Dave's Exo-Force Rantlet 8107 Fight for the Golden Tower See http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Lego/Exoforce81 for general line comments. I am amused to find that exoforce.com redirects to Amazon.com's search results page for Exo-Force. Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Lego/8107 CAPSULE Decent piece of low-footprint scenery and an okay vehicle, but the lack of a mech is a big part of why I didn't buy it until it had dropped to 75% off. $50 price point, but I got it on clearance for $12.48. 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 those not listed online, and making up my own armor types and thicknesses. There is an official alternative model, instructions online only. This is a "scenery set", the sort of thing I don't normally buy, because I don't have the display space. Most of the pieces go to the Golden Tower, a two story pagoda, with each story getting its own bag of parts, plus one tier that's roofing for the ground floor. The other two bags go to the Sonic Raven, another Robot flyer built around a missile launcher, like a smaller cousin of the Sonic Phantom. Hitomi gets to "pilot" the tower itself, and gets some swords. No, she's not happy about it either. The online codebrick info only covers the tower itself, no mention of the Sonic Raven. So I'll make up my own info for the Raven. The instructions are in two volumes. The first has the Sonic Raven and ends with a panoramic shot of the line through 8108. The second is for the tower, and has a comic featuring 8106-8108 and then the club info. Unit: Sonic Raven Pilot: Devastator Pilot Eye Color: Red Main Mecha Colors: Black and gray with yellow and red accents. Weapons: 2x Nucleonic Missiles, dual Plasma Bolters, 2x Needle Lasers. Armor: 12" tenatium armor Power Source: Magnetized nuclear plasma Unit Designation: 8107 Unit Type: Air Nickname: None (but Hitomi calls them Clay Pigeons) Bio: Faster and more heavily armed than the Sonic Phantom, the Sonic Raven uses the same basic design philosophy, but applies numerous technological improvements scavenged from the ruins of Sentai Fortress. Far faster than the Iron Condors, they're Meca-One's choice for reconnaissance in force, as well as reaction units sent to where the fighting is heaviest. Their Nucleonic Missiles amplify the Strong Nuclear Force on impact, causing all matter within their radius of effect to implode, but their plasma and laser weaponry is fairly standard, if more efficient than used in previous generations. Unfortunately, the Golden Tower's jamming field can affect them if they get too close, and its weaponry has proven both powerful enough to penetrate their armor and accurate enough to land the hits in the first place. Build Time: Comes nicely in two bags, one for the fuselage and one for the two "wings", which reduces sorting time significantly. Bag 1 - One sub-bag, and this is where the Devastator is. 4 minutes sort time, 13 minutes build time. Sort of makes a gun on its own. Bag 2 - One sub-bag. About a minute sort time, 9-10 minutes build time. The fans are outside of any bags. Putting the pieces together after putting the bagged parts together is trivial. Dimensions: Roughly T-shaped, with an overall length of 11.5" (29cm) if you don't count the exhaust flames (made from Toa swords), 12.5" (32cm) if you do. The wingspan is 12.25" (31cm). There's a pistol grip, but it's intended for smaller hands than mine. Colors: Black and gray with accents in yellow and red. The stickers are silver, black and yellow for the most part, but there's some green on the control panel stickers. The exhaust flames are mostly red plastic, but with yellow swirled in at the tips. Stickers: Some control panels and a couple mostly yellow strips with techy "8107" on one end. Most of the stickers on the sheet go to the tower, though. Articulation: The "wings" can be moved up and down on the ratchet joints that connect them to the fuselage, and the tailfins can also be raised or lowered on ratchets. A gearing system lets you spin the drive fans VERY quickly, nice spin time. The gearing is roughly 1:4 (one turn of the knob results in four turns of the fan). Weapons: Twin missile launchers with the same sort of missile as the Iron Condor. There's a rocker trigger that can fire them one at a time. The triggers can be pretty touchy, especially since there's no forward landing gear to keep the triggers from hitting the table when you set the toy down nose-first. There's twin non-firing cannons down the centerline, one over the other, and "laser" weapons on each wing ahead of the flames that trail out the back. Since there's no official specs on the Sonic Raven, the weapon names up above were made up by me. Other Features: While most Robot mecha of this season use magnetized plasma for a power source, this one looks like it runs on a V-8 (well, a U-8, since the heads are on the same plane, or a Twin Bank 8) with turbocharger. :) Pilot Figure: Standard opaque silver Devastator unit. Unit: Golden Tower (central spire) "Pilot": Hitomi Pilot Hair Color: Black Main Building Colors: Sensors: High-powered scanners, tracking systems and targeting array Weapons: Aurian rocket launcher Armor: CLASSIFIED Power Source: Unknown Unit Designation: None Unit Type: Installation Nickname: Dou Jyou (maybe...it's on one of the stickers) Code Bio: The golden tower is the tallest building in the golden city, and houses the massive computer that is the central knowledge storehouse. It is here EXO-FORCE pilots bring the codes they have retrieved for entry into the computer. It is also in this tower that Ryo, Takeshi and Hikaru received their new battle machines. Due to the importance of this structure, it is guarded night and day. Hitomi is posted here in the set, armed with two energy katana. Build Time: This can be built in sections, each floor has its own bag. This makes it a bit better for casual building than older big sets. Bag 3 - Has two smaller bit bags inside, this is the one that has Hitomi. Sort time about 4 minutes, build time 20-25 minutes. Best to start with this one, as it gives you the footprint of the tower. Bag 4 - One sub-bag. 3 minutes sorting, 15 building. Bag 5 - One sub-bag, pretty tightly packed. 5 minutes sorting, about 20 minutes to build. So, overall, I spent about 12 minutes on sorting (same time it took me for the smaller Golden Guardian) and about an hour of building while watching TV. Dimensions: Tier 1 is 16cm wide (about 6"), 14cm deep (5.5") and 11cm (4.5") tall. Tier 2 is really just a roof for tier 1, about the same width and depth, not much height. Tier 3 is almost the same width and depth (maybe an inch less each way) at its roof pieces, although narrower at its base, and 19cm (7.5") tall. Note, tier 3 does not peg onto the top of tier 2, it just slots in between posts so it can be easily removed to get at the interior of the ground floor. Fully assembled, the tower is 32cm (12.5") tall. Colors: The vertical wall elements are mostly white, the floor borders and roof black, the interior floors light tan, and the roofing pieces brick red. There's black grates on the front walls of both stories. The faintly metallic gold plastic used on the Golden Guardian is also found on some accent pieces and the rooftop fins (vernian flap pieces), plus on the katanas. Stickers: Loads of gold foil, naturally. Some of the biggest ones have "Sentai" on them in Japanese, and two others say "Dou Jyou" and "Computers". Articulation: Well, places it can move. :) A knob near the front of the first story can be turned to crank open the front wall. The ground floor is hinged to pivot if a missile strikes the "Security Vault" piece, dumping the code brick holder out the back (it doesn't quite flip over all the way, the top of the vault is too high to allow this). The missile launcher is on a ball joint, and the gold fins are on ratchet hinges. Weapons: The Aurian rocket launcher is just another of the launchers seen on the Sonic Raven. There's also Hitomi's gold-plastic swords, and a spare pair on one of the walls. A couple of mini-rockets are revealed when the front wall is cranked down. Other Features: The center of the roof can be lifted out, although the Aurian rocket launcher is still pegged in firmly on its crossbar, so this isn't that useful except for looking in from above. As mentioned earlier, the second story isn't pegged on, so it can be removed to allow view into the first floor. The back of the tower is open as well, dollhouse-fashion. There's some clear blue barrel pieces on the sides of the first floor that might be intended to be power hookups for the mechs, to judge by the "HI VOLTAGE RECHARGE BAY" stickers on the banners flanking the front wall. On the second floor is a control screen and weapon rack, with two brown staves on one side of the screen, and empty slots for Hitomi's swords. Pilot Figure: Hitomi is the first canonical female Exo-Force figure, so of course she only goes in an expensive set without her own mech. My fan-made Hiko (http://www.dvandom.com/images/hikolego.JPG) will finally have some female company, at least. She also shares Ryo's hair, hence the early speculation that she got a mech in the Mobile Devastator set, but it turns out Ryo gets to pilot the Blazing Falcon. Dave Van Domelen, cleared off some "reserve" shelf space for the tower and will move the Golden Guardian to stand next to it, freeing up space in the main Exo-Force area for the next Mech to come along.