Random: Mecha Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog toyline, Jakks Pacific)

Mecha Sonic concept art, sourced from a wiki

I suppose not all childhood obsessions are remembered equally. Sonic the Hedgehog was something I had a fixation on as a child turning to teenager, hitting about the time Transformers was out and the console wars was in. As the typical content of this blog would imply, it wasn't something that stuck, and I think that's true for a lot of people. Sonic was a full-on zeitgeist moment, and one seemingly nailed to the 90's video game scene. Sega eventually crashed out of the console market, Sonic struggled to adapt to 3D, and thus the franchise became something of a joke for multiple console generations. He was a mascot without a console, one with a famously fractured, often strange, fanbase, and seemingly no good games. Still, as deeply weird as it is to my eyes, the wheel of nostalgia seems to be turning in the blue Hedgehog's favour. And Sega seems to have pulled this off by making the games less and less central to their efforts, in favour of films, cartoons, and merch. That makes a lot of sense for something with so many cartoon animal tropes, and with Sonic's origins as a marketing mascot, but honestly I don't think I'm in that target market. And that's fine, its something for actual kids, and maybe their parents. I think my connection is more of the time, and the playing of the 16 bit games, than anything recognisable as character or narrative. I did read a lot of comics back in day, but that didn't stick. But clearly, there is some connection for me, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this.

Mecha Sonic sketches, sourced from a wiki

So, what's a Mecha Sonic then? Besides an obvious overlap with my other fixations? Well, its the penultimate boss enemy of the Mega Drive/Genesis game Sonic the Hedgehog 2. As the name implies, its a robot duplicate, one of a surprising number there of. One factoid I turned up during research was that the teams working on three different Sonic games, Sonic 2 16 bit, Sonic 2 8 bit, and Sonic CD, basically didn’t communicate and this some how resulted in three different evil robot versions of the hedgehog. Sources differ on specifics, but Segas America and Sega Japan were often at odds, and the Sonic games have had some well-documented drama, so its not hard to believe. Today’s is patterned after Mecha Godzilla, but is overshadowed by Metal Sonic, the more colourful one from the CD version. Anyways, Sonic 2 was arguably the absolute peak of the franchise in terms of sheer clout. It was more of an iterative sequel than anything, think Doom 2, offering more levels and gameplay improvements. The game also had the barest hints of a story, something which later games in the series would do better, but what it did do was effective in context. So, rather than actually talk about the merits of this toy, I'm gonna first spend a paragraph putting the experience of Mecha Sonic into words.

 

 

Its the last few levels of Sonic 2, and you are feeling it. Metropolis Zone was an endurance test, but at least that was followed by a breather level, wing-walking on a biplane. The penultimate level raises the stakes, your biplane immediately gets shot down with your little fox buddy Tails on it. You're on a flying fortress, and there's less and less margin for error. You encounter another boss, beat it, and the antagonist Dr Robotnik flees in a spaceship. Tails returns to help you catch up, and you enter a new level, the delightfully named "Death Egg Zone". There are no rings. There are no power-ups. There is no margin for error. There is only this fucker. A metal parody of your player avatar in silver. Twice the size, with not so much hedgehog quills and spikes on it as an audibly revving chainsaw. Its a rocket-powered bulldozer of a challenge. And after that, its the final boss, and he's worse.

I remember using cheat codes a lot.

 

So, about the toy? Well there wasn’t much on the box, so I had to do some digging. This is made by Jakks Pacific, whom seem to have the Sonic licence on lock, along with the Mario one too. While handling this toy, its articulation reminded me of the phrase “Springfield 5”, and yes, Jakks do the Simpsons too. Jakks stuff tends to get the look right, but articulation is a secondary concern. M.S here is therefore a bit basic in its posability, but that’s more acceptable on a 6cm toy with a neutral pose. The paintwork is bright and attractive, with the toy in general being big for its price point. It also amuses me that this design has a monoeye, I hadn’t quite realised that before, but in my defence, the classic Sonic design has weird conjoined eyes. A slight downside however is that the feet are slightly angled so you have to finagle it a bit for balance. There’s holes in the feet for a stand, but that seems to have been budgeted out. That said, its also an item I never really expected to exist...

If you’re looking for consumer advice? Well, its a fun little nostalgia hit, an inexpensive desk toy. Its not got a huge amount going on, and you could probably leave it in the package, if that’s your thing. Its got a nice window box. Still, six quid. I’ve spent a lot more to to get less.

 

State of the Blog post December 2024

Well, its that time of year again, when I ramble a bit about my mental state, and announce any changes to update schedule.

 

To start with the first one, there’s been some bumps, but I continue to be in a largely good place. Geopolitics makes me avoid the news at the moment, but I’ve felt good enough to start addressing bigger personal issues. I have changed my meds and I am currently reducing the frequency of my counselling sessions, feeling steady with both, and that’s good. Its continuing the trend of last year. I recently received the happy news that I would soon be someone’s (mad) uncle, so this made me think about careers and life in general. I'm trying more seriously to address the job situation and socialising, although I must admit a certain degree of flapping-about-aimlessly about both. I don’t know what I want. I’m trying to figure that out. And I’m trying not to get too angry with myself for not having done that already. My tastes and hobbies meanwhile have seen some substantial shifts. Project Chemdogs was a total success, which has actually got me playing 40K again. Its been a great creative thing, and its got me out of the house. One issue that has occurred with that however is how a new Astra Militarum codex is set for release early next year, and I’ve wanted to keep expanding my army. A new ruleset largely guarantees that something will be made obsolete, so I’m best off pausing until I know more. And from what I’m hearing, it might well be February before the new book is “live” for competitive play. I haven’t totally stopped, as you may have noticed, but I hope to do so in December. Come the new year, I plan to pick it up again with a modernisation/expansion, currently named “Project Draft-dodger”. My interests in Transformers has ebbed by comparison, which is odd as we had a rather good film this year. I’m not sure if that’s natural variation, the ageing process, or the brand itself. I’ve done plenty of Transformers posts this year, its just I’m not feeling it in the winter…. So we’ll see about that. I’ve also seen a declining interest in Orks and BeastBox, but I think that’s less concerning. I’ve taken those quite far, as is.

As for the blog? Well, I do like the structure it provides, and the creative output it allows. I’m not quite writing enough to sustain two posts a week, but I’m running a month ahead currently. Once Project Draft-dodger gets going, I may go twice weekly again, but its hard to say. You will notice some variation of subject matter as I’ve tried to ease off on the armydudesmen, but hopefully that’s of interest for people. There will however be the usual chrimbo holiday. To summarise:

Sunday updates to cease on December 15^th.

There will be a New Years Special on January 1^st.

Normal Sunday posting resumes January 5^th.

See you soon.

Kitbash: Heavy Weapon Teams

OK, let me tell you how this blog works currently. I normally like to run a buffer of 4 weeks, alternating topics where possible. Circa October, this was looking more like 6 weeks, as I prepared to wind things down over December, my busy period at work. I mention this because A) it means I have a lot of inertia, and B) I don't try to be topical any more. That's why don’t see me writing much about GW's periodic Balance Dataslates, as I’m just not nimble enough to match a newscycle. With today's subject though, I have to acknowledge such things.

Heavy Weapon Teams are something I enthusiastically built when starting my Chem-Dogs, but slowly went off as I learned more and the rules changed. Running these in dedicated units of three was manifestly unwise, as not only were they priority targets, they had the durability of wet cardboard. The only time that worked was as mortar units, but that ploy lost some utility when the rules for indirect fire got overhauled. Most of my heavy weapons were then shuffled into regular infantry squads, not necessarily because this made for a brilliant ranged unit, but because it gave the infantry options and made killing the guns harder. Over time, this tactic became less of a mainstay for me as I experimented with other battleline units and enjoyed tanks. I still had a stockpile of guns awaiting assembly and/or kitbash, but no real inclination to use them. Then the October Dataslate and points changes landed, and this changed the equation. A squad of three guns was now 50 points, and its hard for anything to be cheaper than that in 40k currently. You can just throw them into the list, and as long they do their job adequately or otherwise add an element you lack, its worth it. That’s how I use my Scion units currently; bare-bones and disposable to do secondary mission objectives. So, I decided to build a few out of what I had spare. No rush, and even if the forthcoming codex changed how they worked, GW was unlikely to retire a unit with a kit they made for 9th edition and was still actively selling. The worst case outcome would be that I would have more options. And bar the bases, it was money I'd already spent.

 

This build was mainly a combination of three different kits, the old school plastic heavy weapons, the Cannon Fodder kit, and the Stargrave Mercenaries. Its basically the same job as those Cadians I did recently, just with kitbashed carriages for the guns, often featuring wheels off toy cars. In the name of simplicity, I went for pre-existing helmeted heads, but I still did green stuff rags and tarpaulins. The crew were painted separately before affixing them on to the bases, the colours slightly remixed. I was kind of burnt-out on infantry and had a few things on my mind, trying to stop myself from buying more models without finishing some others first, when there’s a new codex around the effing corner, so it took a while to get motivated, but once I got going the process was fairly quick.

The weapon selection here was dictated mainly by what I liked the look of versus what spares I had. This meant five lascannons and a heavy bolter, to be combined with existing models to make two anti-tank, and one anti-infantry squad. The rational here was to pair the lascannons with something scary to force dilemmas on people, while the heavy bolters could make good use of the unit's overwatch bonus. I did consider more mortars and missile launchers, but I'm not hugely into either, and I'm holding onto my spare autocannons for now. Actual gameplay performance? Well… in the first game, one died horribly without acheiving much but blocking, and the other over-performed against a land raider. The second saw them sniping the odd Custodes.

So, maybe there's something in it?