Mei's Guardian Dragon

Building the dragon is the good kind of fiddly. The torso goes together on an angled technique that both shapes the body and creates a scale effect down the sides, and it locks up sturdier than you'd expect thanks to plates layered over brackets. Little plant-leaf elements stand in for frilled scales along the legs, the hinge plates in the tail give you that whippy motion, and the pearl-gold wings hide their stud cannons well enough that they don't wreck the silhouette. It's a build with real personality, the sort where you keep turning the model to see the shape emerge.

For parts people there's genuine interest here. The standout is a pair of exclusive printed dragon-eye tiles in tan, gorgeous detail, though frustratingly they sink into shadow against the white head (the one design miss builders keep flagging). Dark turquoise inverted curved slopes show up in useful quantity, and there's a run of white round bricks and pearl-gold pieces that are handy in a parts drawer. The figures pull real weight too: Power-Up Mei and Mr. Tang both have double-sided heads and intricate suit printing, and the Yellow Tusk elephant demon uses a single moulded head in yellow that forms the trunk, ears and tusks all at once. That elephant head alone is worth a closer look.