Set Review: Leyi LY-76030 Iron Hero MK 26 Steel Armor

 

Intro

If you're a fan of the Hulkbuster suits from the Avengers movies, but you're looking for a more affordable alternative to the official Lego set, you might want to consider the Lego Compatible Hulkbuster Mecha building set from Leyi.  

The set is Leyi LY-76030 Iron Hero MK 26 Steel Armor.  The code name for the Mark 26 Armor is called Gamma and is one of the few Iron Man suits not to have a chest mounted ARC reactor.   Here's a wiki page that describes the Mark 26 Iron Man suit in more detail.

I didn't have any great looking Mechas or Hulkbusters in my brick collection and was looking for an inexpensive yet displayable set.  I got this particular set on Aliexpress for around $30 CDN.  It came with free shipping but no further discounts.

There's a few other similarly priced Hulkbuster models on Aliexpress.

What's in the set

This set includes 768 pieces and is fully compatible with Lego bricks. 

I got my set after about 2 weeks of ordering right after Christmas and was surprised at how small the package was for 768 pieces.  The set came with a thin instruction booklet, a sticker sheet and 2 bags labelled #1 for the lower portion and #2 for the upper portion of the hulkbuster.  As you can see on the instruction booklet, this set is rated age 6 and up.

After opening the bags, there were other bags packaged inside.  Overall there were a total of 9 parts bags with the majority of pieces being small 1x1 and 1x2 bricks.   It makes it quite challenging because of all the small pieces.

The instructions were clear enough for the most part, but I do recommend checking each step to make sure you have all the right pieces.   Check twice, build once!

Here's a closer look at the sticker sheet I didn't use.

 

Building the Hulkbuster lower half

These are the sub-assemblies built from the pieces in bag #1.

The lower torso, hip sub-assembly.

Upper thigh sub-assembly.

Lower leg sub-assembly.

The feet sub-assembly.

Lower body, front side.  Knee joint flaps are adjustable.

Lower body, back side.  Gotta adjust those jets.

A closer look at the Iron Man MK 26 suit.  Here is a battle damaged (ie. defective) piece from the set.

And these are the extra pieces leftover from bag #1.

Building the Hulkbuster upper half

Tony takes a breather, as he moves on to all the pieces from bag #2.

The upper body, shoulder and arm sub-assemblies are ready for attachment.  With a few extra pieces leftover.

Upper body assembled.

The Completed Hulkbuster

The cockpit is extremely spacious.  Would have been nice if there was a control panel inside.

Ready for battle!

The view from behind.

The side view.

The jackhammer hand.

The Pros

Once completed, the Hulkbuster suit stands over 7 inches tall (180mm) and just as wide, making it the largest mecha in my collection.  

Here is the MK 26 Hulkbuster next to my Ant-man and Mr. Freeze mechas.  As the majority of Hulkbuster models are red and gold, I liked the dark green colour scheme of this particular model.

When I was looking for a mecha set, I found that many of the lower priced Hulkbuster models had very thin legs and a small waist.  I wanted an affordable mecha but still wanted it to look substantial and this hulkbuster fits the bill perfectly. 

At approximately $30 CDN, this set was one of the less expensive Hulkbuster sets and thought  this was a good balance of parts vs. price. This set is significantly more affordable than an official Lego Hulkbuster set making it a great choice for budget-conscious builders like me.

The Hulkbuster suit features  movable joints and a cockpit that opens to seat a minifigure.  It features articulation at the ankle, knee, hip, elbow and shoulder joints.  The torso can also rotate at the waist.  The hulkbuster mecha helmet is hinged above the cockpit for easy placement of the included minifigure.

The model seems sturdy enough and doesn't lose balance so I can display the Hulkbuster in a variety of poses.  I'll probably take a picture of the Hulkbuster with all of my Iron Man minifigures in the near future.  I think it will make an awesome display.

The Cons

 The Aliexpress illustrations show a slightly metallic sheen to on all the green pieces, but the actual dark green pieces were rather flat.  For example, look at the upper arm just above the silver dot, it looks shiny to me. 

I'm not a huge fan of stickers, so I didn't use the provided sticker sheet.  I was hoping that there would be many printed brick pieces but this wasn't the case for this set.

I got about 20 extra parts with the set, but there was one deformed piece (right side) which I had to replace with one of my own pieces (left side) from my own stash of parts.

In terms of design, the arms reflect the Iron Man's Mark 26 Armor which has jackhammers instead of hands at the end of the arms. So this Hulkbuster can't really hold anything.

After posing the Hulkbuster a few times for my pictures, I found the shoulder ball joints to be a bit loose. I don't know if the other ball joints will loosen over time or not.  At the moment it still displays well and I can make a few poses with the set.

Summary and Rating

Here's the quick recap of the building set:

Brand:  Leyi 

Set Number and Name:  76030 Iron Hero MK 26 Steel Armor

Piece Count:  768 pieces 

Minifigures included: Yes, 1

Stickers or Printed parts:  Stickers

Size: approximately 7 inches in height and width

Cost: around $30 CDN with free shipping

My rating for this set is 3.75 out of 5.  

The Hulkbuster is an affordable and displayable set, but I think it's tad too small and I worry that the ball joints will loosen over time with use.  I would have liked to have seen a more metallic sheen on the pieces as illustrated with printed parts instead of stickers.  

My first reaction to seeing the set for the first time was that it had a lot of really small parts, I expected larger parts for the set.  The included Iron Man minifigure is a nice touch though.  At the price of around $30 CDN, I would still recommend this set, but wouldn't want to pay any more for it.  

Thanks for visiting and let me know what you think of this set in the comment box below.