I tend to avoid some of the repeating CITY subthemes like police or fire, but I find some of the less repeating sets interesting sometimes. The last CITY set I reviewed was #60204: City Hospital (the previous City Hospital was 11 years prior). Today we’ll go through the smaller #60222-1: Snow Groomer. I’m not sure where this set fits in as it doesn’t really fall into the Arctic subtheme and there aren’t any other similar sets in the lineup and I don’t recall there being a skiing set out there unless I’m missing something. It’s an interesting concept nonetheless.
This one was released in the US on 1 January 2019. It contains 197 pieces and retails for $19.99 or $0.101 per piece. I got mine for this review from Amazon.com for 20% off or $15.99 ($0.089 per piece). It definitely pays to wait a few months to save a few dollars as the trend seems to be the Amazon.com, Walmart, and Target run sales soon after release these days versus having to wait for the end of a set’s life to catch it on clearance before it retires.
Here’s the box. The front shows the set with its snow cannon feature and the back shows the snow cannon again along with a minifigure happily building the set. It also shows that you can set up the snow cannon on the ground.
The contents include two parts bags, a small sticker sheet, and an instruction booklet. I was happy to see that the instruction booklet was nicely placed inside and not jammed in with a massive crease in it when you take it out.
The first bag builds the base. Some Technic pieces make up the main portion and then you attach on the treads. Then there’s a spot for you to attach the cab and the plow. But let’s focus on the wheel in the middle for a minute… I’m not a fan. It makes the set slightly off balance and a little unrealistic in my opinion. However, with an age range of 6+ for the set, I’m pretty sure the concern was that kids would be frustrated that the treads don’t move easily. The table surface I built on is a good example. With the wheel, the treads move great. To be fair, it is easy to build this without the wheel in the middle. It is there for the play factor and that makes sense to me.
Bag one also comes with the two minifigures. One is a male in a bright orange jacket with a winter cap and gloves on. He has some long side burns and a mustache too. The other is a female skier. She’s got a helmet, goggles printed on versus attached to the helmet, a ski jacket, two poles, and two skis. Both have no designs on their pants. I remember growing up and playing with LEGO with my sister. We would argue over who got the limited number of female minifigues that we had. Most were male and it made for a pretty lopsided town. I’m thankful that LEGO has changed and we now have a very diverse crowd. My town today has a great mix of the two genders.
The second bag assembles the cab on top and the snow cannon. It also adds the plow in front. The cab is pretty simple and comes with a coffee mug so the worker can drink and plow. The cannon feature has been seen before only this one shoots snow (white 1x1 round plates). I don’t think I’ve ever tested the feature before, but these things go pretty far when shot. I’m sure some parents will be vacuuming up some 1x1 round plates in the near future. You do get a few extras in the set though so a kid hopefully won’t lose them all right away.
The plow needs a redesign. I’m okay with how it looks, but the attachment is very awkward. You can see a lot of the Technic axles sticking out and the plow just slides in and is not held in place. My suggestion for a redesign would be to either modify the attachment of the plow or to cover it up somehow so it doesn’t look so awkward. I would also make it so that it stays on. If a kid is playing with the plow down and decides to back it up, the plow slides off. It needs to stay on. I would think the LEGO designers would have caught that when designing the set.
Overall it is a pretty neat set that we haven’t seen in the LEGO CITY range before. There are a few minor design flaws in my opinion, but an AFOL with a large parts stash could easily refine this set to make some improvements. The option to pick this set up on sale makes it a little easier to swallow so look for it at some of the big retailers at a discount. It may get discounted more closer to the Christmas season.
I think this one is a win. What are your thoughts?
Happy building!
