Review: LEGO 76214 Black Panther: War on the Water

February 2, 2023 | 2

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was one of the biggest movies of the 2022, and the second highest grossing movie at the box office last year which features blue underwater warrior characters

It’s also now available to be streamed from Disney+, and to commemorate the wider launch which will enable more fans to watch it, or rewatch it, we have a guest review of the largest set 76214 Black Panther: War on the Water

As the flagship set of the wave (which contained 3 sets), this set depicts the climactic final battle between Wakandan and Talocan forces, and comes with a scaled-down version of the large Wakandan warship.

Early reactions to the set reveal were mixed, at best, and today, we have Vaderfan to see if having the set in-hand can improve these impressions.

If you’re in Australia, the set is currently on sale for AU$69 (RRP AU$130) from Kmart, which is a pretty good deal!

Special thanks to the LEGO Group for sending this set for review.

76214 Black Panther: War on the Water Set Details

Set Name: Black Panther: War on the Water
Set number: 76214
Pieces: 545
Minifigures: 5
Retail Price: US$89.99 / £79.99 / CAD$119.99 / AU$129.99
Theme: Marvel Super Heroes
Release Date: 2 October 2022

76214 Black Panther: War on the Water Unboxing

The front of the box does an impressive job of making the set look as exciting as possible, with minifigures jumping everywhere in battle and the two Wakandan drones flying over the ship.

The back of the box has a pretty sick shot of the Wakandan vessel on stormy waters, as well as image panels of the play features.

Inside the box are 5 numbered bags, a white instruction manual, and a small sticker sheet.

76214 Black Panther: War on the Water Minifigures

The first minifigure in the set is the exclusive Black Panther. The design has pretty nice detailing on the head and torso, with golden and silver accents.

Unfortunately, the ears piece above the head and the legs are still unprinted, just like some past Black Panther figures, which makes the overall minifigure design look under-detailed.

I even think some gold accents on the leg prints would have made the figure look a lot better.

The back of the figure has more of the gold and silver accents.

The Black Panther figure also comes with an alternate head and hair for Shuri when she’s unmasked! This is the same head and hair that come in 76211 Shuri’s Sunbird, but it’s still a welcome addition.

The next minifigure is a new and updated Okoye figure. Her torso has now been updated to a more accurate red colour, and she has a new head print with her face markings.

The back of Okoye’s head has more of the face tattoos printed in a dark red colour, which looks really nice up close but is hard to see from most angles.

Okoye is armed with a silver spear. Nice figure overall, but again, leg printing would’ve been better.

Next up is our first minifigure version of M’Baku, and unfortunately he continues the trend of Wakandan minifigures without leg printing.

His new head and torso prints look great though, and the use of Ninjago Zane’s hairpiece in black was a great choice.

I would’ve liked him to come with the Kraven the Hunter furcoat neck attachment though, as that’s a pretty important part of his costume design and the minifigure doesn’t look as intimidating without it.

M’Baku has a brick-built version of his knobknerrie weapon, which uses just 4 pieces in its construction but is a pretty decent recreation of the in-universe model.

The next minifigure is Namor himself, who’s one of my favorite Marvel figures this year. The character has really detailed torso and leg printing to represent all the Aztec-like details. Unfortunately his face print doesn’t have facial hair like the MCU version of the character, which was likely due to changes to concept art.

Here’s how he looks from the back, with a continuation of his torso printing.

Most impressively, Namor’s legs feature side leg printing, which look amazing. It continues the printed design of his briefs, and even has the wings on his legs that he uses to fly around!

His hairpiece also has printed pointy ears, and overall the figure looks excellently detailed. He comes with a simple silver spear – I would’ve preferred something more complex like the brick-built golden spear in 76213.

The final figure is Riri Williams in her full Ironheart armor. This figure looks great – I love the combination of red, black, and silver. The helmet is the Invincible Iron Man mold first introduced in 2016, with a new black faceplate and light blue “eyes” that looks fantastic.

Ironheart has a brick-built assembly attached at the neck to give her wings. They look good but they do destabilise the figure, meaning it’ll definitely fall over if it isn’t attached to a studded surface.

Riri Williams also comes with her hairpiece and a new double-sided face under the helmet, with smiling and angry expressions.

Overall, the minifigure selection will definitely be a huge draw, with exclusive M’Baku, Black Panther, and Ironheart figures.

However, I think there is still room for improvement, especially in terms of leg printing for the Wakandans.

The Builds

The main build in the set is the Wakandan warship. It measures around 33cm (13″) in length so isn’t exactly very large for a US$90 set.

The construction was also one of the more boring sets I’ve built recently, as it basically uses bricks and large panels to build a hollow, studs-up design that adds a few plates sideways at the end.

It does have interesting curves at the back and angles towards the front, but ultimately it’s really flat on the top and bottom and definitely isn’t a design that will stand out. The shaping of the black angled plates along the sides is quite nice, albeit simple.

The nose of the model is quite interesting, as it narrows to a 1-brick-wide tip. Some trans-yellow bricks are used here to represent the cockpit, and provides a nice contrast to the black and grey bodywork.

However, this nose section is only connected via a couple of Technic axles and is pretty tall, so can be a little wiggly/unstable.

The back of the model has a pair of blue engine thrusters. The deck is also open towards the back.

The ship has a nice open deck, with lots of open studded surface to place minifigures.

The front of the ship has a driver’s section, with two stickered control panels and a stickered trans-purple heads-up display.

This section looks nice, and you can fit a minifigure in the seat to control the ship. It does look a little bit squashed with how narrow the front of the ship is.

There’s another stickered control slope behind the pilot’s seat.

That control panel acts as a handle to open up a trapdoor, which reveals a prison cell below. You can chuck one or two minifigures into the jail cell, but there isn’t much detail down there except some jail bars.

The jail cell is pretty deep so if the minifigure falls to a flat position it can be kind of tricky to get your fingers inside to take it out. Unfortunately, this is all of the usable space underneath the deck – there’s more unused space in the rest of the ship so it really feels like a wasted opportunity to give the model more interior space.

The ship gets a couple of stud shooters, which fire off trans-blue ammo and are mounted on ball joints. They can be posed on a number of angles, but unfortunately can’t be angled downwards so you can’t aim at figures trying to climb onto the ship from below.

The rest of the deck has lots of space to display minifigures though! There is also a tools rack with a bunch of silver repair tools and a pair of red fire extinguishers, the latter are a must-have in any LEGO Marvel Super Heroes sets.

The back of the ship has a couple of storage spaces for extra stud shooter ammo. As this area isn’t fully enclosed around the sides, you can act out a battle where Namor’s forces try to climb onto the ship through the back!

The reason for the massive deck space is because the ship is designed to carry two Wakandan drones. These are mounted on jumper plates in an inverse layout, and they take up most of the deck space when attached.

They have a pretty simple design, and use a couple of stickers for the armor plating and the camera at the front. There are a pair of stud shooters on the front for extra firepower.

You can fan out the blades underneath the tail, and this drone is clearly designed to resemble the Dragon Flyer jets that the Wakandan army employ!

They are way too small to be used as jets, though, especially when placed next to a minifigure. Still, they are quite fun to swoosh around.

Final Thoughts

What I liked:

• Exclusive Ironheart, M’Baku, and Black Panther minifigures
• Lots of deck space for posing figures
• Namor figure is really detailed, although he does appear in smaller sets

What I didn’t like:

• Ship looks fairly uninteresting overall
• Unused space below the deck, wasted potential for more interior detail
• Minifigures could use more leg printing
• Expensive

Final thoughts: In conclusion, 76214 Black Panther: War on the Water is overall a disappointment: the build is simplistic and has a pretty uninteresting design, interior space below deck is left unused or turned into an underdetailed jail cell, and the price of US$90 is a steep ask for a set with under 600 pieces.

The minifigures are somewhat of a draw, especially the really nice Ironheart figure, but the lack of detail on Black Panther, M’Baku, and even Okoye is another minor disappointment.

It’s not the worst playset, and the large deck space allows you to act out minifigure battles on the boat, but for $90 I can’t see a way to justify the overall package.

Build [2] – Pretty uninteresting design, with a slightly boring construction process too due to the use of many large panels.
Minifigures [4] – Some nice minifigures are included, especially the exclusive Black Panther and Ironheart, but there is still room for improvement.
Real Value [2] – $90 USD is a steep price when you consider the final product.
Innovation [1] – Nothing really innovative here, the boat relies on very simplistic techniques and wastes a fair bit of space underneath the deck. A removable deck with interesting interior space would’ve really bumped up the innovation score.
Keepability [2] – Despite being the flagship set of the Wakanda Forever wave, I doubt this set will be very memorable in the long run.

Rating and score: 2/5 ★★✰✰✰

Special thanks to the LEGO Group for sending this set for review.

Thanks for reading! 76214 Black Panther: War on the Water is available from LEGO.com, Amazon, or your local LEGO Store and most toy stores. In Australia, the set is available from Kmart for AU$69!

Check out more of Vaderfan’s guest reviews or follow him on Instagram @vaderfan_2187.

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