This set has several things going for it. First, it's got el tigre! The tiger cub is a new mold and I am hoping we'll get a few new paint jobs in the future with it. Not, like, a purple one, but perhaps a white one as a Bengal tiger really should be.
Second, the mini-build contains several new parts. Arches and palisade bricks in lavender, plus new swirls in pearl gold. Also new grass stems in bright green. The grass and swirls are in some expected colors but the lavender wall and arch elements are a little more reminiscent of some sort of Cloud Cuckoo Palace without the lime. The part out value of this set is the highest of series 4 due mostly to the tiger, grass stems and swirls.
The microbuild is sort of reminiscent of the Taj Mahal. The set up looks like a waterfall coming down behind an arch and flowing into a little pool. Our big cat stands on a piece of ice or something in the center of the pool. Personally, I'd like to see the tiger IN the water as they are one of the few water loving felines. The underside of the tiger is such that it will fit on a single stud or two studs front and back. It can fit on two studs in the middle of a larger plate but that would make it off center here. TLG appears to be all about the symmetry.
Make no mistake, a tiger could rip your throat out and devour your gizzards before you could blink. But this set brings that down a notch to a doe-eyed plastic cutie pie that'll make you want to pet one of these at your local county fair. Spray not included. For 42 + 5 extra pieces, the value is here but you'd have to buy quite a lot to get a good number of lavender building elements. My set recommendations aren't worth a whole lot since the factors vary every time. But this certainly is something slightly more unique in the Friends Animal series and worth getting.
