william-james88 wrote:2. What are those small pouch looking plastic pieces attached to the torating waist gears of Headstrong and Tantrum? I have no clue what purpose these serve.
They're a goddamn pain in the ass and their only purpose is to get in the way.
Okay so a year and a half from completing Feral Rex, two and a half years since I got the first part, and on the other side of Combiner Wars, I seriously don't love these guys so much anymore. The arms are too heavy to use the already shallow elbows when the shoulders are rotated up. The extended lion mane parts are hard to tuck away. Tigris's kneecaps tabbing into his feet is a pain. The lack of a good hiding spot for Tigris's robot head is annoying, it just sits in back of his tiger head and you have to pretend you don't see it. Tigris doesn't look very good in beast mode (for that matter, neither does Leo Dux). Of the four terrestrial bots, only Leo hides his beast legs away well in his robot and combined modes. Fortis and Bovis in particular have their rear beast legs jutting out of the sides really far that Rex cannot stand with his feet together, and this impacts stability and posing. The codpiece is probably the worst placed thing I've ever seen, as it rests low on Leo's own codpiece (showing half of it) and gingerly covers Leo's upper thighs while Leo has this annoying fold-down hip armor that is meant to fill in the space between front and back. While it all technically works, it means that you cannot grab Rex by his waist at all to move him, pose him, or do whatever. You can still grab him by his armpits or use two hands to grab him by the arms, but it's not as easy as just grabbing by the waist, where there's a lot of open space for hands to get in. Also, that whole third joint in Leo's legs which is meant to be the combiner's forward hip joint was a good idea on paper, but in practice they only serve to get in the way, bending when I don't want them to because Leo is carrying so much weight. The weight distribution, joint tolerances, and Rex's permanently splayed legs (a feature I've started to detest since Combiner Wars showed you could do combiners with naturally positioned legs), along with the lack of friction on the feet, severely limit posing options. Also, the knees. Bovis had an impossible to move combiner joint, while Fortis's was almost too loose. I was able to wrest Bovis's out and clear out some excess glue inside the socket and now it moves about as much as Fortis's. The overall combiner is slightly back-heavy which has resulted in his knees giving out on multiple occasions. It doesn't help that Leo's leg pegs have their own swivel, so even if Fortis and Bovis hold, Leo might give way. Then there's the feet, which are somehow not level (whether by design or because the weight of the figure pushes down on the middle disproportionately) and only touch the ground at a few points, reducing the figure's friction and balance. A few more complaints: I mentioned Fortis and Bovis's legs before. Well aside from sticking out a solid inch from each side, they also get in the way of their transformations from robot to beast. The forelegs are built in such a way that the robot elbows can never fully extend, they are always slightly bent. These two have that annoying hip armor as I brought up before, and every figure except Leo has these thigh pads that rotate around which I think are supposed to widen the legs and provide attachment points for the weapons, but really it's a step that could have been avoided by simply putting holes on the actual legs and not requiring a superfluous extra step (and some finger pain) by rotating a very stiff piece around. Now yes, you can absolutely just leave them behind the legs, but I'd rather they weren't included at all.
The combined weapons are nice, but the flayed ends of most of the bladed weapons and the shape of the individual robot hands are AWFUL. Either due to flayed ends or the design of the piece, you cannot simply slide anybody's bladed weapons into their hands except for Tigris's, you have to come from the side and force them in, and due to their thinness and the tightness of the palm socket, this can be hard to do without breaking something. I broke one of Talon's daggers not long after I got him, and while MMC sent me a replacement, it drilled in how bad of a design it was. Lastly, I really wish the sword had locks on both sides of the hilt. It's hard to pose it above horizontal when it flops backwards because it has to serve double duty as Leo Dux's tail.
It's not all bad, though. I like the figures for the most part when they're not combined, especially Talon and Leo Dux. I LOVE Talon's wings. The headsculpts on everybody are great. The joints are tight (sometimes TOO tight, transforming this guy hurts my fingers), the sculpting and detail are marvelous, the paint work is immaculate. There's a lot of great ideas here, but the final product has not lived up to my expectations after the novelty has worn off. If a $200 Hasbro or Takara Predaking comes along, I will snap that up in a heartbeat. Right now, I'm strongly considering selling this guy off.
)
) But now that they are individual bots again, I have them holding that other 3P kit with the extra guns. They are awesome Voyager figures!
