Some LEGO sets get our attention because of their pop culture source material. Others impress us with their complicated design. Occasionally, a set will get us excited just because we totally didn’t see it coming. That’s exactly how we feel about the LEGO Dragon Boat Race, a set that lets you reproduce a festival race right on your tabletop.
Quite an unexpected treat for LEGO fans, the set lets you stage your own LEGO dragon boat race, pitting one ornately decorated canoe against another in a battle of paddling skills. Yes, the minifigs won’t actually paddle and the darn boats aren’t designed to actually run on water (heck, they might not even float), but playing with LEGOs has always been about letting your imagination loose and this one definitely gets the gears in my head running for a heck of a lot of fun times.
The LEGO Dragon Boat Race recreates the colorful sights of a Dragon Boat Festival, giving folks a pair of three-seat paddle boats (with extra room in the deck to fit standing minifigures), one green and one blue. Both come with the signature dragon heads, complete with a movable mouth, as well as a posable tail that you can adjust to change up the aesthetic. Since you’re going to be playing with this on a tabletop instead of a bathtub, they put in wheels at the bottom, which should be small enough to easily conceal when seeing the boat on a display shelf, while being large enough to let you smoothly glide the boat across a flat surface.
A dock provides a place for viewers to watch the race, so you can have an audience cheering on the racers, complete with a public viewing area and an elevated section for the judges (they need to see better, after all). There’s also a food stall right on the dock, in case any of the minifigures get hungry for some grub while watching the race.
The LEGO Dragon Boat Race comes with 15 total minifigures. These include six paddlers to sit on the boats (three on each watercraft), two drummers to provide cadence for the paddlers (one on each boat), two helmsmen to coordinate the action (one on each boat), three spectators, a food stall vendor, and a judge. Since these are standard minifigures, you can use any characters already in your collection, so you can put Disney, Star Trek, or Stranger Things characters either on the boat or in the stands.
It comes kitted with full accessories, such as flag posts for the finishing line, paddles and drums for the boatmen, a trophy for the winner, flags for the spectators, and various stuff for the food stall (cookware and fake food items). Each boat measures 14 x 1 x 1 inches (length x height x width), while the dock measures 12 x 5 x 2 inches (width x height x depth). A total of 643 pieces are included in the set.
The LEGO Dragon Boat Race is coming in June, priced at £44.99.