Contents:

Introduction

This is the second Chinese Traditional Festivals set I'll be looking at for this wave of sets. Earlier I build the 80107-1 Spring Lantern Festival, which I really loved. Hopefully it didn't set the expectations too high for this one. With 1079 parts, it's 700 parts smaller than the 80107-1, so I'll have to take that in consideration.

Again, I want to thank Lee (cityson) for translating all the Mandarin on the printed tiles.

For the background of the set, I'm once again turning to Wikipedia:

According to Chinese mythology, a Nian is a beast that lives under the sea or in the mountains. The character nian more usually means "year" or "new year". Once every year at the beginning of Chinese New Year, the nian comes out of its hiding place to feed, mostly on men and animals.
The earliest written sources that refer to the nian as a creature date to early 20th century. As a result, it is unclear whether the Nian creature is an authentic part of traditional folk mythology or a part of a local oral tradition which was recorded in the early 20th century. Nian is one of the key characters in the Chinese New Year with scholars citing it as the reason behind several practices during the celebration such as wearing red clothing and creating noise from drums and fireworks.

In the building instructions is some great artwork explaining the tradition without words:

The Set

Make Lunar New Year celebrations even more playful for kids as they recreate the Story of Nian with this colorful LEGO® building set (80106). It features a brick-built Asian residence with traditional decorations including buildable fireworks, firecrackers, hanging lanterns and Chun Lian banners, plus 2 cabbage elements and warrior guardian stickers to ward off evil spirits.

For display and role-play fun
The snowy scene is brought to life with a posable Nian creature, a snowman figure and 6minifigures, including grandpa, grandma, 3 children and a person in an ox costume to mark the Year of the Ox. There are also lots of accessory elements for spring-cleaning and telling the legend of Nian in LEGO style.

Celebrate Asian culture
Collectible Traditional Festival LEGO construction toys make wonderful, educational gifts for kids and anyone interested in Asian culture. Great for building and playing with solo or with friends and family, they also make stunning centerpieces.

From LEGO.com

The Box

The box measures 372 x 348 x 66mm and weighs 1410 grams. Inside we find 8 bags numbered 1 through 8, a bag with Energy Effects, 2 Plates 8 x 16 in White, and a foil with the building instructions and a tiny sticker sheet.

The instructions build the set in 111 steps on 199 pages. The pdf can be downloaded here once they become available.

The Parts

The set contains 1079 parts and 40 spares, in 33 colors, and 31 part categories, with a total of 309 unique parts/color combinations.
Main colors are:

• Light Bluish Gray: 50 unique parts, 242 quantity.
• White: 46 unique parts, 200 quantity.
• Red: 36 unique parts, 98 quantity.
• Orange: 22 unique parts, 70 quantity.

Main categories are:

• Plates: 41 unique parts, 139 quantity.
• Plates Special: 41 unique parts, 164 quantity.
• Minifig Accessories: 24 unique parts, 71 quantity.
• Bricks Curved: 21 unique parts, 105 quantity.

Minifigures:

1x Red Torso, Blue Legs, Black Hair, Tan Bag

1x Kid Red Torso, Red Legs, Black Hair, Red Glasses

1x Kid Red Torso, Black Legs, Dark Azure Cap

1x Dark Red Torso, Black Legs, Light Bluish Grey Hair

1x Light Bluish Grey Torso, Dark Blue Legs, Light Bluish Grey Hair

1x Red Torso, Dark Purple Legs, Dark Flesh Bull Mask, White Horns

New Colors

11090
Bar Holder with Clip

32932
Ornamental Asian Lattice with 4 Studs

33085
Plant, Banana

30136
Brick Special 1 x 2 Palisade [aka Log]

22385
Tile Special 2 x 3 Pentagonal

4590
Plate Special 1 x 4 Offset

49307
Brick Curved 1 x 1 x 2/3 Double Curved Top, No Studs

99563
Money / Gold Bar [Ingot]

6636
Tile 1 x 6 with Groove

73120
Minifig Mask Bull

30166
Minifig Shield Rectangular with 4 Studs

42409
Snow Flake 4 x 4

48165
Wedge Sloped 45° 3 x 3 Right

42862
Wedge Sloped 45° 3 x 3 Left

24085
Equipment Mop Head

32828
Plate Round 1 x 1 with Hole and Horizontal Bar

66909
Weapon Hilt Symmetric

New Prints

973c22h01pr0005
Torso Red Arms, Yellow Hands

973c22h01pr0006
Torso Red Arms, Yellow Hands

973c22h01pr0007
Torso Red Arms, Yellow Hands

973c22h01pr0008
Torso Red Arms, Yellow Hands

973c23h01pr0001
Torso Medium Dark Flesh Arms, Yellow Hands

970c00pr9844
Hips and Legs

2431pr9997
Tile 1 x 4 with Black Mandarin 'Out with the old, in with the new' in Gold Circle Print

6636pr9999
Tile 1 x 6 with Black Mandarin 'Welcome the festival with a full house of friends' in Gold Circle print

6636pr9998
Tile 1 x 6 with Black Mandarin 'Enjoy yourself in the celebration of New Year' in Gold Circle print

Rare Colors and Prints

20953
Brick Round 2 x 2 Sphere with Stud [Plain]

67810
Brick Curved 2 x 2 x 1 1/3 with Curved Top - Corner

99781
Bracket 1 x 2 - 1 x 2

3626cpr3266
Minifig Head, Boy, Eyebrows, Open Mouth Smile with Tongue / Surprised Print

3626cpr3067
Minifig Head Wheeler, Glasses, Gray Eyebrows and Stubble, Medium Dark Flesh Cheek Lines and Chin Dimple Print

28802
Bracket 1 x 2 - 1 x 4 [Rounded Corners at Bottom, Square Corners at Top]

99930
Minifig Hair Smooth Combed Sideways

6536
Technic Axle and Pin Connector Perpendicular

3832
Plate 2 x 10

93273
Slope Curved 4 x 1 Double with No Studs

35480
Plate Special 1 x 2 Rounded with 2 Open Studs

66956
Slope Curved 2 x 2 with Stud Notches

4871
Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 2 Double

43892
Animal Body Part / Plant, Tail / Trunk / Tentacle / Tongue / Vine / Tree Branch

44740
Headwear Accessory Bandana Tassle with Pin

47755
Wedge 4 x 3 Open with Cutout and Four Studs [Wheel Arch]

3045
Slope 45° 2 x 2 Double Convex

The Build

Stage 1 starts directly with the wall section. The new Dark Turquoise Palisade bricks are being put to great use here... Seeing they also appear in other 2021 sets, I assume they just needed something to fill the gaps, and these bricks were currently in production.

Stage 2 continues the wall. The doorway looks pretty. On the back, there are a number of 1 x 2 SNOT bricks, probably to hold the fireworks later on.

Stage 3 adds a top to the wall section, and continues the doorway, also adding the doors. The icicles are a nice touch. I'm not a fan of the stickers used on the doors, but according to Lee (cityson), in real life these are posters of the Threshold Guardians stuck on the door, so it's actually better than a print here.

Stage 4 finishes the doorway. Another great use of a recolored part, getting hidden under the roof ;-). I assume for the same reason as the palisade bricks. I must say I like the overall look of the wall, but it's not very thrilling to build, especially right after building the 80107-1. It feels a bit standard.

Stage 5 expands the footprint of the build.

Stage 6 finishes the wall section of the set with some decorations and of course the fireworks. A nice surprise is the use of a previously forbidden technique. Transparent parts were always made from polycarbonate, opposed from the ABS 'normal' parts are made of. A big disadvantage of polycarbonate is it can't be used to slide a bar through a stud-hole, like in a 1 x 1 Brick Round. The friction causes the polycarbonate on the parts to melt a little, which get mixed together, permanently fusing the parts together. The past years, LEGO has been switching to methyl methacrylate acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (MABS) for transparent part, that does not have this problem. As far as I know, this is the first set taking advantage of the new material.

Being a great fan of fireworks, this is my favorite part of the build. I love the use of the energy effect parts to simulate the fireworks being shot in the sky.

Stage 7 starts Nian. There is a lot of SNOT going on here, and the color scheme really pops.

And finally, stage 8 finishes Nian. It's a great-looking beast, that screams Chinese to me. Not sure if this is because it is a good design, true to the real thing, or because I have a stereotypical view on Chinese design. The beast has good posable possibilities.

Conclusion

I had a lighting kit laying around, and seeing there is fireworks in this set, I couldn't resist adding some lights:

This one takes a bit of perspective. Right before this set, I built the 80107-1 Spring Lantern Festival, which I really loved. And compared to that beauty, this one is just a bit less. Disappointing is not the right word here, it's still a good build. It's just the comparison that is skewed.

Judged on itself: It looks great. Fireworks are always helpful to get me into a positive mood. Unfortunately COVID prevented the tradition of New Year's Eve fireworks here in the Netherlands, so this will be as close as I'll get to them this year. The setting is a bit sober compared to other Chinese Traditional Festivals sets, with a large grey wall, but with a nice detailed doorway. There is a lot of creativity in the fireworks. As mentioned earlier, I love the shooting mortars. Nian itself is a great complex build, and is the highlight of the set for me. The wall feels a bit as an add-on to get a full set.

In short: compared to other sets in the theme, it scores a bit low. But that is because the bar is high for this theme. On itself, and compared to for instance the more basic City sets, this one is a good, detailed build, with a good depiction of the tradition.