Shakar

The way I see it: I've grown to like the Winter version of the Mask as its own thing, but I'd lie if I said I was 100% content with it being Makuta's default mask. It'd be like G2 Tahu wearing a mask that resembles a classic Pakari for me. UtD's version just feels so much closer to what I imagined a revamped Kraahkan should be, to the point I like to think of it as a deliberate homage, not unlike the more obvious ones (the Toa masks). The face looks menacing while keeping an air of arrogant serenity, and the horns are the right size and shape, looking like a twisted crown. It looks malicious yet very regal, like the face of a tyrant who deludes himself to be a saviour. Whoever designs these Masks knows what they're doing, so I'm eager to see how the Mask of Ultimate Power looks like. I hope it looks like I think it does, in the name of supreme irony at the very least.

It's kind of sad that the villain roster is so small they have to resort to sets/characters from past waves. The sets are better now, but I miss Hero Factory's 1:1 Heroes/Villains ratio.

Storm doesn't have any open balljoints like the 2015 Toa, though. Could it be that both use the SW torso?

Well, looking at the sets, I think this is what is going on: -Umarak has managed to succesfully enslave the Creatures, and with Nature's elements running wild Okoto has turned into an apocalyptic wasteland. -Ekimu creates a stronger body for himself to help the Toa defeat Umarak and free the Creatures. -Now with Nature's elements and the Mask of Control under his possession, Umarak has turned himself into an incredibly powerful monster. -To kill the Toa and Ekimu, Umarak creates three/an army of elemental monsters, the Beasts*. Speculation about the ending: -The Toa and Ekimu defeat the Beasts, free the Creatures and defeat Umarak. -Okoto returns to normal. -Makuta's spirit inside the Mask of Control crafts a new vessel for himself using Umarak's corpse or its leftover energy (his Winter 2017 set). -Still weak, Makuta flees and vows to take the Mask of Ultimate Power for himself. * The Beasts have Shadow Traps on their bodies, and the Shadow Traps are Umarak's offsprings. Plus the Beasts share some design cues with Umarak (trans neon green, crystal armour, etc), which implies their source of power is the same as Umarak's.

The chest decals are still missing, and those add a lot of character. Aside from those, I don't see a lot of changes happening.

I don't think I should write a full length review of these since there are obviously some things missing, like the chest prints/stickers, and some things are subject to change (though I hope they won't, more on that below). First off, just like 2015 it's clear to me that most of the budget went into the Winter wave, with the Summer wave suffering as a result. But it seems even worse here. I count a measly 4 new moulds, half than what we got in Summer 2015: I hope things pick up again in 2017, because this is actually worrying to me. But onto the the sets. Ekimu: overall, fairly imposing figure. Problem is that he's a bit generic like TwistLaw and Lockon have said. Too much trans light blue, the arms have it especially bad. I'm surprised he manages to get full length limbs, two weapons and still be decently tall (27M like Onua and Gali, I believe), so good value. Props to the designers for the subtle homages, like the shield and shoulder armour. Love the recoloured Hunter mask. Beasts: eh. They're not terrible but they don't give that wow effect Umarak the Hunter does, though I suppose villains are going to have a hard time doing it as long as they're limited by the 15 Euro price point. The problem is that like the Skulls they don't feel like they could pose a threat to 6 Toa, each of which is taller and more armoured than any of them. I won't sugarcoat it. The limbs on these are all hilariously bad, Quake's big arm might be the only exception. I can't defend them. The colour schemes are pretty good overall. Is that black or titanium metallic? The new mask looks really cool, reminds me of a movie style Kraahkan, though I guess it's going to be much longer to fit the lower jaw. I liked the corrupted Toa masks, but it's a pity that once again we can't get a full set. If only these guys were 6 instead of 3.... Umarak: I thought he would've been a powered up Umarak, but he looks like a degeneration of him. That would be fine as a plot point, but he looks like a mindless minion rather than a central antagonist. I'm not sure about the trans neon green (it's not yellow, let's not get tricked for the 3rd time)- it looks somehow wrong to me, but I can't understand why. Nice to see the XL chest again, especially combined with the Uniter torso. I've seen some good Onua revamps that do it, but I want to see the designers' solution. Seems like he's a fair deeral taller than Umarak the Hunter. The head area is awkward, the mask, the horns and the lower jaw don't really join together. And I'm not happy to see the Ben 10 horns again. Not at all. The new Mask of Control is awesome. Looks less old and more fierce, closer to the animated version. Not really a bad set mind you. But I'll keep the Hunter as his permanent form and reuse this design for something else. What I want in the finalized sets: 1)No more blended masks. Please. Every time a mask gets the blended treatment its reusability gets reduced, and you know how much we need reusable masks. The corrupted Toa masks are enough. 2)Cool chest/torso decal designs in general. Hoping for more cool runes on Ekimu, and more creepy stuff on the Beasts and UtD, on par with UtH's oh so very wrong chest mouth. 3)Unlikely, but some new moulds. I don't think anybody wants more crystal blades. And frankly, seeing the ribcage shell and Beast feet used in the second team of villains in a row irks me.

I think they're either a special sub-species to the Protectors or another "species" (better write it like this, good idea) entirely. While they could be villagers with an impressive knowledge of magic, they seem so much more powerful than them that I find it hard to believe that it's just a matter of knowledge. They can exist without a physical body, they can speak via telepathy while comatose and can easily defeat someone who is at least as strong as a Toa. One theory I have is that Ekimu and Makuta belong to the ancestor race to the modern Okotoans (after a terrible disaster wiped their civiliztion away) and, as the last of their folk, the Great Beings equivalents gave them special Masks. On the Beasts, I wasn't entirely convinced on them being corrupted Creatures but that could explain why they don't have names, create a decent amount of drama and explain why Ekimu feels the need to step in even after the upgrade he gave to the Toa. That would, however, mean that there's one single villain throughout the whole year. One thing I liked during G1's latter half was the wide cast of villains with varied personalities and I've yet to see that in G2. So I'd like if each Beast was a true villain with their own personality like Umarak and Makuta.

So I finally aquired my first 2016 sets today (Tahu, Ikir, Gali), but I decided to build only Tahu for now. My fist thought was "Whoa, he's big. Too, too big". I knew that already, but you really realize it only when you put the figure together and see it with your own eyes. I do think he needs to be one or two modules shorter. On the positive side, this makes me even more optimistic about Umarak, who is Tahu's height and looks even bigger thanks to his antlers. He's also too flat. I'll definitely try to make him and the other Toa a bit thicker while not compromising the Unity feature Another con is the weapons, at least for me. It took me a surprisingly long time to build them and the final effect wasnt't really worth it. Only the new crystal blades save them, othwerwise the 2015 blades are on another level. It's true, there's too much gold and trans orange. It doesn't look terrible, but I do want to give him a lot more red. And yes, the clashing textures. At least one has to go. On the positive side, he does really look fiery and powerful like a Toa of Fire should be. His slender yet strong built is a nice update from the 2015 version which did look a bit too boxy for my tastes. The new Hau is awesome (more on it below). I really like how the Skeleton armour looks on him, looks like fire actually. And..waist rotation! We waited 16 years it for it to be a regular thing, and now it's here! On the new pieces, in short: -Unity piece: cool greebling, bigger than I thought and seems fairly useful. -New torso bone: great, enough said. Gonna have lots of fun with this one. -Hip piece: does its job...enough said. Friction is very good. -Crystal add-on: the shape is pretty great. I feared Tahu's version would look too close to those HF Fire Villains fire add-on *shudders* but it still manages to look like actual armour. -Crystal blade: a lot more elegant and thin than I thought. Eager to see it in the other colours. -New torso shells: I..like it. I wish it was only slightly more slender, but the overall shape is good, I don't mind the pistons at all and Tahu's printing is great. -Updated Hau: I love it. A lot more fierce than the 2015 version. Hoping for some exclusive recolour in the future, red to trans orange would be excellent because I'm still not sure about the silver top. I know the pros seem outnumbered by the cons, but overall Tahu is acutally a pretty good figure. But he does need some modding, in my humble opinion.

Also, the Toa bios have been tweaked to feel less comedic. No longer is Gali bad at telling jokes, Onua isn't a snoring sleepyhead anymore and Pohatu's overcome his fear of the dark. But Kopaka's sense of direction is still bad, and that's what matters.

Umarak is not a creation of Makuta! Hooray! I love how he's an ancient creature that naturally came into being, like the Creatures themselves. It's slightly similar to how I envisioned him to be- a spirit embodying the darkest side of nature. Probably the closest thing we'll get to a demon in BIONICLE, far more so than G2 Makuta himself actually. This makes him feel like a much more relevant and prominent villain, closer to being Makuta's equivalent rather than a minion of his, much like Karzahni or The Shadowed One in G1. Theory time:

I didn't attempt to build Wairuha and Akamai last year and I doubt I'm going to do that with the new Toa. But, It would be interesting if someone tried to build a Toa Kaita and a Creature Kaita (or should it be named Creature Chimera? ) that can unite together. It's a personal theory of mine that Umarak the Destroyer can link to the Beasts individually or link to a 3-way Beast combo model, so I was probably influenced by that thought. Just a suggestion. Yeah, no point spending 12 Euro on shipping since it takes a week for the sets to get there, and by that time they should be already in stores (or they should in a few days). I bet the major stores are gonna get them on Monday 11th. http://brickset.com/sets/list-13387His stuff is pretty darn good, all good sets IMO. He seems big into marrying CCBS and Technic (DV, Kopaka, Korgot, etc), which is a style I'm starting to appreciate quite a bit.

I don't have the sets, but taking Umarak into consideration I'm inclined to think all past torso shells require that liftarm. I don't think it's a bad thing though, it makes the figures feel a bit thicker.

Character design looks great. Close to the sets, but managing to feel alive. It's somewhat videogame-like, but in a good way. And I better see an Italian dub of this... and a Japanese one as well. Nani mono da, KISAMA? Ore wa Umarakku, ZA HANTA.

Sand green?! Yeeeessss! Building a canon Artakha MOC suddenly becomes slightly more viable. I can't see Jabba being done, he isn't popular enough as a character and I'm sure Disney (since they're the ones deciding the characters) knows that. Yoda or Boba? Both are fan favourites. Boba would be more convenient for Lego, but it's Disney calling the shots here. From Lego perspective: Either of those two confirms the next wave isn't fully TFA themed. Perhaps 2 figures for each Trilogy? Hoping we get a C3PO too. So that maybe, just maybe, we'd finally get those gold fists. And, as I said a while ago, some of the new gold recolours could be reused on Ekimu the Mask Maker. And...ahem, do you have any info about Bionicle? *genericcuteanimegirlface*

@Pate-keetongu Looks reddish brown to me. Thanks for the pictures! Rey looks quite good indeed. The news of Phasma being 25 Euro is making me reconsider getting her and get Rey herself instead. Rey lacks the new gun, cape and silver armour but she has the new torso bone and gearbox cover, along a bunch of tan parts and some dark brown and dark tan ones, which are rarer. And that robe! I love the new torso bone. How tall is it? It's smaller than I thought (7M I believe), which increases its versatility. Looks like it'd be ideal for Titan builds- maybe we'll see it again in the Summer Bionicle sets? The gearbox cover looks like a pretty cool new piece too (good thing it comes in black thanks to Kylo). I think the O-- piece is the same one used for Ikir's talons. Too bad it is. : )

Thanks for the info! We've never had axle connectors in gunmetal before and lightsaber handles have a similar function, so this is pretty cool.

I'll cut it off- Feminine might probably be not the best way to describe it, but Pohatu's new mask definitely looks less aggressive than the 2015 version. It actually looks closer to the 2001 Kakama to me. I do like his dark tan. It's a good addition to a colour scheme that felt too bland to me (too much silver and lack of a non transparent contrasting colour for dark orange). But there's still too much silver, his lower arms should be dark tan and his shins should be dark orange.

Two of the five Skeletons in BIONICLE don't get large Beast feet in silver and end up with black feet that have nothing to do with their colour schemes, but two silver Star Wars pieces get recoloured in...colours that are really close to silver. Lego's golden boy, everyone. I admit those lightsaber pieces are pretty cool. But there was no reason at all for those dark bley feet, especially since his shoes are silver to begin with. Thanks for the info. Are Rey's lightsaber pieces gunmetal?

Thanks for the photos! Is it just me or are Finn's lightsaber handle parts a lot shinier than the silver ones on the 2015 figures? I guess Kylo's special double connector is in the same colour, unlike the Titanium Metallic version found on Kopaka, Gali and Ketar's trap. The new torso and gearbox cover look like very fun pieces, I hope we see them reused in creative ways and/or new colours. *coughsilvercoughbley* EDIT: could it be that his feet are dark bley instead? If so.. meh. And thanks for the info RMBP. Very odd, but better than nothing.

Wait, is that tan (Vorox, Grievous) or dark tan? We have more parts in tan, but dark tan looks way better coupled with dark orange. So I hope it's the latter. Nevermind, it's dark tan, it's clear when compared with the tan o+ pin. All is well. Pohatu has a lot of problems, but I like him better than the boredom that was Master Pohatu.

Great review! Overall, I'm not as displeased with Tahu as I thought I would. No matter how many complaints I might have about him, he still blows Tahu Nuva and Tahu Mistika out of the water. Even the torso shell looks pretty good- there's more red than I thought, and the azure lines really look beautiful IMO. Of course a large, large part of the trans orange needs to be replaced with red. Yes, the colours are still a mess, and so is the high number of textures. But I like his overall figure, no matter how bad some might see his proportions as. I like them. The weapons are still pretty terrible. The Technic looks ugly there and the clashing flame designs and colours (transparent vs opaque) are something I'll never like (Dragon Bolt did a similar mistake). The new mask looks great, evoking the 2002 Hau Nuva while not looking like a veiny abomination, rather being a respectful upgrade over the 2015 Mask of Fire. I'm tempted to put this on my signature.

Hello everyone! I'm not late for Christmas am I? Well, a bit maybe.. but do read on if you're interested! Here is list of the stuff I'm selling: *** SEALED 6283 Voltix: 13 Euro SOLD 6229 XT4: 10 Euro SOLD 44006 Breez (2013): 9 Euro SOLD 44008 Surge (2013): 12 Euro SOLD USED+INSTRUCTIONS 8520 Millennium / Millenia (Slizer / Throwbot): 14 Euro 8593 Makuta: 23 Euro 8595 Takua & Pewku: 23 Euro 8596 Takanuva: 28 Euro 8755 Keetongu* : 16 Euro 8756 Sidorak* : 14 Euro 8733 Axonn* : 27 Euro 8922 Gadunka* : 16 Euro 2283 Witch Doctor: 30 Euro * = has some modifications/extra parts. I'll remove them if it is an issue. EXTRA/RARE 8909 Team GB Series (sealed): 3 Euro (free if you buy 1 or more sets) SOLD 30230 Mini Mech polybag (sealed): 3 Euro (free if you buy 1 or more sets) 5000022 Hulk polybag (sealed): 33 Euro Transparent yellow Kanohi Kaukau (you read that right, 110% the real deal): 65 Euro Orange Kanohi Vahi: 17 Euro PROMOTIONS Buy 2 sealed sets to get 30% off the cheapest one Buy 3 or more sealed sets to get 50% off the cheapest one Buy 2 used sets to get 30% off the cheapest one Buy 3 or more used sets to get 50% off the cheapest one Buy 2 or more sealed sets to get the Yellow Kaukau for 50 Euro Buy 2 or more used sets to get the Yellow Kaukau for 40 Euro Buy 2 or more sealed sets to get Hulk for 23 Euro Buy 2 or more used sets to get Hulk for 18 Euro *** No pictures for now as I'm fairly busy. But tell me which set you're intersted in, and I'll do my best to take some photos as soon as possible. I live in Italy, so take that in consideration as far shipping fees go. Thank you for reading.

I love Uxar. Just a really cool small animal figure. A definite buy- I might even get two, either to make a bigger one or use the pieces in other ways. And I really like that Pohatu preview VBBN shared. The dark tan is just really cool and the silver printing flows perfectly with the rest of his silver parts, as if it was part of his armour. He just needs more dark orange.

Good work as usual. Kopaka is still one of my favourite Uniters, even though he's not perfect. As much as I liked Master Kopaka, this one feels much closer to the spirit of Kopaka Mata (ironically, Master Kopaka was closer to Kopaka Nuva). https://c2.staticfli...3d968db87_b.jpg I really like his proportions, though I'm still not sure if I agree with that arm build (need to see/play around with it in person). But I know that I want to keep them. However, it's the shells that are added that ruin his look for me. I actually quite like the dark blue on his arms, but I don't like the "bulky thighs, thin shins" look on a figure like him, a bell bottom look would've looked much better in my opinion. The colour scheme (colour scheme, not colour distribution) is gorgeous. White and dark blue always look good together, the trans light blue completes the icy look and the Spring Yellowish Green, though unexcepted, is quite clever- someone elsewhere pointed out it's similar to that greenish tint on an aurora, and that made me instantly like it. I think he looks better without the gold, since unlike Master Kopaka he already has a strong colour balancing things out (dark blue) but I do like it as a symbol of a temporary power up, so I plan to remove his crystal add-ons when he's alone and mount them when he's in Unity mode. The weapons are mostly ok. The sword looks great, quite reminiscient of Kopaka Mata's Ice Sword, though the 4M axle as handle is a bit simplistic. Not sure if a gun fits him, but I really like the shield printing. I like the Mask on its own, and the customizeable eyepiece is great, but I like Master Kopaka's Mask more as it was much closer to the original Akaku (I'm partial to the Toa Mata over the Toa Nuva, in case you couldn't tell ). I agree that this one is closer to the Akaku Nuva. I wonder how the two Kopaka would look if they swapped their Masks? Melum is..pretty good I guess. The hug function is cute. Those black bones should've been trans light blue, otherwise his colours are ok. As for the Unity mode, again the legs ruin it. Those huge shoulder pads don't look good coupled with his big thighs. Huge shoulders, skinny thighs and big shins is the way to go here. (yes, alternating colours for easier reading)

The Gold Skull Spider Mask was mostly a gimmick that was added to the set to make it more attractive, though. It's annoying that we never saw it in the main story, but I doubt its purpose was anything beyond "it helps LoSS control the Skull Spiders". Even if the comic isn't canon, I can't see things playing very differently. We know since the start that the Mask of Control is meant to have story significance. And other than Umarak, there isn't really any character with a physical body who could wear it.