I was tempted to go all in on GI JOE this week, but then I remembered that I had to throw some love to Mythic Legions, so let’s do that today. If you need to catch up, I’ve already covered two of the figures from the most recent Poxxus Wave, Samir Scrollwarder and Aracagorr, and today we’ll be checking out the first baddie in the assortment… Thraice Wraithhailer.

We’ve seen the packaging many times before, so let’s just jump into a bit about the character. Thraice is an Umangeist, which TFH identify as “A corrupt supernatural mingling of flesh and phantasm,” and damn, that’s some top notch wordsmithing right there. Ms. Wraithhailer ia a summoner with an unquenchable thirst for power and has sided with the evil forces of Poxxus in Mythos’ latest struggle between good and evil.

Thraice comes out of the box with her shoulder armor off, so all you need to do is peg those into her back to get her ready for battle. Pegging these in has been a painful experience on the recent figures, so I was happily surprised to see these go in nice and easy. I’ve been through so many Mythic Legions figures and have so many yet to be opened, that I no longer go crazy trying to identify all the parts reuse, although I do certainly recognize the shoulder pieces, as we’ve seen those many times before. The body consists of the leather-style armor we saw introduced with the Elves, and here it’s done in black and brown with some fine silver paint work around the fixtures and rivets. I’m also blown away by the attention to detail on the laces running up the front of her cuirass. The individually sculpted laces are painted brown and each and every eyelet is painted silver. The boots give way to a dark chocolate brown, matching the belt. The belt has a bronze disk buckle front and center, some sculpted pouches on the side and more of those immaculate tiny silver paint hits to the fixtures. The belt looks great, but it does have a habit of riding up and shifting about when posing the figure.

This wave is big on the softgoods flourishes, and here we see a black skirt utilized along with the sculpted armor, which hangs down from the hips and wraps around the back. We also get wired flap of cloth hanging down the front. I really am impressed at how well the cloth is integrated with the plastic. It looks great! Thraice also comes with three sets of hands: Two sets for accessory holding and one set for spell-slinging!

And there are two portraits included, although the differences are rather subtle. The first is rather neutral and it doesn’t make Thraice look like such a bad gal. The eyes are very nicely painted with white centers to her pupils giving her something of an ethereal look. The facial features are well-rounded and beautiful with an ashen complexion and her pure white hair hangs down over the fronts of her shoulders with some stray strands falling over the extreme left side of her face.

The alternate portrait makes her look a bit more wicked, or at least like she’s concentrating on a spell or incantation. Her brow is a little furled and her eyebrows are downturned, while the hair is identical. There’s definitely a difference of expression between the two heads, but it’s not exactly a huge difference. Either way, they are both gorgeous! And if you aren’t all that wrapped up in the official canon, I think Thraice could certainly pass as one of the heroes if that’s what you want her to be. Or perhaps just a shadowy figure who’s path is uncertain.

You also get a purple softgoods cloak, similar to the one we saw last time with Samir. Once again, it’s beautifully tailored with wire running around the edges for posing and the material falls about the figure quite naturally, which is impressive for this scale. The deep purple both fits the character well and offers a bit more color to make her pop. Naturally, you do have to remove the shoulder armor to fit it on her. On the downside, I did not want to wind up pulling out the stitching on the hood clasp trying to get her hair to fit inside the hood, so I kept the hood down in the pictures. The solicitation shots do have her wearing it up, so I’m sure it’s possible, but I just didn’t want to risk it.

Thraice doesn’t come with a whole heck of a lot in terms of extras. Mythic Legions can be like that. Sometimes you get a ton and sometimes just a small assortment. Indeed, in this case you just get two magic effect parts and a staff. The staff is pretty simple and understated, but I do really dig the translucent blue crystal ball at the top. The black shaft is smooth and you get some bronze fixtures sculpted at the top and bottom. I kind of like the idea that the staff is just a focusing tool for Thraice’s power and it doesn’t need to be all kinds of elaborate and crazy to do that.

As for the effect parts, these are both to demonstrate Thraice’s abilities as a Summoner. The first is a translucent blue skull and it is really damn nice. The projected skull has it’s jaws open and the spiraling tendril of energy wraps around the figure’s arm to make it look like it’s being cast forth. The translucent effect looks great and when combined with the bright blue it practically looks like it’s illuminated.

The second is a serpent’s head with a long spiral tendril that wraps around the staff. This one looks really nice as well with the same gorgeous translucent blue coloring and a lot of detail to the serpent head.

I’ll confess that Thraice underwhelmed me in the accessories department, but she more or less makes up for it as the figure itself is absolutely excellent. I think the choice of armor fits the type of character they were going for quite well and while there aren’t a lot of flourishes of color, the black and brown looks solid and the meticulous touches of silver do impress. And once again the use of softgoods is very welcome here and it I like that you can display the cloak open and still see the body sculpt, giving me the best of both worlds. Yes, I would have liked a few more extras included. I get that she’s probably not a sword-user, but at the very least, that exotic curved dagger and sheath we’ve seen many times before would have given us something to hook onto her belt. And I’ll likely borrow one from another figure.

Last month I started checking out the newest assortment of Mythic Legions figures, centered around the return of the evil scourge, Poxxus. My first figure was the large and impressive Dragon Man Aracagorr, which was a mighty fine debut for the wave. And, yes, it’s taken me a few weeks to get back to it, but I really do have so much cool stuff to cover and three reviews a week can only take me so far. I’d love to do more, but it’s often a crunch just to keep up this pace. Anyway, today’s offering from the Realm of Mythoss is the powerful wizard, Samir Scrollwarder!

Unlike our giant dragon friend, who came in a window box, Samir comes in the usual bubble on card that we’ve been seeing with Mythic Legions from the beginning. The card art is generic to the wave, but you do get some character specific text on the side of the bubble insert, telling us that Samir is one of the good guys and Keeper of The Great Library of Agbendo. This presentation is both attractive and serviceable, as well as collector friendly, but I don’t tend to keep these packages. I will note that Samir came packaged with his blue robe off and in a baggie behind the bubble, but I’ve had him out long before I took this shot and opted to leave it on. But, let’s start out without the robe and see what we’ve got!

Straightaway, I love Samir’s classic wizard look. Long gray beard? Check! Bald Pate? Check! Robes? Check! And speaking or robes, let’s start there. Mythic Legions is a line known for its exquisite sculpting and paintwork, so the heavy use of softgoods is kind of a new thing for the line, and Samir is definitely the first of these figures in my collection to be fully dressed in cloth and showing very little sculpt on the body. For the record, the underlying body is fully armored, but I won’t be disrobing him. I’ll never display him without the robe, so you’ll have to take my word for it. His wizardly garment is immaculately tailored, fits the figure well, and falls about him quite naturally. There are wires sewn into the bottom edge as well as the sleeves to allow them to be shaped the way you want them and it serves the purpose very well, especially in those sleeves, which gives them a little added weight. How do wizards cope with those long dangling sleeves? It seems like they would constantly be knocking over dangerous potions or catching them on fire, while reaching over a candle to grab another book.

The head sculpt is very nicely done, giving Samir an ancient and wizened countenance. The long gray beard is intricately sculpted with strands of hair weaving around and crisscrossing each other. His skin has a rich brown pigment and I dig the creases in his brown and the crow’s feet radiating from the sides of his eyes, which suggest he’s been around a while and seen a lot. The painted eyes are a little flat when compared to some of TFH’s other efforts, making them serviceable but not exceptional.

You also get a second head depicting the mystical arts welling up in Samir. This is mostly the same head sculpt, but here we get some green paint depicting arcane markings on his face and his eyes are painted entirely in green, showing the power within him.

The robe is cinched at his waist with a brown plastic belt that tabs together in the back behind a sculpted pouch. The connection there isn’t terribly secure, so I do find it popping open now and again.. I may wind up using some poster putty to secure it, or just outright glue it, since I don’t really ever plan on removing the belt. You get some accessories for the belt, including a cluster of pouches and potion containers that clips on. There are also a pair of loops to allow him to keep a pair of scrolls at the ready. The scrolls are plastic and sculpted in rolls. The belt has some fine gold paintwork on the buckle as well as the fixtures on the pouch.

Articulation is standard Mythic Legions stuff. I believe the figure is built on the Elf-style body so despite being armored, it’s more lithe and feels a bit more agile than the bulkier knights. You get four sets of bare hands with Samir. These include fists, two sets of casting-gesture hands, and a pair to hold accessories.

Samir also comes with an mystical text from the Great Library of Agbendo The powerful tome has a sculpted belt around it, holding it permanently closed. There are some loose pages sculpted into the fore edge and a real chain so he can wear it around his neck and keep tabs on it. The covers have a realistic leather texture to them and there’s a golden sun emblem sculpted on the front as well as reinforced corners.

And finally, you get his magical staff and a magical effect part. The staff features a winged cobra at the top, encircled in a ring. The staff has several rows of rings and a spiral grip running down to the end. The entire staff is finished in a deep copper color. The swirling green effect part is meant to snake around the staff, but it also works really well to depict Samir launching a mystical attack from his hand. Snaking it around his arm inside the robe holds it in place really well and the figure is capable of supporting the weight of the piece without any help of a stand!

And here is Samir wearing his blue cloak. I had originally planned on shooting more of the review with the cloak on, but I was pretty impressed with the figure in just the brown robes and so I saved it for last. The cloak looks great on him and certainly adds some color. You get wires running throughout the edges of the cloak as well as around the opening of the hood and these make it easy to work with when posing the figure. It’s quite impressive that even with both the robes and the cloak on, the softgoods don’t look puffy or oversized on the figure and I think that’s a testament to how great the tailoring is. Ultimately, I will likely keep the blue cloak on him for regular display, but I’ll be open to switching it up now and again.

Samir feels like quite a landmark figure for the line. It not only introduces a very classic and traditional wizard design, but it also shows us how well softgoods can be utilized for these figures. Now, I’m not saying I want a lot of my Mythic Legions figures dressed from head to toe in cloth, but it’s nice to see how well TFH can do it when it’s appropriate. They also did a great job with his accessories and the magic effect piece turned out a lot more versatile than I had expected. We did get another wizard in this assortment… an EVIL wizard, but I’m going to hold off on him and try to mix things up for the next time I visit with this amazing line!

Yes, I have quite a backlog of Mythic Legions figures (mostly from the Illythia Wave) to check out, and yes I’m still bumping the newly arrived Poxxus Wave to the front of the line. I’m not trying to slight those other figures. Their time will come, but in an effort to be slightly current, I thought I’d jump ahead. The Poxxus Wave marks the third assortment of figures based on the return of a Big Bad to the Realm of Mythoss. First there was Arthyer, then came Illythia, and now we have Poxxus. I’ve only begun opening these, but I started with one of the big boys and he made quite the impression, so let’s go with him! As always, these were part of a limited pre-order through Store Horsemen, and while other retailers have been getting them, they tend to be sold for high mark ups.

Aracagorr is a member of a Demi-Dragon race called the Dragosyr. And while he looks like a pretty tough customer, he’s actually described in the lore as a noble warrior who has pledged to fight against the coming of Poxxus and his diseased forces. As we’ve seen in the past waves, the larger figures (Trolls and Ogres) come in window boxes with a generic, but attractive deco and a little blurb about the character on the side panel. Everything is collector friendly and you do have to attach Aracagorr’s tail to get him all ready for display.

And wow! I experienced a bit of sensory overload when I first got this guy out of the box. He’s big, he’s hefty, he towers over standard-sized figures, and both the sculpt and paint are absolutely stunning. This Dragon-Man uses some of the same parts as Kraggnar from the Cosmic Legions line, and while there is some of new sculpting here, the body has the same basic physique, with the elongated torso and legs that are slightly shorter than one might expect. The body is covered with meticulously sculpted scales, bumps, and ridges that had me turning the figure around in my hands just to take it all in. The tail has a ring with a slot, making a sort of C-connection that fits around the post connecting the upper body to the pelvis, allowing you to attach it without taking the figure apart. I thought it was going to be a chore, but it went on pretty easily. The downside to this design is the tail looks rather thin as it approaches the body, but that’s only really noticeable from certain angles. And as amazing as the sculpted detail on this figure is, the colors really steal the show. The electric blue paint is gorgeous as it slowly transitions to lighter aqua green to darker purple at various parts of his body. I can’t remember the last time I saw a paint job on a figure anywhere near this striking.

Aracagorr’s armor includes grieves, forearm bracers, and shoulder pieces. These are all done in a fairly classic knightly design with a flat gray finish and an understated aqua green wash to give it a hint of mystical energy. He has a chest harness that connects at the front with a studded disk, a wide belt with hip armor hanging off the sides, and a gray furry diaper to protect the modesty of his majestic dragon dongle. The belt has a large stylized dragon head motif carved into the front with horns protruding up and outward. As usual, all the little sculpted belts and straps on the armor are textured to look like leather and the rivets and buckles are all painted in metallic silver.

The portrait shares all the striking detail and coloring of the body. It’s covered in sculpted scales and has a snout with a small horn jutting up from his nose, counterbalanced by a pointed chin. The jagged jaw displays an array of sharp teeth jutting up and down from the jawline, and he has two horns sweeping back from the top of his head. The eyes are nestled under prominent brow ridges and there’s some electric purple painted scales under them. The jaw is even articulated with a fully sculpted tongue allowing for some different expressive display options. This is a breathtaking head sculpt and it makes me wonder if we will ever get a full-on dragon in this line and if so, just how epically magnificent (and expensive) it would be.

The articulation here is identical to what we saw with Kraggnar. Kraggnar had a little issue with the hips holding up his bulk in certain poses, but Aracagorr’s tail helps to skirt that problem by giving him some extra support. The tail also has a swivel cut about halfway to the end. You get three sets of hands with the figure: Fists, graspy hands, and tight grip hands. I’m happy to say I didn’t have any QC issues with the joints and he didn’t require any heat or force to get any of them working.

Besides all the hands, Aracagorr comes with two other accessories: A big sword and a magic effect piece for the blade. The sword is suitably sized for this bruiser with a distinctively contoured blade and a winged dragon motif making up the crossguard. The extended grip allows for two-handed wielding and the pommel looks like it was designed to crack some skulls. The blade has some sculpted nicks to the blade suggesting it has seen a lot of use and the fuller-like cut-out has some aqua paint to give it a mystical look.

The effect piece fits right onto the edge of the blade and is cast in a clear reddish-purple plastic. I think I would have preferred something in blue to match the figure as the coloring on this effect piece gives it a kind of grape jelly motif.

For whatever reason, I don’t even remember this Aracagorr being on my radar when I dropped my Poxxus Pre-Order, but he was the first out of the shipping box to really catch my eye. The colors and sculpt on this figure are superb and even among a collection of figures as diverse and beautiful as Mythic Legions, he commands a presence on the shelf that cannot be denied. What’s more, he’s big enough to go toe to toe with just about any villain in Mythoss and I can see him drop kicking my Goblins with glee. Heck, I’d even give him fair odds against any of the Trolls. I’m sure we will inevitably get a repaint, maybe with a new head and some variant armor, and I can’t wait to see what TFH come up with.