#8981 - Tarix
Jan 10, 2009 0:08:19 GMT -5
Post by Madaraki on Jan 10, 2009 0:08:19 GMT -5
First off, I would like to say thank you to those who didn't pester me with "WHEN'S TARIX GOING UP?!"
Conversely, I would like to announce that I now despise whoever emptied the shelves of the Tarix sets just before Christmas, because I'd originally hoped to have this posted back on December 27th or so.
That said, let's give a wet welcome to the final Glatorian of the line; Tarix!
I'm launching right into new pieces with this one because Tarix happens to have two very large pieces of eye candy in his hands.
YES. WATER AXES OR WHATEVER YOU WANNA CALL THEM. I seriously can't get over how much I love these things. The entire piece is solid and hard (as opposed to the softer textures of Hordika weapons, Pridak's fins, other two-toned pieces and whatnot). Additionally, the translucent blades really catch the light nicely. These are now my favorite held-in-hand Bionicle weapons.
DA HELMET (Sorry for the blur). Really kinda simple here. It's a dark blue helmet with two bladelike prongs sticking out the back. It attaches to the top of the head, and really, its only other noteworthy feature is a tiny hole in the chin area for that little tube to connect. It's nice to see the water element figure getting another distinguishing piece like that (Gali Mata and Toa Nokama having semi-transparent masks, The Mahri having aquaticky upgrade bits, etc.).
HEAD. Finally, a new color in the line. I will say that I'd been hoping for the same yellow that Gali Mata and Gali Nuva had, but I think I can live with this for now. At least it's not used in half the sets entirely. Again though, I'm still rather disappointed at the lack of head color variation.
HANDS. Straight blue this time, the same color as Gali Mata's body. Nice to see that color showing up again. It's also found in...
...RE-USED PIECES. Or recolors, whichever. I like having that copper-gold color back in here, as it means I've finally sot something to use with all of those similarly colored pieces from Brutaka. LEGO seems to be playing off the success of a dark blue/gold color scheme here. I won't complain. The feet are a bit odd though. They're straight blue, and with only having those extremities in the color, Tarix seems slightly off in those areas.
NECK JOINT(S). And the beauty is, Tarix has two of them. THe first is used as his neck joint, hooked into an inika torso, while the second ise latched onto the handle of one axe and connects the...
THORNAX LAUNCHER. Yeah, that little thing makes its usual appearance here, and it's persomally my favorite setup of the Glatorian. It's latched onto one axe handle on a ball/socket joint so that it can either flip forward to fire, or be pulled back to act as sort of a hilt/guard for the weapon.
BIONICLIX dial. It's on his back again, just like Malum and Gresh. The only difference this time is that Tarix has his little breather tube thingy latching in on its cover. Looking at all six now, I think my favorite placement is the sort of above-shoulders on on Strakk.
And we come to the final construction overview of the Glatorian. Unfortunately, Tarix isn't quite the most remarkable of them. He's got the standard Inika hookup in his torso area like Gresh, but unlike Gresh, his chest area construction is a lot simpler. He's got one of his shoulder armor pices latched into place in a way that gives him a fairly thin and flat-chested appearance. The color works, but the rest of it leaves a bit to be desired.
Thankfully he seems to make up for it with his weapon setup. Both axeheads are mounted on connectors which are then in turn stuck on +5 rod pieces, and its configurations like this that really make me wish the hands had the +rod hole all the way through so that they could hold longer staff pieces at their midpoints rather than the very ends. As mentioned before and shown below, it's latched into his axe's haft with a neck joint pieces, and thus the launcher works as either a launcher or a guard. It's like the Skrall's weapon, only more awesome.
And now for something slightly odd, you might have noticed that Tarix has two protruding shoulder spikes made of silver tail-end pieces. Thankfully, the silver works here as he's got other pieces on him with the same color. The spikes don't look out of place at all.
Now, that's when I noticed something odd.
Skrall's got one blade on each shoulder. Tarix has two. Gresh has three. Now look at the backward-protruding points on their helmets. Skrall's got one, Tarix has two, Gresh has three.
Significance? Who knows. Still, it's worth noting that conversely, Strakk, Vorox, and Malum all have front-connected shoulder armor that sometimes jabs against their chest areas when the arms move.
And with that said; Tarix is slightly taller than the first two volumes of Burst Angel,
and...normally shorter than Gresh, but he was suffering from height envy as the photo was being taken.
PROS:
- THE AXES. MY GOD, THE AXES.
- Good majority color scheme with dark blue/gold-copper.
- Epic Thornax Launcher Placement.
CONS:
- Oddity with blue hands/feet against a dark blue body. I'd understand if the colors were more evenly mixed, but this is just odd.
- No yellow head.
- Flatter than...well, never mind. He's just annoyingly flat.
OVERALL: 6/10
Tarix is something of an odd figure out here. He's definitely high tier with the other Glatorian in terms of canister sets, but among the Glatorian, he's iffy. Above average and he's got a good color scheme going, not to mention the weapons are awesome, but at the same time his construction's almost painfully simple, and the chest area assembly reminds me of the Mistika and Mahri in an uncomfortable way. When you get right down to it, I personally rate Tarix higher for the parts he has to contribute to MOCing, rather than the set's actual quality (good as it is compared to recent years) itself.
