Legends of Chima 2013 (Action Figures)

[Mesonak]

I'm going to open this post by expressing my lament over all of these sets' horrible, printed torsos with glaring asymmetrical designs. They just don't sit well with me, especially on Gorzan's torso armor, where it just looks... bad.

Opinions haven't changed from the previous small picture. Eris looks pretty mediocre, Laval looks terribly generic and has horrible leg armor placement, and Cragger is lacking many recolors that I was excited for on him, but still looks okay. Gorzan is better than Hulk, I'd say, and that weapon is nice, but the lack of the banana belt takes away a lot of this guy's personality.

Worriz and Razar are the only sets I'm really excited for here, and will definitely be picking up. Worriz is just great all-around, and there's nothing I really dislike. Razar is just a carbon copy of Eris with better colors and a cooler looking head.

Hoping these are prototypes, but I don't really believe that anymore. :P

Edited February 4, 2013 by Mesonak

[Aanchir]

Laval looks exactly the same as before, but I don't mind that a bit. I see here he's got two trans blue blades instead of only one. I quite like the fur parts- wonder what color that is? Doesn't look like classic brown in that light..

The white claws are nice too.

Laval's fur seems to be either Dark Red or Reddish Brown. I'm gonna go ahead and guess Dark Red since that seems to be the color of his mane in the bigger pic we've seen of his face, and the fur pieces seem to match that.

I assume the wolf-like guy is Worriz? Head looks way similar to the Werewolf minifig we've seen before.. bit square in shape if you get my meaning. The head and fur appear to be in 'Metru bley', that's a plus. It's always nice to see more 'Metru/Dark/Earth Red', especially in cladding, which we've only seen in Pyrox so far. The red blade is great, I can imagine people making all sorts of 'dark Chima warriors' already, or using that blade somehow some more in Hero Factory.

To me, this guy is alright.

Official name for Dark Red is just Dark Red or New Dark Red. Earth Blue, Earth Green, etc. are a shade darker in TLG's naming scheme, so "Earth Red" wouldn't really apply.

Don't even get me started on Gorzan. His completely and utterly horrible gold Hulk chestplate, that ridiculous weapon (the only value is as parts and mace halves have very little MOCcing value anyway), those stubby legs and the removal of the extra armor and banana ammo belt which could have made it a GREAT set or, with the other changes I mentioned, have at the very least made it a decent parts pack.

What's wrong with the Hulk's chestplate? I'm fond of it, personally. It would be quite difficult to get such a solid-looking chest with smaller pieces, at least at the same price point and building level as other, smaller sets. And believe me, I've tried. I recently built a quite nice large-scale female HF figure and was challenging myself to make a male counterpart with the same level of complexity, and building a broad, flat chest without leaving conspicuous gaps or using up all of your torso beam's connection points is a tremendous challenge.

The stubby legs make plenty of sense to me. He is a cartoon gorilla, so why not give him cartoon gorilla proportions?

On a side note the mace halves are actually fairly useful for building from my experience. And I say that only having had any for a few weeks (Furno XL and Ogrum were the first two sets I have built with that included them, and already I've used them as the ends of a hammer and the ends of a pair of clubs).

Then there's Eris. Her very male head isn't even so much of a complaint. Compared to her other problems, that is. Her wings, which I don't even like in her minifigure, look horribly skeletal and un-winglike made with those pieces. Then there's her axe. It looks very useless bent at that angle. The only reason I could imagine why someone would want to buy the set would be for the trans-blue.

I still see nothing "very male" about her head. She's not Sam the American Eagle by any stretch of the imagination, and her face looks completely gender-neutral to me (which was probably the intent, since any male eagle tribe characters would use the same design).

Her wings don't look great to me, but I think that's largely a problem with posing and display-- note that they currently aren't even built symmetrically. Built like Razars, as they're probably supposed to be, I think they'd look fine. They're certainly less skeletal than any other HF wings that have been in sets.

Besides the Transparent Blue, other useful parts would be the white and gold wing elements which I don't believe appear in those colors in any other sets.

Now, Razar. Limiting it to purple and black gives him a much better colorscheme than most of the others. Purple is always a welcome color, anyway. His head mold looks better than the others too, evoking the feel of the original very well. The wings just work here. And I feel that Eris' axe parts seems to have been more designed for Razar's use. They work very well here.

Again, I think Eris's wings are supposed to be built more or less the same as his, though I'm not sure if you're saying that his wings are built better or that they're just better suited to use as a villainous raven character than a heroic eagle character. Personally, I think Eris's blades work better as an axe than these weird spike things, but it's nice to see them being used in two different ways regardless.

Last, Worriz. Slightly off head, less than, say, Eris or Laval. Nice silver fur add-on pieces and nice dark red armor. The simple weapon design, which I think was the original plan for Cragger's weapons works perfectly here. The saw-shield and paw hands work well as well.

I think his fur pieces are Dark Stone Grey (dark bluish gray), not silver.

Finally a few better pictures.

Since everybody else starts this list with Eris, I'll do so as well.

I think the problem with Eris' head is simply the neck. The neck of her minifig isn't covered with feathers, and her beak is not as dominant as it seems to be on the Ultrabuild. But even if it doesn't look really like Eris, it's still a cool head design. Also, I like axes, blue, white and wings, so yeah, Eris is an Insta-Buy (so she won't sit neglected on the shelves - or if she should do so, I'll buy a whole bunch of these once they go on sales).

I don't think her feathers are a problem at this scale, though. Frankly I kind of prefer the detail of this compared to the simpler and more heavily stylized helmets of the minifigure (no offense, Front, your minifig helmet design is still good, but I think for an action figure set this design makes more sense).

The constraction sets seem to be aimed at evoking the idea of the characters/animals rather than the minifigs themselves, since their color schemes and face designs are changed heavily. Some details like Razar's metal beak are maintained, but in general there's not much focus on simply "scaling up" the minifigures.

Worriz looks also cool. Is it possible that his armour is copper? Even if not, I like his design, altough it's similiar to Laval's.

I think his armor's just Titanium Metallic. The lighting has done funny things to a lot of these pictures. Copper would be unlikely since (pearl) Copper has been discontinued for a couple years at least.

[vexorian]

I like the printed torsos because they give these guys a personality different than HF's.

[Shakar]

I think the printed chests suit the characters, but I'd like if they showed up unprinted on PaB in the future.

I mean, look at the new colours: gold (Laval), tr. blue (Eris), dark lilac (Razar). Just..wow. (Edit: whoops, Laval's is titanium metallic)

Given what they did with Stormer XL, I hope Gorzan uses stickers. Though I still don't know what I could do with a gold giant chest (a titanium metallic one would've been way more useful, but they want all good guys to wear gold armour, unlike the minifigs ).

Edited February 5, 2013 by Shakar

[BrotherDog]

Really hoping these are prototypes. Was really looking forward to Cragger's green(any variation of green, finally) feet

for MoCs let alone keeping one assemled.

[DraikNova]

Laval's fur seems to be either Dark Red or Reddish Brown. I'm gonna go ahead and guess Dark Red since that seems to be the color of his mane in the bigger pic we've seen of his face, and the fur pieces seem to match that.

Official name for Dark Red is just Dark Red or New Dark Red. Earth Blue, Earth Green, etc. are a shade darker in TLG's naming scheme, so "Earth Red" wouldn't really apply.

What's wrong with the Hulk's chestplate? I'm fond of it, personally. It would be quite difficult to get such a solid-looking chest with smaller pieces, at least at the same price point and building level as other, smaller sets. And believe me, I've tried. I recently built a quite nice large-scale female HF figure and was challenging myself to make a male counterpart with the same level of complexity, and building a broad, flat chest without leaving conspicuous gaps or using up all of your torso beam's connection points is a tremendous challenge.

The stubby legs make plenty of sense to me. He is a cartoon gorilla, so why not give him cartoon gorilla proportions?

I love the Hulk chestplate, it's just the gold that irks me. Like most people, grey or gunmetal would have been a lot more useful. And truth to be told, even Gorilla's legs have a second joint. They could have easily added two small bone pieces.

[Aanchir]

I love the Hulk chestplate, it's just the gold that irks me. Like most people, grey or gunmetal would have been a lot more useful. And truth to be told, even Gorilla's legs have a second joint. They could have easily added two small bone pieces.

But would it have supported the model's weight? The reason these sets use friction joints is that regardless of whether they can support their own weight at the time they are built, they should be able to sit for a long time (even in a sunlit window) without becoming unstable. That's part of the reason for the heat test. Exposing a set to extraordinary conditions for a brief while simulates how it will respond to ordinary conditions in the long term.

Overall I imagine the reason the sets' legs were not made more complex is because simpler legs and feet are sturdier. TLG's standards for stability are very high-- it's the reason LEGO action figure and mecha feet in sets tend to be oversized, why many LEGO mecha lack flexible knees, and the reason "click hinge" ball joints are used for so many System mecha despite their somewhat limited range of movement compared to BIONICLE-style ball joints.

[_shaddow_]

And truth to be told, even Gorilla's legs have a second joint. They could have easily added two small bone pieces.

So does this guy. If you look close enough on some pics, you can see the small bones used as his lower legs.

[Aanchir]

Atamaii.com has a video of the Chima figures, with some nice close-ups. Worriz's face looks gorgeous. In fact, all the faces are very nice designs.

[PenPlays]

Any doubts I had in this portion of the LoC theme has been destroyed. I want them now! All of them! Razar, Worriz, and Gorzan are my top three.

[DraikNova]

That manic grin on Worriz just doesn´t work for me. Oh well, he looks like he would be a great parts pack anyway.

[WARHEAD]

Worriz is worth getting JUST for the head, IMO. The sculpt is magnificent.

[ZORK64]

I think that of all of the heads. Razar really grows on me now, same goes for Gorzan.

[Cahillrebel]

Anyone else think it will be weird to have one part of the weapon red or blue and the other part black, gunmetal, or silver? Wish they blended the power of the weapons better. Maybe make blended pieces.

[Bigger Fish]

Aw, Cragger won't have his croc blades.

[Rocketbilly]

Anyone else think it will be weird to have one part of the weapon red or blue and the other part black, gunmetal, or silver? Wish they blended the power of the weapons better. Maybe make blended pieces.

I sort of agree. In the case of Gorzan's mace where one hemisphere is transparent and the other solid it does indeed look a litlte jarring, but I don't mind it so much on Cragger's staff thing since the two blades are fairly obviously two seperate pieces. Co-injected pieces would look great though, of course.

[OneSetWonder]

Compared to the leaked prelims, the figures look far better (ten times better than the Superheroes Ultrabuilds), but conversely, they look less appealing as parts packs to me.

[Jetrax99]

I'll go ahead and say this. If these are te final sets, they will be bought solely for parts. They are no longer worthy of being on display. The figures in the prelim pic on pg 1 were much better. These are just......blah.

[Aanchir]

I'll go ahead and say this. If these are te final sets, they will be bought solely for parts. They are no longer worthy of being on display. The figures in the prelim pic on pg 1 were much better. These are just......blah.

While I agree they're great parts packs, I think they're also just as well-designed as the average Hero Factory figure. I can't for the life of me understand why you think they're so undesirable for the figures themselves. Despite being somewhat plain in construction compared to the preliminary models, all the figures still manage to look pretty good; better than most of the Super Heroes ultrabuild sets certainly.

The preliminary Laval's legs could have been simplified as a means of cost-cutting, or it could be that they didn't meet TLG's strict rules for the sturdiness of a model. That's the same reason most sets have somewhat oversized feet-- a model should be able to stand on its own two legs in the long term (or in some cases, on one leg in the short term), not like, say, Roodaka, whose clever foot construction had flimsy ankles that struggled to support the set's weight, and that had a fairly small footprint to boot. Regardless I don't think that's a huge sacrifice by a longshot, since the model still has a decent color scheme, a unified visual language, and some very nice claws and weapons.

[CabooseBM]

Frankly, I was always only interested in these as parts packs. Never really looked that good, and the new versions just mean less of the new parts I wanted, which is a shame.

Also the new blades continue to disappoint, being this ugly not-transparent color. I mean, I'm sure they would have been too sharp or something like that if they were proper transparent plastic, but alas.

Well, okay, Cragger is still pretty cool, all told. I'm actually a bit disappointed that his forearms aren't lime green, if only because it makes them somewhat impossible to replace with shorter bones and still look good.

Edited February 8, 2013 by CabooseBM

[HUZKEE]

These all look amazing. I don't know what you people expect. New pieces would be nice but the head sculpts and weapon variety more than make up for those. I'm getting them all.

[Jetrax99]

These all look amazing. I don't know what you people expect. New pieces would be nice but the head sculpts and weapon variety more than make up for those. I'm getting them all.

What do all of us who are disappointed expect? Look at page 1.

[HUZKEE]

What do all of us who are disappointed expect? Look at page 1.

I'm not sure what this means. You were expecting unfinished, clearly photoshoped prototypes? The changes are rather minor in reality. Ramp up the contrast and you can make the final sets look like the ones on page 1.

As it's been mentioned already the head sculpts are lovely. I guess more trans pieces would have been nice but the final offerings are more than suitable. I appreciate that they decided to go with more earth tones and leave the flashier colors for Hero Factory sets. It gives these Chima sets their own character.

Edited February 9, 2013 by HUZKEE

[Aanchir]

I'm not sure what this means. You were expecting unfinished, clearly photoshoped prototypes? The changes are rather minor in reality. Ramp up the contrast and you can make the final sets look like the ones on page 1.

As it's been mentioned already the head sculpts are lovely. I guess more trans pieces would have been nice but the final offerings are more than suitable. I appreciate that they decided to go with more earth tones and leave the flashier colors for Hero Factory sets. It gives these Chima sets their own character.

Well, there are differences in the prototypes and final models, chief among them being the build of Laval's legs and feet, Cragger having olive green feet, and Cragger's weapon being blended (or at least, painted to suggest that the final version would be blended). So I can see how someone might have preference for the prototypes. What I'm having trouble understanding is how any of these changes (or even all of them together) is enough to make or break the whole series.

[MakutaDreadscythe]

Well, there are differences in the prototypes and final models, chief among them being the build of Laval's legs and feet, Cragger having olive green feet, and Cragger's weapon being blended (or at least, painted to suggest that the final version would be blended). So I can see how someone might have preference for the prototypes. What I'm having trouble understanding is how any of these changes (or even all of them together) is enough to make or break the whole series.

It's not that the sets look bad, well maybe except for Eris. It's more that the prototypes implied more interesting, complex builds with a slew of recolours which have been scrapped for sake of cost-cutting. Laval looks especially bland with his Rocka legs, and again, 3 sets have the same black claw feet. The ratio of characters with the same feet is worse than Breakout wave 2! I would have much preferred white, green, purple, anything but black.

Edited February 9, 2013 by MakutaDreadscythe