My Problem with Ninjago Sets

I believe that as time has gone on, the sets have focused too little on the enemies of the wave. How many times has a wave been revealed and someone has made the “Oh look the ninja get a bike, a jet, a car, and a dragon” joke?

In the beginning, The skulkin and serpentine had a variety of vehicles at their disposal, while the ninja had a dragon and a vehicle.
The final battle was a much smaller wave than the first two, but it still felt like the ninja didn’t have too much up on the enemies.
In the following seasons, there are a handful of sets that focus on the enemies, but it is still early in Ninjago’s life and it doesn’t feel over done.

I think with the introduction of Legacy is where this sentiment came to a front. Because all of the first wave of Legacy, and most of Legacy to this day, are remakes of the ninja’s vehicles. And Core carries this legacy.

After Legacy we begin to see only 1 or 2 sets focusing on the villains per wave. These sets are the 1st or 2nd biggest sets of the wave, or sometimes both (Prime Empire, MotM)
That isn’t really a problem, after all they are the antagonists, why shouldn’t they get a big set to show off their power/biggest threat? No, the problem is that it is the only set the villains get. No ammasable vehicles for the grunts, no sets focusing on a minor villain, or giving much flavor to the main antagonist’s army (because they usually have one).

Looking closely at the first half, I do recognize this problem has been around since the Final Battle, however the villains would get 3 or 4 sets per wave. Additionally, with 1 of 2 yearly waves being taken up by Legacy/Core, the lack of villain based sets is exacerbated to 1 or 2 villain sets not per wave, but per year.

I would like to say I also consider sets that feature a villain vs ninja where they have comparable-sized vehicles as included in “sets that focus on villains”, so the Dragon Temple core set from the summer '22 wave counts as the 1 set from core that focuses on a villain.

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honestly man i can agree - in my opinion the most egregious example of this is legacy - minus the giant stone warrior - there has been very little substantial villain builds, i just want some serpentine vehicles…
(also those dragon things in the second crystalized trailer look dope i wish those were their own set)

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My brother was more into villain vehicles. He always wanted the Garmatron. His first Rebooted set was the Destructoid, his most valued 2015 sets were the ghost bike and the Anacondrai vehicle, he pretty much lost interest soon after that, so I’m really surprised they apparently didn’t sell that well. Otherwise they wouldn’t be so reduced in quantity.

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It’s not just with Ninjago, it’s with Lego in general. Monkie Kid, Hidden Side, even the licensed themes like Star Wars-whenever I set up all my sets in some kind of battle scenario, the bad guys always seem to be at an unfair disadvantage.

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Its bad because if you are playing with them, and the bad guys have little to fight with, then its just easy victory for the good guys. If you want to use the sets to supplement the respective media, well then the bad guys are less of a threat. Also from the alternative media, there is probably interesting stuff the bad guys have, unless their threat is overwhelming numbers, which is very bland for toys

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Simple: the hero sets sell better.

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