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Set Title: King Jayko Set #: 8701 Theme: Knights Kingdom II (Final Action Figures Wave) Pieces: 130 Year of release: 2006 Price at Release: $20.00 or £12.99 Advertising Blurb: Source And we will get to that fireball in a few more sections! Intro; Some Background and Info: The front of the box is featured at the top; here is the back as well as an exciting picture from the instructions. ^^This Pic advertises the Castle line of '06 ( A glorious time for constraction as well as System LEGO.)^^ The Pieces/Unboxing: (The reason I got this set ) Interesting Parts: Be right back as I assemble this regal ruler... Here is Jayko complete, and in the instruction's cramped-looking reference pose. I will go ahead and list some Pros and Cons he has, as if he were packaged seperately as a Knight: Pro: He is pretty tall (as I will compare to Vezon and Mata Lewa) Pro: He has a very nice Silver, Gold, and white color scheme. Con: The only things that throw this off is the blue pin (that you will only see if he is in this very vulnerable stance), the fact that his shoulders have a darker shade with a glittery sort of texture, that crown that is a little darker than the chest armor, and (for the truly picky) the Knights Kingdom ratchet pins are not really silver, but a sort of quiet blue. Con: The Knights Kingdom joints. As much as I love the aesthetics of most the Knights Kingdom action figures, their joints are as annoying as Karzahni (the place )! Actually posing him for pictures is extremely difficult, and I jsut settled for the very cramped reference pose. This pose itself is somewhat of a con because it is so cramped. Pro: The arms look pretty complete for a Constraction set! They aren't really exposed anywhere except for maybe the forearms, part of which are already shaped to sort of resemble gauntlets. Pro: The back also looks pretty complete, and the cape helps with this and also with the below, but not fully. Con: Like pretty much all Constraction figures, he lacks armor on the backs of his legs. What armor he does have on the front of his legs hinders posing the feet. Pro: The function of the figure is actually pretty good. While you do have to adjust the arms a bit for certain poses, they are probably the easiest to pose part of his whole build. The function itself has two movement gears that function independantly, which is a huge plus! This allows for a sort of Rock 'em Sock 'em independant arm swinging so they can bash with their shields, block, or swing the spiffy sword! Overall, I like the appearance of this figure and the function a lot. Its a real shame about the poseability though which is a tremendous drawback. Without the catapult it would really be a sort of clone of Mathias or any of the other Knight's sets really. Now on to the Aforementioned Catapult! The catapult features two really neat functions, made possible mainly by the standard LEGO System. The catapult is about the right size, and made to work with the action figure. Despite the large ammount of System pieces it is a part of an Action Figure set. The main function is- of course- to launch things! ... which it can do pretty well. This thing can in fact compete with most Action Figure blasters for distance and in a way it is Jayko's blaster. If you can fight past the posing and strange angling, and give Jayko something heavy enough to bash the lever with (possibly his shield), you can make him launch the fireball. The fireball: (Sorry for Blurry ) The fireball is the two halves of the boulder, with three (3) trans reddish-orange cyinder-type 1x1s. It is intended to fall apart on impact with whatever it hits, scattering pieces everywhere! (it wouldnt be fun if we didnt have that risk of losing pieces, right Zamor fans? ) A secondary feature: As the catapult rolls forward, it chops ( )This is how it works: The axes are each mounted on long axles like so, and those are attached freely via pin to the sides of the catapult. Each wheel has these Technic-compatible half-bricks that are also attached freely by pins to the catapult. As the wheels turn, the bricks underneath bump the axes up and down sharply (no pun intended, but it may as well have been). Final Pic (and attempt to pose with these joints): Final Thoughts: The set itself is really awesome as a whole, the king being "cool" on his own as well. The overall appearance is pleasing. All the functions are great- the catapult itself is great for pelting cats or running over minifigs if you are into those sorts of things (I did not and would not pelt my family's cat ). I cannot really find any cons with the catapult, except that it looks a little weak in the sides. The set itself is really amazing for parts, providing two different kinds of weapons (3 with the complete catapult), as well as the ever-nifty medieval armor for knights. If you can get this at a reasonable price like I did (avoiding sellers of "Collector's Items") it is well worth it. The original retail price is USD $20.00, which is pretty standard for Titans and I do consider King Jayko to be a KKII equivalent of a titan. Sadly, when compared to other titans he is pretty lacking (mostly in complexity, but so much so that comparing to BIONICLE's makes him look pretty bad) Build: 8/10 pretty solid in appearance in color scheme. Lacking a little on the fortification side of constraction. Parts: 7/10 (I did get the set for this reason however:) Despite having a good sum of technic parts and System parts, this is an action figure set and System and parts and Knight's Kingdom limbs and torsos are kind of a liability to action figure sets for MoCing purposes. It is not impossible to use these pieces for action figure MoC's, but it can be difficult. In partial compensation, it does give us quite a few converters and pins/connectors though plus the equipment which can work a lot better for CCBS and Technic use. Price: 10/10 I felt it was worth the fun of putting together and playing with a bit, and it also has serious MoCing potential. If you could get its original retail price (like I did)- or maybe just 10 over- and then compare that price-to-plastic ratio to modern constraction figures', this definitely seems about right. Overall: 8.7/10 This is just averaging the scores of the other categories and adding a bit on, because I do find this to be a very decent set. It almost feels wrong to disassemble his suit of armor for my own due to just how complete and nearly perfect the set looks. I am very glad to have gotten this set. I kind of wish Knights Kingdom II hadnt ended. They did some very interesting things with it towards the end and I would have liked to see more. (Here's hoping they consider KKIII in CCBS ) How did I do? How does this set look for you? Edit: Fix'd as many typing errors as I could. Added notes I left out. Also corrected tags.
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Quick Acronym Definitions: KKII=Knights Kingdom with the Action Figures; CCBS=Character and Creature Building System used by modern lego action figures; Most of CCBS has been strongly Sci-Fi for the few themes that use it. Most lego action figure themes were also this way. One thing that MoC'ers can definitely use and has a place for on the market is action figures in the fantasy or "medieval" theme. I have a few ideas for things that could definitely work and I would love to see happen. These could and should introduce new pieces for CCBS/Technic building systems for us to make our own creations, or just as cool sets themselves. These are in order of what I see as most possible. In each spoiler for them is a background on what they are and why they could come back. >Knights Kingdom III: >Heroica, the Action Figure Game: [EDIT: I am going to do a more developed writeup of this, the thread is too small and not focused on this new theme idea] >Gauntlet Ultrabuilds: >What I want from any of these ideas: New pieces of course! -More diverse medieval weapons than just swords (something KKII didnt do 'til its final wave but even then they were all still melee barring the siege weapons). Perhaps actual bow-shaped blasters that look better than Fluminox or Jungle Protector's awkward blasters with bows built around them. Maybe some functions for them to each use those weapons. Edit: -Another new piece idea: Magic staff weapons that act as blasters themselves and shoot some sort of elemental projectile that also sits in the staff like an ornament at the top of it. -More organic headpieces. So fall all constraction has given us is the robot heads of BIONICLE and Hero Factory. Also it is arguable that KKII's visor-heads could be included, but they look pretty bad without their visors. A CCBS-compatible head possibly in a similar artstyle to the hero ultrabuilds, that has a little more customizability than the ultrabuilds ones. Maybe a head similar to minifigs: have a head with the organic face and an axle joint hole at the top. Here you could put hair or a helmet or a hood. The ideal helmet would be made to fit on this minifig-esque head similar to other minifig helmets. It would cover the back of the head and part of the sides, but have a visor-attachment joint pair on the sides for helmets. It should also be compatible with BIONICLE 2015 masks that are also built in visor fashion to create new helmets or let someone outside of the BIONICLE line wear a mask in MoCs. -New CCBS Armor shell attachments with a more classic fantasy/medieval design. Current CCBS armor shells are just generic enough to be whatever. There is however, few styles of these attachments. BIONICLE looks like it wil ladd at least one for its style, but we probably wont see the kinds of things in BIONICLE that we could see in a Castle theme. They dont have to be just armor, what if your CCBS characters could have quivers for their crossbows or bows? Sheathes for new swords/polerarms? -Cloaks and Hoods. On rare occasions LEGO would include a cloak "piece" in sets (ie Vezon, Furno XL, King Jayko/Mathias). Short of do-it-yourself custom crafting this is the only way to "clothe" a MoC without using armor. A fantasy theme could bring in armor shells or attachements that are also more robe styled, but that wouldnt look as cool as a (Wizard/Druid/Ranger/Elf) with a cloak on their back as well. Fabric hoods vs full plastic hoods that fit on my suggested head piece would become a new debate similar to stickers vs printeds. -Female characters. This is a dangerous subject in a few ways. It is infamous for the fantasy genre to have sexualized female characters. Those (VERY FEW) that were in the BIONICLE universe did not really have this problem as much of a possibility with them being robots and all (although Roodaka sort of tested that pretty hard tbh). LEGO would have to navigate a really sensitive minefield, but I dont really see why that can't at least try to break the terrible 1:5 female:male ratio. I understand what constractions target audience is, but in part isnt part of the problem in selling to female customers alienating them from the theme before they consider looking at it? -Characters that arent robots. BIONICLE and Hero Factory are awesome, but you have to admit that there were barely any characters that didnt look like full-on robots. Even More New Pieces: -NEW FEET. We finally got new feet for CCBS in IFB. Before that it was pretty much either Piraka Claws or hero feet. This would be as good an oppurtunity as any to bring in new foot parts and break this stale building design. -New Hands. For the same reasons as the feet. Also, unless you are wearing gauntlets or other jointed gloves, the robot hands would look like robot attachments on organic characters (see every Ultrabuild). This is the perfect oppurtunity to fix that, with BIONICLE not really leaving space for this. (New Hands and Feet are probably more likely to happen in a series that isnt just one wave) EDIT: Updated HEROICA EDIT2: I feel like the Heroica idea could grow a lot more and I might add to it as the ideas come to me. This is mostly a speculation sort of a thing for me. I definitely feel like the Heroica is the coolest option and would probably go to Cuusoo with it if I had the resources and the know-how. So what do you think? Any ideas?
