Hero Factory 2011

[Jouster]

My Opinion on the summer wave:

Rocka 3.0: The helmet is really weird looking. It looks like a rock or a ball of mud. But the white or silver 2.0 core makes up for the flaws of this set.

Nex 3.0: I'm glad they re-released this set, but the colours are not so good. They used a bit too many on him. For eg: orange, black, silver, green. These 4 colours do not blend at all.

Stormer 3.0: Julius Caesar much....? Yeah, that's pretty much it. I like the set, it's cool and compact. Love the claw arm!

Bulk 3.0: Now this is a huge improvement from the 1.0 version. He looks alot cooler, and I love the fact that LEGO got rid of that ugly gun arm.My favourite part about this set is the skull shaped helmet.

Stringer 3.0: Stringer has the same problems Nex has, only they are not so bad. My only complaint is the use of that random green armor on his shoulder, and the use of a black body for shoulder armor. I don't like the black body because it makes the arm look very sketchy and not finished. But I know that this set will look alot better when it's finished.

Furno 3.0: BLEH! Just BLEH! It's even worse than the 2.0

Rocka XL: This is Fire Lord all over again for me. It has the same problems Fire Lord had, only on this set it's even worse. The legs are extremely skinny and sketchy. I hope LEGO improves this set....

Witch Doctor: Now this is E-P-I-C! LEGO did a great job on this set. Everything blends in so nice, and the design is almost flawless. I love the spear/totem/staff thing.But I have the feeling that this set will be a bit more expensive than the rest, mostly because it looks like he has alot more pieces than an average titan set.

Scorpion: I love this wild beast(?) set, I will give my opinion when I see him from different angles. But yeah, the set is pretty good.Has a few problems, here and there but it's good and compact.

Raw-Jaw: Untill now, I don't like him. I hope that the final version will be alot better.

Fangz: Same as Raw-Jaw.

Waspix: This set is great! It reminds me alot of Gorast and Bitil. I don't get why LEGO make the Hero Factory villains (some of them) look like they could be a perfect Makuta character. But yeah, LEGO did a good job on this set.

I know my opinion will change alot when I'll see the final versions at Toy Fair but still, these are my opinions based on those pictures.

Edited December 25, 2010 by Jouster

[The Alchemyst]

Rocka XL looks cool, whatever color that may be. So does Witch Doctor.

The new jungle direction is unexpected.

They need to stop with the Thornax launchers though.

[vexorian]

They should keep the thornax launchers, at least for 5 more years really. If Bionicle history is any indication, TLG can do much, much worse than it. And I like the fact that you actually build the launcher, the ball does not fall off, the launcher actually shoots and as long as it uses the right color scheme it is not intrusive.

Edited December 25, 2010 by vexorian

[The Crazy One]

Squid Lanchers tee hee

[Leugi]

Amazing... I like the fact that TLG is pulling out the theme nicely, I always thought that a superhero theme would be amazing thanks to the variety of stuff that can appear...

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Some thoughts:

Stormer is back, woo! As with the last 2 I love his helm...

Bulk has 2 silver hands this time, that is appealing indeed...

Rocka's mask seems interesting to me actually, a good hi-res image will make it clear though... I believe Rocka may be this year's female for some strange reason... I like its colors though (and als of Rocka XL)

I too am glad that sets are "Rahi's" in some way, it's good to have big creatures back...

The Witch Doctor looks promising... It certainly looks evil...

This theme will be interesting...

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I find it strange that all the 3.0 heroes have a green armor part though, maybe there's a green uber hero combiner?

[The Crazy One]

Like I said the green is probably preliminary. Rocka female? That's the complete opposite of female getting unfair roles! xD I doubt it somehow.

[Jouster]

Rocka? A female? I doubt it.Mostly because the set does not look like a female at all.But Breez 2.0 didn't look so female-ish too..So it's possible. Heck, everything is possible these days.

[Refia]

I'm not going to judge the heroes until there are better pictures. I just hope they'll improve upon the 2.0 line. Get rid of the 2.0 feet (which, for me, were awful) and bring back the 1.0 line style of helmets. That's all that's needed to improve for me personally.

Villains, hmm, they appear more interesting than the fire ones, but again, gonna wait for judging them. For now, I'm having a positive feling about them.

But now we get to what is really exciting me: Scorpio, which appears to be a pure HF-Rahi, something I definately appreciate. I hope that its build will live up to its looks. With Doctor appears much better than Fire Lord, but I hope, I pray that the build will be dramatically improved when compared with what I've seen of Fire Lord.

In general, I'm feeling carefully optimistic about the summer wave of 2011. Hopefully it will live up to it and make me forget the entire 2.0 line of HF, which I didn't like. That's all.

[SpiderSpaceman]

And Stormer has a "villain core" on his arm. Maybe a trophy.

I think it's silly that everybody's thinking of that part as a "core"

I mean the hero core very obviously is, has an emblem on it. But this "villain core" is, in my mind, just a mechanical detail. It's a gas tank door, for crying out loud.

I guess what I'm saying is the hero cores signifies allegiance to hero factory - but I don't think this piece is meant to be specific to any organization

I find it strange that all the 3.0 heroes have a green armor part though, maybe there's a green uber hero combiner?

I think that's a placeholder. the preliminary images for the fire villains all had a trans-neon-orange piece of armor where their printed armors ended up

Edited December 25, 2010 by SpiderSpaceman

[VBBN]

I think it's silly that everybody's thinking of that part as a "core"

I mean the hero core very obviously is, has an emblem on it. But this "villain core" is, in my mind, just a mechanical detail.

My thoughts exactly. I meann, Nitroblast has oe on his chest, leg, AND shoulder, hardly a "core" of anything in my opinion.

[Brickthing]

New around here, and have been out of the Lego game for quite some time, Technic and Bionicle even longer. But I managed to snag a few of these new 2.0 sets, because they looked interesting enough, and the new building style piqued my interest.

Anywho, did a few mods to cover the awful back view on these heroes. Was a really simple fix, and improves the look of them drastically.

Take a look!

Stormer 2.0 Mods Back View

And a front view.

That's a great addition, and it looks like it fits well. It's just a pity that it requires buying a second Hero for each fix, and doesn't work for the two Heroes that don't have shield pieces.

As for all these new sets, if I had known we would be getting such a Christmas present, I wouldn't have stayed away from my PC yesterday.

3.0 Heroes: As we expected, they mostly use the same pieces, which makes me wish they were still 2.0 or at most 2.5, because I don't think they're different or improved enough from the 2.0 wave to be called 3.0, especially considering the improvement from 1.0 to 2.0.

I tried out what torso armour looks like on a Hero shoulder as is done in Stormer and Stringer, and it surprisingly doesn't look too bad. It gives a heavy armour tank look to the Hero, but I don't think that is the most appropriate in a jungle environment.

I like the idea of the claw tools, for cutting through jungle flora (and fauna?). It nicely mirrors the water-tools used in the 2.0 fire environment, along with the green name tag armour pieces (which I doubt will be trans-green ). Lime lids will look great on the final canisters and on shelves, and I hope it means we will get other secondary BIONICLE colour lids in the future, such as light blue (underwater theme) and tan (desert theme).

I'm fairly sure that the Hero helmets aare flip masks, which would be possible with the 2.0 heads that they use. Stormer and Nex could have the same helmet, as could Bulk and Stringer/Furno. I think we'll need bigger pictures to tell though, because currently Stormer looks like Gelu, Bulk looks like Telluris, and Rocka looks like Ackbar.

It's a shame that there is no Evo anymore, and I'm not overly excited about Rocka - there already is a Hero based on a rock star. I hope the canister Rocka is Yellow-Orange like Rocka-XL, so that there are no two named Hero sets with the same coloured armour. I'm not objecting to new characters though - we're slowly building up a cast of characters that can be selected from for each new mission - very much like a classic superhero TV show.

I'll wait until bigger pictures to decide if I like yet another (4th) Furno or not, but his weapon looks very interesting - possibly a black/gunmetal Mahri blade and sword?

I'm excited about the new weapon/hand piece that is on the 4 Heroes without 2 hands (like the 2.0 wave ), Rocka XL and Raw-Jaw. It looks like an armour piece with bars that exo-force arms can attach to, either as fingers, claws or blade mounts.

The three smaller villains look interesting. I hope the villains would continue to be sinister characters based around diverse dangerous ideas as the first villains were, rather than them being restricted by a theme such as fire or jungle/monster. The sideways boxes are nice, but from the small images I can't see any pieces that stand out to me as interesting must-gets. Fangz has the usual silver/black Piraka feet and 2-toed claw feet that I really hope are updated versions with the new sockets (for the sake of all the work put into developing those).

Scorpio looks great, and has a lot of interesting layered spike pieces. Some people might find it odd that the name is a Zodiac sign, but seeing as it's my Zodiac sign I'm not complaining.

I think there is thigh armour on Rocka XL, which is an improvement over Fire Lord, but I think it's likely that Rocka XL will look just as bad from other angles....I wonder what the storyline reason for the size increase will be, and what advantage it will have in the jungle (other than fighting the Witch-Doctor I suppose).

The Witch Doctor and his staff look amazing, and I really hope the final set will live up to that straight-forward awesome name. A titan-Takanuva sized voodoo skeleton villain seems like the best villain we've had so far.

Judging from the sets and theme, I predict the story of this wave will be that the Witch Doctor is using evil mind-control powers to make the natural wildlife attack the citizens of Jungle Planet X. Heroes are outfitted with claws and blades to help them cut through the jungle undergrowth, and they are sent in special Jungle-colour-coded Hero pods to Jungle Planet X to stop the evil Witch Doctor and save the day.

If that story is the case, I'm beginning to really like the episodic storyline that Greg told us Hero Factory would have - Mastermind X (+ henchmen) attacks planet X for whatever reason, and a selection of 6 Heroes are thematically re-fitted to suit the theme of Planet X, then are sent in Hero Pods to save the day. The formula is nice and simple, and you can create your own missions in the same format. Hero Factory Operation: Eurobricks anyone?

[VBBN]

I'll wait until bigger pictures to decide if I like yet another (4th) Furno or not, but his weapon looks very interesting - possibly a black/gunmetal Mahri blade and sword?

It's two of the Jetbug-mandible parts in black or gunmetal

[Jouster]

It's two of the Jetbug-mandible parts in black or gunmetal

I think the mandible parts are in gunmetal, just like they were on Jetbug. Would've been nice if they were black. Recolors are always welcome.

[VBBN]

Here guys I sized up the photos to 1500 and sharpened them, hopefully you can make out some truff;

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5289/5290920495_243bf5a0c7_o.png

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5163/5291524960_ecebfe8254_o.png

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5124/5291526952_9019eb1c6c_o.png

I noticed that Raw-jaw's head isnt visible in the pic, its next to the big teeth-looking thing, which is actually his claw

[Jouster]

Raw-Jaw's head is visible, the problem is that they put the preliminary watermark thing on it, so you can't see the head. But Raw-Jaw is a mammoth, and I find that cool because we never got a mammoth set before. Anyway, I wonder if the jaw pieces on Scorpio(n) are balljoint attached or attached with pins and axles. And I wonder why they added the same print on top of Scorpio's head that they used on Fire Lord's armor. You know, the volcanic/lava armor pieces.

Edited December 25, 2010 by Jouster

[Brickthing]

Here guys I sized up the photos to 1500 and sharpened them, hopefully you can make out some truff;

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5289/5290920495_243bf5a0c7_o.png

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5163/5291524960_ecebfe8254_o.png

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5124/5291526952_9019eb1c6c_o.png

I noticed that Raw-jaw's head isnt visible in the pic, its next to the big teeth-looking thing, which is actually his claw

Thanks!

Rocka: Black hand , black thigh pieces.

Stormer: Blue spikes, definitely a Villain Core.

Stringer: Really bad layering with Orange torso armour...

Furno: Yeah the lower blade is a Jetbug pincer, but the other blade is a gunmetal Hewkii Mahri sword.

Rocka XL: The shins have some dodgy exposed light grey TECHNIC pieces, and luckily the thighs have a new piece covering them. They're the samee design as Fire Lord, so they suffer from being too thin. There are two green armour pieces on the upper arms, what looks like a new piece similar to a Rode on the Zamor arm, and I've finally made sense of the helmet. It's a helmet with an armoured chin and an elaborate headdress, and Rocka XL has a white head piece inside, while Rocka 3.0 seems to have a black head piece (possibly with printed white eyes?).

Scorpio: The front of the head really looks like a Bitil mask, but the back part doesn't. I love the new giant spike pieces used on this set and the Witch Doctor.

Witch Doctor: I can't see much more on this set other than all the spike pieces being new aside from Ben 10 tails on the back, and the staff skull looks the same as the head skull, only in black. The shins use the same Fire Lord design, but as a skeleton villain I think it will suit the Witch Doctor perfectly.

Raw-Jaw: Red Ben 10 rock feet and the new spikes from Scorpio in black.

Fangz: The head looks really stylized and vicious (it's eyes are under the i of image see my next post below), and the fangs are possibly minifig scimitars.

[Bfahome]

Looks like Scorpio[n] and Wasp[ix] have the same head, and it's not a Bitil head.

[Brickthing]

Raw-Jaw's head is visible, the problem is that they put the preliminary watermark thing on it, so you can't see the head. But Raw-Jaw is a mammoth, and I find that cool because we never got a mammoth set before.

Raw-Jaw's tusks look like the new blade piece used in some of the Heroes, while his head is a flip-mask piece shared with Waspix (Yellow bug set and Red set again I see ).

Fangz' head is a flip mask with Scorpio. You can see Scorpio's mandibles as ears on Fangz, which could make this one of the best flip-masks ever, where the other head isn't obvious from the other side. (We'll need to see it in person first though...)

[The Crazy One]

Omg, on the iPhone you can see his face. LOL (that's all I have to say)

[VBBN]

Thanks!

Furno: Yeah the lower blade is a Jetbug pincer, but the other blade is a gunmetal Hewkii Mahri sword.

If its something from Hewkii, it has to be the shoulder blades that Hewkii had, his actual sword is no longer in production.

[The Crazy One]

I promise you, the blade is neither.

[Brickthing]

If its something from Hewkii, it has to be the shoulder blades that Hewkii had, his actual sword is no longer in production.

True, it's different. I was going by the shape around the hand and what looks like three TECHNIC holes further up by the Hero Core. But the blade is shorter, and there is no accompanying axle by the TECHNIC holes (if they are those at all).

I promise you, the blade is neither.

Do you have a clearer alternate source?

[The Crazy One]

Do you have a clearer alternate source?

No, but my iPhone lets me zoom in to see pretty mch everything clear enough to tell parts.

EDIT: Fair enough, the computer is pretty much the same. It just really doesn't look like anything I have seen.

Edited December 25, 2010 by The crazy one

[Refia]

The larger pictures show that the heroes have individual helmets (flipside or not) again, which is a move I fully support and welcome. Already 3.0 is a step above 2.0. Congrats, LEGO.

Another thing I noticed now, and which I hope is just my eyes deceiving me, is Rocka XL having the same upper tigh problem as Fire lord. I pray it isn't true.

Apparently Scorpio says "Scorpion" on the box. Remains to be seen which of the two is correct.

Edited December 25, 2010 by Refia

[Mesonak]

The larger pictures show that the heroes have individual helmets (flipside or not) again, which is a move I fully support and welcome. Already 3.0 is a step above 2.0. Congrats, LEGO.

Another thing I noticed now, and which I hope is just my eyes deceiving me, is Rocka XL having the same upper tigh problem as Fire lord. I pray it isn't true.

Apparently Scorpio says "Scorpion" on the box. Remains to be seen which of the two is correct.

It looks to me that Rocka XL uses two of the silver extra-long armor plates used on Drilldozer to cover the legs.

Yes, the general structure appears to be the same, minus the unused balljoints on the heels and the different lower leg armor.

These sets are amazing though, and I do much prefer these over 2.0 by far.

Witch Doctor is easily my favorite titan since Takanuva '08.

-Mesonak

Edited December 25, 2010 by Mesonak