VBBN Posted July 13, 2015 Posted July 13, 2015 Set name: Skull Slicer Set number: 70792 Pieces: 71 Price: $14.99 | £12.99 | €14.99 Release date: 2015 Get 4-armed and dangerous with the Skull Slicer!Patrol the ruins of the ancient arena with the menacing Skull Slicer! This ancient champion has been animated by the dark magic of the Skull Spider Mask, fusing him with his razor-sharp hook blades. Create fearsome combat poses and turn the wheel on Skull Slicer’s back to activate the 4 battle arms all at once. Use the hook blades to rip off masks and pick them up with the mask grabber. Any LEGO® BIONICLE® hero wanting to pass through the arena will have to get past this wicked warrior first! Features a Skull Spider mask and mask pop-off trigger, shell with cool metallic-effect chest decoration, 4-arm battle function, 3 hook blades, mask grabber with translucent orange chain and hook, silver-colored bones, translucent rib cage and posable joints Turn the wheel to activate all 4 battle arms! Rip off hero masks with the hook blades! Pick up masks with the mask grabber Pop off the Skull Spider mask! Durable design for intense action play Stands over 7” (20cm) tall Combine with 70791 Skull Warrior and 70793 Skull Basher to create a multi-headed warrior using building instructions available online at LEGO.com/BIONICLE/bi Hello everyone and welcome to my review of Skull Slicer! A four armed figure is nothing we haven't seen before. From Gorast to XT4 to the upcoming Grievous, but Skull Slicer here also has an added twist- those four arms are mounted to a gear box. Does having four arms make him the best of the wave? Read on the decide for yourself! Packaging and Contents Box Front Like most sets this year, he comes in a hexagonal shaped box. As always keep in mind that this is the European packaging and hence the information you see on the box may vary depending on the country. Skull slicer is in a fairly standard pose, with his hook holding on to Lewa's Miru- which we can see Lewa's hands reaching out for. Box Back The back displays a hefty sum of safety warnings, a small comic strip, some of the set's features, and also the the combo model. News and Interesting parts Bones and Weapon Firstly we have the narrow torso bone colored in silver, which looks fantastic and it's always nice to have some new torso colors after having so many in black. We also get the new bone piece in silver, which doesn't have any connection points for armor, but does look more like an actual bone. Finally the set comes with three of the new blade. Molding Defect I sure do have luck with molding errors. I'm sure people are waiting to spend hundreds on a piece that looks like it was chewed on by a 5 year old. I guess it looks battle worn though in a way.. Trans Pieces Hi and welcome to the most annoying photo I have ever tried to take. We have a contrast of trans bright green and trans neon orange, two colors that I never wanted to see together in a set and that are absolute murder on anyone who knows how much these cause trouble when balancing colors in a photo. But anyway let's see what we have here, a trans neon system chain, eyestalk, and also skull spider leg- and in the trans bright green department we have a bone and the new torso shell. Armor First we have a new printed breastplate. it's a cool design, but having red in all of them can be off putting since, well there is no red in these sets. You also have the new armor add on, which is actually a lot larger than I thought it would be. Masks This is actually the only set in the wave that doesn't have a new mold of mask- We get a skull spider mask in silver as Slicer's main mask, which...okay I'm fine with it being the skull spider mask because I love this design, but couldn't we have gotten it in pearl dark gray? The only villain in the wave with a pearl dark gray mask is Warrior, everyone else has silver... We also get the Miru in a gold mixed with trans bright green. Like I said in Skull Warrior's review, it's cool if you have Lewa, but if you don't, then it doesn't give you the same "bonus mask mileage" that the skull spiders did in the first wave. Building Process Gearbox Slicer's gearbox is an interesting design, not because of how it was built but as to how i'm going to try to fix it. I'll show this in a moment, but the build basically causes three arms to move in one direction, while the fourth arm moves the opposite. I'd prefer to make it so that two arms swing forward and two swing back, but due to the design this will need modification. Huge props to Lego for mounting all three to the box though, instead of just making the second set without gear movement. Action Frame His frame is, again, nothing complicated. All four arms are built the same way, and there really isn't asymmetry to see here unlike Skull Warrior. Armoring Tunneler beast only had one armor shell, and now Slicer takes second place with only two shells. With that said, the lack of arm does make the arms collide with eachother less, which is a plus side for sure. Finished Build Front View His weapons are simple, consisting of three blades and a grabbing chain. Trans neon orange seems a little underused here, if you ignore the weapon only one shell and his eyes are orange which isn't too greatly balanced. The red sort of helps blends the colors together, but I've never been a fan of trying match a transparent color with a solid one (and the wrong shade too.) Profile View One thing to point out here is that he has extra heels on his feet, so when three arms are moved backwards with the gear function he can still support his own weight. Back View Nothing noteworthy to really mention here, of course he lacks back armor but I'm not sure how much you can really place on a skeleton. Gear Function Here you can see how his arms move via the function. If you were to turn the gear the other way, a single arm would swing forward and the other three would move back. Arms Ready He poses fairly well, there is plenty of articulation to use and his weapons are small enough that they don't clash. One problem I am finding is that depending on how you pose he lower set of arms, sometimes the axle holding them to the gearbox will begin to slip out because the trans neon green bones at that point can't swivel too much. Armed and Dangerous I really love four armed characters, you can have so much more going on in each pose. The chain weapon is a little sloppy, but you can attach it the claw part under his hand with one of the free pegs if you so choose. My Mask Now The claw chain thing doesn't really hold the mask very well, and he can't exactly lift it high in the air- this is as high as that arm will go. Somethings not right here Lewa I think you have some extra appendages there, you might want to consult a doctor about that.. Someone help? Chain weapons and gearboxes have their side effects it seems Size Comparison All of the smaller skull villains stand at about the same height, which in comparison to a taller Toa like Gali or Tahu is fairly short. Overalll I really like Skull Slicer. He doesn't have a lot of armor or much in the way of limb design, but he has an interesting finished look and a function that works well without really interesting with the set or how it looks. He weapons are simple and are fitting- really the only thing I'm not a fan of here is in regards to the colors. I wish his mask was dark pearl gray, and if they insist on giving us trans neon orange, I would have appreciated having another bit or two of it on him. Other than that, I would recommend him about as much as I would Skull Warrior- that is, I'd get these guys after you pick up Ekimu and Kulta, and before you think about Scorpio or Basher. Quote
Takanuinuva Posted July 13, 2015 Posted July 13, 2015 You mentioned an arm fix in your review yet you don't show it. Any reason why? Quote
Logan McOwen Posted July 13, 2015 Posted July 13, 2015 I do love the gearbox on Slicer. Very innovative. Otherwise, he's not too interesting in comparison to the rest, but is still pretty damn cool. The apple green is a nice treat. Quote
DraikNova Posted July 13, 2015 Posted July 13, 2015 This is the Skull Villain with the best colors, that's for sure. He also has my favorite torso print, but still, there's something lacking about this set. I think it's the weird way the arms stick out of the torso, which, while probably necessary to let the function work properly, is still very annoying. Quote
VBBN Posted July 13, 2015 Author Posted July 13, 2015 You mentioned an arm fix in your review yet you don't show it. Any reason why? Oh, no I meant that I would show how his function works (hence the picture showing three arms forward and one back) I haven't yet made up a fix for it. Quote
TheDesuComplex Posted July 13, 2015 Posted July 13, 2015 Wow, the trans-neon-green looks gorgeous on this guy. And while I appreciate the creation and implementation of a four-armed function, I think it looks a bit jumbled. He is certainly unique and fun though, which I think is something that can be said for all the Skull Villains. Quote
Aanchir Posted July 13, 2015 Posted July 13, 2015 Good review. I think the red on the chest plates suits the sets just fine since it's the closest solid-colored match to the Tr. Flu. Reddish Orange accents all the sets have. Have you ever tried to match Tr. Flu. Reddish Orange to Bright Orange? Trust me, it's a poor match — Bright Orange is a lot more yellowish. With that said, I don't have the sets in-hand, so maybe they don't go together as well in real life as they do in photos and renders. *shrug* Personally, I think the shoulder armor on his upper right arm might look better if the Tr. Flu. Reddish Orange shell were reversed. But again, I don't have the set so I can't say for sure. Honestly, I don't think his asymmetry suits him as well as Skull Warrior's, though I guess between the mask grabber chain and the shells on his shoulders, his colors do sort of balance out. I also think the heels would look better if they were on the inside edge of the feet rather than the outside edge. I'm not a huge fan of protruding heels in general, though this guy's monstrous enough to make it work. Quote
Im a brickmaster. Posted July 13, 2015 Posted July 13, 2015 I gotta say, the trans-green-gold mask looks better then the spider mask honestly. Nice review, oh and I agree, four armed characters are the best! Quote
VBBN Posted July 17, 2015 Author Posted July 17, 2015 Good review. I think the red on the chest plates suits the sets just fine since it's the closest solid-colored match to the Tr. Flu. Reddish Orange accents all the sets have. Have you ever tried to match Tr. Flu. Reddish Orange to Bright Orange? Trust me, it's a poor match — Bright Orange is a lot more yellowish. With that said, I don't have the sets in-hand, so maybe they don't go together as well in real life as they do in photos and renders. *shrug* Well, it goes better than orange would have. My problem with it is that they did this to all of the figures, so while you have 4 really cool printed chestplates, they all have red, and hence any MOC you put them in without red is going to be mismatched. So really it limits the usefulness of all 4 of them. Quote
Aanchir Posted July 17, 2015 Posted July 17, 2015 Well, it goes better than orange would have. My problem with it is that they did this to all of the figures, so while you have 4 really cool printed chestplates, they all have red, and hence any MOC you put them in without red is going to be mismatched. So really it limits the usefulness of all 4 of them. I don't know... on most of them, the red is minimal enough that it could just be an accent, like the red spikes on Mantax and Takadox, instead of needing to really be a major part of the color scheme. For instance, TheOneVeyronian's Skull Imitator Corphos doesn't seem to use any other red parts besides 2M cross axles, and even if those weren't there I don't think the splash of red on the torso would hurt the color schemes. Skull Grinder's chest plate is maybe the only one that would need to be used with other red or reddish orange parts, since it uses a LOT of red. Quote
TheOneVeyronian Posted July 17, 2015 Posted July 17, 2015 A great review, and it echoes much the same sentiments that I have about the set when I first picked it up over a month ago. If they insisted on using trans-neon orange, they could have given him at least one more shell, or some claws on the feet perhaps. Just having one shell in that colour makes it feel tacked-on. While I can't deny that the gearbox is clever, I would have preferred a two-up, two-down arrangement as well. That's easy to fix though, just take out the 3 small gears and replace with 2 of these. Or add another knob wheel to the gearbox itself and use 6 small gears to have the arms on one side swing in one direction while the other pair swing in the other direction. For instance, TheOneVeyronian's Skull Imitator Corphos doesn't seem to use any other red parts besides 2M cross axles You are right, that's the only two instances of red on that MOC. I accept it as an accent colour. The presence of red on the chestplates of these guys doesn't bother me too much personally but if it clashed too much, I would use a plain chestplate instead Quote
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