Dreamzzz

The Sandman's Tower

A proper little fairy-tale tower with a minifig lineup that punches way above the box.

Brick Rated Score

3.7/5

Set 71477 · 2024

Pieces723

Minifigs6

Year2024

Set number71477

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The verdict

This is one of those sets where the figures did most of the convincing for me.

Getting the Sandman himself and the Never Witch for the first time, plus a taller Logan, is a genuinely lovely haul if you follow the show. The tower itself is charming and reaches a real height, but the interior is thin and the full price is steep, so I would only tell you to jump at it on a discount. Best enjoyed as a play piece for a Dreamzzz-obsessed kid rather than a display showstopper.

Best for: Dreamzzz fans who want the Sandman and Never Witch figures without paying full RRP

The full review

What it is

The Sandman's Tower is the big centrepiece set from Dreamzzz Season 2, Night of the Never Witch, and the thing that got me was the silhouette. It rises to about 47cm in tower mode, a slim fairy-tale spire with a spinning top on the roof, and it genuinely looks like it walked out of the show. There are two ways to build it: the elegant tower, or a squatter fortress with an hourglass cannon bolted to the side. Both come with the fun bits, a weapons rack, a potion station, a magical book, and two posable animal figures in the shape of a bird and a spider. As a story playset it hits the brief, and for a nine-year-old who watches the series it is exactly the kind of thing they will act out for hours.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the caveats, because reviewers were pretty united on them. At full price this set is a hard sell. True North Bricks worked out that at RRP the build time is low for an experienced builder and the value only turns good once you catch it around 45 percent off. The interior is the other sore point. Compared with something like the Temple of the Dragon Energy Cores, the inside of this tower is sparse, a table of potions here, a weapon rack there, and a lot of empty floor. And the two-in-one promise is a little oversold. Turning the tower into the fortress is not a quick swap, it is a proper teardown and rebuild of roughly half the pieces, so most people will pick a mode and leave it.

Who it's for

So who should get this. If you or your kid are into Dreamzzz and you want the Sandman and the Never Witch on your shelf, this is currently the only box that gives you both, and that alone makes it worth watching for a discount. It is also a lovely, sturdy play set for the intended age of nine and up. If you are a display-focused adult chasing a detailed interior or a set that reconfigures on a whim, I would gently steer you elsewhere and let this one come to you on sale. The set is marked retiring soon, so if the figures matter to you, do not sit on it forever.

The parts story

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

The build itself is friendly and quick, very much in the mould of LEGO's kid-facing sets. The core structure eats up about half the parts, and once that spine is up the rest goes fast, with the roof, the balconies and the spinning top adding the character. It is not a technical challenge and there is a fair amount of repetition in the wall sections, but it flows nicely and never gets fiddly, which is the point for the age range.

The real value here is in the figures rather than exotic bricks. You get six of them: Izzie, Mateo, a taller Logan, the Sandman, the Never Witch and her minion Sneak, and the Sandman and Never Witch are debuts, with a couple of the figures unique to this box. Element-wise it leans on the warm sandy tans and soft purples that give the tower its dreamy look, plus that lovely translucent spinning-top piece up top and the hourglass detailing for the cannon. At roughly 12 cents a piece at RRP it is not a bargain bag of parts, but on discount the per-brick maths gets a lot friendlier.

Fun facts

01This set introduced minifigures of both the Sandman and the villainous Never Witch for the very first time.
02It comes with a taller version of Logan, reflecting his older look in Season 2 of the show.
03In tower mode it stands about 47cm (18.5in) tall, giving it more height than its 723-piece count might suggest.
04The build converts between an elegant tower with a spinning top and a fortress armed with an hourglass cannon.