Brickthing Posted July 25, 2011 Set name: Bulk 3.0 Set Number: 2182 Price: $7.99USD , 9.99 Euro Pieces: 30 Year of release: 2011 Peeron Bricklink Brickset Calling Bulk! Assist Rocka and Stormer, put an end to the Witch Doctor’s destructive plans. If he removes jungle planet Quatro’s Quaza core, it will break apart. He must be stopped! Use your wolf animal power to track down Witch Doctor and use your wrist-mounted blades to keep his vicious beasts at bay. The Box Front With his shining silver armour, Bulk 3.0 stands in front of the camera, demonstrating his “I’m ready to slice some vines and villains” pose. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to have noticed the four Raw-Jaws closing in on him from behind. Such a shame – I thought the Heroes had learnt their lessons from the 2.0 series about ignoring villains while posing for promotional material…. In Bulk’s defense, he wasn’t part of the 2.0 wave. Anyhow, Bulk 3.0 brings no exception to the stylish looking canisters of the 3.0 wave. He isn’t as colourful as other Heroes, but he still pops off the shelf compared to other LEGO sets thanks to the bright Greens and Orange highlights. If you look closer however, Bulk’s Silver thigh shell is orientated differently than on the actual set. I’m assuming that this is promotional trickery rather than a mistake, because the proper position of the shell wouldn’t look as nice from the box-shot angle. Back The back of the canister continues with the simple and sweet layout of the 2.0 canisters, but as an improvement it is easier to read the large amounts of legal text against a green background. Bulk 3.0 can combine with Furno 3.0 to form my favourite combiner of the new Heroes, who looks like an upgraded Hawkman Furno, complete with wrist blades and chicken legs. Unfortunately I don’t have Furno 3.0, but ZORK64 has pictured the combiner here in his review of Furno 3.0. Contents Instructions Bent around the insides of the canister is an instruction booklet, which features the same image of Bulk, alongside rearranged text and logos. On the first pages of the instructions there are explanatory diagrams for using the eleven character code printed on the inside of the canister lid. Even though the concept of unlockable Chibi heroes in an online game isn’t as wonderfully exciting as the original Kanoka Club, I love the effort to have a unique code for each set. I didn’t take a photo of my code, but the first four characters are 2182… Bulk’s instructions specify the numbers of shells when adding them, so that you don’t mix shell sizes up. Unlike some of the other sets from this wave, Bulk has a slightly more valid reason to include these help-tips, because Silver 4M and 5M shells are reasonably easy to mix up at a casual piece-grab. The back of the instruction booklet has the inventory and numerous pages advertising the website and, other sets and the Hero Factory 1.0 DVD. It’s a shame that the Savage Planet DVD wasn’t scheduled early enough to be included instead, because it seems quite promising but could do with the advertising. I think it’s quite wise to show Furno 3.0 and his opponent Waspix in the back of the booklet, to remind you of the fun you can have by buying Furno and building the Hawkman combiner. Pieces Bulk 3.0 comes with a great array of parts, and almost all of them are new or uncommon. Recoloured pieces include an Orange Hero head and core, Silver Hero feet and chestplate, and Dark Grey A5 bones. The Silver hands, Silver 4M shells, Black torso armour and smaller torso bone were only available in one or two sets each, and Bulk has them all. The Silver 5M shells were previously only available from the Hero Recon Program. The only pieces that aren’t new/uncommon are the black Exo-force arms and B5 bones, but most people will find those useful for their collections. Because the 3.0 Heroes are very similar to the 2.0 design, there aren’t too many new moulds, but Bulk has a fairly nice selection of them. The new spike piece looks very different in Silver, and has a rubbery material and texture that makes it look like a rapidly prototyped piece. This is appropriate for a jungle weapon carved out of bone or rock, but having smooth metal weapons would make more sense for advanced Heroes, jungle themed or not. The other new piece that isn’t unique to Bulk is the armour covering piece. I’m not entirely sure what to call it, but it’s very useful both for attaching clip pieces and as a detail piece, so I’m glad that Bulk includes two to try out in a cheaper set, as opposed to getting them from the more expensive Scorpio/Rocka XL. Bulk’s helmet is meant to represent a wolf, and it does it so well that I feel daft pointing it out in words! It conveys a sense of speed and agility, which doesn’t match the character I thought Duncan Bulk was, buy hey, as a wolf Hero, the helmet is fantastic. Some sort of cheek camera makes the helmet asymmetric and more robotic than it would have been otherwise, but you barely notice the detail if you prefer not to. Bulk’s ID shell is very nicely printed, with Orange, Black, White and Metallic Silver colours. The wolf head isn’t as stylized as other animal badges, with a black nose and forward facing ears that don’t match Bulk’s helmet, but it’s clear Bulk’s animal “totem” is a wolf. In this instance the wings around the Hero name are less appropriate than on other Heroes, because they look like the feathers of a chicken that the wolf is trying to eat. The undersides of the pieces show their rod connection points. There isn’t much space inside Bulk’s helmet for anything else aside from a Hero head, but I’m sure people will find a good simple way to convert the helmet into an actual wolf head. The underside of the armour plate shows just how beautiful the trans-green colour is. I really hope that an unprinted version of this shell colour becomes available in the future. Build Bulk’s build is simple and almost symmetrical, but there’s a bit more to do than on other 3.0 Heroes with the 3 piece weapons on his arms. As with other 2.0 style Heroes, the build is enjoyable by seeing your Hero come together through a series of satisfying clicks, not by the complexity or challenge. Completed Set Although most of his pieces and design is the same as the 2.0 Heroes, Bulk 3.0 has a very different theme and feel; that of a fast metallic hunter. He has no upper arm armour, but I think that improves his look rather than detracting from it. He features all the articulation of a 2.0 Hero plus the movement of his wrist blades, although the 5M shells on his arms limit his elbow bending to the pictured position or greater. Bulk copes with Open Back Syndrome the best out of all the Heroes so far, because the same coloured torso bone and shell hide the cavity between them. Without the 3D depth seeing the set in person, you can almost fool yourself into believing that Bulk has a covered back like the beautiful Ben 10 torsos. Bulk’s wrist blades are interesting weapons made out of great pieces, however they end up protruding quite far out from his arms, more than would be “ergonomic” in reality. The Gunmetal colour and action poses help conceal the fact that the blades make Bulk almost as wide as he is tall. Conversely, the blade construction allows his weapons to curve around his fists, allowing him to take on some wicked poses. The Exo-force clip and Gunmetal piece hold well, but the rubber blades fit very loosely. Bulk will not lose his weapons while idle or even when he his being shaken around violently by a giant hand, but they will come out easily with a light tug or twist to the blades. Blade attack! Bulk is coiled, ready to strike… Heigh-yah! By printing these two photos, you can make your own Duncan Bulk Action Flipbook™!! Headshots Bulk’s helmet is a very important element of his thematic design; without it, he is just a standard futuristic Hero, but with it he becomes a jungle warrior with hints of ancient Aztec flavor. If single blades aren’t enough, Bulk can hunt a few Hydruka borrow claws from Nuparu. Bulk realizes that because his fists are Silver, they themselves must be weapons… Final Thoughts Colour Scheme - 10/10 – Bulk 3.0 is perfectly faithful to his 1.0 incarnation, and that faithfulness resulted in a lovely colour-scheme of Silver, Orange and Black. The Dark Grey bones match the Silver shells, while the Black torso bone matches the Black torso shell. Bulk’s wrist blades feature three colours, but the colours blend together well. Parts - 10/10 – If you love Silver, Bulk will be a wonderful set for you. If you don’t mind Silver, there are still a lot of interesting pieces, such as the Gunmetal armour covering pieces, the Orange Core/Head, the torso armour and the smaller torso bone. Bulk seems like he is a bit smaller and uses less pieces than other Heroes with the new shield/fist shells and large helmets, but when you compare the part assortment Bulk has an equal or larger amount of shells and useful accessories compared to the other Heroes. Design - 9/10 – The 3.0 sets could probably be considered clone sets like previous Hero waves and many BIONICLE waves, but they each manage to perfectly suit their different animals through slight differences in their design. Bulk isn’t the most extreme example of this, but he successfully gives the impression of a fast and lean wolf warrior. In line with Duncan Bulk’s strong and hard-hitting character, I would’ve thought Stormer 3.0 should’ve been the wolf, but the odd animal choice doesn’t detract from an excellent wolf Hero. My main design grumble with Bulk is the size of his weapons’ wrist mounts, but that is offset by how good his weapons look in combat. He is essentially punching his enemies with both fists, with the added effectiveness of long sharp blades. Articulation - 9/10 – Bulk has 15 points of articulation, if you don’t count the spike pieces turning in the Exo-force arms. There is a good enough range of articulation for Bulk to take on many great poses, but unfortunately the choice of shells limits his arms and knees when they bend. The knees can still bend past 90°, but the left leg can bend further than the right because of their different armour configurations. And that annoys me. Quality - 8/10 – Bulk’s sockets, ball cups and quality of pieces are all amazing, and his printed armour piece looks very nice. The print colours are slightly misaligned on my piece, but by less than half a millimeter. You can only see it if you’re scrutinizing the piece for the slightest mishap. The only feature that lets Bulk down is his loose blades. I’m not a part designer, but surely that could be fixed by making one bar slightly thicker and the other thinner to compensate? Although this way is better for MOCing, because both connection points are useable despite being slightly loose. Overall - 46/50 – I’m very pleased with Bulk 3.0. He is a wonderful source of pieces and a great wolf-like action figure. Personally he doesn’t feel like the same character as his 1.0 form, but it’s still good to finally have him (and Stringer) in the updated 2.0 form. I’d recommend Bulk if you want good MOCing pieces or the armour detail pieces that otherwise come with the more expensive sets, or if you already have one or two Savage Planet sets and want another, simply because other Heroes and Villains have more interesting new pieces such as shield/fist shells and the claw/spine pieces. Why hello, little jungle tribesman! Your feeble 10 year old plastic is no match for my brand new blade! Aarrgh! I take it back! Noo, not the face! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
toatyger Posted July 25, 2011 (edited) I know i should know this, but who is the matoran? Edited July 25, 2011 by toatyger Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Aethersprite Posted July 25, 2011 Great review! Best set of the 3.0 wave, IMO. And personally I think I prefer the way the upper thigh armour is attached as shown on the box rather than the official version in the instructions. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jouster Posted July 25, 2011 I know i should know this, but who is the matoran? Takua the Chronicler. Anyway, awesome review as always, and you convinced me to buy this set. I never really liked Bulk 3.0 that much, but now I feel like buying this set. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ZORK64 Posted July 25, 2011 The only feature that lets Bulk down is his loose blades. I’m not a part designer, but surely that could be fixed by making one bar slightly thicker and the other thinner to compensate? Although this way is better for MOCing, because both connection points are useable despite being slightly loose. I connected the blades for some time via the other bar, and the connection felt slightly stronger than with the regular one. I guess it can differ because of the material of the piece. Anyway, you wrote a great review Brickthing, and I just love your pictures of Bulk. And thanks for mentioning my review of Furno. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Velika314 Posted July 26, 2011 Great review! I was disappointed when a Bulk 2.0 wasn't made, but Bulk 3.0 makes up for it. I like his "Wolverine" look with the claws and how he doesn't look as blocky as the 2.0s did. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
