Coming a bit before my time, I had no ties to the vintage toy line, and had originally planned to skip the new toy line. After buying the first released figures on a whim, I have now jumped in feet first, finding myself with about 2 dozen figures so far, with judicious parts reuse establishing Power Lords as a major source of my army building endeavors.
The simplest bit of parts reuse has been the Power Soldiers and Power Elite Soldiers. The only variation in the figures other than color is which helmet they come with. Despite the basic nature of the figures, I really love these guys and can't seem to get enough of them.
Each figure comes with a staff and a rifle as accessories, and they have been released in a wide variety of colors so far.
Articulation is great on these guys, especially considering they utilize the much celebrated Glyos system. The inclusion of Glyos compatible parts means that each joint can be removed and swapped out with other Power Lords figures, or other Glyos compatible toy lines, with some truly astounding combinations possible.
Articulation is as follows:
Neck ball joint
Base of neck swivel
Shoulder disk/post joint
Elbow disk/post joint
Wrist swivel
Waist swivel
Hip swivel
Knee disk/post joint
Ankle disk/post joint
That hits pretty much every possible bit of articulation I would want on a figure. The only thing really missing is some type of improved hip articulation, and the Four Horsemen have already shown that future figures will indeed have that extra articulation.
At first I was one of the stronger voices in the community about not really seeing the need for Glyos compatibility. I'm not much on swapping arms and legs from one figure to the next, and had limited scope on what all was actually possible.
After receiving a factory error on one of my figures (which the Four Horsemen would have happily rectified), I decided to actually test out some of what was possible with the Glyos System. With all of the various small companies producing Glyos compatible parts, you can create pretty much anything you want. Here I have couple of examples of what I was able to create in just a few minutes of tinkering.
Opposing the Power Soldiers are the Ggrapptikk Grunts.
Much like the Soldiers, the Grunts make the most out of changing as few parts as possible. Unlike the Soldiers, they have access to a few more parts to help make each set unique. There are different loin cloths, short or long handles for their war maces, and twice as many heads available.
The articulation is as follows
Neck ball jointBase of neck swivel
Shoulder disk/post joint
Elbow disk/post joint
Wrist swivel (thats 4 wrists total)
Waist swivel
Hip swivel
Knee disk/post joint
The articulation is a bit more limited here, but due to their design, I really don't think much more articulation could be added without compromising the sculpt of the figure.
The Grunts have the same Glyos compatibility as the Soldiers, with the different heads available being my favorite thing about how versatile the figures are, including a 2-sided head(bottom set)!
With all the different heads and loin cloths, I have actually managed to set up all 9 figures I have of this mold with no 2 being alike, giving the "evil" side of the fight the appearance that their entire race has banded together to take on the Clone Trooper-esque Power Soldiers.
At a relative scale of 3 3/4in, the entire line should easily fit in with other smaller scale collections, such as Star Wars or GI Joe, and they fit perfectly with the Marvel Universe figures, which I personally have a ton of.
All in all, this line has impressed me and looks to impress me even further in the near future. With the first wave of main characters set to be released to the general public any day (look for my review of those to be up tomorrow), Power Lords has become one of my favorite toy lines and anyone that collects action figures needs to pick at least a couple of these up.
For more information on the figures, or to see what is currently for sale, hop on over to www.sourcehorsemen.com
No comments:
Post a Comment