Lord-Vorahk

This. The double-socket bone is a great example: How many Bonkle 2015 sets is it in? One. How many of said piece are in that set? One. CCBS has loads of great pieces and designs, but they're incredibly scarce. Meanwhile, each set I pick up, when it eventually gets scrapped, leaves me with an ever-increasing pile of bley upper limb bones that I'm never going to use. Sure, there are plenty of Bonkle limb pieces in my drawers, far more than CCBS ones, but that's not because I find them useless. Au contraire, I'm an unskilled MOCer who mainly uses modified Inika builds because I love me some Inika builds (As long as they get sufficiently bulked up in the chest and torso length), and as such, Bonkle lower limbs are always appreciated. But I've yet to really start MOCing in CCBS because too few sets have the good parts. I've got the two pieces right here, and one is chunky, blocky, and the faux "waist joint" is a segmented section. The limb is skeletal and thin, the cavities being much shallower, and it has one of only two molded-in limb hinges in Bionicle (The other being on the Mata weapon arm,as other pre-bent limbs didn't tend to have visible joints). And the thing is, I don't really consider them better. Yeah, they're great toys. But CCBS friction decay is a problem- Some of my 2015 sets are very floppy, whereas my 05-07 Bonkle sockets are only just starting to break- a lot of the weapons are too heavy and exacerbate this, along with the gear system, while beloved for adding complexity and aiming right for the nostalgia, leads to some floppiness if the weapons and arm construction is too heavy for the friction gears, something I've experienced on Tahu, Gali, Ekimu and Kulta. There's also a tendency for CCBS to repeat mistakes Bonkle made, even when Bonkle fixed them. Case in point, 2009, while I don't like the story year that much, had far fewer metallic colours. Elemental colourations were back for both figures and weapons. But then in CCBS, we have silver and gunmetal everywhere. Gali, while she's a great set, has more gunmetal and silver than dark azure, and as a result, using her golden mask makes her look pretty bad, because suddenly she's very much not-blue. This will annoy some people, but I like the 2008 Toa's colour schemes a hell of a lot more than the 2015 Toa's. The 08 Toa had two major colours each: Their element colour, of which there was a lot: Taking Lewa as an example: Lime mask, chest, and every single socket piece on the set. Everyone's least favourite Mistika? Earth blue mask, connectors, hips. How about 2015 Lewa? Bright green mask, forearm, thigh, and torso armour, keetorange shins, shoulder armour, silver face, swords, feet, hands, chestplate, spikes, black forearms, shins, torso, gears, grey upper arms, thighs, back, yellow gear, hilts and chest detailing, lime chest print, and gunmetal axe blades, with a potential additional gold mask as well. There were outlyers: Onua's red fins and Kopaka's gunmetal chestplate, but for the most part, the 08 Toa maintained a solid colour scheme. The 15 Toa have their elemental colour, a trans colour, two or three metallic colours, any additional armour colours, black, bley, yellow, etc. I consider the two lines to be honestly pretty much equal.

Iruni is definitely the better of the two Hagah, but it's worth noting that he has longer legs and arms next to his torso build, something that became a sticking point in later years.

I just like reminding people that the Toa Mata's proportions were even more inhuman than the Inika, they still had clashing textures (See the Mata leg, the Mata weapon arm, the Mata torso), and it's the well-proportioned, consistent Toa Metru that are the odd ones out among Gen 1's sets. Bionicle has never had perfectly humanoid and unified sets. The idea that they do is the result of people being blinded by nostalgia for the early years. That's not to say that the older sets are bad. By the standards of the time, the Mata are great, so are the Metru (Though the Hagah blow them out of the water without even trying), and I love the fact that the sets aren't generic humanoids, that they have alien proportions and mixing design elements. But mixing textures and odd proportions have been with us since the beginning, and we shouldn't pretend that they haven't.

I'm going to be one of those weird people that like Umarak's legs, aren't I? I mean, a montrous, skeletal creature with twisted, broken legs, spikes growing out of it, huge antlers, and a chest-mouth sounds good to me.

Another reason why 2009 was such a mis-step.

Here's something i dont' think people have noticed: The Toa have their Nuva symbols in their chests... but what does Umarak have? A mouth. Okay, yes, you could say that it's a bit of bone that he's wearing, but it has a black void inside it. Umarak isn't a simple undead warrior. He's a freaking Eldritch Abomination. And this is the part where I have a favourite G2 villain at last, because this is awesome. Also, confirming that Onua has a rear-gear too, so he's probably got the same function as Umarak. Same with Kopaka. And I'm notsure if anyone picked up on this, but Kopaka having Melum on his back, with his head on his mask and paws on his shoulders makes him look like he's wearing a pelt. Tahu: Brother, you are supposed to fuse with the creature, not skin it!

One thing I haven't mentioned: I don't like Pohatu's weapon. THe rock is a nice G1 homage, but I've never liked chain weapons on figures, because they just flop around uselessly. I'd prefer it if he had a mace and the sword was a side-weapon like his Gurahk staff in 2015. Other than that, he's my favourite at the moment.

Well, I doubt we'll be seeing Skrall armour used as boobs.

I'm over so slightly in love with these sets. THere are points I don't like: Tahu's mask is probably going to be replaced with his 2015 one when I get him, and I'm not a fan of the new torso shell, but the other parts are glorious. I'm honestly spoiled for choice here, but I know Potato will be my first, probably. I like creatures,but unlike the protectors, I'm not going out of my way to get them from what I've seen for now. I'm more interested in the Toa.

Ooh, new pics. Tahu: Looks decent, but to be honest,I don't like the new mask. I don't mind the amount of gold, though. Looks like he has a lot of trans-reddish orange, though, and I'm not a fan of that. The new weapons are meh, so it looks like me might not be the "First purchase" that he was in 2015. Onua: I'm going to be that weird guy that likes this over 2015 Onua. He still looks massive and brawny, just less exaggerated. Maybe he could do with less gold in his torso, but that's something I can fix myself. Ikir: Good birb. The phoenix works well, and I like the wings Terak: The mole look comes across well. Not much else to say about it.

Makuta might be a hoarder, but he's probably got enough control over himself to realise that keeping the MoCr around wouldn't help him. Speaking of control, what sort of control does the MoCo grant the wearer? Is Makuta using it to control Kulta and LoSS? If so, could it be used to control the Toa too? Or does it do something else? Also, I still think it's unfair that Ekimu got more love from the Okotan thena Makuta did for being better at creating stuff, when the power his mask grants him is "being good at creating stuff". THat's like liking Tahu more than Onua when it comes to lighting things on fire.

I believe they count as "Stabby things".

So I posted about these on my DA earlier, but for my thoughts: Umarak: This is what I wanted out of a new Bonkle villain. Kulta is nice, but he's simplistic. With Vader and Grievous appearing, I was hoping that something else on their level would appear in Bionicle (And I'm hoping that something like Vader will be used for Makuta's MoUP form), and it did. THose legs look great, he seems to be festooned with weapons, as a hunter should, and the antlers look mad. They might cause a bit of an issue like Skull Basher's horns, but I'll deal with that when I get him. Gali: I'm not sure I like her construction as much as her 2015 design, but the colours are better. New mask has quite the movie Nokama look, and I like that.Shells look to be trans-blue rather than trans-light-blue, which is an improvement over this year when she shared a trans colour with Kopaka. If it's not trans, it's either regular blue or dark blue, the latter of which I really, really want. I don't really like the weapon, though. The propellor looks too silly for me. Pohatu: Can't see much of him, but it looks like we have more trans-lime pretending to be trans-yellow (Why is this a thing? Trans red and trans yellow exist, so why do Lego keep making trans reddish orange and trans lime and pretending they're the other colours in Constraction?), and an awesome new mask. Lewa: Yes. I want this. That mask is amazing, that armour looks great, that colour scheme is fantastic, and those weapons don't need much modding. Tiny glimpse of Tahu at the bottom: More gold, which I'm okay with, has wings in combined form, which is perfect. I want him too. Toa overall: Good bye, 2.0 Torso shells! You probably won't be missed! Just the feet left to get rid of now! I'm loving the return of the Skrall armour, I need some more of those, and the new torso shell/shell and add-on look pretty damn good. I think they're an improvement on the 2015 designs, and I like the fact that the silver is worked into the colour scheme alongside their main colours. Rumours: Honestly, I don't mind the idea of Onua looking less beefy. The super-bulky design is cool, but it leaves his limbs looking short and awkward. If they make him a tall and reasonably bulky rather than squat and wide, I think it might help. I can't help but notice that most of the fan mods for Onua make him much taller and bulkier in the limbs, to the point that he doesn't look like a beefcake anymore. I'm hoping the trans-blended golden masks aren't a thing. If they use trans-blended golden masks to represent energy draining, then they should stick with that, rather than changing it for a new set. I think Lewa and Gali look like they have trans rather than Potato being the only one with such colours. I'd rather that the trans was only used for bone pieces, like it was on Pohatu and Nilkuu. It makes them look like elements contained within armour, whereas trans armour on black or grey bones looks pretty bad to me.

I'm not really a fan of Ekimu's voice still, but I really do like how the animation's are going story and character-wise. I nabbed Onua and Korgot a week or two ago, so I now have all of the Toa and five of the protectors, though Kopaka and Lewa are in pieces, as are all of the Protectors except Korgot. I need to start buying dupes.

Ooh, wishlist time. FIrst off, Earth Blue. I've been wanting Earth Blue in CCBS since forever. Second, I'd like to see the end of a few niggling trends in constraction. First off, the overpopulation of metallics. I like metallic parts, but their use in G2 is flat-out excessive, to the point that some characters have pointless metallic parts (Kopaka's torso shell. I replaced it with one from Nex 4.0 and it looked a lot better). Gali suffers the worst of it, being festooned with silver and gunmetal (Whereas the other Toa tend to have one or the other, outside of weapon parts), and only having five blue pieces. While she looks alright normally, stick the golden mask on her and suddenly she looks a lot worse. Next up, the 2.0 hands and feet. The feet have been a point of contention for a while, so I'll sum it up: They're oversized. I mean, they actually look perfectly sized on my self-MOC, who is a lot taller than an Inika build. Meanwhile, the hands have been around for just as long, and they look straight-up ugly from every side view. The Glatorian hands actually look better in many respects. The next CCBS gripe would be bone colours. So much bley. The characters with black and bley bones always look awkward, to the point that I often replace the bley bones after building, or some cases, I didn't even finish the set before I dug out the black bones and never used the bley ones at all. I'd like to see things like coloured bones (Like the white and red ones in Breakout Breez) again, if only to make them distinct from other bones while still fitting in with a colour scheme. The next thing would be heads. LEGO need to pick a head design and mask attachment and stick with it. I still think they made a mistake in switching to the Glatorian heads, considering that all of the previous sets connected via the face. They also need to come up with head/mask designs that allow the characters to look down. I'd also like them to be a bit less over the top with the trans pieces. In sets like Pohatu and Ekimu it works. It doesn't work so well on Tahu or PoF, but both of them look really good if you replace the trans-reddish-orange with more red. Next up: NAMES. Dear god. So many characters released with generic names, and then got given real ones later this year, and it makes them feel less like characters and more like generic background dressing. The only ones I remember are Kulta, Kivoda, and Korgot, and the latter two are only because they're breaking from the norm in terms of gender, and because the fandom loves Korgot. Now onto other things. I don't want more Gen I remakes, beyond maybe something like Takanuva. Let the line do its own thing rather than demanding Bohrok and Rahkshi. The only characters common to the new line and the old one are the Toa. Everyone else is a new character, and even the Toa are different personality-wise. Definitely agreeing with more female characters (*Tips Kanohi*). Gali and Korgot are nice (It would be nicer if the Protectors had identities and genders and such in the winter of this year, but oh well), but more would be better. Especially if mystery seventh Toa character is a girl. One thing I definitely want though is evil Toa. And not an evil group of six beings with similar abilities and colours like the villains of 2006-2008, but honest-to-Mata Nui Toa who turned evil. And give them the different elements from G1 too. So the evil Toa would have Plasma, Lightning, Iron, Magnetism, Gravity, and Psionics. Don't make them twisted, ugly mutants, but reasonably heroic-looking, just with more muted colour schemes. A la Metru colours, perhaps.

I think the issue with some of the sets is that CCBS looks bad when parts are exposed, and looks really cool when everything's put together properly. Unfortunately for the Skull sets, they're supposed to expose a lot of parts to much the decaying look, but it can make some of them look dodgy. So far, I've only got MMvsSG. They're pretty good, though I've messed with their heights. I felt that Ekimu was too short, mainly in the limbs, so I made his upper and lower limbs the same length and messed with his armour placement. I have to say that the MoCr's chin is a bit too big, which seems to be a running trend in G2. Kulta's been a bit of a victim of my MOCing habits, having already lost his feet, two friction extenders, and his eyes. On the plus side, he has the green eyes from that promo nw, the Piraka feet look pretty decent on him, and I now have a MOC with posable toes!

Weird, considering that they basically polished the Metru build and they were pretty damn good in their own right. In any case, I think 2008 was actually one of my favourite years. Dem vehicles, dat Takanuva, dat Icarax. I didn't like 2009 on the other hand. I found the sets to be "Meh" (Skrall and Strakk were innovative, but it made the Skrall really unintimidating, and Strakk's proportions and armour weird for a Bonkle set), I hated the new heads, and the story and characters had no real draw. Especially since the Reign of Shadows would've been much better as the main line story.

So I got Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder today. From some random Toymaster in Norwich, which had the whole range. If they're there, they must be all over the UK. Ekimu's pretty hype, and Skull Grinder looks pretty badass. However, I do have a few beefs: The chin of the MoCr is just long enough to limit his neck movement, and both are lacking in limb length, something I've been able to fix on Ekimu, though not on Grinder due to his limbs. Could've got more (Either a wave two, or the two last Protectors I haven't got), but I have to keep money for the Smash 4 DLC.

I got no problem with the gaps. None of the full-size figures look fantastic from the side IMO, due to the gearbox distending backwards from the torso bone, so some ugliness on the rotting corpse character is fine with me. As an aside, those distended-backwards shoulders make me long for a better torso build than a gearbox attached to a torso bone next year. I know it's unlikely, but I'd like to see a new bone to fill that role. It would have a place for the gearbox to attach instead of the normal shoulder joints, and a neck that's ever so-slightly longer so that the characters can actually look down without putting their chins inside their chests.

I think I prefer the looks without the trans flour. orange parts on the first two, but it looks good on Warrior.

I have to say, I think Kopaka might be my least favourite of the large Toa (Though I haven't gotten Onua yet). I liked the build and the armour designs, but his legs were a mess, his spear was underwhelming, the shoulder pads impeded his arms, which were themselves too short and made posing him a chore, and the random silver torso shell when the entirety of his other armour was white or gold was terrible. As an experiment, I gave him Breakout Nex's torso shell, and the chestplate addon perfectly hid the printing and it made him look a fair bit better. Sadly, he ended up being a reverse Lewa: I bought Lewa pretty much because he had parts I wanted, and then it turned out that he would've been my favourite design of the six if not for the Mask of Air. If there's one thing I can say for next year's Toa (If we get them again), it's this: I don't want the £15/$20 Toa. With the two larger Toa that I've had so far, I have to say that I've had issues. Tahu's legs are too long. Kopaka's issues I listed above. Meanwhile, the smaller Toa that I've got (All three) I've had much less of an issue with. Okay, Pohatu's not great, but he can be fixed with two short bones and two dark orange shells. I think maybe having all six at the same price point might make them more cohesive and avoid some of the weird issues the first wave had. And then the money saved could go into making that fourth £13/$15 set better.

Mask of Warring would be pretty badass. "I. Vant. Vorld. Var. THREE!"

I think it's likely that none of them were the same species when they were alive, and they're not the same species now, they just work together and share some features.

Not being capable of sexual reproduction shouldn't rule out romance. 'Cause, you know, homosexuality is a thing that exists. And there's no biological reproduction going on there. But they still have a relationship, which is cool. In terms of all the shipping and such, it's all over the place in G1. Tahu and Gali. Kopaka and Gali. Jaller and Hahli (MNOG II flat out says "The one you love will be destroyed" to Hahli at one point, referencing Jaller's then-impending death at the claws of Turahk), and of course, Hewkii and Macku. Then there was the sort-of-triangle with Vakama, Nokama, and Matau. And who could forget Roodaka's incredibly loving evil speeches to the imprisoned Teridax?