Ninjago

S.O.G. Headquarters

A biker-gang lair built to be crashed into, and it holds five figures you cannot get anywhere else.

Brick Rated Score

3.8/5

Set 70640 · 2018

Pieces531

Minifigs5

Year2018

Set number70640

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The verdict

This is the Sons of Garmadon motorcycle gang's clubhouse, and the whole thing is engineered to be smashed apart by Lloyd's Spinjitzu spinner.

What sold me is the minifigure lineup: all five are exclusive to this box, including Zane in his undercover Snake Jaguar disguise and the wonderfully unhinged Ultra Violet. If you loved Season 8 or you build for play rather than a shelf, this one earns its keep. If you want a clean architectural model, this is not that.

Best for: Ninjago Season 8 fans and kids who build sets to knock them down

The full review

What it is

The S.O.G. Headquarters is the lair of the Sons of Garmadon, the biker gang that runs through Ninjago's eighth season, and LEGO designed the whole model around wrecking it. You launch Lloyd on his Spinjitzu spinner, aim him at the building, and the front blows open so you can grab the Oni Mask of Hatred inside. The first time the entrance popped and the mask flew out, I laughed out loud. It is pure kinetic play, and it commits to that idea completely rather than pretending to be a display piece.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the trade-off. Because every wall and platform is rigged to move, explode, or spin, the finished lair looks more like a pile of clever mechanisms than a real building. Some of those triggers are touchy too, so a wall drops when you are just trying to reposition a figure, and that gets old if you like your sets to stay put. At 531 pieces it also builds fast, and a good share of those pieces are the small technic and clip parts that make the functions work rather than anything you will pause to admire. This was never a quiet, meditative build, and it does not try to be.

Who it's for

So who should track this one down. If you followed the Sons of Garmadon arc, or you are buying for a kid who treats a set as a toy to be crashed and rebuilt a hundred times, it delivers exactly what it promises and the minifigures alone make a strong case. The five figures are the real prize here, and every one of them is exclusive to this box. If you build for the shelf, or you want an intricate model that rewards a slow afternoon, I would point you elsewhere. This is a play set through and through, and it is a genuinely fun one for the right person.

The parts story

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

Building this is less about architecture and more about assembling a machine. You spend most of the time wiring up functions: the spinning blade, the spinning wheel with its minifigure attachment point, the spinning hammers, and the explode mechanism on the front entrance. It comes together quickly and the instructions keep the action features clear, so a younger builder can handle it solo. The satisfying moment is not clicking the last brick on, it is the first time you fire the spinner and watch the whole front blow apart the way it does on screen.

The standout parts are the printed and character elements rather than any rare structural mold. The Oni Mask of Hatred is the centerpiece piece, and there is a printed Sons of Garmadon sign, an ATM detail, and the Oni Bike in its little workshop bay. The five exclusive figures carry most of the value: Snake Jaguar (Zane's disguise), Ultra Violet, Lloyd, Nails, and Skip Vicious together are worth close to fifty dollars on their own, which is remarkable in a set that launched at forty. On a pure part-count basis the box is average, but the figure lineup is what makes it hold value.

Fun facts

01All five minifigures are exclusive to this set, and together they are valued at around $49 on the secondary market, nearly the set's entire original retail price.
02The set launched at $39.99, retired in 2018, and now sells sealed for roughly $75 to $120, an increase of well over 100 percent.
03Snake Jaguar is not a separate villain but Zane going undercover inside the gang, a disguise that only exists as a minifigure in this box.
04The build ties directly into Season 8 of the Ninjago show, Sons of Garmadon, which introduced the biker-gang villains and the Oni masks.