Brickthing

This change is definitely something that takes some getting used to, but when you think about it, it isn't that big of a change. Armour pieces such as Metru, Piraka and Inika thigh armour only have one TECHNIC connection point for the armour to be attached - they don't have excess pin/axle attachment points for other things to be attached. The new armour pieces are like the old ones, only they use a balljoint instead of a TECHNIC pin hole, which is still compatible with BIONICLE building. It's also good that the skeleton pieces still use purely BIONICLE connection points - ball joints and then pin holes for longer limb pieces. The skeleton pieces are essentially BIONICLE pieces that facilitate the new armour pieces.

As far as I know, they're not in the stores yet, but they should start appearing soon. Someone on BZP says he was told 5th of December. Fikou Orange.

The main differences are that they're five fingered hands now, and there are no mechanical joints on each finger. They're slightly smaller and look much more natural than the previous hands, and have a fabulous detail that the middle two fingers protrude further by 0.5mm at the knuckles, joints and tips, which would make the middle fingers longer than the other fingers if the hand wasn't clenched.

Fenrakk Swamp Dragon The Fenrakk Swamp Dragon is a giant Rahi that is feared by Matoran villagers living in the Southern Island chains. Although its wings are not large enough to let it fly, combined with its tail fin, they allow this Rahi to swim through the shallow waters of the marshes that it patrols at incredible speeds. By the time its prey see the vibrant colours of this Rahi emerging through the mist, it is far too late for it to escape. Although few in numbers, these Rahi make any expedition into the marshes more hazardous than it would be otherwise, and get their name because a hungry Fenrakk Swamp Dragon is the only thing that can save a Matoran from a Fenrakk Spider attack - as long as the spider is enough to temporarily quench the dragon's appetite! I've been working on this MOC for a long time, but I finally found the time to finish is, and I conveniently had Jetbug's new armour to add on to it. The main purpose of the MOC was to use the wing pieces, which use the most awful combination of colours for MOCing with together.

Stop asking questions I've taken pictures for in my next review! The height of the heroes vary, because there are a limb pieces with slightly different lengths (ball joint on the limb, then 1 or 2 Technic holes as well). I don't know anything about prices, but the online shops that have listed them so far use the same prices as this year's sets, so I hope there won't be a price increase.

They fit, but they don't connect - the connector rod is half a stud higher: It looks good, but don't turn it upside-down. Before you ask, the old cores don't fit in the new chest plates, because there is no space for the core to "hang" from. The new core piece looks like it was made by truncating the old core, removing the lower section and doubling up the edge detail around the core.

Surprisingly, it has a good amount of friction, like that of a pin with ridges. I don't know if that's due to the specific Bohrok teeth I used or if the new pieces use slightly thicker bar connectors.

Fear not, there is an easy fix to his eyes: I wish something like this was included in the set, but the attachment of this particular fix is a bit unconventional for a set.

The colour still has a hint of green in it, and it's too similar for me to want to switch from Gunmetal. It's certainly not Dark Silver though! BIONICLE silvers have always been misleading for Bricklink, because there are so many of them with only subtle differences. The logo in the center is metallic silver, while the light flecks elsewhere are light grey. I'm really excited for the Hero Recon Team program, for a lot of those reasons. Considering that Heroes are packaged in canisters, I hope that custom printed Hero Pods for your Heroes will be a possibility, as well as custom printed names on armour pieces. The program might offer recoloured armour pieces as well to widen the customability, although people might have mixed feelings about exclusive pieces being offered through the historically overpriced DesignByMe.

Unless it's different between colours, really rubbery: Don't worry, the piece recovers from that by bending it in the opposite direction. It bends slightly easier than Piraka spines, although that could be to do with the thickness of the pieces rather than material.

Eurobricks is proud to present exclusive reviews and coverage of the new Hero Factory sets due to be released in 2011! Head over to the Action Figure Forum to find reviews of both villains and heroes, and to join in on the discussion of these exciting new sets. Remember to check back over the next few days for more reviews of other Hero Factory sets, and a summary of our thoughts on the brand new building system that they use! Find the reviews in the Action Figure Forum now! Special thanks to the Hero Factory team and TLG for making these sets and providing us with the chance to review them!

Set name: Jetbug Set Number: 2193 Price: $?USD , 12.99 Euro Pieces: 63 Year of release: 2011 Peeron Bricklink Brickset "Jetbug is one of the incredibly dangerous strikers in the service station. Flame-breathing creature must be immediately destroyed!" Of the three canister-sized villains, Jetbug probably has the most self-explanatory name. BIONICLE has made evil flying bugs before, so read on to find out how Hero Factory makes them differently! The Box Front Here we see Jetbug flying towards us in an imposing manner. Due to the size of the box, which is the same size as the 2010 villain boxes, Jetbug appears bigger than the set inside. I was surprised that the background wasn't filled with flames and smoke, instead there is a blue-skied background showing some sort of seaside factory or oil depot. Two Hero Factory ships fly up above Jetbug, and seem to be present in most of the 2011 backgrounds. It would be nice to see one of those as a Summer set, but I think their only purpose is getting Heroes to their destinations, not fighting. Back The back of the box features the fiery inferno that Station 22 is being engulfed in (again with ships flying above), with Jetbug lunging at Furno 2.0. The demonstration of Jetbug's meteor launcher makes it clear that his Zamor has a marbled pattern. I like the continued style from last year's villains with the Villain fighting a Hero, but without stats or some other information, the back looks very empty. The steel plate border that surrounds the entire box is very nice, and it has pitting and scorch marks appropriate to a fire breathing villain. Contents Pieces When I opened box and removed the pieces from their bags, the assortment of pieces felt alien compared to previous sets. Of all the pieces, there are only 8 Technic pieces, and five Bionicle pieces, three of which are recoloured. Unfortunately the hand-sockets are not the new kind that you can see in the other reviews, but Jetbug's instructions show the new socket, so TLG must be getting rid of the old sockets in the early batches of sets. I'm not sure if all Jetbug sets will have the old sockets at first, or if it is random between different sets. Also in the part-lineup are 14 recoloured red spike pieces, which adorn many of the 2011 Hero Factory sets. Unlike the Heroes that only have 1 or 2, Jetbug has all the red spikes you'll ever need! The new limb and armour pieces are covered extensively in other reviews and a review of their own, so I'll focus on the pieces slightly more specific to Jetbug. This is the first time that the new Gunmetal colour has been used in Hero Factory, and it is indeed a lovely colour, creating a dark robotic and scorched look when used for the villains. In Gunmetal, there are 4 new blade pieces, which resemble corrupted Mahritoran blades, 2 recoloured Thornax launcher pieces, a "Villain Core" that has two rod connectors similar to the Hero chest plate, and 2 new machine panel pieces, which are used as flamethrowers/jetpacks on the villains. The detail on the machine panel pieces is perfect, with wires, tubing and bolted steel plates. I'd love to see them being used for a car or plane engine. Next up are the fire pieces, which include 2 trans-neon-orange armour pieces, 2 new flame pieces and a marbled yellow-orange/red Zamor. The fire pieces have the new standard connection of 2 rod connectors. They're made of a hard rubber that bends just enough to prevent the thin flames from accidentally being snapped off. I don't think this piece would suit BIONICLE or System creations, but it matches the spiky multi-toned flame theme of the new villains very well. The Zamor is a very interesting recolour that I was pleasantly surprised to see included, as it easily could have been a solid red Zamor instead. The Zamor is solid red on the underside, and has an almost hypnotic ring pattern on the top, with a small section of normal marbling in the middle. I'd love to see the process behind these Zamors, because there usually isn't such a fine alternation between colours in marbled pieces. The Zamors in other villain reviews are quite different, so it could be possible to find extremes of almost solid red or yellow zamors in random sets. Included in all the new Hero Factory sets is a printed armour piece. I love the flames and electric logo on Jetbug's armour. Will it mean anything? Regardless, the printing is of a good quality, and I'm glad this wasn't a sticker instead. Here is Jetbug's head, in yellow-orange. The head is very flat, with a small pair of fangs and menacing eyes. If one of the Mistika Makuta from 2007 was based off a cockroach, this would be what he would have looked like. And now for the other side... It's Nitroblast! People will have a lot of mixed feelings about the move to combine masks to save making new moulds, but there's no denying that this piece is made very well. From Jetbug's side, you can hardly tell that Nitroblast's face is on the other side, and vice-versa. The downside is that Jetbug's head is unnecessarily asymmetric and you will see Nitroblast's face looking at the back of Jetbug, but on the upside we already have 2 different colours for Jetbug and Nitroblast - yellow-orange and red! Nitroblast's head strongly resembles a cross between Tarduk and Takadox and uses Jetbug's head as a long snake-like neck. Here is the underside of the dual-head piece, showing how it connects to other pieces. It's nice that the head/helmet/mask pieces still use axles, which is one of the few things that link these new sets back to BIONICLE. The single axle suits both heads as can also be seen in Siegfried's Nitroblast review. Instructions The front page of the instructions show the box-image of Jetbug along with a white warning box. The usual, although non-US versions don't have the white box. On the first two pages of the booklet there is the same image as on the back of the box. I suppose this is so that you won't forget to buy Furno 2.0 even if you're the type that throw out your boxes. There is also another annoying white box of warnings in French and Spanish. Here's a random image from the building steps. The background is a faint gradient with a brushed steel texture, with a non-distracting Hero Factory logo embossed in the center. Here is the piece inventory, where you can see that the first piece listed is the new style of joints, not the old ones included in the set. On the next page there is a general advertisement for the theme, which is the only place so far that mentions the Heroes' first names. Nathan and Julius are both very formal names, while I was hoping Nex's first name would be Kyle. It seems to be that the number of pages in all instruction booklets for similar sets must be the same, because there are often pages that are in some books but not others. There is a trade-off between extra steps in the building process and extra pages in the back, and here I'm glad Jetbug has less steps! On the first place is an advertisement for Hero Recon Team coming Spring 2011, with the Design by Me logo next to it. Build-your-own-Hero is official, but we still know very little about it. On the next page there is another advertisement for sets, which includes a new and improved Fire Lord. I'll leave you to spot all the differences, but he looks exciting! Build Body The first step is to build the torso, which is quite and easy, involving only three pieces. Limbs We then add the legs, which are again very simple. The new socket system is very satisfying to build with, because they pop in and out easier, without sounding like you almost broke them. Currently Jetbug looks more like a chicken than a bug, that that will be fixed in the next steps... Jetbug uses torso armour as shoulder armour, which suit the plated back of a cockroach. The gunmetal Thornax launcher pieces and blade look great together, and are a nice progression from the previous Villains' black meteor blasters. Jet Packs The jet pack "wings" which connect to the shoulder ball joints on the torso piece. Each jet pack can be positioned in a wide amount of ways, as outstretched wings or folded up to form part of a shell. Head Here the new blades are used again as massive mandibles, which I think are slightly too big for Jetbug as they are the same length as his head. Probably the biggest disappointment of this set is that there are no glowing eyes behind the mask, which can make Jetbug look as lifeless as a Voyatoran at times. Luckily there are easy ways to remedy this, such as adding trans-orange Bohrok eyes to the blade pieces(PICTURE NEEDED), but I wish that the problem wasn't there to fix in the first place. Finished Set Hovering With the jet packs and head attached, Jetbug is now finished! Here he is hovering high in the air, surveying the battlefield below. Flying through the air Jetbug has all the articulation that would be expected from a canister-sized set, as well as extra articulation for his neck and jet packs. He can be balanced on his claws and a jet pack or blade to look like he is flying. Crouched, ready to strike My favourite feature of the finished set is that Jetbug's shoulder armour, jet packs and head are shaped to create a bug-like shell, with spikes protruding out. Certainly not a bug you could squash with a rolled-up newspaper! Back The back of Jetbug is mostly covered by his jet packs, so unlike many canister-sized sets, he doesn't appear hollow from behind. However, from many angles you can clearly see Nitroblast's head, which is quite distracting. Jetbug catches Stormer by surprise, while he was posing for a bill-board photo to be displayed back in Makuhero City Final thoughts Colour scheme - 10/10 - Jetbug uses yellow-orange, red and trans-neon orange to great effect, looking as if he is on fire. Despite all three villains being based around similar fiery colours, Jetbug manages to stand-out while still fitting the theme. Parts - 8/10 - There are many pieces in interesting colours and a massive amount of red spikes that will be useful for other creations. Compared to the other villains though, Jetbug doesn't have as many different new limb pieces, and his dual-mask more distracting than it is on Nitroblast. As a BIONICLE fan, I also wish that there was at least one recoloured BIONICLE part introduced in this set, as there is in Nitroblast and Stormer 2.0. Design - 9/10 - Jetbug lives up to his name, resembling a giant cockroach villain that has jet packs for wings. If only he had glowing eyes, he would be perfect. Articulation - 10/10 - Jetbug has 20 points of articulation, not counting the slight articulation of each armour piece. This armour piece articulation also allows the leg armour pieces to overlap each other, preventing knee articulation by being limited. Quality - 10/10 - The pieces are all made out of consistently coloured plastic, and the sockets no longer break. That's due to the part design rather than the plastic quality, but I'm really really pleased that it's finally been fixed, because it means I can assemble and disassemble the set without fear of breaking anything. Overall - 47/50 - Excellent! All of the 2011 Hero Factory sets have undergone a massive change compared to last year, so the initial reaction to the Jetbug from a long-time BIONICLE fan would be shock and the impression that everything looks wrong. However, once you start to get used to the new Hero Factory building system, Jetbug will really stand out as being one of the best new sets. His selection of parts isn't the most generous for BIONICLE builders, but it is very valuable addition for beginning your collection of parts to build in this new Hero Factory ball and socket system. Special thanks to TLG and the Hero Factory team for this set - it's a great set, that is one of the 2011 Hero Factory sets worth picking up first! Questions and picture requests welcome!

Not if they can add together...I hope they can. I've seen all of last year's vehicles throughout smaller toy stores such as Toyworld, but I've yet to see the Hero Factory vehicles.

I wouldn't mind Jetbug with a red head either.

The majority of the extra story can be found on BIONICLEstory.com. The stories there were originally started with Gali Nuva's Entries, Into the Darkness and Dreams of Destruction, which run alongside the main story of Winter 2007. Each serial/blog/podcast has around 10 entries, and each subsequent new story matches with the next half-year (until recently). Also, on BIONICLE.com you will find Journey's End, the final BIONICLE book that wasn't widely released in book form, and Mata Nui's saga, which also sums up the final chapter of BIONICLE.

Thanks for the review! It's always nice to reminisce over older sets with the help of a good writeup and photos. Matoro wasn't my favourite Mahri, mostly because of the asymmetric arms and mask, but he was one of the best Mahri for parts. A visor, twin cutters, new armour and especially 3 Mahri tubes made his purchase worthwhile.

Looking at the images that Vex kindly saved, I'm fairly sure that purple is the final colour. Prelim images have never been rendered as nicely as Evo in the top right. (Unfortunately all the purple looks solid purple rather than trans-purple, but it's better than blue.) As for the Fire Lord, the image of him on the linked page above is probably a simple render of the final set, but I'm not entirely sure. The upper arm armour is no longer trans-orange, there are some Technic pieces on the back of the arm (adjustments like these might be on the legs as well), and the lower arm armour might be a different armour piece. The colour scheme looks slightly more cohesive as well, but you can't see much of it and it's probably simplified in the simple render. I'm probably very late to realize this, but the various villains each seem to have a different armour piece in trans-orange. Perhaps a gimmick that includes the summer wave of HF will be collecting the pieces to create a Fire/Energy Hero? Kind of like the golden armour of the Stars, only the pieces are incorporated into the sets. Has anyone else noticed that in the first post image of the villains, Drilldozer & Fire Lord and Jetbug & Nitroblast look like they have flip-masks of each other? I hope this isn't the case, because it would reduce the individuality of each set, and the second faces could be distracting from the back. The sides look different, but the center details of each pair are identical.

It's almost certainly January - otherwise the prelims and the few teasers we've had so far wouldn't have been released yet. I'm surprised the sets haven't started showing up early yet, but it looks like Atlantis and Pharaoh's Quest have that privilege instead.

Great find! Unfortunately the game has been restricted now, but hopefully somebody saved the swf. I'm really glad to see confirmation that Evo uses purple though.

I noticed that earlier, but forgot to comment about it. If it is purple, that will justify the set for me, because it's been almost 8 years since purple existed in BIONICLE. I really hope that the core is trans-purple (Although all the cores will probably be solid colours to match the heads and accents).Still, a blue or purple spear would've made it nicer. I hope Evo will use purple rather than blue. As you say, it will give all the Heroes unique secondary colours, and purple has been used more regularly in other sets now. It's in a lot of NinjaGo sets next year. SUB-0 makes sense, although it looks more like they're fighting fire with water rather than ice. It's not hero specific, but it's still specific to ice, which makes it harder to use for other purposes, especially for the non-ice coloured armour. I like details like those when they're on stickers, because you have the option to apply them to any piece or not at all. When the details are printed on, it looks good for the set, but limits the usefulness in MOCing compared to an unprinted piece. It becomes especially inconvenient when the printed piece is in an uncommon shape and colour, because you don't have the option to use the piece without the decal. It could be, although I don't know if printing unique decals onto pieces is any cheaper than producing the piece in a wider range of colours. Looking at next year's sets, it's possible that they already include all the pieces that will be used for the custom-hero process. The different shaped armour pieces are incredibly modular/customizable, and there are 6 interchangeable helmet accessories that match any colour of helmet. The heroes have armour in six bright colours, while the villains provide armour pieces in silvers and trans-orange, and an extra spike colour. The resulting heroes might not look incredibly distinct from each other and the sets, but the unique combinations are endless.

Thanks for finding those! They seem to be the same images from the previous pictures, only with box art instead of background. The rest of the Fire Lord's arm isn't really exciting piece-wise, and it makes that weapon a triple-function blaster, sword and shield. It would have been more useful for him if the three functions were split over two separate tools, but then I guess he wouldn't have had the clawed left hand to menacingly shake at Heroes or to ominously hold above a "crystal ball reflection" of them as in the previous picture. The villains in the background of the Hero canisters are a neat touch. Nitroblast is on a far left platform, Jetbug is hovering on the left as well, and I can't see where Drilldozer is. Maybe the spiky silhouette in the top right is him, or another Jetbug. I like that the position of the Heroes and background tone varies, making each background look slightly different, although that could be to do with them being preliminary and different sizes (Surge's image is quite a lot bigger than Furno's). For some reason Evo has silver spears, which are readily avaliable in SYSTEM Castle sets. I'd have liked him/her more if there were Blue spears like the ones on Stormer. I'm definitely getting Stormer, for the Blue Mahri Tube and spears (and the extra trans-orange Barraki eye). On the printed armour pieces of each Hero it looks like there is writing on them that I can't quite make out. If it is writing, I hope it's removed in the final versions, because writing limits the use of the piece for MOCs, especially if it's the Hero's names. It reminds me of the Roborider heads, which looked great, but their names were printed on the sides of their faces. Oh, and your title is annoying...

I finally managed to see the Hero Factory TV series, and I noticed an interesting character feature. I doubt I'm the first to notice, but I couldn't find a mention of it here, and it's a neat thing to know. Okay it was mentioned on BZP in August, but still, I made a screencap. In the second and fourth episodes, there is a giant robot that attacks a city: Which is the winning entry made by krischan for BBCC53 hosted on BZPower during April/May 2009. The winning entry was supposedly going to be featured in BIONICLE, but that never happened. Looking over the specifications that LEGO provided that discourage the use of Kanohi and being mistaken for a Toa, it seems that this robot's use in the HF TV series was already planned, meaning that BIONICLE was intended to be replaced as early as the beginning of April 2009. I just think it's nice to see that the model was finally used somewhere, and it looks really impressive in the TV series. It's certainly much better than the alternative of a large blocky robot that can't be built in real life, which makes me wish that they request fan models for future TV series/films more often. Imagine if the giant Kahgarak in WoS was built out of pieces to scale with the rest of the characters!

Wrong thread, but please post it (in a new topic)! I see Meltdown as just about perfect already so I'd love to see the changes you chose to improve him.

Hero Factory Contest Results! The results of the multiple contests that went on during Hero Factory Month have been posted! Click here to find out who the talented winners of the MOC and art contests are, who the lucky winner of the raffle is, and to congratulate them!

Hero Factory Contest Results! Finally after a busy week on my part, I've managed to finish compiling the votes and sort out the winners. Thanks for your patience, and here are the results! Main Contest Villains 1st Place: Blaster by The Lanterne Rouge (29 Votes) 2nd Place: Magma by Darkblane (22 votes) 3rd Place: Torchur by Zip (7 votes) Henchmen 1st Place: Archer by The Lanterne Rouge (23 votes) 2nd Place: Lightning by _shaddow_ (18 votes) 3rd Place: Equal tie between Benton Destruction by Milargo and Soot Stiletto by Zip (7 votes) Vehicles 1st Place: Rad Bike by Darkblane (29 votes) 2nd Place: Hot Rod by The Lanterne Rouge (18 votes) 3rd Place: Moonshiner by Zip (11 votes) Mini Contest After 5 rounds of (reasonably) quick-fire voting, the final two contestants ended up tieing, so neither entry bet the other. However, one of the finalists was a staff entry added to add another fun round, so there is a real winner: Archer by The Lanterne Rouge! Congratulations, and may he rest in pieces. Raffle The raffle was closed a while ago but it wasn't forgotten - the qualifying entries were shuffled in a random order, and then Peppermint_M picked an arbitrary number, which I matched to the winner. Congratulations Vexorian, with Winged Hazards! The Lanterne Rouge will be receiving 7148 Meltdown, 7145 Von Nebula and the Hero Factory 2010 Toy Fair promo, which can be seen in this new topic! Darkblane will be receiving 7158 Furno Bike! Vexorian will be receiving a 6935 BIONICLE Polybag! All the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place getters will be receiving a special Villain Month Tag: I'd like to thank all of the people who entered, voted and participated in some way during Hero Factory Month, as well as TLC for generously donating prizes! Overall there were 35 MOCs entered into contests, and 16 villains created through the HeroFactory.com Flash Factory. Please post your feedback about the month in this topic as well, specifically for the Mini-contest voting method. I want to know what you think, and if it would work well as an ongoing biweekly contest. Could all the winners please PM me the addresses that they'd like their prizes sent to, so that they can be posted as soon as possible. Tag winners can send me their addresses as well if they want their tags posted by mail, but that's entirely optional. That's it for Hero Factory Month, but we already have exciting plans in the works for next year, both in Hero Factory and other Action Figure themes (mainly BIONICLE). Stay tuned for the beginning of December, and earlier if the 2011 sets start to show up soon as the Stars did last year (~14th November)!