Dave's Lego Exo-Force Rantlet

     8102 Blade Titan

     See http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Lego/Exoforce81 for general line
comments.  

     Updated 12/28/06 with Codebrick info.

CAPSULE

     Unstable upper body...too many unnecessary joints, and loose arm joints
that don't pose as well as I'd like.  But good legs and overall look.  Mildly
recommended.  $15 price point.

RANT

     The 8100 series sets lack the techspec panels found in the 7700 series,
so I'm making my own names up for weapons for now, and making up my own armor
types and thicknesses.  This info is available online, I'll note it in
parentheses after my versions.  There are no official alternate models.

Unit: Blade Titan
Pilot: Takeshi
Pilot Hair Color: Green
Main Mecha Colors: Dark red, gray, white.
Weapons: Spinning Samurai Slicer Shield (official), Blade of Light (my name
     for the cannon) (Multi-barreled proton cannon; double-baded assault 
     shield that expands and rotates automatically)
Armor: Petronium, 9" thickness (12" zaylium armor)
(Sensors: Enhanced sensor package)
(Power Source: Magnetized oroniate)
Unit Designation: C.10
Unit Type: Ground
Nickname: Blade (cockpit sticker)

     Code Bio: Takeshi discovered this battle machine in the Golden Tower
shortly after abandoning the badly damaged Grand Titan.  Heavily armed and
armored, it proved extremely effective against robot Shadow Crawlers in its
first battle.  More powerful offensively than the Grand Titan, its
double-bladed assault shield also makes it a strong defense against robot
attack.

     Build Time: About 40 minutes, 8 of which were part-sorting.

     Dimensions: 8.25" (21cm) tall, with a shoulderpadspan of 6.5" (16.5cm).  

     Colors: The armor pieces are a mix of dark red (CC0000) and white.  Most
of the structural bits are these two colors or medium gray (666666), with
bright yellow accent pieces.  The cockpit is the same smoky clear piece as on
Cyclone Defender.  The six-barrelled gun on the left arm is a mix of black
"skipole" pieces, yellow barrels and yellow pulleys.  The shield's blades are
a mix-blend of milky white and dark red.  The shoulderpads are dark red
fender pieces from Technic cars (also used as shoulderpads on the Millennia
Throwbot). 

     Stickers: He also has "Edgy Blade" on the left shin in Japanese.  His
shield has "High Voltage", "Force Field" and "2,500,000 VAC" (Volts AC).
There's the same untranslated banner of characters on his right torso as
Cyclone Defender has on its right shin.  There's also a voltage symbol with
"High Voltage" on the right shoulder, and a radiation trefoil with
"Ammunition" on the left.  The left shoulderpad still has the Sentai Mountain
symbol, while the right has C.10.  There's a sort of dark red and white
sunburst pattern on both shoulderpads with a vanishing point of about where
the pilot's head is.

     Articulation: The shoulders and elbows are ball joints, but the shoulder
joints are restricted so that the arms can't point straight down.  The ball
joints are also kinda loose, considering the size of the shield.  The
shoulderpads are articulated but don't really need to be (and, in fact,
become more easily dislodged than I'd like).  The right and left torso pieces
are on hinges, but that seems mainly because a hinge joint is stronger than a
1x1 peg connection, which is all there would be room for otherwise (okay,
maybe a 1x2, but that'd still be weak).  The legs have the full complement of
Knights Kingdom ratcheting universal joints at hip, knee and ankle.  The
ankle can also swivel side to side on a rod.  The feet themselves are 2.5"
(6.5cm) long and 2" (5cm) wide, a nice solid base for dynamic poses.
     [Later correction: I misread the directions, the torso sides do click
down one notch on their joints, it looks a little better that way too.]

     Weapons: The only officially named one is the Spinning Samurai Slicer
Shield.  The two blades are 4.25" (11cm) Bionicle curved blades connected by
Technic bits to a central shaft tipped by a large radar dish piece.  It can
be spun by a gear knob at the rear, and the blades fly outward when you spin
it either way and inward when you spin clockwise (as seen from the front) and
stop suddenly.
     The other main gun is similar to the six-barrelled weapon on the Claw
Crusher, but with longer barrels and a slightly looser spinning joint.  Four
solid yellow cones are on a "hatrack" style piece over the right shoulder as
a missile rack, while the left shoulder has a radar dish.  A clear yellow
cone is mounted on the left flank as a small laser.  There's a long antenna
piece on the back.

     Other Features: The basic torso plan is similar to those on 8100 and
8101, but larger.  The Exo-Code is on the left torso piece, at the top front
corner.  

     Pilot Figure: Takeshi has the same head and hair as before, but his
torso, arms and legs are dark red instead of bright red.  The hands are
black.  The chest pattern is printed in gold and black.  Unlike Ryo, he
doesn't have an ID number on his chest, but does have the Sentai Mountain
symbol of the ground units.

     Dave Van Domelen, just realized that by switching all the numbers from
01 to 10 in the unit designators, they established that the humans of Sentai
Mountain use binary.  :)  (Thought it might be to avoid having to come up
with a new "2" character, but the zeroes are different from last year, so no
actual savings.)