Lego Review – Pirate Treasure Hunt (10679)

Set: 10679

Pieces: 57

Theme: Juniors/Pirates

RRP: $15AUD

Build Time: 15 minutes

THE BACKGROUND

YESSSSSS! THE RETURN OF LEGO PIRATES!

Pirates was far and away my favourite Lego theme as a child. Castle was great, Town (later City) had its moments and Space was boss – but my heart belonged to Pirates.

So when I found out that the theme would be returning in 2015, I was over the moon. The sets that have been announced so far are a little on the mixed side – though The Brick Bounty looks great – but I’m hopeful that we’ll see the theme continue beyond this year and grow into its own thing again.  

Today we look at the first of the sets released for this year – Pirate Treasure Hunt, released under the Juniors brand. Juniors is aimed at kids who are too old for Duplo but perhaps aren’t ready for more difficult builds. They use standard brick sizes and minifigures, but tend to incorporate a larger number of pre-built elements than standard Lego sets.

THE MINIFIGURES

Two minifigures are included in the set – a Pirate (unnamed on the box, and Brickipedia hasn’t updated its page yet) and a skeleton (who appears to be actually dead, rather than undead).

The Pirate is presumably some kind of captain, as he’s wearing a hat bedecked with a Jolly Roger, and also has a wooden leg. He’s armed with a cutlass and carries a treasure map; presumably the diorama elements are the “X” marked on the spot.

Though they’re a little on the morbid side, Lego skeletons are always great. This particular guy is wearing a red bandanna. He’s also decked out with a blunderbuss pistol, and has a gem tightly clutched in his skeletal fingers – though you can obviously display him without these extra elements should you wish.  

Additionally, the set includes a shark. It seems to be exactly the same as all of the ones that were released back in the 1990s. This is a good thing – those sharks were great, and it’s always nice to have another.

THE BUILD

There’s not a whole lot of building that goes on in this set. There’s a rowboat, which you do add a few bricks and a barrel to, but is largely pre-built. The other main component is a small set of ruins; presumably it used to be some kind of house or outpost, but it has now fallen into disrepair. The sole occupant is the skeleton, who keeps watch over the very thing that has drawn the pirate captain to this forsaken place – TREASURE!

It’s not the most impressive haul of booty I’ve seen from the Pirates line, but it is quite diverse – a goblet, a gemstone set atop a golden stand and some gold doubloons. These doubloons are a little unusual -- they’re simply 1 x 1 round pieces cast in gold, rather than the actual coins that Lego has used over the years. This may simply be the result of the set being part of the Juniors range, but I couldn’t say for sure.  

OVERALL

Despite its release under the Juniors brand, I’m not sure how suitable this would be for a genuinely young child. There are a large number of small pieces in the form of the gold pieces, the gem and the weapons. Granted, this was all around when I was in this age group too, but we didn’t have such strict laws governing the size of children’s toys. 

Nonetheless, it is a cool diorama set that could easily be incorporated into a larger Pirates display. I’m a huge fan of it. So don’t be put off by the “Juniors” label – invest today!