I had a hunch that we might be seeing the 2014 LEGO Ninjago winter sets sooner than later, and LEGO has now officially verified that! The online LEGO Store has now confirmed that we will be seeing the new LEGO Ninjago sets released on December 1st, 2013–just in time to give (or receive) the best LEGO Ninjago Christmas presents! Along with that confirmation, we finally got to see clear, high-resolution images of one of the best sets from the winter Ninjago wave: the Ninjago LEGO NinjaCopter 70724!

Thanks to retailer slip-ups, we ended up seeing pretty much every one of the LEGO Ninjago 2014 sets early in all of their glory! The one set that somehow slipped through the cracks, however, was one of the larger sets for LEGO Ninjago 2014: the LEGO NinjaCopter 70724!

This is the biggest “heroic” vehicle in the LEGO Ninjago Winter 2014 sets lineup, and also the most major threat to the evil (and awesome) LEGO Ninjago Nindroid MechDragon!

The 70724 LEGO Ninja Copter itself is very cool with its white color scheme and blue lightning deco designs on the sides. The Ninjago NinjaCopter will be over a foot long (13″) and 6″ wide. It actually took me a minute to realize why this set is categorized as being a “copter”, as I didn’t notice the two different propellers on the NinjaCopter right away. With firing missiles, shooting cannons, and rotating rear jet engines, this is not your run-of-the-mill LEGO helicopter, that’s for sure!

For all those times when you want to take an enemy prisoner and it seems illogically, to keep him in the cockpit with you, the NinjaCopter has a little jail cell in the rear of the vehicle for keeping a rogue Nindroid prisoner. Now there’s practicality for you!

The Ninjago LEGO 70724 NinjaCopter will contain four minifigures: a battle-scarred White Ninja Zane minifigure (with half his robot face showing!), Pixal, and two generic Nindroid minifigures. This set is the only place to get the updated Zane minifigure in the new wave of sets, making it a real must-have! You also get Zane’s Falcon for the very first time exclusively with this set, which I think is a very exciting inclusion for fans of the Ninjago cartoon.

There’s even a little Nindroid Jet Fighter for the Nindroids to fly into battle on!

The LEGO Ninjago Ninja Copter 70724 and the rest of the winter 2014 Ninjago sets are scheduled to be released by 12/1/2013 on Amazon and other online LEGO Stores, so they should arrive in time to function as great LEGO holiday gifts for your loved ones (or yourself!). As this is the largest “hero” vehicle for the Ninjago ninjas in the new wave, this particular set is sure to top many childrens’ Christmas wish lists for LEGO presents!

What do you think of the Ninjago Ninja Copter, LEGO fans? Is this a “must-buy” for you, or merely a “we’ll see”?