Let's Review Bionicle's Set Combiners

[Altair]

I’m back with more things!
This time I have the Rahkshi combiners.

The one on the right isn’t that good honestly. The concept is kinda nice…

… But the colors, the build (leaves a lot of parts behind), and the general execution could have been done better in my opinion. Stability is also a bit of an issue.

The other one is pretty great though!

The idea of having a tiny Rahkshi riding this Lizard thing is interesting and creative, and aside from some balancing issues with the model, I can’t find many cons with it.

Plus mini Vohrak is adorable. Here’s how they look side by side.

I’m still debating whether or not I should make the “Japanese” combo that was advertised in one of the comics.

[Sammythekat]

do it.

[Rockho]

@Altair

Lizard thing

You forgot to add Guurahk’s staff pieces under the front legs

[Altair]

you’re right! How could I miss that!
I have disassembled the combiners to wash the pieces, but as soon as they dry I’ll rebuild it correctly.

[DuplexBeGreat]

I was expecting an awesomely tall, innovative combiner that made best use of the pieces from all three sets and had a really great color scheme.

What I got was a lazy, poorly-conceived excuse to make kids buy all three Toa Mistake-a. His arms are hard to pose because the use of feet for shoulder armor interferes badly with the two launchers on his back. The lower arms are attached in a strange nonstandard way that limits his hands’ articulation (and they’re practically immobile anyway thanks to his large wrist-mounted weapons)— a problem which caused the designers to decide not to even put a hand on the left arm. I put one on anyway because one of Gali’s hands is left over when you’re done building.

The torso build is barely more creative than a standard Inika build, and the completed set isn’t any taller than a standard Toa set, an atrocity considering that the character’s entire claim to fame in the story is that he’s tall. The instructions have multiple errors regarding which pins should go in which holes, give practically no explanation of how to fit the launchers into the back of the torso, and can’t seem to agree with the promotional images on what color his hands should be.

To round things off, if the three Mistake-a sets together had contained one more pin, the designers would have been able to use two pins in the construction of each upper arm, thus allowing the builder to lock the upper arm armor in place and prevent it from swiveling annoyingly. Instead of making the reasonable assumption that every Lego fan would have at least one extra pin lying around somewhere, or even telling the builder to use one of the four 3/4-length pins included with Tahu, the designers simply decided to let it be and leave one pin in each upper arm, allowing the “foot armor” to swivel. This entire model is so lazy.

On a personal note, because I bought the component sets used, two of Gali’s limbs cracked while putting Trinuma together and the seller sent me the wrong color of Onua’s shield, forcing me to cannibalize the “hood” on my Jetrax T6.

But, hey, he has a cool color scheme, I guess.

[Rockho]

Wow you must really be ticked off that you took the time to build and risked breaking the brittle joints just to have a failure of a combiner in hand. I honestly didn’t expect anything better based off the promo image alone

I can imagine the designer made on this on a Friday night and really just wanted to get his work ■■■■■ over with

Are you gonna keep it built?

[DuplexBeGreat]

I don’t have another use of the pieces at the moment, since the alternative build would be the Mistika…

I may decide that having a cohesive look on my Jetrax is more important to me in the end, though. For now, he stays on my shelf for at least a week. Though the build is bad, he’s visually alright, aside from his disappointing height.

[Altair]

@Rockho sorry I got lazy so I decided not to rebuild the Rahkshi combiner with the spear pieces .

@DuplexBeGreat sorry to hear about your disappointment with Trinuma, I’m not even going to bother building it (risking to break the pieces).

Anyway, here’s Sentrakh:

I absolutely love this evil creature! It’s a very well built combiner.

This trusted dark hunter has a very interesting appearance. It almost seems like some kind of humanoid vulture. In fact, the head has some kind of beak more than a mouth, and the extra arms almost seem like underdeveloped wings.

It also has a strange moving contraption (mostly consisting of a Bohrok faceplate) that I imagine could act like some kind of deflector shield for Rhotuka spinners. If someone knows if in the Bionicle canon there’s an explanation for what it is, please let me know.

There are a couple of useless blue pins sticking out of the sides for absolutely no reason, but other than that, very solid model. If you have Sidorak and Keetongu, I definitely recommend building it.

[Rockho]

Skull Slicer’s great-grandfather looks neato. Too bad I got no 2005 titans

Now…time for a combiner review extravaganza!

So I bought some Slizer parts for 5 bucks and decided to put them to use by building the only Bonkle that uses those parts; the Ranama. Yeah…it doesn’t look very impressive based on the pic below. A clump of parts thrown together to build a fat dog?

Well, turns out it’s actually a frog…and man does it frog well. I’m impressed as to how accurate the overall proportions and silhouette is to a real life frog, more so than the Ghekula!

Very fun to pose despite the fixed neck; the articulated eyes and mouth make it surprisingly expressive.

The build of the back legs were questionable at first…but it made sense afterwards as they allow an extend-o-leg function! Very frog-like!

Unfortunately, it suffers from an illegal connection. A three-long black pin has both ends being stressed inside the two short grey beams connecting the lower jaw. But other than that, it’s a solid model; 8/10

Next is the Fusa, which is an alternate build from the Brickmaster Rahi set. It’s a kangaroo.

feeed meee

It surprisingly has a lot of personality, especially with the little ears and curved tail.

Don’t touch me, i’m shy!

It only has a mere two points of articulation; both legs are locked together to allow only the angling of the torso up and down- but I feel like it’s done intentionally as real Kangaroos jump with both legs simultaneously. It’s head can move as well. It’s function is basically a copy of the Tarakava; hit levers on the back of the arms and it punches. Solid model, but slightly underwhelming. 7/10

Next is a strange bull-like creature who accompanies a Dark Hunter named Tracker

It’s very odd to say the least. The scrawny neck and bobble-head are tolerable, as well as the short front legs. But what I really don’t like is the back legs. They’re just…no. The body is solid with only some gaps.

Heavy Breathing

The custom head build is what I like the most about it. It’s unique and captures a bovine appearance fairly well. Overall 6/10

Last up is the Artahka bull.

The most solid and set-like of the rest, this staff-wielding centaur was definitely worth the build. The only thing I don’t like is the emptiness of the underbelly. 9/10

I’m more than open to hearing what you guys think of these combiner/alternates!

[WhatCameNext]

Not necessarily a set combiner, but more an alternate model. When browsing around on BS01 I came over a lil’ Rahi that caught my attention. It is an alternate model for Pahrak called Waikiru.

Couldn’t be bothered to dig up my disassembled Pahrak from the endless pit of pieces, so I just took apart the Gahlok I had on my desk. Something about this little seal’s silly appearence is very appealing to me and i might very well keep it assembled instead of the Gahlok.

[Genericon]

@Rockho Careful it doesn’t crumple into dust

@Altair Dang, I love those glowing orange eyes! However, they do sorta look like painfully conjoined twins trapped in an endless cycle of pain and misery.

Edited for double-post -legomaster

[Fidda]

@Rockho

Ranama

Wow, great name, rana means frog in spanish, so original

[Rockho]

@Genericon

Careful it doesn’t crumple into dust

what?

[Genericon]

The brittle joints and what not.

[Altair]

@Genericon

I love those glowing orange eyes! However, they do sorta look like painfully conjoined twins trapped in an endless cycle of pain and misery.

Not sure which combiner you’re talking about, or what this sentence means overall…

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I have recently built the great and only Shadowed One, master of fancy laser eye beams!

I have to agree with @DuplexBeGreat, this combiner is very impressive! It has a very nice aura of royalty, which captures really well his role in the story. It looks a lot better when his “tail” is actually posed as a tail though, like this:

Am I the only one who has a bit of trouble seeing the proper eyes on Vahki heads like this one?

(also, I know the lighting sucks in these pictures)

Anyways, leave a guess on what my next combiner is going to be…

(hint: he stole the mask of time)

[Rockho]

They don’t use any post-07 joints though

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A double-jointed tail…? That’s a first…

[Leoxander]

@DuplexBeGreat

What I got was a lazy, poorly-conceived excuse to make kids buy all three Toa Mistake-a.

You have blasphemed the almighty Trinuma.

@Rockho

Next is a strange bull-like creature who accompanies a Dark Hunter named Tracker

Did you reverse-engineer the bull? I’ve been trying to figure out the body.

[Rockho]

More pics of the bull and other dark hunters can be found here: Brickshelf Gallery - Dark Hunter Tracker I just realized that I made its neck too long

[Altair]

Here’s the last 2005 combiner: Voporak

This humongous Dark Hunter has a very neat design that I really like. The bulky legs are in contrast with the long three jointed mantis like arms, and they complement each other very nicely. You can fit the Vahi in its fingers too.

To my knowledge this is also the first titan to feature lower leg supports, which is good. One big problem the set has is the complete absence of extra support in the hips though, which causes some severe stability issues.

Overall, great combiner in my opinion.

[Rockho]

He looks kinda like a messier version of the shadowed one to me…the lower arms seem tacked on. The leg design is probably the only thing I dig about it.