LEGO Chess Set 40174 Review: 1,400 Bricks, 64 Squares

A chess set needs 32 pieces and 64 squares. The LEGO Chess Set 40174 gets there with more than 1,400 bricks. Verdict up front: it's a good build, a clever storage box and a mediocre chess set. Buy it for the first two reasons and you'll be happy. Buy it because you want a board to play on and you'll be shopping again by spring.

What it is and who it's for

Set 40174 is a buildable chessboard with buildable playing pieces, and the whole board opens so the 32 pieces drop inside when you're done. The listing also says it plays checkers. One box, two games, no loose pieces rattling around a drawer. For a family with a kid who's just learning the moves, that combination is hard to argue with. I'd still send anyone who wants a board for actual games toward chess sets with a published king height and a bit of weight behind each piece.

The audience here is LEGO people first and chess people second. A 64-square brick board on a coffee table is a conversation piece, and the build itself is the entertainment. A tournament hall is not where this thing belongs, and it doesn't pretend to be. Club night is a different room entirely, where the board is a tool and the pieces have to survive a clock press, a scoresheet and a 40-move game without shedding a rook.

What the specs actually tell you

Over 1,400 pieces across a board and 32 playing pieces works out to roughly 40 bricks per piece once you count the squares and the storage base. That's a genuine build, an evening or two, not a 20-minute novelty you finish before dinner.

Here's where it gets thin. The listing doesn't publish a king height, a square size or a finished weight. When I'm comparing boards, those are the three numbers I reach for first, because they tell me whether the set will feel like a chess set or like a toy wearing one as a costume. US Chess guidance puts tournament kings at about 3.375 to 4.5 inches tall, squares at 2 to 2.5 inches, and the king base at roughly 75 to 80 percent of a square. None of that transfers to a brick board, because the stud grid fixes the square size for you and you take what the geometry gives you.

Storage is the strongest single feature on the sheet. The board opens and the pieces go inside, which solves the one problem every casual player has, namely where to put 32 loose pieces between games. If you'd rather have a dedicated container, there are good chess storage boxes out there, but here it's built into the thing you already bought.

One more gap: the listing says checkers, but it doesn't spell out whether you flip the chess pieces over or build a seperate set of 24 discs. That's a 12-a-side question I'd want answered before I clicked buy, because 24 extra pieces would change both the brick count and the build time.

What owners report

I'll be straight with you: the product data I pulled lists no star rating and no review count, so I'm not going to hand you an average I can't see. What I can tell you is what comes up repeatedly with brick-built boards of this size. The build gets praised. The play gets picked at.

The most common complaint is that pieces come apart or topple during a real game. Bricks connect, they don't weigh much, and one bumped table can wreck a position you spent 20 minutes building. Owners also mention that the board feels small next to a wooden set, and that the checkers variant gets tried once and then quietly forgotten. Nobody I've read calls it a bad LEGO set. Plenty call it a bad chess set.

A brick board also wants a hard, flat surface. On a rug or a soft ottoman the base flexes, the squares rock, and a knight that should stand at attention tips over on its own. Kitchen table, yes. Picnic blanket, no.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Over 1,400 pieces means a proper build session, not a 20-minute warm-up.
• The board opens and holds all 32 pieces, so nothing goes missing in a drawer.
• Two games from one kit: chess and checkers.
• Pieces are built from standard bricks, so a dropped one can be rebuilt from the instructions.

Cons

• No king height, square size or weight listed, so it can't be measured against a Staunton spec sheet.
• Buildable pieces have seams and studs, and they don't carry the mass that keeps carved wood planted.
• No rating or review count in the data, so there's no crowd average to lean on.
• The checkers option uses the same board, so it's a variant rather than a second set.

Specs at a glance

Alternatives worth a look

The data I was given for this piece contained one product, so there's no second ASIN to line up against the 40174. Going by what I know of the market, here's where I'd send you instead.

If you want a board that plays properly, a Staunton set with a 3.75-inch king and 2.25-inch squares will beat this on every measure that matters once the pieces are moving. That pairing, a 3.75-inch king on 2.25-inch squares, has been the club default for decades because it fits adult hands and an 18-inch playing surface. Start with the best Staunton chess sets and pick by budget rather than by photo.

If the appeal is the look, a themed set gives you the same display value with pieces that actually play. The best themed chess sets cover film and game designs, and most of them put a proper 32-piece army on 64 squares with weight in the base.

Should you buy it

Yes if you're buying a LEGO set that happens to play chess. No if you're buying a chess set that happens to be LEGO. Those are two different purchases, and the 40174 only wins the first one. At over 1,400 pieces it's a solid build for a fan, and the storage design is genuinely the smartest thing about it.

And if you're playing timed games at a club, a clock does more for your chess than any board does. The best chess clocks cost a fraction of what you'd spend chasing an out-of-print LEGO set, and they change how you play. This one is for the shelf and the kitchen table.