Super Heroes Marvel

Black Panther: War on the Water

A so-so ship carrying one of the best Marvel minifigure line-ups of its year.

Brick Rated Score

3.4/5

Set 76214 · 2022

Pieces553

Minifigs5

Year2022

Set number76214

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The verdict

I bought this one entirely for the people on the deck, and I suspect most of us did.

The Wakandan warship is fine to look at and genuinely dull to build, but Namor, Ironheart, M'Baku, Okoye and Shuri as Black Panther are a knockout five. If you collect Marvel minifigures, this is worth hunting down now that it has retired. If you want a model that fights back and rewards you, keep walking.

Best for: Marvel minifigure collectors who care more about the crew than the boat

The full review

What it is

This is the climactic sea clash from Wakanda Forever boiled down to one Wakandan warship, and I will be honest about where my heart went the moment I opened it. Straight to the minifigures. The boat is a reasonable 13 inches of grey and gold with a jail, hidden weapon compartments, spring shooters and two neat little drones, and it photographs perfectly well on a shelf. But the reason I kept this set and the reason it still trades hands is the five people standing on it. King Namor alone almost justifies the box, and I mean that.

The catch

Now the part I cannot talk around. The build is boring. There is no kinder way to say it. The hull is a hollow studs-up structure that leans hard on large panel pieces, so you spend a lot of the session clipping big flat parts onto a frame and waiting for something clever to happen. It rarely does. Reviewers across Brickset, Jay's Brick Blog and Eurobricks landed in the same place I did, calling it one of the more tedious sits in recent Marvel memory. Add the 89.99 dollar launch price and the maths gets uncomfortable, because you are paying flagship money for a mid-tier model and a fantastic figure pack stapled together. The value only really makes sense if you count the crew, whose combined worth is a big chunk of the sticker.

Who it's for

So here is who I would point toward it. If you are a Marvel minifigure collector, this is a yes, especially now that it has retired and the launch premium has cooled off. Getting Namor, Ironheart MK2, M'Baku, Okoye and Shuri in one box is a tidy shortcut, and four of them were exclusive here. Kids who loved the film will happily fire the shooters and swoosh the drones around without noticing the flat build at all. But if you build for the joy of the engineering, if you want techniques and surprises and a model that earns its keep, this ship will let you down. Buy it for the deck, not the boat, and you will not be disappointed.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building the warship is a study in patience rather than delight. Much of the assembly is a repeating rhythm of laying down a frame and cladding it in oversized panels, so the hull comes together fast but without the little aha moments that make a good LEGO session sing. The two drones are the exception and easily the highlight of the construction, small enough to be fiddly-satisfying, with fold-away rotors and their own shooters, and they park neatly on the deck when you are done. Everything else is competent and forgettable.

The real material story lives in the minifigures. Namor is the standout by a mile, with side leg printing for his winged ankles, dense Aztec-inspired torso and leg detail, and a hairpiece molded with those pointed ears, one of the best Marvel figures of 2022 full stop. Ironheart MK2 is the collector magnet and the single most valuable figure in the box, while M'Baku, Okoye and Shuri's Black Panther fill out an exclusive-heavy roster. If you strip the set for parts you are really keeping it for these five, whose combined value sits close to the entire set's going rate.

Fun facts

01Four of the five minifigures were exclusive to this set at release, which is a big part of why it holds value on the aftermarket.
02The set launched in October 2022 alongside Wakanda Forever and retired in December 2023, a fairly short shelf life of a little over a year.
03Ironheart MK2 is the most valuable single figure in the box, and the five figures together are worth a large slice of the set's total resale price.
04Namor's flight is represented by winged detail printed onto the sides of his legs, a nod to the tiny ankle wings from the comics and film.