Paladin/Chaos from MakeToys!
From Kaiju devil to robot devil....
My first foray into the world of Maketoys, and holy crap I want more. This here is Paladin/Chaos, depending on the mode he's in. And he's a rather interesting take on "The Fallen" a transformers character that has never gotten a toy that was really quite right. So a third party company decided to tackle it. And make it a combiner, based off of Power core combiner technology. Sounds like an awful idea.
The duel vehicles. Both are beastly looking with one being a missile truck and the other some kind of space tank. I do dig both of these modes, each having their own strengths and weaknesses.
The missile truck is a bit simpler, and yet looks more like a vehicle. Looking like something that just rolled off of a Toho movie lot as some kind of anti-monster truck, It has the benefit of not having to actually transform, which helps its overall appearance. No major gaps, and symmetrical as hell.
The Tank mode sort of appears as your typical transforming tank, with duel treads in front and a more h-tank tread set up in back. The duel cannons are a wonderful touch in setting this apart from anything real, clearly giving it that future/space look. The black, purple and orange on both of these looks amazing.
Nope, that sure isn't a robot under there.
SUDDENLY ROBOT!!!!
With semi useful articulation!!!
Ok, this head sculpt is amazing. I know I only bought this for combined mode, but man, this little figure is neat! He looks solid, chunky, and full of inner rage. His heat vent chest, glowing with orange energy is fantastic. This is his Paladin mode. A small spunky warrior with a deep dark secret. Or something. I don't know his back story, it's all written in Japanese in the instructions. Transformation is simple enough, nothing super difficult. All pretty intuitive, I did it with no instructions and didn't break anything, so that's a huge plus.
The detailing and color done on him are great. The black with gunmetal and grey sound boring on paper. But in application here its fantastic. Throw in spots of that dark purple and glowing orange and this looks like a robot that crawled out of a volcano.
His feet kind of suck, though. Mostly they look like this to not make sacrifices for combined mode, which I'm ok with. The thing that does bug me is the sliding thigh joint you see there, is sort of loose. Which sucks for a weight bearing joint that moves for transformation. They extend for Paladin mode and collapse for Chaos mode, but do so way to easily. I know some people's are worse, and others are better. I considered swapping mine, but I didn't.
Getting these duel swords in is terrifying. The are super loose until right near the pommel, where the piece thickens to be able to be held, and you have to push super hard to get them in. On a piece of plastic this thin, it's mildly harrowing.
He looks alright like this, but the articulation is just not there to make him feel super useful in Paladin mode, at least "attacking".
They can store on the back, just like in space-tank mode. eh.
Here he is with a regular PCC Heavytread. He's pretty damn huge, comparatively. With that cannon on his back he ends up being kinda back heavy, and its just short enough to not touch the ground at a full standing posture. Damn.
Now the real fun begins. The Missile truck breaks down into four( at least here, you can break it down into six if you remove the fists) chunks for Chaos mode.
oooooooh shit.........
This is one big beefy sexy badass. Chaos mode is glorious. Look at that sword! And that Cannon arm! and that brooding face!
Broooooooding.
But seriously here the detail is amazing. All the orange looks like its glowing and powering him. His eyes are a blood red, there is none of that original face here. Its all business. Angry, evil business. His chest is massive, and does a great job with minimal detail. his entire torso is minimally detailed yet drips personality. Such a fantastic sculpt. The IDW look is captured here, and yet made all its own.
The arms and legs, made from the Missile truck look phenomenal. This is a concept that could have been a gigantic failure, yet it's pulled off stunningly. He is massive and looks like he could set upon the destruction of anything he wished.
Don't like the cannon in doubled up? Why not split it in two and put if on two sections of arm?
Or swap shoulders, and give him a berserker mode, by opening up all his gatling guns and shoulder missiles! This guy is built for customization. The arms and legs are filled with connection ports so you can swap and move and rotate. The forearms and lower legs even have removable gatling guns to be uses as individual weapons in paladin mode, or more firepower for chaos mode.
Just open and fold away.
Into a monster. I don't have much PCC stuff, but I did snag the Iron Army sets at Tfcon as well, and now he is his own mecha shiva!
Give Chaos a hug! Small bit of warning when doing this though, I had a total bitch of a time removing those extra arms. Even going to the length of using a hair dryer to heat them up to ease the process. All the Chaos joints come apart no problem, so the issue lied with the iron army arms.
For around 80 bucks, this guy is a fun fantastic buy. Look at him there, all stoic and plotting death and destruction!
With some minor loose joint issues, he could be nearly perfect. The ability to stack MORE sets on top of him is amazing. They released just the missile truck in a blue color and a green color, to use with other PCC sets, but I lack those. I know I've seen people stack multiple Chaos's on top of each other and make bigger meaner robots. What a fantastic function. Echoing the Mugenbine line of the past, with the care and sculpt of a higher end robot, this is something I want to see more of. Just tighten up some of those joints Maketoys, and I won't be able to throw what little money I have at you fast enough.
Also a shout out to all the people at Tfcon 2013. What a fun, fantastic convention, made all the more so by the awesome times spent with friends.
I didn't even think to add the Iron Army limbs...
ReplyDeleteDang, that's an awesome figure!
ReplyDelete