suppose, to get more crystal pieces in a set, but it doesn't quite make sense in terms of the game itself. 
• My Modifications:  
• As you can see in the "Leftover Pieces" section, a lance and a spear are provided but not actually included in the instructions (they are shown once, alongside the completed minifig for Wakz the wolf, but that's it). So I decided that an additional play option would be:
• 4: Jousting - Each minifig gets one long weapon and then the players run them at one another. Whoever manages to unseat his opponent wins.

• Overall:  It's interesting to see LEGO trying to rework the mechanics of something that was quite popular (Ninjago's Spinjitzu) into something new; knowing the history of how it, like Nexo Knights, was intended to replace Ninjago, but how neither lasted beyond a year or two (a combination of marketing issues, less-engaging plots and characters in the related shows, and poor set sales resulting in the cancellation of the shows and therefore the themes as a whole) and yet Ninjago keeps going strong. This set reflects that earlier time.

It's also worth mentioning that the $20 price tag would be far too high even today, but with inflation this set would likely be priced at $28-30. As I guessed above, it seems that the metal flywheels and custom fairings (and possibly also the cost of the card pack) took up a significant portion of the set's internal budget, resulting in a paucity of funds for additional parts and builds. With the exception of the jungle tower, there's hardly any building to be done in this set; as an adult builder, the dueling aspect isn't really a big deal for me...I mostly got the set for the minifigs and cards (and because it was used and therefore super cheap at my local authorized reseller).

The minifigures are great, but Chima always had great minifigures. The illustrations on the cards are fun, but the rest of the set is really lacking. I wouldn't have paid $20 for it in 2013, and wouldn't even pay that much for it in 2026, let alone $28 or $30—if memory serves, it was on the $10 shelf at the reseller—and not really having grown up with friends the two-player aspect wouldn't have added any value. That's the biggest flaw with this set, in my opinion: it relies on one gimmick (dueling racers) for the entirety of its play value, without anything else to add value in other ways.

Score (out of 5 🧱):

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

• Total: 🧱🧱

Lego Instructions: here