Project Tonks: Part 3

Okay, that's three posts now, I suppose that counts as a pattern.

With the scenery done I was chomping at the bit to start on the proto-Tonks. I'd initially thought painting these would be a fairly involved process that would be best done in stages, but I'd blasted through a couple of similar projects, (write-up pending,) with speed. It would be a simple matter of drybrushing metals, and then stippling the main colour. The main thing to keep in mind was the utmost importance of turret rotation, so those areas were masked, and the case of the KV-1, modified. As these were based off toys, some components were die-cast metal, so these went in the dettol. While these were soaking, I worked on the turrets. Like I said, I was eager. I drilled out the gub barrels, added some armour bits, and filled some gaps. As its me, I went rusty again. This sort of thing is my bread & butter, so this totalled maybe 3 hours work over several days, plus drying time. There was some trial and error regarding how many coats were were needed, and how to apply friction to the turret joint, but nothing major. Thus the set was ready for play on Sunday. One thing I probably should mention though is that are supposedly 1:64 scale which makes them on the small side for a Tonk, but it doesn't hurt them as a set.

It was only the one game, I spent most of the Sunday learning how to play Gaslands, but both experiences were fun. I don’t have any deep insights to share at this time, except to say its about careful positioning and carefully chosen actions, but also very rules light. I can see it being playable by four people in under an hour. The picture below shows a highlight.

I've been giving some thought to Stage 3, the scratchbuilt Tonks, stockpiling materials and such. A common technique that I've seen is to repurpose a spray bottle as a turret ring, specifically the clasp that seals the mechanism to the bottle. I've done some exploratory surgery on a couple, and it should work, if maybe oversized. As such, I've sourced some mini spray bottles, out of a travel kit, which might be easier to work with, but we'll see. I've also lucked out with a charity shop find, a bag of plastic Jenga tiles that should be great for hulls. With respects to tracks, I've got a nice selection of discs and beads too. I have considered making my own track links, like I've done on other projects, although the scale is a concern. Regardless of how I decide to do it, the scratchbuild process is likely go relatively slowly, as while I have some time off coming up, it's not something I can speed through like painting.

Up next: the initial scratch Tonks.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

 

Gaming: Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition (PC)

 

I don't do many video games these days. I think I’ve just drifted away. I’m two generations behind on PlayStation, and I have no interest in the current AAA market. Instead I find myself in niche titles and “retro” stuff. I presume this is how ageing works. Fulfilling both is Rise of Triad: Ludicrous Edition, a recent re-release of an obscure first person shooter from 1995. It was a contemporary of Doom 2, but as as project it started out as a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D, I.e. that game what ID made before they made Doom and became megastars. I’d mucked about with the shareware version back in the day, but soon moved on to more interesting and technically impressive games. Much-much later, I became aware of the minor youtube personality Civvie 11, a chap specialising in scripted Lets-Plays of games within my nostalgia window, as well as modern games in that those styles. Civvie is a big fan of Rise of The Triad, using covers of its music for his vids, as well as periodic videos on it. Civvie deserves the credit for me picking this game up, as well as generally raising the profile of it. The publishers of this new version certainly feel that’s the case, as they used the guy in their launch trailer.

As it stands, the Ludicrous Edition is a comprehensive remaster, featuring all the stuff you could reasonably hope for and a bunch of stuff you'd never expect. Neither the original Rise of the Triad (ROTT) or its 2013 remake were notable financial or critical successes, so merely an emulation job with a few concessions to modern monitor resolutions would not have been unexpected. Something on the level of a source port, but not fan made, maybe. Nightdive Studios and New Blood however went above and beyond, adding every conceivable quality of life improvement, every level, new levels, and even cut content. Even the game's soundtrack, always its strongest point, gets a choice of soundcard styles, new sound effects if you want them, and even music from the 2013 version. It's also relatively inexpensive, so it's as hard to fault the Ludicrous Edition as a value proposition as it is as a restoration. But then there's the game itself.

 

ROTT is weird. I don't just mean the superficial "LOL so random" stuff like Dog Mode, the Shrooms power-down or Ian Paul Freely. I mean a fundamental weirdness that hits once you're acclimatised to the oddness of the presentation, and you start engaging with the deeper mechanics. It's as much about what it isn't doing as much as it is. If you've played a first person shooter before, you've probably got an idea of the genre staples. For instance, you might expect a selection of increasingly powerful but functionally different weapons with limited ammunition. Something like a pistol, then a shotgun, a machine gun, a couple of explosive types, maybe a sniper rifle, and then some exotic superweapons? As these weapons work best in different circumstances, gameplay takes on a tactical element, where a player will from moment to moment have to manage their resources. The right tool for job, and each new weapon adds new tools to the box. ROTT doesn't do that. You have three principle bullet weapons with unlimited ammo, and a forth slot for big guns with limited ammo. The bullet weapons are straight upgrades of each other, so once you have the MP40, you'll never go back. The big guns are mainly missile launchers of varying flavours, but all having at least some area of effect. Whereas the bullet weapons are of the "hitscan" type, meaning they hit the target instantaneously, the missiles are actually modelled, meaning that they can be dodged, and you have to walk your shots. They also don't have distinct ammunition pickups, and when you go to pick up a new one, you leave the old one behind with all it's missiles. So, gunplay in ROTT is about having a workhorse gun, and a "fuck you and anybody near you" gun. The enemies are designed around that, and can get into bullet sponge territory. Mostly, you can put a few rounds into the average guard and make them flinch, thus buying you time, but that tactic doesn't work on the Triad Enforcer whom is the first of the more problematic enemies. So, while not unchallenging, combat does have a degree of monotony to it. Then again, the Firebomb does exist, and the bosses are, shall we say, interesting? You have to first find the bastards, and deal with whatever gimmicks are around them.

 

The above is where I find the weirdness. ROTT did not attempt to follow Doom's lead, which means it's mechanics only appear odder with the passage of time. Visual aspects are also a product of its time and an engine that was obsolete at launch. That's why the levels seem to be made of 90 degree angles, and the enemies are often Mortal Kombat style digitized photos, which was more common than you'd think, but explicit here. Hell, there's a high score system, shades of achievement hunting there, and a lives system. The designers compensated for those technical limitations by putting a twist on everything, ROTT tends to be at least amusing if not especially deep. Case in point: Priest Porridge. ROTT does not busy itself with medkits, no, you get porridge. That heals you a bit, but if its warm, it heals you more. How do you make it warm? Well, you fire a bazooka at it. No joke, your limited selection of missiles have a role to play in healing. No, the game doesn't tell you this, but you'll probably figure it after a few desperate rocket duels. Most of the more complex gameplay though comes from level design however, with maps taking increasingly maze-like and deathtrap quality as time goes on. Like it's contemporaries ROTT encourages exploration through the use of "push walls", and paces combat through the use of keys. It's a less linear approach than say your Call of Duty or Half Life style of game. It's the area of the game where the Wolfenstein 3D connection is strongest, that and the points system, and thus is the most typical aspect of the game. But the fundamental quirkiness of ROTT is present here too, most obviously with the floating disks. I don't want to get too far into the minutiae of game engines from a quarter a go, but these games weren't actually in 3 dimensions, it was more if an optical illusion, aka 2.5D. The disks, or Gravitational Anomaly Disks (GADs), add an element of verticality that Wolfenstein 3D didn't have, and that Doom really do either. In fact with the presence of the GADs, rotating blender hazards, flame traps, springboards, general Nintendo-Hard dickery, and such put me in mind of 2D platform games. You know, the DOS or pre-Sonic style. ROTT doesn’t try realism or cinematic in its levels, but what it does try is challenging gameplay. Possibly too challenging in the case of the “Extreme” level pack, which has a nasty reputation, but I’ve not tried that yet.

 

So, is Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition worth playing? Yeah. Possibly more in short doses, but this was a fine distraction.

Project Tonks: Part 2

Righty week 2, let's see if this can become a pattern.

For the purposes of reference and quicker play if I wanted, I'd cut up some chipboard for use as terrain templates during week 1. I now used these to start making actual terrian. The process here was to make a base of chipboard, layer it up with tinfoil, hot glue whatever terrain piece on top of that, and then use gap filler for the ground. The theme? Junk piles. It's the sort of thing you can easily throw together from your bitz box, although it helps to remember scale. I did think about doing some tonk-traps, before realising I need some seriously tiny girders and I-beams. Thus followed assorted craft paints & washes. As for the colours used? Well, I had an orange which I felt was good for industrial stuff, but then I remembered the colourful nations of the Advance Wars video game series. The art direction in that is fairly Tonks-adjacent, so each terrain piece got a subtle nod to a faction in that game, atop my usual metallics and rust. Overall outcome is good, although the gap filler seems a bit unpredictable when drying.

 

Although, this was during Storm Babet...

Anyways, let's talk about the proto-Tonks a bit. I took them apart to remove the friction motors, something I'm sure I'll find a good use for later, and considered turret rotation. For three of them, I'm fairly confident painting will be easy provided that I mask a few places with blu-tac. The forth, what appears to be a Russian KV-1, needs actual modification. It's turret can't spin 180 without bumping into some die-cast details. As cutting that off would require serious power tools that I don't have, I opted to put in a plastic spacer. It's an ugly job, but it's only temporary, and was a useful intermediate step to learn from. I'll find a better way to do that, be it either turret modifications or a less bulky riser for the turret ring. I was keen to get started on that, but I feel the need to pace myself. There’s no rush.

Up next: Painting and customising the proto-Tonks.

Megabox: MB-06 Black Getter is Something That Exists

OK, Context. Remember how I did a special article on BeastBox toys? Robot animals that compress into cubes? Right, so that company does a spin-off line where the play pattern is applied to non-animals and licenced properties. OK? Good.

While existing in anime and manga form since 1974, Getter Robo has very little presence in the UK, and if anybody knows it at all, it's probably due to the part it's characters play in Super Robot Wars 30. Or they imported something. This is kinda tragic as Getter Robo is hugely influential, as it popularised the combining super robot thing. Getter Robo the machine is a trio of jets, which depending on the sequence of combination produced one of three distinct robots. That's Getter-1 for brawling, Getter-2 for speed, and Getter-3 as the infrequently seen tank. It is possible to make a toy that does that 3 mode combination, but that's asking a lot of the designers, materials technology, and often your wallet. Narratively, it's an extremely hot blooded series that took on some cosmic horror elements and multiverse stuff as it went on. It was a pretty big influence on Gurren Lagann, especially its Spiral Power concept, and how its latter half played out. See also: the show within a show Gekigangar 3. I have a bit of a mountain here with summarising Getter Robo, so I'm just gonna do a slightly whimsical blurb on today's subject matter. The thing about Black Getter isn't that it's black on purpose. It's black because it base-jumped from the Moon and got all charred up on re-entry. Yes, its that kinda franchise.

Black Getter, or BG for shorthand purposes, exists mainly these days as a repaint/retool opportunity for Getter-1 merchandise, and that's what happened with this MegaBox release, 52Toys being quite happy to rework a design with a new head or different accessories. Now, painting something black is amongst the most obvious things to do for a variant, but BG is not merely that. Black Getter largely transcended the cliché with extremely memorable and quite gory appearances in the mini-series Getter Robo: Armageddon, a highly regarded 90’s anime, which I will be doing an article on shortly. The mecha is, more or less, what would happen if you asked Wolverine to fix up a giant robot during one of his more antisocial phases. It's a Getter-1 left abandoned for years only to be hurriedly repaired by series protagonist Ryoma Nagare. He was a martial artist by trade, a sociopath by nature, and not in the best headspace at the time, so BG is something of a rejection of the teamwork theme inherent to Getter Robo, seemingly loosing the combination thing in favour of more vicious weaponry. Pretty much the first thing it does, once back on Earth, is to traumatise the people it was rescuing. It's quite an aggressive design, but is a super-deformed take, as executed by 52toys with their box animal house style. The result captures the essence of Black Getter in a vaguely adorable package, like an angry goth puppy. That can also be a cube.

BG as a collectable looks great in the package, and feels pretty good in hand, but seems to be suffering a little from 52Toys B- quality control. There's a few places where the finish on the glossy black is marred, where the parts were cut from their sprue. It's a job for a black felt-tip pen, so no biggie, but black plastics are a well-known bugger for this, so it's somewhat  disappointing. The box mode and related transformation is relatively straightforward, possibly due to limitations of the human form or licencing restrictions. The torso forms one face of the cube, with the limbs and head wrapping around the accessories. There's no significant surprises, aside from a robot mode element I'll come back to, but it does however expose a nice detail, the reactor picked out in almost luminous paint. Not something it would be especially healthy to see up close, but there we are. The robot form is of course where the action is, which is quite posable, with some details I really like. BG’s head is very characterful and the angry eyes are honestly startling. These are a layer of translucent plastic atop silver painted tech greeblies, with what seem to be tamopraphed irises. It's a fascinating three stage effect. The mecha is fecking glaring at you. The cape and scarf are also interesting, if one of the more beastboxy design elements. It reflects the machine's overall condition, and the murderhobo habits of its pilot. Yes, this mecha has a cape and scarf, just go with it. Getter-1 has simlar too, probably because it was designed in the 70’s; BG is merely exaggerating what was already there. These cloth elements are hard plastic here and have an angular, almost pixelart appearance. It's something that pleased me when I saw it in product photography, as it so easily have been dropped, but it's here with usable jointing and a red lining. It also serves as one of the major anchoring points for box form, which I will admit to double-checking the instructions about. Speaking of joints, BG is definitely on the posable side for what amounts to a super-deformed figure. It's mainly swivels and universal joints, but with rotation at the wrists, double-jointed knees and a toe joint thanks to its transformation. It's definitely enough to make good use of the two tomahawks it comes with. It also features two sets of flip-out forearm spikes, which look great, although the purist in me demands for me to say that it should really only have one. Odd choice, but not actually bad.

My point? Only that MegaBox Black Getter is something that exists. And I like it rather a lot. I continue to be entertained with these, and no doubt Black Getter is going to be one of many such additions to my collection. That having been said, I suspect the Getter-1 release have a slight edge over this toy, if only in accessories. It comes with a machine gun, and maybe that's more important to you. But if it isn't? I think this will please both box collectors and Getter fans alike. 

 

Project Tonks: Part 1

Following the completion of my Orktober Stompa, I was in need of a new project. It helps with my mental health to have something to do, it's why this blog exists, but at time of writing I'm currently 7 weeks ahead with material. When I'm in a good mood, it's often easier to write. So, having gone very big, I decided to go small, namely the miniatures game "Tonks". Like Gaslands, this is a model-agnostic game where you are encouraged to kitbash stuff, namely your Tonk, a roughly 1/72 scale tank model. It's not a full wargame, its free and it's very rules-lite, but offers 4 way tank battle-royals. The game is not hugely well-known at present; the only reason I know about it is that Bill Making Stuff has done a series of videos on it, but it does offer the potential for a long term project. One which I could take down to play at my local gaming venue.

What I am planning to do then is a series of diary style articles as I explore the world of Tonks, with the overall aim to build and a refine a Tonks set. This will run along side my usual posts, until either this comes to a natural conclusion, or I just get distracted by something else, whichever happens first. It might not be a weekly thing, but I think it will be something good to do in the run up to chrimbo. The basic plan is as follows.

Stage 1, Prepare Gaming Materials: the basic collecting of all the bits you need to play Tonks. This means printing rules, making basic tokens, and acquiring playing pieces.

Stage 2, Prepare scenery and proto-Tonks: having acquired some suitable toys to use as Tonks, the next step is to paint them up and do scenery. As a Tonk requires turret rotation, I'm mindful of the potential for paint/glue mishaps, so I want to refine a technique before moving on to...

Stage 3, Scratchbuilding & heavy kitbashing Tonks: having got a feel for things, the next step is to make 4 very individualistic Tonks from the ground up. Additional or improved scenery would also fit here.

Stage 4, Tonk-Destroyer: As a victory lap, make a tonk with a hull mounted cannon.

So where do things stand as if part 1, then? Well, I currently have some cheapo tanks, for use as playing pieces. These are the same make as my recent Grot Tanks, and are on the small side for this, but otherwise fit the Tonks vibe very well. One of them needs some modification to do a full turret spin, but hopefully that’s an easy job. Printing the rules has also been achieved, although that was a trail, as my printer is acting up. It can either start working properly, or it can be stripped for parts.

Up next: Scenery and trying out the game maybe.

The Orktober Stompa

 

Yes, it's that time of year again. But what to do? As mentioned in a previous article, I've done a lot of Ork stuff lately, so I needed to do something special, without flooding the blog. I also wanted it to be fun, and, if possible, not hugely expensive. After mulling it over for a bit, I decided to go back to my roots and make a Stompa. For the unfamiliar, Stompas are a centrepiece model for an Ork, something roughly on the same scale as an Imperial Knight but much chunkier. There bigger things in the lore and older rulesets, the fabled Gargants, but a Stompa is about as big Ork units can get in regular 40k. They are also amongst the orkiest things imaginable, being a roughly humanoid waddling idol to Gork and/or Mork, with enough firepower to make your average gunclub member drop his pipe and exclaim "Steady on, chap!". Less romantically, Stompas are ambulatory collections of scrap metal with proportions somewhere between an upturned plant pot and a wind-up robot toy circa 1953. They aren't hugely well-regarded in competitive play either for a variety of reasons, but usually for it's low cost-efficiency. GW has historically priced it high, which isn't great as a Stompa is a bit of an enthusiastic generalist, although we're not gonna get into that today. Now, I've built Stompas before. Specifically the GW kit, it's a bit annoying as I recall, and scratch-built another. But I’d like to think I’m better at this now than I was then. It was time to try again.

So, aside from an unreasonable amount of hot glue, how did this go together?

Hull

The majority of the stompa is a Mr Potato head body atop the lid from a coffee jar. It's still in there somewhere. Such things are not unheard of in stompa builds, because they offer such a nice body shape, versus the aforementioned "plant pot" stereotype that is common. I still took the easy route though in that I didn't build distinct legs, just feet with an implied skirt. Hey if the official model does it that way, I can too. Once the mounting points for weapons and limbs were worked out, I layered panels of numerous different materials over it. It's an effect I'd used on my recent Battlewagon, as such a thing like this absolutely should not have clean lines. EVA foam was a big help here, as was my hoarder-level bitzbox. The feet are off a combining robot toy that went an odd colour, and we're basically fine as-is. I did attempt keep this sensibly sized too, I had a tape measure and everything, but it kinda got away from me.

Mega-Choppa Arm

This was off a construction toy I'd been keeping for such a use for absolutely ages. It didn't need much work but the melee weapon presented a bit of a challenge. Eventually, I hit on the idea of using triangular beads for teeth, in a fitting made from a bit of a tank. This was fiddly work, but it looks great. 

 

 

DethKannon Arm

This was built up from a series of cylindrical bits I'd collected, the largest of which was a Junkbot toy. There's no real trick to this, you just need a lot of tubing, although the Supa-Gatler benefits from some beads. This was affixed to the main body via some some heavy duty wire and some T'au bits, because it's not Deathskulls without looted bits. 

 

 

Head

The head was built from a pod from a gatchapon toy, onto which panels were layered, and the measuring spoon from a tub of stain remover. The spoon looked so much like a baseball cap this prompted me to go in a different direction for the paint scheme, more on that shortly. 

 

 

Secondary weapons

These were of a mix of felt-tip pens, beads, and actual pre-existing weapons. The Supa-Rokkits were possibly a bit too simple looking back, as these are merely tubes with spikes from the bead shop, but it works. The secondary turret was mainly the cab off a truck toy, and while inspired by the one on the regular Stompa kit, I felt it needed a bit more punch. Thus it got the twin big shoota and two supa-rokkits. 

 

 

Painting

I broke out the art/craft paint for this one, as while you can absolutely use miniature paints on a project like this, you are talking about a model a foot tall. Things easily run out, so I used craft supplies for all the major colours, via drybrushing, stippling and sponging. I got a make-up brush for that. The head however was closer to my usual style, if with a quirk. As it had a baseball cap, it obviously followed that I paint it up like crude representation of an ork's face. I used AK Lime Green, as I didn't want to perfectly match the skintones of my Boyz, I needed a sharper contrast. This also led to be doing the hat in my usual blue, and the feet in black, suggesting a kinship with the lads. The head, turret, and main body were painted separately, only to be attached at the final stage. Touch-up followed, and while I'm generally pleased, some of the glyph plates could be better.

Job's a good 'un. And following a discussion with my RPG group, I named it "Mr Giblets".

An Introduction to BeastBox

 

So, what's a BeastBox then? No, it's not got something to do with a YouTube influencer. BeastBox is a line of transforming robot toys produced by 52Toys (pronounced 5-2-toys). It exists in the Transformers-adjacent space where unlicensed third party products dwell as well diecast Japanese collectables. As the name implies, you get a beast, usually a robotic one, which via a transformation compresses down into a cube. In Transformers terms, we’re looking akin to Soundwave’s chest minions, but roughly comparable in size and complexity to a modern deluxe. Remember Siege Refraktor and his intermediary cube form for the camera mode? Pretty much the same sorta mass and footprint. BeastBox has been going on for a while now, and 52Toys has spun-off the concept into other areas, notably MegaBox, where they do licenced characters and non-beasts. 52Toys has been sufficiently successful that they have their own imitators, and have licence with Disney. And once you’ve got people copying you, while you do merch for the mouse, you’ve made it, haven’t you? After a prolonged period of these beeping on the edge of my radar, I took the plunge.

Before I talk about the initial few I got, I want to talk about the general experience. While a box is probably the least interesting thing for a robot to turn into, I'd suggest it shows a deeper understanding of the toy collector mindset than some. You see, one of the fundamental, if difficult to verbalise, joys of a transforming robot toy is the physical act of transformation. The tactile experience, if you will, the click of plastic tab into it's slot, and so on. The whole puzzle box aspect of the toy, you know? And what can happen? Once you've got it transformed, you've got a compressed shape that does less than the other mode. Almost, one might say a box. And this would likely be the mode you keep it in when storing it. BeastBox seems to be leaning into this as a stylistic choice and self-imposed challenge. It's all about slicing cubes into every more clever and involved shapes, all with highly collectable presentation. The box mode has a storage case, which is translucent, pegging together with other boxes for display. A BeastBox's packaging takes the form of an attractive and colourful window box, almost nice enough to not to open. The instructions are pictorial, with the moving part in red, and there's a little bilingual bio card. And a catalogue. And a sheet of plastic that you fold to act as a spring for the storage case, so the BB will come out of it more easily. Its hard to fault these as collectables, and as my initial experiences seem to suggest, they don’t phone in the toy either.

BB-30 MEGA DIO

 

Mega Dio was the first BeastBox I got, and it seems I skipped to the end, only to work backwards. It has a fifth anniversary logo on it, while the other two I'll talk about are somewhat  older. Mega Dio is sort of a revamped take on Dio, the original Beastbox and the company's mascot. The vibe I'm getting here is a bit Powermaster Prime, in that elements of the original are still there, but used in a more scifi and warlike manner. The original had a much larger head, and maybe looked like one of those Mousers from Ninja Turtles with smooth and simple lines. Mega Dio however tends towards more a Zoids-like aesthetic typical of more recent BBs; lots of techno-greebling, translucent plastic in abundance, less cartoon proportions, but the design lineage is clear. This connection is further reinforced by the "back frills" that can carry a regular Dio in box mode, which only adds to the Powermaster Prime feel I’m getting. I don't currently have a compatible Dio, so I can't comment on how that works, but I do intend to get one. What I can say though, In an apparent contrast to the original, Mega Dio is a rather involved design while still having a symmetrical conversion. The legs move around a fair bit, while the head folds into the body, and the tail wraps around. I will admit to a certain degree of reference to the instruction sheet, both as a beginner, but also because it uses a lot of small tabs and things get involved with the legs. It is the most finicky of the three by some significant distance. While lacking knees, the resulting dino-robot is quite posable, with significant character, and some nice "digital-look" flame effects. Two minor concerns however. First off the balljoints are rather tight, to the point of squeaking, and the flame effects don't obviously store anywhere. So, while obviously good enough to make me try another, Mega Dio suffers a bit around the edges. Perhaps more for fans of intricate transformation, five primes out of seven. 

 

BB-13KM KARMAKUMA 

Karmakuma meanwhile the toy that really sold me on the concept and the 52Toys house style of cutesy robo-animals. It's simpler than Mega Dio in terms of engineering, although the subtle tabbing thing is still evident, and there is a locking mechanism in the hips labelled in English. Notably it's designed along the edge of the cube, not a face, and is actually two figures in what seems to be a parent and child pairing. The larger one is almost cuddling the smaller in box mode. As adorable as it sounds, and trust me, it is quite adorable, there's definitely a momma bear thing going on with some sculpted angry eyes and two translucent shoulder cannons that combine. It's very large & in charge, wearing what seems to be metallic sumo gear, <internet search>, a mawashi. The cub meanwhile is obviously all about being a baby, being fairly simple due to his size. He can use the big one as a mecha though, with a spartan but elegant cockpit arrangement in the chest. Both have sufficient articulation to do quadruped poses, with the larger getting good arms, but no knees. The box mode however is the least convincing of those we're looking at here. It's not really a problem, but the translucent bits stick out a wee bit. Overall? Immensely charming, mainly just right, 3 bowls of porridge out of 3. 

 

BB-08AF EMPEROR 

The final Beastbox I picked up before writing this article, the Emperor set is the oldest we're talking about today. It's also the one most pushing the envelope as to what a Beastbox can be. There’s no translucent plastic for one thing, so think of it as early instalment weirdness, if that helps? This time we have four mechanical penguins forming the box, all identical save for a playing card symbol and a large head frill for your favourite to wear. These penguin wedges have minimal articulation except in the head, which have a little gear system to change the eyes. The options are "open", "closed", "angry" and "hey if you don't turn it all the way you get blank deadite eyes". So, you can variously have them standing, swimming or sliding about, with a mix of expressions, cute. The transformation is this interesting bit though, and what makes the set possibly child-safe. Possibly. Once you've compressed the Pingu-looking blighters down, it's just a matter of lining up right, as they are magnetised and do the rest for you. It's not deep, there’s just less going on than the toys above, but I can see an actual kid loving this. I also wish the tail feathers locked in a bit better on these. Definitely adorable, possibly too simple, eight happy feet out of a dance scene.

Overall? I find myself quite pleased with the toys above, and I see a wider appeal that could easily become a new hyperfixation. These are very collectable, definitely appealing if animal robots are your thing, and there certainly enough creativity going on to balance out the box thing. There are however a few little areas that suggest imperfect quality control, and that's where we need to have the price discussion. Assuming you aren't rolling the dice on an international order, you have to go to Amazon to get these, whom have a decent selection but a bit of a mark-up. This puts the toys in the 25-30 quid price bracket usually, roughly the same as a modern Transformers deluxe or just below a voyager at RRP. I don't quite know if that's a fair comparison to make, given that a Beastbox has stated age range of 15+ and has its origins in the collectors market, but it's a discussion you can have. I’ve nitpicked a few things above, but its exactly the sort of flaw I’d expect to see people complaining about in a Hasbro release. So, if you see one you like the look of? I'd say give it a try.

 

 

Kitbash: Killa Kans Restoration

I'm not planning to go quite as hard on Orktober this year. I've done a lot of Ork projects with 10th edition being releases, so doing a month of Ork content isn't quite in me. I am however still doing something, so as I prep that, here's a quick orky post tide you over.

 

I've been modernising/cannibalising a lot of stuff of late, and these Kans are another beneficiary. I got them cheap second hand ages ago, which puts them in the same eBay rescue category as the Looted Rhino. While the main bodies where intact, several weapons were missing. This isn't totally unexpected, as while I like the plastic Kan kit, it only features one of each gun, so people get creative. I almost didn't write about these models, as I had a great many Transformers to talk about at the time, and TBH, doing up a bunch of scrap metal robots within grots inside is rather routine at this point. However, as its Orktober, and I feel I did a good job on these, here we are.

The heaviest kitbash, "Mistah Slap", required two new weapons and a completely new arm. These were mainly gunpla bits, with the hand being a salvaged piece from my original Mega-Armoured Warboss. I neglected to work in a piston for the new arm, as there wasn't really the space. The choice of a Kan Shoota was something I went back and forth on. New for the 10th edition Index, this replaces the often-underwhelming Big Shoota, thus retconing the weapon in my pre-existing kan units. It's probably inferior to the Rokkit Launcha as a default option, but it does have the Devastating Wounds ability, which has only gotten more interesting after the balance update. I eventually decided not to over-specialise and have Mistah Slap bring the dakka, while attempting a "tacticool" pose.

"Drilly Don da Dontist" was a little bit harder to work with, as he had been assembled with more of a pose, retaining much of the grotzooka arm. He also had three exhausts, which I understand, but I felt this had come at the cost of the third Kan, so I snipped one off and passed it on. Using a variety of beads and tubing, I built up a new rokkit launcha, which works well. I also built up a new jaw, as the model had a bit of a"chinless wonder" thing that would not do. 

 

"Da Dunce" was the simplist to assemble but ultimately the one I loved the most. It benefited from a metal Gorkamorka era rokkit rack for it's gun, with a bead as a new mount and reclaimed plasticard as a shoulder guard. The backpack had the donor exhaust installed, and then I remembered something I did with those Killbots, a hat made from a superglue lid. My initial thought was was to do this one up as a Smurf. No, not an Ultramarine, an actual Smurf, but then I remembered the old Dunce Hat trope. Its not often that I freehand symbols, but I love how it turned out.

Thanks for reading, and best wishes to all whom celebrate Orktober!