It’s been a while, since I last looked at some Vitruvian HACKS figures here at FFZ. My original plan was to get through all my backlog of this line before Mythic Legions: Advent of Decay started shipping. But guess what’s showing up at my door later on today! Yup, a big chunk of my Mythic Legions figures. And while it’s too late to make up for lost time now, I thought I’d sneak one more HACKS figure into the mix before I have to give up one day a week to Advent of Decay for the foreseeable future. And yeah, I know I was supposed to do another Super7 Masters Classics review this week, but I’ll come back to those next week. Anywho… today I’m dipping back into the fantasy inspired Vitruvian HACKS Series 2 and opening up the female version of the Orc Conqueror!

As always, these 4-inch figures come in a collector friendly card and bubble with some solid artwork on the front and a “Collect Them All” style layout on the back. You also get a bio on the back that tells us a little about the She-Orc. While the male Orc was dubbed a “Savage Warrior,” the female appears to be the brains of the Orc outfit, as her title is “Female Orc Strategist.” In case you missed it, I reviewed the Male Orc Conqueror way back in April.

From the waist up, this green femme fatale is built off of BFS’ regular nude (but green skinned!) female buck, which means all the costume bits on her upper half are separately sculpted and actually worn on the buck. These include her shoulder armor, the bracers on her biceps and forearms, and her battle-bra. All these pieces are painted in a nice gold finish, and they each feature some great sculpted details. Some notable touches include the spikes on her shoulder piece and the tiny spiked rivets on her bracers. It never ceases to impress me the way BFS are able to craft removable armor pieces at this 4-inch scale and have them fit so well and look so good.

Alas, I have to point out a little QC problem on my figure, where the shoulder strap for the armor was separated from the cross strap on my figure. It looks like it just pulled apart and it can probably be glued back into place, but it’s worth noting nonetheless. It’s also the first time I’ve encountered any kind of QC problem on any of my HACKS figures, and I’ve opened and reviewed nearly twenty of them so far. That’s not a bad track record, but at about $20 a pop, I’d just as soon not have any issues. Anyway…

Below the waist, her legs are sculpted with trousers and high boots, so nothing removable down there, ya pervs. She does, however, have armor for her hips, as well as the front and back of her groin, which is sculpted as a separate piece and painted in the same sumptuous gold as the rest of her armor. The belt and hip armor fits well, but it tends to ride up when posing the figure in wide stances. And while the coloring is quite nice on this figure, the paint feels a bit more basic than what I’ve seen on other figures in this line.

This Fem-Orc comes with two different head sculpts, the first of which is a regular unmasked head. This is a solid head sculpt, but not really extraordinary. I think they tried to go for an attractive look, and I would have preferred something a little more savage. Her dainty little tusks protruding from those full and pouty lips is a tad weird to me. The red eyes are a nice touch, and she has a well-defined nose as well as strong contours to her face. I also think the hair sculpt is a bit of a strange choice. It reminds me a little of something I’ve seen actresses from the 1940’s wearing. So, all in all, not a bad portrait, but maybe not the direction that I would have gone.

The other head sculpt features a really cool skull battle mask, and this one I dig a lot. The detail and paint on the skull are both superb, and I love how clearly they sculpted the area around her eyes that can be seen through the mask. The skull piece covers up most of the mouth, as well as the front part of the hair, and just looks a lot more savage and warlike. I also like the option of using this head for potential troop building. If these figures were a little cheaper, I’d definitely pick up another pair of these, remove the shoulder pieces and have them wearing the masked heads and flanking an unmasked She-Orc as her personal guards.

The HACKS line has been pretty great about including loads of extra accessories, but Ms. Orc here comes up a little short in that department. In addition to the ubiquitous Boss Fight Studio themed figure stand and the extra set of hands with the differently aligned wrist hinges, she comes with two weapons and a shield. The first weapon is this big and beefy knife. It looks like it was forged out of a single piece of metal with some leather wraps to make up a grip. I like the nicked edge and the scrapes on the face of the blade. It looks crude and well used, just like any Orc weapon should!

And then we have the club and the shield. The club is even more crude looking than the knife, with a twisted head and spikes that look like they’re made out of claws or teeth woven into it. The grip is sculpted to look like it’s wrapped and there’s a hooked talon protruding from the end. It’s just an ugly tool for killing and I dig it a lot.

The shield is the same one that came with the Male Orc Conqueror and that’s fine by me because I absolutely love this thing. The surface is sculpted to look like it’s made from wooden boards and the sculpted metal rim and central boss are pitted and worn, with several nicks and pieces missing around the edge. It’s got a ton of personality. The reverse side is equally detailed with two sculpted “metal” strips reinforcing it and a grab bar running down the middle. There are also a pair of loops if you want to attach a string so she can wear it on her back.

I like the Female Orc Conqueror a lot, but there are a few minor hiccups here, which places her a notch or two below what I’m used to seeing in this line. The QC issue on the shoulder strap is certainly disappointing and I’ll also toss in here the fact that I had to shave some mold flashing from around her elbow joints to get them to work. And while I’ll admit two weapons, a shield, and an extra head is not too shabby, the package still feels really light on the accessories, especially when compared to the Male Orc Conqueror’s vast inventory of goodies. That’s not to say I’m in any way sorry I picked her up, and if BFS ever happens to have a sale, I may find myself with a couple more!

Once again, I’m ending the week with a look at another Vitruvian HACKS figure from Boss Fight Studio. I’m still sticking with Series 1 for now, but this time venturing far into Wave 6. I’ve only reviewed a handful of figures past the initial four waves, but don’t worry, they’re all coming eventually. As for today’s choice? Well, I’ve just finished rounding out my look at the three Gorgon Sisters and Eurayle’s Disciple, so it seemed only right to go with the Gorgon Berzerker this week.

What do you get when you cross one of Eurayle’s warrior slaves with Stheno’s snake-morphing bite? A male Gorgon Berzerker who will stop at nothing to fight back the Spartan and Myrmidon armies. The Berzerker comes on your typical landscape-styled card featuring some nice character art on the front, and shots of the various figures from Waves 5-7, as well as the mysterious lost wave of variants. As always, the bubble is totally collector friendly and the package can be displayed standing on a shelf or swinging by a peghook.

While the idea of going with a male Gorgon flies in the face of the Sisters’ matriarchy, it feels like a no-brainer for a line that likes to mix and match parts and I think the result speak for itself. The lower half features all the great articulation and texturing of the female Gorgons. The tail is segmented into multiple ball joints, which can be turned and twisted into a variety of poses, and I’m still amazed at how easily these half-snakes can be made to balance on their own when the tail is coiled up to form a base. We’ve had Gorgons in all different colors, but the tail on this figure is a very dark green with a lighter green underbelly.

The sculpted scales go up past the tail to encompass the abdomen, with things smoothing out above the ball joint that connects the upper portion of the humanoid buck. I love that they did this, rather than just slap half a regular buck onto the tail. The dark and light green deco also carries to the figure’s upper half with the light green coloring the chest, the hands and the chin. The head sculpt is a fairly generic bald head with piercing red eyes. I also dig the pattern printed on the figure’s back. There’s nothing terribly flashy here when it comes to the colors, but I think it works perfectly for an army builder like this guy. And since you can’t have your Berzerker going berserk without his weapons, let’s get this fella all geared up!

For starters, we get the skull and spine style helmet that we’ve seen with many of the lady Gorgons. This one is sculpted in black plastic with white paint on the fangs. The design of these pieces is just fantastic. The spine curves down the back of the neck, while the open jaws frame the figure’s face. If a half-snake warrior wasn’t intimidating enough, this headgear really launches him over the top.

The Berzerker also comes with a pair of matched leaf-bladed short swords, each secured in its own scabbard with shoulder strap. The scabbards are black with silver fixtures and red tassels to match the red hilts of the swords. These look great on his hips with the two shoulder straps crisscrossing his chest. The buckles on the straps are also neatly painted silver to match the fixtures on the scabbards. The straps were originally made to be worn by the warriors over their armor, so they are a tad loose on this figure.

The sword blades are painted silver and have some green blood spilled on them. At least I’m assuming it’s green Gorgon blood. The bio makes a point of saying that once in the rage of battle, the Berzerkers don’t stop once their enemies are vanquished and are likely to turn on their own. I would have preferred human blood on the blades. I might just consider the green stuff to be some kind of poison.

The Berzerker can hold the swords perfectly and he also comes with an extra pair of hands so you can have the wrists hinges bend side to side or forward and backward. Oddly enough, he also comes with the usual pegged figure stand, which he obviously can’t use because he has no feet. Some may scoff at the fact that he doesn’t come with more accessories, but with how much extra plastic goes into the tail, I think it all works out in the end. I will confess that I will probably end up giving him a spear.

The Berzerker is definitely one of the more unique figures in the line, as he even stands out among the myriad of different colored female Gorgons.  He doesn’t come with a lot of stuff, but he is a fantastic figure with some great sculpting and coloring. Doing a male Gorgon was kind of a no-brainer, even if they had to bend their own rules to do it. I like how they worked it into the fiction, though. Of course, the rub here is that he’s an army builder and while I’d love to pick up some more, at $25 a piece, I’ve been trying to avoid troop building any of the figures in this line, so for now I may have to be content with just the one… maybe two at some point, but I doubt any more than that.

It’s another V-HACKS Friday, Toyhounds. As promised, Today I’m finally wrapping up my look at the three Gorgon Sisters from Series 1 of Vitruvian HACKS. I checked out Medussa waaaaay back when I reviewed the very first wave from the Kickstarter. I had a look at Eurayle, the youngest of the three, just a few weeks back. And now it’s time to check out the oldest of the three Sisters, Stheno!

Here’s the usual HACKS packaging, featuring the landscape-orientated card, collector friendly bubble, and some really beautiful character art. The back of the card has the usual “Collect Them All” headshots of the first four waves and a little bit of a bio of Stheno. The Eldest Gorgon Sister can not only turn her victims to stone, but she can also transform humans into Gorgon soldiers with a simple bite. She was released as part of the second wave of Series 1 and I’m super excited to finally get her open and check her out!

Hot damn, is this a gorgeous figure! I love how each of the Gorgon Sisters have their own thing going on. Medusa is the classic half-snake lady, Eurayle is the most human, with just the snake hair to give her away. Well, Stheno lies in between. She’s mostly human looking like her youngest sister, but she’s got the full on snake hair mantle that puts Eurayle’s to shame. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First off, Stheno is built on a dark-skinned female buck, and as usual her entire costume is made of separate pieces and actually worn by the buck. That’s especially impressive here because of how intricate the costume is and that it’s all done in 4-inch scale. It’s also interesting to note that to my knowledge, BFS has never reused any of these armor pieces. That makes this figure one of the most distinctive looking releases in the Series.

The costume consists of some very intricate gold armor strapped to her lower legs. The criss-crossing gold is a little evocative of a snake pattern, but with the pincer-like ends at her knees, I also find them to have a scarab-like appearance, giving her a bit more of an Egyptian flavor than Classical Greek. She has a pair of painted panties and above that a belt, again with an intricate golden weave pattern and a snake-skin skirt that hangs off the back. Her top features a golden brassiere and some beautifully sculpted shoulders. She also has a pair of arm bracers with some remarkable snake texturing on them. I really have to give BFS some major kudos for the amount of detail they’re able to pack into such small pieces. All that gold in Stheno’s outfit is broken up a bit with some purple stones and beads. This costume is quite simply striking in every way imaginable.

And yet the real selling point of this figure is still probably the majestic head sculpt. Stheno’s face is beautifully sculpted with some pronounced cheek bones and sharp paint to the eyes and lips. Her headdress features more of ornate gold finery to match the rest of her outfit, with a purple bauble right in the middle of her forehead. And then you have her outrageous mane of cobra hair. It’s something that just has to be seen to be believed. The individual cobras fan out to both sides with each of their hoods fully deployed. Amazing!

Now, as fantastic as Stheno looks, all this detail comes at a bit of a price and the articulation, poseability, and overall stability falls victim to the character design. While the buck features all the great points of articulation that I’ve come to appreciate in this line, the top of her armor keeps her arms from being able to go flush with her sides, so they’re always going to be sticking out. On the other hand, her tight fitting snake skirt means that her hip articulation is a bit hindered as well. Finally, the giant snake mane combined with tiny bare feet means that Stheno is not a figure that is easy to keep standing upright. She’s quite back-heavy and in virtually all of the shots in this review, I’m using some kind of assist to keep her standing. I don’t want to harp on these points too harshly, because I think it’s a fair trade-off to get a figure that looks this striking.

While Boss Fight tends to stuff these figures with tons of accessories, Stheno comes up short in that regard with only her serpent staff, figure stand, and an extra pair of hands in her inventory. Again, it’s not something I’m going to get upset about because clearly a lot of attention went into this one-and-done outfit, plus the extra plastic needed for her slithering coif is probably the same amount that goes into all those accessories included with other figures.

Now, with that having been said, the staff is a very cool piece and feels very appropriate for the character. The gold staff features a purple globe at the top and a gold cobra spiraling up the rod and crowning the purple orb with his open hood.

Vitruvian HACKS is a line built around parts sharing and recoloring and there’s nothing wrong with that because Boss Fight knows how to make it work. But it also makes it all the more special when you get a figure like Stheno in the mix. She’s a stand out addition to the collection, not only because she’s an absolutely gorgeous sculpt, but also because she feels more one-of-a-kind than a lot of the other figures in this Series. That’s not to put down the myriad versions of Hoplites and snake-lady repaints, as they’re all excellent figures. I’m just glad I waited until this late in the game to get around to opening Stheno, because she adds a strong shot of variety and distinctiveness among the legions of Greek Soldiers and Gorgons. And while I appreciate the fact that this costume hasn’t been used since, I wouldn’t mind seeing it recolored and used in Series 2 on a female enchantress of some sort.

Who’s up for ending the week with a little Vitruvian HACKS? I sure am, because I really want to get all these remaining HACKS figures reviewed before the new Mythic Legions figures arrive and take over my Wednesday slots for… well for the rest of the year. I’m not even kidding! The last time I visited with Boss Fight’s awesome line of 4-inch plastic peoples from Greek Mythology, I opened up the youngest of the three Gorgon sisters, Eurayle and today I’m going to check out one of her Disciples! Yes, I know I promised to be looking at the last of the three Gorgon sisters this week, but I’ll get to her next week. Promise! No, really… this time I mean it!!!

As always, unless it’s some kind of exclusive, the HACKS figures come on these snappy landscape-orientated cards with colorful artwork and a clear bubble that extends out to hug the edges of the card and can be easily removed without damaging anything. I love it! Actually, the character artwork on this card isn’t the greatest, it’s actually pretty bad. But it’s the figure inside that really counts. Unlike her big sis, Medusa, Eurayle chooses not to turn her victims to stone, instead she bewitches them into joining her army of slaves, and that’s where the Disciple of Eurayle fits into the big picture. Hmm… useless lawn ornaments or slave army? I think she’s got the right idea!

There’s nothing in this package that we haven’t seen before, but the HACKS line is all about mixing and matching parts and adding new color schemes to come up with new figures, and The Disciple is another great example of just how good BFS is at it. This figure features the typical male buck, cast in a cool sickly green colored skin to make him look like he’s been partially snake-ified. The body features the standard sculpted and painted sandals on the feet, and adds a couple of black snake-like tattoos printed on the biceps. As always, articulation is made up of a lot of pegged hinges (in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, ankles) so the figure can be taken apart, and you also get ball joints in the hips and double hinges in the knees. There’s a ball joint in the torso, buried under the armor, and a double ball joint in the neck.

The armor consists of a Spartan-style hauberk of scale mail, and is colored in a dark olive green and features some gold paint apps for the trim and rivets. The sculpted detail on the hauberk is especially nice for a figure in this scale, not to mention it’s an actual separate piece of costume that’s worn by the buck. The same goes for the sculpted grieves, which are painted gold and have green snake motifs sculpted onto them. The only article of clothing you can’t take off this figure are the sculpted sandals.

The head is bald and has some splendid facial details. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say this is one of the best 4-inch had sculpts I’ve seen in a while. The grim visage works well as a mindless warrior zombie and I especially like the bright red eyes.

The Disciple also comes with a standard hoplite helmet with a high brush comb. The helmet is painted in dark olive to match the hauberk and there’s a gold zigzag pattern painted along the crest and under the comb. As always, the helmet fits the head quite well. Let’s move on to have a look at the rest of his gear!

First up, he comes with a gold short sword with a leaf-shaped blade and a simple hilt. The sword comes with a scabbard attached to a shoulder strap that works really well and looks great on the figure. The scabbard is painted brown and features some gold fixtures and a pair of sculpted tassels painted pale green to match The Disciple’s skin. The buckle on the shoulder strap is also painted gold. The sword fits in just snug enough so it doesn’t fall out, but it’s not too hard to draw either.

If you’d prefer, there’s also a loop in the back of the armor, which can be used to store the sword on his back. Honestly, I love the look of the scabbard too much not to use it, but it’s always nice to have options. And who knows, I may wind up giving him another sword someday.

And since swords and shields go together like PB&J, Boss Fight threw a standard shield in here as well. This is the same sculpt we’ve seen over and over again in this line, painted in gold, but I’m not complaining. The front face of the shield is sculpted with a hammered finish and has a red snake motif painted on it. The reverse of the shield features sculpted rivets and reinforced plates. There’s a grab bar as well as a pliable plastic sleeve for the forearm, both of which help the figure to hold it perfectly. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being impressed by how well the equipment like this shield or the sword scabbard work with these figures, despite only being 4-inch scale. There are also tiny loops on the back of the shield. I presume these are so you can tie some string around them as a means of hanging the shield on the figure’s back.

Now, if you are looking for something a little more exotic than the traditional sword and shield, The Disciple also comes with gold versions of Eurayle’s katar-style weapons. I like that they included these as it further ties the look of the Disciple to his mistress. The first pair includes blades with a snake head motif near the hilt and some jagged cuts in the edges.

The other more distinctive pair are comprised of coiled snakes. As I’m sure I said in the Eurayle review, I love these designs, but I would imagine that they aren’t terribly practical as weapons. Although, I wouldn’t want to get run through by one of those.

At this point, some of the Series 1 HACKS are getting harder to find at decent prices, but Boss Fight still has a selection available on their website, which is where I was able to hunt down this Disciple of Eurayle. And while there’s nothing here I haven’t seen already, in terms of both the figure and the accessories, I’m really glad I decided to pick him up. He’s a great looking addition to the collection, and I really like the story behind him. Maybe even enough to pick up a second so that I can give the youngest of the Gorgon Sisters a pair of guards to display with her instead of just the one lone Disciple. After all, a figure that’s worth literally ten times what I paid for her a couple of years ago needs a good guard detail.

My last bunch of Vitruvian HACKS reviews have been focusing on the Series 2 sword-and-sorcery fantasy figures, but I still have plenty of unfinished business with the Series 1 and all it’s Greek Mythology goodness. Indeed, I’m pretty sure that the last few times I reviewed HACKS, I promised to go back to Series 1 for a while, and so I’m going to start making good on that now. Today I’m checking out Eurayle, the youngest of the three Gorgon Sisters.

As usual, the figure comes on a landscape-orientated card and the bubble is part of a clear plastic piece that covers the card and folds around it at the edges. As a result you get all the classic presentation of a carded figure, while still being totally collector friendly. The front of the card features some great character art, and the back has the “Collect Them All” layout with head-shots of all four waves of Series 1. There are a total of 16 figures in all, but that doesn’t count the exclusives, and I think there have been some new releases since then. And if you haven’t collected them all yet, be prepared to pay top dollar for some of these. But more on that later.

Eurayle hails from the third wave of Series 1 and she’s a standout figure, not only because she’s really well done, but because she’s one of the few figures from Series 1 that isn’t a variation of a Greek Hoplite or a Gorgon. Well, technically she is a Gorgon, but not in the half-snake, half-lady sense of the term. It’s complicated. The bio tells us that instead of turning her victims to stone, she brainwashes them to join her army of disciples. Either way, on the surface she’s just a scantily clad Greek babe. One of the many cool things about Series 1 is that the outfits are sculpted in separate pieces and actually worn by the figure. In this case that includes a white top and white sash, both held on with some electric blue snake straps. These fit the figure pretty well and I’m still amazed at how well BFS makes this work so well at the 4-inch scale.

I really dig what they did with the head sculpt here. Eurayle isn’t overly beautiful, but she’s not ugly either. The facial features are very well defined and she sports a lot of character. The paint applications on the face are done with precision and she even has some blue lipstick to match the blue snake motif on her outfit. But the real distinctive feature of Eurayle’s portrait is her snake hair. She may not have gone full-on half-snake like her sister Medusa, but she still shares the family resemblance in her slithering green coif. The tangle of snakes blows (or slithers) off to the side behind her and I love how they sort of turn into cornrows as they get to her scalp. Finally, she has a blue hair band that looks like… you guessed it! Snakes! Overall, the portraits in this line have been pretty solid, but I’d rate Eurayle’s up with some of the best of them.

While Eurayle doesn’t sport a whole lot of clothes to hide her modesty, she does know how to accessorize, as she comes with four different coiled snakes that she can wear on her arms and legs. These are painted to match the blue snakes on her outfit. These are all held on simply by tension and some work better than others. I wound up putting one small one on her right wrist, one small one on her left ankle, the biggest one on her right thigh, and the middle sized one on her left bicep. The only one that really gives me trouble staying put is the one on her bicep. It has a habit of sliding down to her elbow, although trying to hook it onto her shoulder seems to help.

Other than her snake accessories, Eurayle comes with an extra pair of accessory-holding hands, so you get one pair that’s hinged to angle forward and one hinged to go side-to-side. She also comes with two matched sets of katar-style push daggers, although I suppose these are long enough to be called swords. Both of these are painted to match her electric blue theme. The first pair have some really cool looking solid blades.

The second pair feature more of a snake motif and these look especially wicked, but I’m not sure they’d be quite as effective as weapons. They don’t seem to have edges, so these would be primarily stabbing weapons, but I guess that was largely the point (no pun intended) of the katar anyway. Besides, I don’t want to criticize these weapons by overthinking them, because I think the designs are awesome and these are the ones I’ll be going with when I display her.

And as always, the figure comes with a standard issue black Boss Fight Studio embossed stand. I’ve had some issues using the pegs on these with some of the previous barefoot figures because the foot pegs are more shallow, but Eurayle’s work just fine. Although she is a surprisingly well balanced figure on her own.

Back when I was crunching numbers for Add On’s for the HACKS Kickstarter and trying to stay within some semblance of budget, I very nearly nixed Eurayle in favor of another warrior variant, but I finally convinced myself that I wanted all three of the Gorgon Sisters and so she ultimately made the cut. And it’s a good thing too, because for reasons unknown to me, she goes for all the monies now on the second-hand market. I mean, sure, some Series 1 HACKS can go for double what they originally cost, but lovely little Eurayle here seems to go in the vicinity of $150-200, and that’s if you can actually find her for sale. To be honest, a little piece of me was hoping that I was going to be unimpressed with her and willing to let her go for that kind of money, but as it turns, out I’ll be keeping her. And next time I revisit the HACKS line, I’ll check out the final Gorgon Sister, Stheno!