Dave's Lego Exo-Force Rantlet 7706 Mobile Defense Tank See http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Lego/Exoforce77 for general line comments. CAPSULE Big and fairly stable in terms of bits not falling off or drooping, although I'm not in love with the open-topped disc launcher. Treads could be a little more flexible, too. Still, building it is a good way to while away an afternoon, and it is pretty impressive when finished. Recommended if you can find it on sale (like I did) or don't mind paying the full price. $30 price point. RANT Main Model: Mobile Defense Tank (or Mobile Defence Tank online) Secondary Mode: Advance Tactical Unit Pieces: 355 Pilots: Ryo, Unnamed Tech ("Genki") Pilot Hair Color: Purple, Black Main Mecha Colors: Orange, Light Gray, Dark Gray Weapons: Not officially named - Six-barrel cannon, disc launcher, missile pods, front mounted laser and cannon array. Armor: Not officially given, probably 10" or more of Intractium Unit Designation: AT.02 Unit Type: Ground Nickname: Mountain Climber I hadn't initially planned to get this. I'm mainly into this line for the humanoid mecha, not the vehicles, plus I almost never get $30 sets (heck, I rarely even get $20 sets of Lego). But Wal-Mart had the $30 sets of Exo-Force on sale for $19.88 during the first week of November, so I snagged this. Passed on the gate set, though. One medium robot, one small robot, then a car and some scenery just don't appeal to me even for $20, although I might get the set if I see it for $15. Build time for me was about 90 minutes, 15 minutes of which was just opening the packaging and sorting all the parts out. Only four tiny pieces were left over from the main model. Not all of the stickers are translated. "Flammable" and "Mountain Climber" are, but there's a repeated single symbol that isn't. It looks kinda like a pi with three little marks fanning out over it, and means "light" (and can be pronounced "hikaru"). Also, stickers 5 and 6 (intake vents) break the "rules" by crossing multiple pieces and making it so you can't take the model apart without removing or at least cutting the stickers. As an articulated four-tread tank, the dimensions can vary, but in the "standard" configuration it's 12" (30cm) long, 8.5" (22cm) wide and 7" (18cm) tall if you include Ryo in the turret seat. In lowrider mode, the length increases to 13" (33cm) and the height drops to 5.5" (14cm). Up on tiptoes it's a mere 7" (18cm) long (and that's the cockpit length) but rises to 9" (23cm) tall. The width never changes. The structural bits are primarily light and dark gray with some black pieces. The armor is orange, with some white accent pieces and stickers. The treads and their wheels are black. There's also a few flashes of red and blue, plus the green and yellow mottled discs in the disc launcher. The main driver's cockpit is pretty well protected for an Exo-Force vehicle. It has curved solid armor sides and an opening clear smoky canopy, with only slim open windows on either side. The turret seat is completely exposed, however. This baby is loaded for bear. At the nose of the cockpit are a pair of railgun barrels (the tubes used on Uplink's main gun) and a pair of black rods I'll call machineguns. These don't move. On either side of the cockpit on ball jointed mounts are big orange missile pods that use what I'm guessing are roof pieces for Lego train passenger cars. Each pod has five blue warheads poking out the front, although these are not firing launchers, although with some 10-long rods four on each pod could be converted to finger-flick missiles. On each pod is also a white tank marked "Flammable", which makes them either flamethrowers or fuel for a catapult system to launch the missiles. The sheer size of the pods suggests large internal magazines, so I expect the pods are also jettisonable to avoid ammot explosions taking out the tank. An open turret on another ball joint at the rear of the cockpit has a six-barrelled non-rotating railgun on the left side, with Ryo sitting right on top of it. I hope he built really good shock absorbers into those guns, or his butt's gonna hurt like the dickens after a fight. On the right side is a new disc shooter piece that fires 13mm diamter, 2mm thick discs made of mottled green and yellow plastic. Rather than being made of several pieces with a rubber band or spring for launching, it relies on a single piece that bends back and snaps forward for firing. Unfortunately, like the Zamor sphere launchers in Bionicle, it has an open top and no real way to keep the discs from spilling out if the thing is tilted back too far. Also, the force of the ratcheting joints on the treads tends to shake discs out. And forget about actually FIRING the thing without sending the top several discs flying. I've already lost one...you'd think it'd be easy to find neon green plastic pieces, but nooooo. [Later note: somehow it ended up in my pocket. Weird.] Would it have killed them to include a lid piece? Finally, the light brick is just attached to the left side of the hexbarrel, with a red clear piece sticking out of it to light up as a laser weapon. The main joints on this toy are the "hips" for the tread units. They work on the same principle as the Knights Kingdom ones, but have discs about an inch in diameter (2.5cm) and have Technic connectors rather than regular Lego ones. They move 15 degrees per click, and you can get some warp to the footprint by clicking one joint a click out of synch (two clicks is pushing it). This gives it some offroad cred. The turret and missile pods are on ball joints of the Bionicle variety. The exhaust pipes are on hinges to let them keep up with whatever position the rear treads are in. The treads themselves are on three rollers in a shallow triangular configuration, but the rubberized plastic is too stiff and you can't just roll it along. The mold release oil seems to be a bit heavy on this one. I have several stickers on curved parts peeling away already (the ones on the white "flammable" pods, and the "light" sticker on the disc launcher). One little note on the missile pods. Following the instructions on how to connect them to their ball joint pieces leads to more restricted motion than I'd like, and they get in the way of the cannon turret. Flipping the connection upside down has them ride lower, but they don't get in the way as much and have more range of motion. The main pilot is Ryo, same mold as with Uplink. The copilot (and official driver, with Ryo in the turret) is an unnamed figure first seen with the Gate Defense set. He has the same body as Ryo, but a different head and black hair. He was named Genki in some early materials, but has no official name in the toys now. Interestingly, the same outfit and hairstyle has been applied to a female techie in the recent episode of the online comic (ep 23, "Sensei's Secret"). At this time, I have no plans to assemble the Advance Tactical Unit, although it looks pretty nice. Basically a Guntank style robot, with treads instead of legs. Given the quality of the online instructions (which have improved, admittedly) and the fact that I'd need to build within view of my computer screen, though, I probably won't. Dave Van Domelen, notes this is the biggest Lego set he's built in a long time, possibly the biggest ever. Yes, he tends to stick to the little sets.