I’m going to be taking a week off from reviews so I can do some moving!
I hope to be back in business by next week!
Thanks for your patience!
Monthly Archives: January 2022
Golden Axe: Death Adder by Storm Collectibles
YES! I love SEGA! And YES! I love Golden Axe! I won’t start verbally fapping about the franchise again here, but feel free to check out my reviews of Ax Battler and The Skeleton Soldiers, if you need a reminder! In fairness, most of my experience with the games isn’t in the coin-op form, but rather at home on my SEGA Genesis. I even recently picked up a custom cart of Golden Axe 3, which never released for the US Genesis, but now I can play it anyway! Suffice it to say, I’m very nearly all in on Storm Collectibles’ Golden Axe figures. There are a few Skeleton variants that I haven’t dropped money on yet… YET!!! But I’m just so happy to see these figures getting made.
And so, BEHOLD! DEATH ADDER!!! After Golden Axe is done wiping the floor with you with common enemies, you are rewarded with fighting Death Adder as the final boss! Or is he??? I have a feeling that he might have been taking orders… ah, but that’s just me being paranoid. The figure comes in a window box in the same style as the previous releases, with a lot of extra plastic wrap to make it had to really see the figure inside all that clearly. The illustrated backing for the tray also recreates the character select screen, just like the previous packages did.
And out of the box, Death Adder is quite the bruiser, standing more than head and shoulders above Ax Battler and the Skeletons. He’s also a relatively simple figure, albeit one that does a fabulous job bringing the sprite-based 16-bit villain into a more realistic action figure form! One of the things you may first notice about him is that he’s built with seamless elbow and knee joints, using flexible rubber plastic to cover the internal skeleton. It makes for a great effect, especially since the shoulder and hip joints are somewhat obscured by his armor. On the downside, he doesn’t have anywhere near the range of motion that we got in the Ax Battler body, so it’s a compromise. I dig it, and for a lumbering brute, I’m not sure I need Death Adder to be as nimble as our hero. But while we’re on the subject of articulation, my figure has a loose right ankle hinge. It isn’t broken, but the two halves of the hinged ball separate from time to time. It’s more annoying than a critical fault, but worth mentioning nonetheless!
Death Adder’s buff bod features some wonderfully sculpted muscles, something that Storm has gotten quite adept at delivering. His bulging arms are positively ripped with veins and tendons, making him look like he can tear The Player apart without any need of weapons. His armor is cast in soft plastic with a shiny red finish. The segmented plates look great and there’s a bit of a hammered finish to the shoulder armor. You also get a healthy assortment of different hands, including fists, relaxed, palm-smash, clutching, and weapon holding hands!
As far as the portrait goes, Death Adder comes with two heads, which can be swapped out under his rather epic helmet. Both are human-appearing head sculpts, painted black with yellow piercing eyes. I tend to like the regular one, because my imagination always suggested that Death Adder didn’t have a regular face under that helmet. I don’t know what I thought he had, but I guess I just expected it was something mysterious, similar to an Orko or Warduke. That having been said, I think the gritted teeth expression looks quite good!
Death Adder comes with one accessory, and that’s his giant golden axe! It’s big an imposing, but fairly light and easy for him to wield in either one hand, or both. I really like the gold finish on this weapon. It’s just so lush and satiny, with some silver for the edges.
I pre-ordered this big guy way back when and he’s been waiting for his time in the spotlight for a while now! I seem to recall dropping $115 on him, which isn’t so bad considering how big and chonky he is. And it looks like Storm is re-releasing all of their Golden Axe figures for people who missed out, as pre-orders have gone up again around all the usual places. I think he’s an excellent figure, although the seamless jointing may end up being a polarizing point among some collectors.
Mythic Legions (Arethyr): Hadriana by The Four Horsemen
There was another round of Mythic Legions pre-orders a few week ago over at Store Horsemen and an In Stock Sale a couple days ago, and they sure did take a bite out of my wallet! They also whetted my appetite to dig into another figure for Mythoss Monday. But who am I kidding? I’m always ready to spend some time with another amazing figure from this line. Today I’m checking out another release from the Arethyr Wave and it’s Hadriana!
It wasn’t too long ago that I reviewed the Red Shield Soldier, and now we’re turning our attention to the very leader of The Order of the Red Shield! Hadriana is a fierce fighter and when the scourge of Arethyr once again threatened the sanctity of Mythoss, she stepped up to beat Arethyr and his cursed army back to where they came from!
And here is Hadriana kitted out in all her glory! The body here is very nearly a straight repaint of Delphina of Eathyross, and that ain’t a bad thing, because she was one of my favorites in this line for a long time. Indeed, Hadriana here is in the running to usurp her spot, because she really is that good! The armor is painted up with metallic gray, but it doesn’t go too heavy on the shine, and features some lovely gold and brown trim. The belt here is different from Delphine’s, and is punctuated by a large disc in the center, which looks very much like a miniature round shield, and brown scaled hip armor. The shoulder armor is also different, although we’ve certainly seen these pieces before many times. The tabard is painted in a sharp black and red deco with some very fine gold lining the edges, and a black coat of arms on her chest. In addition to a crimson softgoods cape, Hadriana also comes with a fur cape, similar to the one that we last saw on Cassia from The Wasteland Wave. T4H has done a remarkable job crafting these little fur pieces, making them look both luxurious and realistic!
Hadriana comes out of the package sporting her very distinctive helmet with a gold lion faceguard. The face plate is set on hinges so it can be lifted to expose her face underneith.
And I’m not a huge fan of this portrait. The paint is a bit over simplified, making it look a little mannequin like. Also, the pout on her lips makes for a strange expression. She looks like she just witnessed her puppy getting mauled by a troll and is about to start blubbering about it.
You also get a recycled sugar loaf helmet, which we’ve seen several times before. It’s painted in a deep gray to match her armor, and has red reinforced strips with painted gold rivets. This helmet is an old favorite of mine, and it’s nice to have the option to use it with this figure. If you have deeper pockets than me, I think having a couple of these figures wearing this helmet would make excellent guards for Hadriana. Let’s check out some weapons!
Hadriana comes with a sword, which I have not seen before, and I really love it! I’m thinking it might have been inspired by Richard Lionheart’s sword, and if not it still reminds me of it a lot. The hilt is gold with red wrappings on the grip and HOLY SHIT, IT COMES WITH A SCABBARD!!! I’ve been wanting T4H to do scabbards for a while now, and this amazing effort shows that it’s certainly possible to do quite well in this scale. The plastic scabbard has a hook, which makes it ideal for hanging on her back with the belt as a cross strap, but I still prefer it on her hip, especially with the cape and cloak to contend with.
And if her righteous sword wasn’t enough, Hadriana also comes with a pretty cool flail. It has a short black handle, a real gold chain, and a silver spiked ball for smashing demon skulls.
And last, but not least, she comes with a massive hammer, and boy is it an elegant beast! It has something of an undefinable magnificence about it. Maybe it’s the gold finish, maybe it’s the pommel that doubles as a mace head, or the diamond jewels imbedded in the hammer itself. Whatever the case, it really suits Hadriana beautifully.
Wow, what a terrific figure! Hadriana is just another example of what T4H can do with a fantastic new coat of paint, a couple swapped parts, and a few square inches of fur! Hadriana is a snappy looking figure, with some wonderful accessories, and I can’t even begin to convey how smitten I am with this scabbard! I would LOVE to see T4H offer a pack of ten of these, so I can equip some of my other figures’ naked blades with a little modesty!
Sonic The Hedgehog: Green Hill Zone Playset and Diorama Set by Jakks Pacific
If you’ve kicked around FFZ a while, you may already know that I was a SEGA kid. I had the Master System and the Genesis, and I still have both and play them regularly. Sonic’s legacy hasn’t fared all that well over the years, I cannot deny that, but whenever I sit down to play some Sonic on the Genesis, I am in 16-bit heaven. I have a number of Sonic toys that I wanted to look at for the 30th Anniversary and I got sidetracked, but picking up a couple more this past week gave me the push I needed to get cracking on reviewing some of this stuff. Time to get serious!!!
Today I’m checking out the Green Hill Zone Playset and a Diorama Set, both in the 2.5-inch scale by Jakks Pacific. I was originally just going to get the Playset because it was on sale, but the Diorama set looked like it would work well with the Playset, so I grabbed it too. Let’s start with the Playset!
Green Hill Zone requires just a quick bit of assembly, and once that’s done you get a pretty cool little slice of Sonic’s very first romping ground. It includes a modern styled Sonic figure, a spring platform, and three rings. There are some pegs scattered across the set, which can be used to peg on figures or the three rings that come with it. The base and grassy bits are nicely textured, and I really dig the checkered rock printed on the sides of the cliffs.
Up until now, I’ve just been collecting the 4-inch Sonic figures, but I have to say this little guy is pretty cool. He has the appropriate level of attitude and with rotating hinges at the shoulders and hips, you get some decent articulation for such a small and stylized figure. The paint could be a little sharper in some areas, but you have to zoom in pretty close to see any of that.
As far as play gimmicks go, the biggest attraction in Green Hill Zone is the loop. There’s a platform on a track with a foot peg so you can plug a figure onto it and there’s a lever on the back so you can whip him around the loop! There are even pegs to place the rings around the loop. I was surprised to see that the platform will even hold the figure steady at pretty much any angle. FUN!
But as fun as that is for a while, the only other play gimmick is the spring platform, which doesn’t do much. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think this is a cool setup, but it’s probably best regarded as a place to display figures than an actual playset. Of course, the other set I’m looking at today makes for some great additions, so let’s bust that open.
The core of this set is the pair of figures! You get Sonic and Tails in a very classic style, which I love! These are great little figures with the same level of articulation as the modern Sonic. The paint on these is a lot cleaner too. Plus, Sonic’s got a bitch-slapping hand!
The rest of the set consists of some “furniture” for the Playset. And yeah, the yellow spring platform is in there, so I’ve got stuck with two of those! Still, worth it! You get two check points, one tall and one short; An item box TV with the forcefield bubble on the screen; and a Spike Trap! All of these are cool items, and they can each attach to the Playset, or you can just put them anywhere. It really spruces things up and offers more display options. I do, however, wish this set included more rings. Heck, I would have rather had just three more rings instead of another spring platform.
The Green Hill Zone Playset was on sale for $12 (down from $20) so that was a great pick up. I rolled the money I saved into the Diorama set, which paid for almost half of it. Both are really fun packages, and I’m going to enjoy displaying them in my Game Room as I get it set up over the coming weeks. I’ll definitely pick up more of these sets if they come my way, and it’s actually got me wanting to grab some of the Mario sets as well.
Masters of the Universe Origins: Wind Raider by Mattel
I’m pretty sure I said this before, but one of the things that got me most excited about Origins and buying all these damn characters all over again was the idea of more vehicles! Yeah, we got a few cool ones in Classics, but it always seemed like a reach for the line, whereas it seems more cost effective for Origins. This line feels like it’s the perfect intersection point between toys and collectibles, meaning that Mattel can bring more vehicles to market at more affordable prices, because they really are just toys and not collectibles that you need to queue up online to buy quickly before they sell out! Enter the Wind Raider, surely one of the most iconic rides in Eternia. Mattel did a beautiful job bringing this vehicle to the Classics line, and I am beyond excited to see how the Origins version turned out.
The Origins packaging continues to be a home run! You get a big window box showing off the toy and lots of amazing vintage-style art on the side panels and extended top flap. It takes a bit to get this thing out of the box, and there’s some assembly required, but with a little care it can go back in if you prefer to play with your toys and then display them in the package when you’re done. It’s like having your Wind Raider and eating it too! Don’t eat your Wind Raider.
And wow is this thing a beauty! The assembly is quick and easy, and mainly consists of slapping on the wings, tailfin, and putting the stand together. The stickers are all pre-applied, and everything can be disassembled easily if you want to store it in the box. The toy is mostly comprised of a hollow plastic shell with the rest of the bits attached, and yet it still feels like a sturdy, quality toy. The colors are simple, but oh so pretty, with the combination of hunter green and orange-yellowish trim. The stickers are all straight and add some pizazz to the deco, especially the dragon icon nose art. You also get some sculpted detail, including panel lines and some vents.
Unlike the Classics Wind Raider, the wings each pivot independently. The harpoon can still be fired from the front with the push of a button, and then reeled back in by spinning the raised crest on the hood. The stand consists of a hinged peg that attaches into the bottom of the vehicle and connects with a gray deck plate, which in turn can be inserted into a Grayskull-style rocky platform, complete with a little computer terminal, perhaps for running diagnostics on the Raider. The screen is way too low for a standing figure to use it convincingly, but it’s a nice touch nonetheless.
The cockpit includes a sculpted seat, a textured floor, two handlebars, and stickers for control panels in the center and on the sides. Your average Origins figure fits into it with ease, and I was pleasantly surprised at just how big this thing scales with the Origins figures. In fact, let’s do a quick comparison with the Classics Wind Raider.
I’m really impressed with how close this toy is in size to the Classics Wind Raider, which was of course designed for much larger figures. It’s been a while since I had the Classics version out of the box, and I expected it to be a lot bigger than this new version, but that’s really not the case. As for other differences, the Classics Wind Raider certainly has sharper detail, and overall feels more like a premium piece, but the Origins Raider has nothing to be ashamed of. For an off-the-shelf toy at a fraction of the price, it certainly holds its own!
The Origins Wind Raider set me back about $35 and it’s a damn nice toy for the price. It’s big, it fits the figures perfectly, it has some fun play features, and it looks absolutely smashing on display. It also might be ridiculously fun to woooosh around the room, but I wouldn’t know anything about that! But best of all, the Wind Raider (along with the previously reviewed Land Shark) gets me all kinds of excited over other vintage Masters vehicles getting this kind of treatment. Spydor! The Talon Fighter! The Bashasaurus!!! Bring them all on Mattel! My wallet is ready!!!
Mythic Legions: Shadow Equaddron by The Four Horsemen
It’s another Mythoss Monday and today I’m checking out a Mythic Legions figure that just sort of appeared out of nowhere and went up for sale. I don’t remember Shadow Equaddron attached to any specific Wave or Assortment, and I don’t even remember him actually going up for pre-order with The Four Horsemen, but rather I found him on another retailers site and grabbed him up!
Equaddron resides among The Ogre Class figures, making him a good bit bigger than the regular Legions, but not as large as those bruisers, The Trolls. As such, he comes in a tall window box, with the usual colorful artwork on the back and side panels. There’s no bio on the package, but TFH do have one on their site. It’s rather mysterious, as he isn’t given a faction or any personal information about where he fits in the Realm of Mythoss, so bring your imagination! And a bag of oats, because I’m guessing he likes oats. Probably SHADOW OATS!
And, oh boy! Am I in love with this fella! Sporting the Ogre body and a decaying horse head, Shadow Equaddron is certainly an imposing and distinctive looking brute. His body and armor are both lifted directly from Kkurzog, with the exception of the feet, which have been appropriately swapped out for hooves. There’s also an armor extension around his neck to help the figure transition from man body into the horse head. The body is painted brown with some black spotting and markings that does indeed look like horse flesh, and he even sports a horse tail jutting out from under his butt armor.
Meanwhile, Kkurzog’s armor has a snappy new coat of paint and the colors here really sing! You get some sumptuous silver on the arm and leg armor, as well as the shoulder straps and neck armor, cut with some black for the sculpted leather bits, and some copper for the medallions and rivets. And I’ll say it again, I really dig the sinister belt buckle sculpt! This ensemble is wrapped up with a black furry diaper and a couple of bones hanging down from his belt. I have to admit, despite the armor being a complete repaint, the new colors really set it apart from the previous figure, making this my favorite appearance of it yet.
And this head! I gotta be honest, I have no idea what’s going on here, but I love it! Shadow’s head is part horsemeat and part bone, with a pretty sharp departure between the two. His flesh just stops, leaving the grim, bone snout exposed. He’s also got what looks like bone plates bolted to the sides of his head, and a beautiful golden armor mask. The neck piece has a sculpted hammer finish to it, with plenty of pyramid-like studs. The skeletal aspects combined with the dead, black horse eyes makes this thing absolutely terrifying!
Shadow Eqquadron comess with two short ebony maces, which are damn cool weapons. They have a black glossy finish with some blue stones set in the head. Unfortunately, I cannot get his right hand to hold one. There’s no give in the fingers to pull them open enough to slip the handle inside the grip. At least the left hand works fine. That means someone else is going to inherit one of these maces.
This figure is simply amazing and I’m sure glad I didn’t miss him! When the horses were introduced, I was straightaway convinced that we’d get at least one centaur, but I hadn’t really considered them doing the reverse. It makes me hope that one day we might get a minotaur using the Ogre body, because the ones we got on the regular size figures now look puny in comparison! The proportions of the horse head works great on the Ogre body, and this twisted version of it really makes for a stand out figure!
Moving #1
Sorry, folks, but no Review for today. I got home from work yesterday and decided to haul another load of stuff over to the new place and do some unpacking. The moving operation will be ongoing for the next month or so, and there will be more days like this, but I’m doing my best to keep the content flowing as frequently as possible.
It can be a harrowing process for a collector to move a collection, which is why I’m doing a lot of it by myself little by little. I started setting up my office in the new place, putting some stuff here and there, so that I can reuse the boxes for future trips. A lot of this stuff will probably be re-arranged as I get time to set up a proper Collection Room, but for now, it’s nice to have some stuff on display and something of a beachhead at the new place.
This is the first time the poor Legacy Collection Falcon has been able to rest on its own landing gear, as most of its life has been spent leaning up against the wall on the top shelf of my closet. The Imperial Shuttle actually has some space to spread its wings too! Ultimately, this side desk will most likely get used for Premium Format statues, as I’m going for a comic book theme in here, which is why I hung my signed Jamie Tyndall prints above it. But eventually I’ll find these ships the display space they deserve in another room.
And I had to throw in some Star Trek love, while I was at it. The Enterprise-D may actually wind up saying there!
And I actually got to assemble all my Hasbro helmets for the first time in one display area, which I’m rather happy about! I do plan on being back for Mythoss Monday, and hopefully I’ll get the back to the usual Wednesday/Friday content after that.
Doctor Who: The War Doctor Sixth-Scale Figure by Big Chief Studios
The 13th Doctor Era has been no better than The Wilderness Years for me, but I’m watching with hope and heavy heart to see what happens with Russell T. Davies’ return. In the meantime, I watched a lot of Doctor Who over the Holidays and I’m hankering to do some Doctor Who toy reviews. There’s a lot of Character Options stuff piling up around here, but wait… what’s this? A Big Chief figure I haven’t reviewed yet? Well, let’s do it!
The War Doctor! As cool as it would have been to see The Ninth Doctor on screen with his successors for the 50th Anniversary Special, The BBC made the best of Eccleston opting out by giving us a prevoiusly unknown incarnation played by the legendary John Hurt. And boy did he kill it! I absolutely adore every damn frame of Day of the Doctor. I was lucky enough to go see it with some friends at the theater the first time, and I can’t even count how many times I’ve watched it since. It’s a masterpiece and John Hurt as The War Doctor just elevates it even higher!
Big Chief always does a nice job on the packaging. It’s a window box with a front flap and two trays that slide out from the top or bottom. The top tray contains the figure and accessories, and the bottom has the stand and a few more accessories. You get some shots of Hurt as The War Doctor on the sides and a picture of the figure and some copy on the back. And I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see Doctor Who merch without the ugly new logo stamped on it.
The War Doctor comes out of the package wearing the outfit that he began piecing together on the planet Karn just before regenerating, and it’s amazing how iconic it is despite only being shown in the one story. It’s a little bit cowboy and a little bit Indiana Jones, and the state of it makes it clear he’s been knocking around The Time War for a long time. The weathered black jacket is expertly tailored with neat stitching and even has an interior lining and interior pockets! Under that he has a felt vest with double buttons down the front, plus a chain for his fob watch disappearing into the vest pockets. He’s got a pair of old brown trousers, a web-gear type belt, spats that run up to his knees, and are buttoned down the sides, and finally a scarf wrapped snuggly around his neck and the bandolier strap he took off of Cass in Night of the Doctor. Overall, I think Big Chief has come a long way in their tailored outfits, and this one shows it. The costume fits the figure very well (yup, the fit of the sleeves is intentional!) and looks great!
Portraits have been hit and miss for Big Chief, which explains why I am selective about which of their Doctors that I buy. Did I want to pass on The 4th Doctor and the 10th Doctor? Of course not, but I just wasn’t happy enough with the likenesses to bring the big bucks. They started out strong with the Matt Smith likeness, hit some bumps along the way, but bounced back strong with their Peter Capaldi and Jon Pertwee sculpts. This one definitely fits into the win category. They did a fine job capturing all the character lines in John Hurts face and the bags under his eyes. The facial hair looks good, as does his duck-tail coif, although both are a few notches below being totally realistic. The only place this portrait really stumbles is in the paint. The skin lacks that uncanny skin tone finish that the wizards at Hot Toys and Sideshow have perfected. The skin here is a tad too waxy under studio lights, but looks fine under normal conditions. Still, all in all, I think this one ranks up there among their best likenesses.
As usual, Big Chief’s bodies offer all the articulation I could ask for in a sixth-scale figure, and none of their costumes do much to inhibit that articulation. As a result, these tend to be a lot more fun to play around with than your average Hot Toys figure, which tend to have restrictive costumes. However, one thing that Big Chief still needs to work on is the strength of the joints. The War Doctor can stand on his own just fine and hold most poses with no issues, but the joints still feel a tad too loose for my liking. Let’s move on to accessories!
Naturally, The War Doctor comes with his Sonic Screwdriver, as well as left and right hands designed to hold it. It’s not one of the more interesting designs for the trusty tool, but Big Chief has captured it quite well. It fits snuggly in any one of the loops on his bandolier strap.
Next, you get The Moment, which features an absolutely stunning sculpt with some cool complexity in the layers of gears on some sides. I’m on the fence over whether it’s undersized or not. It looks about right when he’s carrying it, but when it’s on the ground, it looks a bit small. At one point in the episode Billie Piper was sitting on it, and this seems too small for that. I would have liked it if they included the burlap sack that he carried it in, as that was a pretty iconic piece of promo art for the story. A missed opportunity for an Exclusive here would have been with The Moment deploying the very rose-like big red button.
The final accessory is the Gallifreyan Staser Rifle that The War Doctor used to blast “NO MORE” into the wall. I happen to have a soft spot for pretty much all Gallifreyan tech, but I think I love the staser designs the most. I remember as a kid trying to get my hands on a piece of acrylic so that I could make the staser pistol that appeared in The Arc of Infinity, but that never happened. The Gallifreyan weapon designs in NuWho are pretty convincing as a logical progression from what we’ve seen in the past. I especially love the design on this rifle, and Big Chief did an excellent job creating this sixth-scale version. The Doctor comes with a set of special hands so that he can hold both grips.
And our final stop is the figure stand. Big Chief has been using this hexagonal mirror base with some lights in it for many of their Doctors, and I don’t really care for them. They aren’t personalized, the post doesn’t always fit the base all that well, the lighting effect is underwhelming, and the base is a tad too small. It also adds a bit too much height to the figure, which has created problems with fitting the figures in my shelving. I give them credit for trying something that does indeed feel premium, but I always wind up displaying these figures on generic stands.
The War Doctor sold out pretty quickly at all my usual online haunts, but I was lucky to grab him upon release. I recall paying around $250, and that’s the average price for a Hot Toys figure these days, so I’m tempted to say it’s about $50-25 too high for what Big Chief is offering. I’m tempted to say that, but I won’t. The truth is that Big Chief is a small company by comparison and these figures are issued in very limited quantities, with The War Doctor at only 1,000 pieces. Factor in the cost of paying for the license and likeness rights and it’s easy to see where the money goes. A few more accessories would have helped buoy the sense of value here, but in the end I love the figure, so I’m not complaining! And that catches me up on all my Big Chief Doctor Who reviews, although The Master is lurking around the corner and I can’t wait to get him!
Mythic Legions (All-Stars 4): Forest Troll 2 by The Four Horsemen
Pre-ordering new waves of Mythic Legions is almost always brutal. It involves adding up numbers, trying to budget as many figures as I can, and in the end it comes down to staring at the screen and trying to figure out where to make cuts. Sometimes, figures are offered up again, but it’s generally safe to assume that if you skip a figure the first go around, there’s a good chance you’ll have to pay a premium from a secondary seller in order to get it later on. And that brings us to The Forest Troll! Two of these big bois were released as part of Wave 1.5, and I could not afford both. I think it literally came down to flipping a coin and then disregarding the result and getting the Stone Troll because I liked his weapon a better. But fast forward to a little while ago and The Four Horsemen bestowed upon us The Forest Troll 2 as part of the fourth All-Stars Wave. As near as I can tell, Forest Troll 2 is just a re-release of the original, but with a second head added, so it was a Win-Win for me! Let’s check him out! Oh yeah, I already have the box in storage, because I’m moving, so let’s jump straight to the figure!
Even with three of these big guys already in my collection, The Forest Troll still impresses me with his sheer size. The Trolls tower over the regular 6-inch Legions figures, and they look like they could make pretty short work of the Ogre Class figures as well. Of course, we’ve seen this body before, as T4H have recycled the Troll body for each release, making these guys rely on new paint and different types of garments around their waist, to distinguish them from the neck down. And since I’ve reviewed this body sculpt three times now, I won’t go into all the details again. The Forest Troll features a green hide on his back and beige for his soft belly, with some gradations of the two intermingling throughout. Yup, the belt buckle and wrist cuffs are the same, but The Forest Troll employs a brown furry diaper to conceal his tree and bushes.
As I mentioned, you get two heads with this guy: The original Forest Troll head, which is what I’m using for the bulk of this review, and a repaint of The Ice Troll head. I do indeed like both, but I’ll be going with the original Forest Troll head most of the time, because I like having a unique head sculpt on each of my Trolls. It also helps that this is my favorite of all the Troll head sculpts. I love the bulbous nose, the deep set yellow eyes, the goblin-like ears, and the mess of tusks coming up from each corner of his mouth. This is just a fabulous and distinctive looking portrait that suits the figure perfectly.
The Ice Troll head is no slouch either! Indeed, I’d even grant that it’s the better sculpt of the two. There’s so much sharp detail here, and it looks pretty great all repainted up in forest-y colors. But I have to believe that the horns on this guy were inspired by the Taun Tauns in Star Wars, and that makes it a very ice-specific sculpt to me. Still, it’s always nice to have options!
Forest Troll 2 comes with a rudimentary mace, which consists of a spiked ball attached to what looks like a tree trunk with a couple of reinforcing bands. There’s some nice percussive damage to part of it, making me wonder what the hell he hit with it! I am going to assume this is the same weapon that came with the first Forest Troll, but as we’ve already established, I don’t have that one to check. One weird thing, my Troll’s mace has something loose inside it that makes it sound like a giant baby rattle when you shake it!
As always, articulation is fairly basic on these guys, but there’s enough here for some fun. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, with heavy ratchets in the shoulders to support the weight of the big arms and the big weapon. Like wise, you get strong rotating hinges in the hips, no knee articulation, but swivels in both the wrists and ankles.
And there you have it! My Quartet of Trolls is finally complete! And with The Forest Troll finally in my stable of big uglies, I can rest complete. And I kind of hope that T4H are done with making these behemoths, because as much as I love them, I really don’t have any room for more. But with that being said, if the engineer a brand new figure to take continue this size class, I’ll certainly consider whatever they come up with.
Transformers Kingdom: Warpath by Hasbro
It’s been more than ten years since the last Hasbro Warpath figure was welcomed into my collection (I skipped the Combiner Wars release). That Generations figure had a lot going for it, but it was more of a Cybertronian take on the character, with a decidedly unearthly tank mode. Dang, Hasbro, you sure do love your H-Tanks! But, fast forward to the Kingdom series, where Hasbro finally given us a more Earthy attempt at my favorite excitedly expositional tank! Yeah, Warpath was released a little while ago, but I’m trying to chip away at my enormous backlog.
I’m not sure why Warpath gets such scant love, but I was happy to see him listed as an up and coming figure, as well as a Deluxe Class. I think the old G1 Minibots present a ton of opportunity for being modernized, and in some-cases upscaled. Scale was never a constant in the old Sunbow cartoon, but I prefer to see these little guys reborn as Deluxe Class figures, so they can stand shoulder to shoulder with the Autobot cars without fear of getting stepped on. Let’s start with the alt mode!
Oh yeah… now that’s a proper tank mode! Sure it’s a burgundy tank with white treads, but it’s a fairly realistic design and pays a striking homage to the original figure’s deco. The treads are only sculpted, but there are four tiny wheels hidden under them to help Warpath roll out. The cupola can rotate 360-degrees and the cannon can raise and lower. Warpath doesn’t come with an additional weapons Hey, whaddya want? he’s a tank!, but he does have a number of ports so you can plug some extra weapons onto him if you have them lying around.
There’s a ton of great detail in Warpath’s hull! You get panel lines, tiny vents and hatches. I dig how the back plate looks like it could drop down to offload the crew, even though that’s just part of the transformation. My figure has a problem holding the seam together just under his cannon, but otherwise the tank mode holds together quite well. I’ll confess that I’ve had fun having him stalk imaginary targets around the obstacles (junk) of a crowded battlefield (my desk). So how’s the robot mode?
Eh, it’s OK. I like it, but I don’t love it. I like the proportions well enough. His big, tread-bottomed feet look appropriately powerful enough to withstand the force of firing his cannon in robot mode. The cannon collapses all the way into his chest to become one giant robo-nipple. I wish the cupola collapsed down a bit too, but that’s probably asking a lot from Deluxe Class engineering. On the plus side, it gives him a bit of a bitchin’ Mechwarrior profile. But those large chunks of tank tread forearm kibble is kind of hard to take. There’s a lot of give and take here.
All the great detail from the tank’s hull shows up in the robot mode, making the robot mode look just as realistic as the alt mode. Heck, if you look really closely at the back of his knee joints there are sculpted gears in there! The colors also remain pretty consistent from one mode to the next, with just a little more white showing up on Warpath’s midriff. His big clodhoppers feature some pretty generous tilts to keep him surefooted in action poses.
Warpath’s head sculpt leans heavily on his G1 roots, and I’m happy for that. His round face is almost entirely obscured by his mouth plate, leaving just a little band visible to show his blue eyes and the bridge of his nose. I know what you’re thinking: How does he smell with that plate covering his nose? Probably like diesel fumes! HA! Still, the head looks kind of small, which I think is more a trick of the elongated chest than a result of being actually undersized.
And yes, you can extend Warpath’s cannon while he’s in robot mode. I like to think that Warpath was fan of Melville: “If his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it!” To which he would follow up with “WHAM! BANG! KAZOOOWIE!!!”
I do enjoy this figure, but as I said earlier, I just can’t bring myself to love it. While an improvement in many ways over the ten year old Generations figure, Kingdom Warpath feels like maybe a five year old figure. And I think that says more about the company he keeps. To me, his robot mode lacks the pitch perfect polish that we’ve been getting out of figures in Earthrise and Kingdom. I’ve come to regard many of these figures as budget Masterpiece versions, and Warpath certainly ain’t that.
FigureFan Zero 