Review: 44001 Pyrox

[VBBN]

Hey everyone and welcome to the first of many Hero Factory Brain Attack reviews I'll be doing. Today I will be reviewing Pyrox, who seems to be the "poster character" of the villain sets this year.

Set name: Pyrox

Set Number: 44001

Pieces:50

Price: 12.99$ 11,99 €

Year of Release: 2012/2013

Links: Lego.com entry Brickset

Lego Description:

Turn the heat up on the heroes with PYROX!

Attach the yellow evil brain and transform into PYROX, a fire-powered minotaur with spinning flame staff, fire claws and lava armor!

The Packaging

Pyrox's packaging is like most current day Hero factory sets, coming packaged in the resealable bag. I do like this type of packaging, because personally I've never been a fan of keeping the packaging. Anyway, it shows him in his usual pose on the front, as well as a "x1" for the brain slug. makes me wonder why that is so significant, are there sets later on that'll have more than just 1? Or is it the more likely option, so people don't see the brain slug infested background and think you get a bunch. The back is the usual, displaying the Hero code points, in this case 600, and an actual size picture of his mask/face.

The Parts

Overview

Most parts are contained in a single bag, with the exception of the face, brain slug, and torso, and of course instruction booklet.

Instructions

Quick view of the instructions. Same as the front of the packaging, with a brain slug popping out of the corner to say hello. One thing, the images in the manual for instruction do a good job differentiating between black and dark gray/gunmetal.

Recolored Parts

Not sure if the Ben 10 foot in black is new, or the witch doctor "tail" bit, but regardless it is a nice piece to have in that color. You get a torso armor piece in dark red, an upper chest armor in gunmetal, and some of the 3.0 "fingers" in translucent neon orange.

New Pieces

Firstly we have that BEAUTIFUL flame piece. The color on it is absolutely stunning, and the clarity of the piece itself looks fantastic. I'm not so sure it looks all too firey with that shaping, more of an electric piece, but either way it still looks great. Next we have the new armor covering piece, a sort of rocky formation, in dark red. It can also be found on Bruizer, and fits him slightly better. Regardless, the piece is pretty nice. You also get two new technic pieces, both of which could be great in making custom weapons and torsos(the two main interests I have for them) They are pretty self explanatory so I'll leave it at that. You also have the new printed piece on a trans neon orange 4-long shell. It looks a lot nicer than the printed pieces we saw with the Fire Lord series, though personally I am still not a fan of printed pieces like that on my sets, especially ones that are single , not in pairs.

We also have the new head piece. I'm kind of...split opinion on this. For a figure like this, it works great, because it it allows all of the pieces to the head to connect together. As a stand alone head piece though, it really doesn't work too well to give the effect of a face unless you have specially crafted heads like Bulk. As you'll see in a minute, it looks quite awkward when used with previous helmets that went with Glatorian heads.

Finally we have the Brain Slug and the mask. The mask is a nice looking Minotaur mask, and pulls off the effect very nicely. At first it's hard to get over just how BIG this mask is, for comparisons sake most masks are about as large as the top of this mask to the bottom of his upper jaw. The entire lower jaw is was adds the huge amount of extra space to it. The brain slug is made of a flexible plastic, and has some cool brain detailing in the main body. He has a peg at the back of his tail to plus into the back of Pyrox, and the red bits are hard plastic. There is a single axle on the bottom to connect him to the head.

Size Comparison

Here is a size comparison to what everyone is relating these guys to, a Kraata. Also included I have shown a krana, and for fun my SigFig(To show standard comparison to a lego Minifigure.)

Different Applications of the head/mask

Here you can see just how the new mask fits onto the new head. Without the brain slug(And this head is turned, the set with the hons actually uses the other axle hole on the top of the head for the mask. which is even less noticeable) his eyes barely match up to the mask eyeholes.

However, with helmets that were meant for the Glatorian heads, it fits a lot better. The downside is, there is no face behind the helmet, which for Vortixx here, isn't the greatest look.

Surprisingly, the new Pyrox head works WONDERFULLY with old Metru heads. It is an absolutely perfect fit, with the eyes matching up.

And here you can see a side view, which is fluent, though like I said previously, the extra jaw space is somewhat ridiculous. I would recommend using this mask on larger MOCs if that is your intent, as even on Pyrox it gives a pretty goofy look.

Pyrox's frame is slightly different than usual, using an "XT4" style ankle connection which is slightly limiting, and having shorter wrists. He also has a neck extension as per usual, which really will change how big or small he is as you will see.

As we add on more armor, you can see the assymetry starting to show. He also uses his printed piece here, which...I'm not a big fan of. It's just too random for my taste, I wouldn't mind a printed chest piece or something, but as a random leg bit has always seemed odd on villains.

Here we can see the spinning fire weapon being built. The fire pieces, as mentioned before, look great. The weapon itself is lackluster, it spins, but not really sure of the purpose as to why it needs to spin. You can also see both of the new technic bits being used here.

The hand looks very terrifying using the neon orange claws, though I kind of wish both his hands used this, not just one.

The head assembly. Nothing much to say here, other than its BIG, the horns give the set serious width and the slug on top is equally as massive in size, and paired with the large Pyrox head...

It looks great however, the red eyes with some of the yellow showing through actually looks a lot better than I had anticipated. I'm usually not a fan of eye backings that dont make the eyes light up, but in this case it doesn't look all too bad.

The Finished Set

As I said earlier, the extended neck piece can allow for a lot of different stances, from short to tall, and in his more "four legged" state as seen in the trailer. He articulation is decent, though his legs will need a slight bit of modification to allow for ankle swivels, and the brain slug can be slightly restrictive, though not as bad as the Piraka had it. His color scheme overall flows okay, though the different shades of translucent and transparent pieces can be a bit distracting, and the gunmetal gray on his chest looks completely off. Dark red or black would have worked far better in my opinion.

Size Comparisons

Depending on how low or high up you set the neck, Pyrox can either be a smaller looking set or the larger figure that is more worthy of a 12.99 price tag. He is larger than I expected, though I think half of the set alone is the massive head he has. I know I keep exaggerating that point, but really, it is so freakin' huge on him it's ridiculous. Now admittedly I like that, as I will be using this on my Tyrant 2.0 most likely somehow, but regardless it's something to keep in mind.

Rating:

Parts:8/10 Decent For MOCing, though he is a set I will need 2 of due to the assymetrical amount of parts

Price: 7/10 50 parts for 12.99 is a little rough

Playability: 8/10 Spinning fucntion can be fun for some people, though to me the posing of the set and MOCability is more important

Poseability: 8/10 Decent, only downsides are the lack of ankle swivels and the slightly limited head articulation

Overall, Pyrox is better than I expected. Parts wise he is a nice set to have, and is sure to be a Fire-Mocist's dream. As a set itself, it could use some bulking up, but i don't think it is as bad as everyone says. The biggest annoyance with him is the tendancy for the Brain slug's tail to pop out of it's connection port, so do keep that in mind. So there you are guys, a quick review of Pyrox, I'll let the pictures do most of the talking here. If you are on the fence about him, then I would take the jump and get him. he is not as dissapointing or as luckluster as people make him out to be.

Besides, we all know Frost Beast will need a buddy in the summer, and this guy looks quite a bit like his buddy in crime!

VBBN

EDIT: Extra pieces:

As with previous villains in the breakout series, the hero core is back so you can get the code for online, even with the viallin sets. You know what that means...

Another Trophy for Core Hunter.

[Cahillrebel]

I want this guy. I only got Breez, Furno, and Bulk for right now. Good thing my birthday is coming up in February.

[Jetrax99]

The head looks a whole lot better than I thougt it would w/ the BP helmet. It seems to work well with the breakout heroes too, the only exception being Evo as the front axle port is visible through the eye opening.

[Cahillrebel]

Actually, I can't get the new head to fit in the BP helmet without it bending the axle connecting it. Kind of a downside.

[DraikNova]

He looks mainly like a great parts pack, but as a figure, the only way he looks good is with his head "hanging" down.

[Aethersprite]

Still on the fence with this guy, I like his design but he looks pretty bare, like a smaller set.

[Logan McOwen]

I will always stand that he really doesn't look like a Minotaur, and will never refer to him as such. For example:

See? Not convinced really.

However, he does look like a fun set to have. Although, I'm not keen on the scale of the mask. The new head piece looks glorious though!

Edited January 6, 2013 by LewiMOC

[Infernum]

hmm, how does he look with the black chest armor from Core Hunter?

[Aanchir]

This guy looks pretty nice in your review. He definitely has a lot of personality, and I love his head, claw, and weapon. The only thing I dislike is that the Super Heroes chest piece adds a lot of bulk to his shoulders which abruptly disappears at the joint.

Another criticism I could name is that his lack of Dark Red parts makes the ones he has less useful for MOCing, but that could be remedied with more dark red parts in future sets, and it doesn't really hurt Pyrox's appearance. So I hesitate to call it a fault in this particular set, but rather in the palette of parts currently available.

[Front]

I like this set, 2nd to Ogrum.

A little bit more dark red shells coming soon

[brick_of_legends]

I looooooooooove Pyrox! My only complaint? WHY DOES IT HAVE A GREEN MOUTH? It looks like he ate alot of green Jello!

[Mesonak]

I looooooooooove Pyrox! My only complaint? WHY DOES IT HAVE A GREEN MOUTH? It looks like he ate alot of green Jello!

Yeah definitely. If they weren't going to recolor his head to be red, they shouldn't have made the jaw open like it is. :/

He's a pretty awesome set though; his weapon's a little awkward, the gunmetal chest armor has no place (and I promptly swapped it out for black), and the aforementioned head issue is pretty severe. Flaws are insignificant when compared to the positives though. Love the dark reds parts, and I'm glad to hear we're getting a few more.

[Shakar]

I looooooooooove Pyrox! My only complaint? WHY DOES IT HAVE A GREEN MOUTH? It looks like he ate alot of green Jello!

Yeah I agree, and it's annoying- he's a fire beast dammit. I home we get at least one set with a tr. orange head in Summer. Stormer and maybe Evo are already introducing the new head in tr. blue..

I really like this guy, but I feel he looks pitiful for a 13 Euro set (as a 9 Euro set he'd be excellent). And his head, as I wrote a few days ago, looks more fitting for a Titan- it's just too huge. This is why I rebuilt him with longer limbs and using a large torso piece. He looks much more threatening now!

A little bit more dark red shells coming soon

My money is on Worriz, and maybe on Razar.