Minecraft

The Llama Village

A giant blocky llama that spits bricks, wrapped around a build-anywhere village.

Brick Rated Score

3.9/5

Set 21188 · 2022

Pieces1,252

Minifigs6

Year2022

Set number21188

Check price on Amazon

Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

The verdict

This one is unapologetically silly and I kind of adore it for that.

You get a big brick-built llama with a lever on its neck that makes blue blocks tumble out of its mouth, plus six little modules you can scatter around it, stack between its feet, or plonk right on its back. It leans much more llama than village, and the price stings, but if a Minecraft fan in your life lights up at the idea of a spitting llama the size of a small dog, this delivers on the joke.

Best for: Minecraft-obsessed kids age 9 and up who want a big playable centerpiece

The full review

Let's be honest about what you're actually buying here, because the name undersells the star of the show. The Llama Village is really a giant LEGO® set built around one enormous brick-built llama, and everything else orbits that. Pull the little red lever on the back of its neck and blue blocks drop out of its mouth like it's spitting at you, which is the exact kind of ridiculous that Minecraft fans love. The whole animal opens up too, and inside you'll find furnished little rooms with surprisingly nice details, which honestly caught me off guard because Minecraft interiors are usually an afterthought. This set has 1,252 pieces, and the llama eats up a big chunk of them.

Around the llama you get six small modular builds. There's a stone forge that looks great, a farmer's stall, a stable with a gate that opens and closes, a little well with a bell, and some flower plots on small plates. The clever bit is that none of them are fixed. They clip onto the baseplate wherever you want, so you can cluster them into a proper little settlement, tuck them between the llama's legs, or stack them right on its back. Kids will rearrange this thing endlessly, and that reconfigurability is the set's real strength.

Now the caveats, because there are a few. This launched at around 130 dollars, and for that money the building itself is mostly bricks on top of bricks. If you live for clever engineering and unexpected techniques, the llama is a big blocky animal without much sleight of hand, and the four and a half hour build has stretches that drag. The other thing is the naming. Calling it The Llama Village sets you up to expect a bustling town, but this is maybe seventy percent llama and thirty percent village, and the settlement feels a little sparse standing next to that huge central creature. It retired at the end of 2023, so you're now paying secondary market prices, and sealed copies have climbed well past the original RRP.

So who's this actually for? A Minecraft kid age nine and up who wants a big, playable, slightly absurd centerpiece will get a real kick out of it, especially with those six minifigures giving them plenty to act out. If you want tight, technique-heavy building or a display piece that photographs like a diorama, this isn't quite that. But taken on its own goofy terms, a giant llama that spits bricks and hides a village inside its belly, it's hard not to smile at.

The parts story

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

The build splits into two very different jobs. The llama is the main event, and it's a big, chunky animal made largely from bigger bricks, so it comes together fast without a lot of fancy tricks. You spend most of your time layering blocks and then adding the interior rooms and the little spit mechanism, a lever on the neck that drops loose blue blocks out through the mouth. The six modular builds are quicker, snappier little sessions, the forge, the stalls, the stable gate, the well with its bell, and they're where most of the small-scale detailing lives. All told it's around four and a half hours, and it's more engaging than the average Minecraft set even if it rarely surprises you.

For parts hunters there's more here than you'd expect. The set carries a bunch of new-for-2022 Minecraft prints, including a Tile 2x2 with a pixelated map print and the Tile Round 1x2 that was brand new that year and stayed exclusive to Minecraft. The headline piece for collectors is the exclusive bright pink pixelated sheep head, a first for that color. Both the llama knight and the llama herder have back printing, which is a nice touch you don't always get. With six minifigures plus a llama, baby llama, and baby sheep packed in alongside 1,252 pieces, the part-count value is reasonable at retail, though the secondary market price now works against you.

Fun facts

01Pull the red lever on the back of the llama's neck and blue blocks tumble out of its mouth, a nod to real llamas, which really do spit when annoyed.
02The six village buildings aren't fixed in place. You can rearrange them around the llama, wedge them between its legs, or stack them right on its back.
03The set introduced an exclusive bright pink pixelated sheep head, a new color that Minecraft sheep collectors had never seen before.
04It retired in December 2023, and sealed copies have since climbed to well over the original 129.99 dollar RRP on the secondary market.