I bought UtD, Ekimu, and Lava Beast two days ago. I was going to post pictures and review them, but I got beat by [this guy.] (TtvPodcast.com is for sale | HugeDomains)
So, I guess I should post this before I get lost in all the other posts about them.
Lava Beast:
He’s probably the best of the three beasts, because his ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ is not obtrusive of the set. He comes with a cool mask:
Bird-beak Tahu never looked so trans-yellow/mata red. The actual set looks like this (Note: I did switch the orientation of the blades due to preference when it comes to his function):
He has orange/black crystalline blades:
The beasts have a two-part jaw system. Unfortunately, it’s static but it’s cool from afar, so here’s a closeup.
I actually like the legs. They look chicken-esque and come in burnt orange. LEGO was able to make the feet more stable without the ugly look of Skull Slicer’s feet by using one of those parts that looks like this you know
He’s got technic hands w/ orange nails, and they are flexible. They can hold Tahu’s mask included in the set, and are shown doing so on the box cover.
Here’s the chest printing:
My biggest issue with this guy is his neck, if you could even call it that. It need to protrude forward, but LEGO did it in a very ugly way.
The beasts also use a transneon-green head, since the eye holes don’t rest right on the eye sockets on the head. They just use the head as a mean to connect to the body, and use the color for illumination.
Hi-res stills of the mask:
All the sets (I’m pretty sure) also come with these new armor pieces. There’s only the socket to connect to the bone on these, however. It’s not bad thought because it looks fine just on its own.
I never liked the beasts from look at the prelims. The only reason I got this one is because I was curious about the function, but it’s kinda underwhelming.
He does look cool with the blades out, though.
That low-res snipping tool feature tho
Rating: 5/7 Not Horrible
Ekimu:
He’s cool so just enjoy some stills.
The breastplate and mask have some beautiful printing on them, so here’s some more.
Shield goes on his forearm rather than just the hand, like this:
Worst problem with this set? The hips, definitely.
Does this work? Nah.
The back is well covered with the shell and gearbox.
Comparison time
The masks are a carbon-copy, even down to the characters
Blue Ekimu:
Noticeable Lack of Blue Ekimu:
Rating: 5/7 Not Horrible
Umarak:
First we got UtH/UtD comparisons:
Some backstory for those that don’t know:
Oh, right. Ekimu came with a special Umarak mask for some reason. Maybe it will make sense once the series catches up again.
Okay, back to Umarak.
Umarak never skips leg day, even when horribly mutated.
Close up of the MoCtl:
He also sports monstrous claws, really cool ones:
He keeps the same chain, even.
C H E S T
The worst part of Umarak has got to be his neck.
Play Stippling advised replacing the liftarm with a CCBS bone, which kinda helps but doesn’t really fix the fact that there’s a giant gap in the torso of UtD. Oh yeah, the jaw:
Looks kinda odd, but works. Here’s some MoCtl comparisons, the gash on UtD’s mask really shows that he kinda went mental during the transformation.
He also has the waist-rotation function. You’d think that it wouldn’t work with the monstrous upper body, but it does, as long as you have two hands when doing it.
Sorry for crap quality, I had to shrink it from 12 megabytes to 2 megabytes
Umarak has many General Greivous-isms, including the pearl dark-gray ribcage, the small foot attached to the larger foot to make a bigger foot, and the skull spider limbs as claws on the feet. But good back coverage is not one of them.
He’s got the new armor piece on his arms too, but it actually doesn’t look that small.
Some random shots
Rating: 5/7 Not Horrible
So, any shots you’d like to see, all the new armor in one place, UtD size comparisons with Grievous, Witch Doctor, and UtH? Other stuff? Let me know in the comments!