Nov 12, 2012

It came from the Toy Chest: Mattel's dirty tricks or love for the fans?

Weapons Pack 3 is here everypon everybody! The most expensive weapons pack yet, but it has the second least amount of stuff, at the same time it has a lot of the items that were cut from some figures... NO SPECTOR! You get no whip! Go cry in the corner, you big purple baby! That I love...
#3 is here or is it #4 cause of the Rack?

I will go in depth with each item on the pictorial part of the review.
Clawful Mace
Clawful shield
Carnivus Sword
Carnivus Shield
Teela Shield
Teela Snake Headdress
Teela Staff
Teela Sword
Zoar
Draego Whip
Draego Shield
Draego Metal Sword
Keldor Swords
Man-at-Arms 200X Handcannon
Horde Prime Staff

17 items for $18 + Shipping. 8 out of those are newly tooled items. Let's take a look at them before passing on  a verdict.

Difference is so minimal...
Let's start with Clawful's mace first... The biggest fail of ALL the Weapons packs... That includes Whiplash's erotic spork of doom! I mean LOOK AT IT! It's pretty much the same thing as Clawful's Normal Mace... Had it been red or aquamarine like the shield, now THAT would be a different story.
now this is more like it!

Next up is Clawful's Sheild repainted in Aquamarine or Turquoise... not sure of the exact color, but it's a blueish green or greenish blue... It's NOT RED like the original Clawful shield!! I'd say that it would look good on Dekker!

Let's move on to the Icy Sword of Omens or Carnivus sword repaint. It seems that this weapon could also fit Dekker. It's not that bad, but it isn't that great either.
Shield looks kinda Hylian-ish... The sword looks more Sword of Omens-like now...

The Repainted Carnivus shield has the same issue as the Sword... If King Miro doesn't come with cool weapons, he'll probably get these.

I'm also using her Red Headdress.
Let's move on to the Teela stuff and start with her shield. As you can see on the pic above, her bedsheet look can be made with a Normal Teela and the stuff in the WP#3! To be honest this is my second choice of usage for this. The shield is meant for Yellow Evil Lyn. (as a nod to a piece of vintage artwork depicting Evil Lyn with a shield) The blues don't match that well...
I normally don't wear women's clothes but when I do I wear Teela's
As shown in the pic above, there is a third figure who can wear the snake headdress... Which is now more Vintage Toy-like... and come on! This Snake Headdress is suited for the Purple one! which makes this the Unofficial Spector Variant: snake Armor Spector... His eyes match the position for fangs! 5.0 in all accounts!

I like both versions of the staff... my second red staff may "accidentally" fall in a bottle of rubbing alcohol so I can have a blue staff as well.
The staff is red for the same reason as the red Snake Headdress. I must warn you that the staff is blue, but painted red... It can chip off paint and reveal the color beneath.

The 200X Sword in red seems to have 2 functions:
to have a vintagized version of that sword, and/or give Battleground Teela a less generic sword for her.


The next Item is the "white Zoar" The link on "white" is Mattel's reason for not using white... I disagree with it, but it's better than the bothersome canned answers by the Neitlich...
Well... Everybody's heard about the bird
Bird bird bird, bird is the word

This Zoar is the "cut accessory" from Temple of Darkness Sorceress. If you don't have him, he'll probably go to the spare parts bin/baggie/whatever, or become someone else's pet...
Now we've ended the repainted stuff and enter uncharted territory: NEW ITEMS!!
Let's begin the new stuff Marathon with things that belong to a douche... and I mean Draego-Man... and you could have guessed since the items are following the list...
The Flaming Whip of Draego-Man: while stiff like Demo-Man's Flail it has a LOT of Personality. I'd Love to see a fully extended whip as well.
Back to work! Make sure those shoulders are NOT reversed!


Shield looks cool from the front.
 Draego-Man's Shield... Now this is a mixed bag item for me. It looks cool with the flames and all that and without them. but I'm not a fan on how the flames work. As you'll see on the pic above.

Flame On! Flame Off!
Now his Flamed Off Sword... This sword is awesome... and a bit generic, so if you got multiple packs, you could arm evil warriors with them... I'm almost tempted to give them to my Keldor... (I bought 2 WP)
Speaking of Keldor... He Finally gets his swords... and I HATE THEM!! I can accept the handles being different than the 200X version, but what I detest is the way they are put together... It's a hot mess of pegs and holes and to make things worse the copper side is unpainted purple. On the other hand this hot mess of blades allows me to do THIS!!
Compare 200X vs MOTUC... The bigger one is NOT MOTUC!
but in any case it's the Classicized 200X sword!

Anime Hyper Detail for the win!
I may keep the 200X ones on Keldor while Skeletor uses the MOTUC ones!

 Now riding on the Anime Hyper Detailed bandwagon, Man-at-Arms get his 200X Cannon! Holy crap!
Until Dekker comes and I steal his mace, my 200X Battle Glove MAA  is weaponless.
I think I'll take over your world, but first I'm gonna hit the slopes!

Now for the Final Accessory: Horde Prime's Staff! This article was cut out and now completes the Mecha Koi! Since I have two my HP carries them both, though he looks like he's going to be skiing down some slopes soon instead of looking menacing....

Now the Ratings part. Let's be honest There is no Articulation here... But I need to split this review in 2.
Repaints vs New Parts!

Repaints:
Paint and Sculpt:
Sculpt well, we've seen these pieces before, the Paint is where the action is at.
While these pieces have slightly less paint apps on the weapons vs their original parts. On the other hand, I haven't been tempted on calling Captain Paintbrush for the weapons (aside my second white Zoar) 4.0

New Parts:
Paint and Sculpt:
The Sculpt on these new parts is amazing: The paint is pretty sweet. If I was to complain about something is the way Design chose to attach the Keldor blades or the Fire on Draego's Shield.
3.5
Overall: 3.75 due to the combined powers of repaints and new parts.
Now this is what bugs me. I get that adding the Keldor swords that weren't made is a cool thing, but Horde Prime and Draego-Man got cut items that made it in the pack. I fear that Mattel may do figures with tons of stuff to then cut stuff so they can sell more weapons packs. I hope that this was an exception and not the norm.

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