With The LEGO Batman Movie now in theaters, we decided to list our picks for the top 5 LEGO Batman sets ever made, and it sure wasn't an easy decision. Here they are, starting with number 5: The Tumbler is a challenging build, with 1,869 mostly black pieces. It’s an intricate design, modelled after the Tumbler seen in The Dark Knight trilogy, and comes in at over 5” high, 15” long and 9” wide. It has an armored exterior, adjustable top wings, a detailed interior, and huge rubber-tread racing tires, as well as exclusive Batman and Joker minifigures. It has been criticized because the figures don’t actually fit inside the Tumbler, but that’s not really it’s purpose - it’s meant to be more of an engaging, quality build for adult LEGO fans, rather than something to be played with a whole lot. The Tumbler (set number 76023) is a little harder to find since it was discontinued by LEGO, but can still be found on Amazon for $325 . The Dynamic Duo Funhouse Escape sure is fun.
It comes with Batman, Robin, The Joker, the Riddler and Harley Quinn, as well as a Batcycle and the funhouse itself. It’s a surprisingly-intricate building, with wagon rails, a crane, a hammer, an opening trap door and a very easy to use, moving floor. The whole thing is 8” tall and 11” wide, with the Batcycle coming in at 4” long. It’s just a really action-packed set, especially considering it’s only 380 pieces and can still be found on Amazon for under $100 . The Joker Steamroller is a much smaller set, with only 486 pieces, but it’s hard to pass up considering how much it comes with. It has 5 minifigures: Batman, Batgirl, Robin, The Joker and a Joker goon (with their own assorted weapons), and two highly detailed vehicles: The Joker’s Steam Roller and the Batwing. The Steam Roller is 5” tall, 7” long and 6” wide, and comes with a unique ‘chunky roller’, flickable laughing gas bombs and, of course, a big smile. The Batwing is 3” high, 11” long and 7” wide, with four flick-missiles, an opening cockpit and attack-mode sweeping wings.
It can be found on Amazon for under $60 . The Arkham Asylum Breakout set features so much detailed content, with a total of 1,619 pieces. It comes with a total of 8 minifigures: Batman, Robin, The Joker, The Penguin, Poison Ivy, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, Scarecrow and a guard, all with their own weapons, to play around in a creatively realized version of Arkham. It has the front of the Asylum itself, featuring some gothic-style decor, moss, vines, and ice elements for added effect, and a separate security gate. The asylum is over 12” tall and 13” wide, and has opening cell doors, a special Poison Ivy cell with transparent doors, a Mr. Freeze ‘icy tower’ room, Dr. Harleen Quinzel’s office and changing room, a medical treatment room and a security reception area, while the security gate has opening double doors and a security camera. There’s a security van, too, with opening back doors, a removable roof, and a stretcher. That’s a whole lot of awesome stuff all packed into one set (number 10937), and it can still be found on Amazon for $299 .
This is the original Batcave from 2006 and it’s still a fan favorite, for good reason. It has a total of 1,075 pieces put together to create Batman’s famous headquarters, including Batman’s costume transformation chamber, a fire-able Bat-Signal cannon, Robin’s jetski, the Batblade ice sledge, and The Penguin’s submarine. It also has a whopping 10 minifigures: Batman, Robin, The Penguin, 3x Penguin minions (which are literal penguins), Mr Freeze, Mr Freeze’s Henchman, Bruce Wayne, and Alfred. If you already own other sets it can house parts of those, too, including a dock for the Batboat and a repair bay for the Batmobile. This super interactive set (number 7783) can be found on Amazon for $686 . Something this popular (and discontinued) doesn’t come cheap anymore! Let us know your picks for the best LEGO Batman sets! We'd offer honorable mentions, too, but the list is way too long. Alanah Pearce is the Toys Editor at IGN, and she actually has a Batman tattoo. You can find her on Twitter @Charalanahzard.
In order to compile a list of the biggest and most challenging Lego sets, it was necessary to narrow down the criteria. First, the sets have to be mass produced by LEGO. In other words, we’re not considering any giant custom sets like the 6-meter Death Star Trench or insane 150,000 piece recreation of Helm’s Deep from Lord of the Rings. Second, we excluded expandable sets such as the Modular Building series that you can keep adding on to like the Town Hall (10224), Green Grocer (10185), and the newly released Palace Cinema (10232) that can be combined together to lay out enormous Lego city scenes. Furthermore, to define what we mean by “biggest” the list considers those Lego sets with the largest amounts of pieces and/or final completed size of the set. As far as “challenging,” most of the sets listed below are suggested for builders aged 16 or older, although I’ve personally seen kids half that age cranking out 1,000+ piece sets with hardly any difficulty. Some of the sets listed below are still available at Lego stores worldwide, while some are out of production.
But you may find retired sets listed for outrageous prices on Amazon or eBay, though, those ones are arguable the best LEGO sets. Once Lego stops selling an item, or if produced in limited quantities, third parties grab those products and jack up the price depending on demand. You’ll find Lego sets a purchase limit per customer on certain items. Last week we created a list of must-have movie-themed Lego sets. Now, here’s a list of the most challenging and biggest lego sets, ordered somewhat subjectively but with consideration of total number of pieces combined with level of difficulty. By the way, the number in the parenthesis represents the Item Number in case you decide to go on a hunt for one of these Lego sets. It’d be hard to argue against Lego’s Star Wars Collector’s Millennium Falcon as being one of the most challenging and largest Lego sets (it also probably ranks as our #1 LEGOs for adults). The $499 Millennium Falcon is suggested for ages 16-years and older but younger kids can probably get through it with some supervision.
The highly detailed scale model is made up of a whopping 5,195 pieces but only 5 mini-figures including Luke, Princess Leia, Han, Chewbacca, and a stormtrooper. Why the set doesn’t include C-3PO and R2-D2 mini-figures is sort of a mystery (weren’t they on the Falcon during the mission to rescue Leia?), but nevertheless the ship itself is more than enough to focus on. The Collector’s Millennium Falcon was released in 2007 and retired in 2010, but remains the most-expensive mass-produced Lego set to date. If you need a little break from science fiction-based Star Wars sets you can jump into an architectural project building the Taj Mahal. The $299 set gives you more bang for your buck than the Collector’s Millennium Falcon, boxing a total of 5,922 pieces (about 700 more than the Falcon). What also makes this set a bit more of a challenge for builders is that all the pieces are all generally the same color. This makes it especially difficult for those who like to dump all their Lego pieces into a pile rather than build bag-by-bag.