Elves

Emily & Noctura's Showdown

The last stand of LEGO Elves, and the theme went out swinging.

Brick Rated Score

4.0/5

Set 41195 · 2018

Pieces652

Minifigs2

Year2018

Set number41195

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The verdict

This is the set where the whole Elves story finally lands, Emily against Noctura, and it feels like it.

You get a moody laboratory, a buildable wolf named Lumia, and a black winged carriage that actually flaps. It leans playset over display piece and the mini-dolls won't win over everyone, but the colors and that carriage are genuinely lovely. If you or a kid in your life followed Elvendale for four years, this is the goodbye you want.

Best for: Elves fans who want the finale, and parents building alongside a 9-plus kid

The full review

What it is

Emily & Noctura's Showdown is the very last LEGO Elves set, the one that closes out four years of story with a face-off between Emily Jones and the dark elf Noctura. That context is what got me. Most sets are just sets, but this one carries a whole theme on its back, and it knows it. You build a shadowy laboratory with a magic cauldron and hanging bat beds, a fully posable wolf called Lumia, and Noctura's black carriage with wings that flap when you push it along. At 652 pieces it sits in that comfortable middle ground where there's enough going on to keep you interested without eating a whole weekend. The whole thing photographs a little flat, but in person the colors sing and the play features actually do what they promise, which is not always a given.

The catch

Here's the honest part. This is a play set through and through, so if you were hoping for a display piece to sit next to your Modular buildings, this isn't that. The laboratory is more of a stage for the story than a solid structure, and it opens up and splits for access the way kid-focused sets do. The build also has a couple of fiddly stretches, especially the carriage mechanism, and a younger builder will want a grown-up nearby for those. And I'll be straight with you, mini-dolls and a fairytale premise are a taste thing. If they've never done anything for you, this set won't be the one that flips you. The price stung a little at 50 dollars new for the piece count, and now that it's retired you'll pay a good deal more, which turns a fun toy into a collector decision.

Who it's for

So who should chase this one down? Anyone who loved LEGO Elves and wants the proper ending, because this is the climax the whole line was building toward, and owning the finale means something. It's also a genuinely nice build to do alongside a kid around nine or older, the kind of afternoon where you each take a section. If you're a pure display collector, or mini-dolls leave you cold, let this one go without guilt. But if Elvendale ever charmed you, or you're buying for a young builder who lives in imaginative worlds, this is a warm, colorful, satisfying send-off that deserved better than to be forgotten when the theme ended.

The parts story

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

Building this is a pleasant back-and-forth between three little projects. The laboratory goes up first and it's the most conventional part, walls and a cauldron nook and those sweet hanging bat beds. Then you get Lumia the wolf, a buildable figure that comes together with real posability, and finally the carriage, which is the highlight and the trickiest bit. Threading the Technic linkage so the wings flap as the wheels turn is the moment the set earns its keep. It's not a hard build overall, but it has enough variety that you never feel like you're just repeating the same module twice.

For parts people there's real treasure here. The palette alone is worth it, dark turquoise, light aqua and magenta together, a combination LEGO almost never commits to this fully. You get a new lantern element, translucent fluorescent green scrolls that glow against the dark walls, and titanium metallic wheels on the carriage that look far more expensive than they are. Noctura's black and dark plum pieces are still useful in bulk today, and the winged carriage frame is a genuinely unusual assembly. For a 652-piece set, the ratio of interesting recolors and rare printed parts to plain bricks runs high.

Fun facts

01This was the final LEGO Elves set ever released, closing out the theme's four-year run from 2015 to 2018 with the story's climactic showdown.
02The carriage's flapping wings are driven by hidden Technic elements, so the wings beat as you roll it across the floor.
03The set introduced a new lantern piece and debuted colors like trans-fluorescent green scrolls and titanium metallic carriage wheels.
04Alongside Emily and Noctura, the set includes Lumia the buildable wolf plus Phyll and Myzo the bats and a spider, packing the finale with creatures.