Dave's Toy Rant: Interlink 6 I think the given names are lame, so I'm adding in my own. HD1 - Cephas TS2 - Tarrunk RL3 - Droitt LL4 - Gaush RA5 - Dextre LA6 - Sinistre Interlink 6 After getting a bunch of glowing comments on the line, I decided to drop the $50.82 (tax included) to get these guys at Target. Then I set aside an afternoon to open them up, review them and assemble the big guy. CAPSULES HD1: Good poseability, a bit too organic for my tastes, though. Cool ultra-long antennae...but one snapped in two almost immediately. More durable than many recent Spawn toys, but still has fragile parts. Recommended. $7.99 at Target (same goes for the rest) TS2: Bricky (compared to the others), with a somewhat unsatisfying weapon gimmick. Mildly recommended, if you're not trying to get all six this is one of the ones to give a pass to. RL3: Moderate poseability, has to stand weirdly, and one leg fell off almost right away and it took forever to get it to glue back on and stay on. Avoid this unless going for the whole set. LL4: Good poseability and stability, weak missile gimmick, but looks good. One of the ones worth getting even if you're not going for the whole set. Recommended. RA5: Fairly good poseability, okay weapon gimmick, not too many bits that fall apart. Mildly recommended. LA6: So-so poseability (lots of articulation, but it's mainly swivels like the Metal Gear Solid figures), looks more organic/human than the rest, kinda a standalone figure almost. Mildly recommended. Interlink 6: Bad engineering and unclear instructions abetted by the totally arbitrary configuration of most of the bits (you can't logically tell if things are in the right place...it's just a big messy pile) make this a frustrating assembly. Challenging in the worst way. While a few of the figures making it up are fairly good, the big monster is NOT worth the time, effort or money. RANTS HD1: Cephas is twist-tied into his bubble with 5 ties and a lot of tape. He comes with a section of pipe used in the support base for I6, plus his shoulderpads need a bit of assembly. Mainly black and dark copper with white accents, he stands just shy of 8" (20cm) at the head. With antennae retracted, they rise to 12" (30cm) above the tabletop...extended they reach 16.5" (42cm) with a span of about 18" (46cm). While the antenna lock semi-permanently onto the shoulderpads, the pads themselves can be removed for storage. Cephas is quite poseable, with ratcheting joints all over the place. He has nifty pistons attaching his thighs to his calves, although the pistons do limit how much his knees can bend. His right hand is a gun, his left hand has a universal jointed wrist and can hold the pipe as a weapon. There's lots of hoses and struts and stuff around the figure, but they're generally soft enough not to interfere with movement. Most of the joints are quite stiff, except for the toes. And this is a problem, since his feet are mainly a collection of rocket tubes and the toes are necessary to stabilize him in any interesting poses. It's worth noting that the photo instructions for attaching bits to the figures (Cephas's shoulderpads, Tarunkk's shoulderguns, etc) are not very helpful. TS2: 7.5" (19cm) tall Tarunkk is covered in hoses and pipes and held into the box with 6 twist-ties. As you might expect from the central piece of a huge combiner team, he's not very poseable. His legs move only at the hips, because any other joints would make the combined form less stable. At least, that's my guess right now, having not combined the toy yet. His arms are fully poseable, however, with ratcheting joints. His feet are just a collection of rocket tubes, making him pretty unstable even in a "standing straight up" pose (which is about all his legs are up to anyway). Both arms end in guns, and the left one has a wind-up multibarrel gun (it's too baroque to call a "Vulcan"). The gun spins really quickly, meaning the "time winding" to "time spinning" ratio is a bit unsatisfyingly high. He comes with a short piece of bent pipe for the base. RL3: There's seven twist-ties holding Droitt into his package, although two of them hold plug-in pieces. His elbows are of the "spin at the bent joint but don't actually bend" variety so common in McToys. The legs are a bit more poseable, but I snapped one off when trying to get the legs to spread apart akimbo. This is the second piece I've broken off just in checking out the figures, and bodes ill. And yes, I got the superglue out before opening any packages. Um, it's not staying on. I'm gonna have to get out the Dremel and grout out all the old glue. Back in a bit. In addition to the limited poseability, his feet are fused in a position that requires "chicken-legging" the figure to get it to stand up. Ankle joints would have really helped. Once you add the jetpacks, the tipping factor becomes even stronger, reducing him to a standing height of 7" (18cm). The weapon gimmick is one of those "pull back and release" missiles without a trigger, kinda weak. Oh, and Droitt comes with another short bent pipe piece for the base. Damn, leg fell off AGAIN. LL4: Gaush looks extremely unlike Droitt, which is a nice touch. Having right-left partners too similar would have been bad. A total of NINE twist-ties hold him in the tray. In addition to the second long pipe for the bse, Gaush has the face of Interlink 6, which clips to his back, albeit very weakly. He stands 7" (18cm) tall at the head, add another inch for the shoudlerpads. The figure has its own helmet which covers up the ugly undead head nicely. And, of course, something fell off almost immediately. The buttplate had not been correctly attached (understandable considering you can't really see the peg hole...black on black) and the peg almost snapped off before I finally got the thing attached. Anyway, Gaush is almost as poseable as HD1, and he has heel spurs that keep him standing in poses that would topple Droitt. The weapon gimmick is another pull-and-release missile, whee. Hm, just looked at the instructions. Turns out that they decided to pre-assemble some of the bits that the instructions had the buyer putting on. RA5: Only five twist-ties hold Dextre and his base piece (one of the foot supports) to the tray. Not counting the antennae on his mask, he stands 7.5" (19cm) at the shoulderpads. Counting the antennae, he comes in just shy of 10" (25cm) tall. Quite poseable, but be careful! He has V-hips rather than ball joints, so if you try to spread his legs apart you might pull one off (no, I didn't pull off a leg this time). He has heel spurs (I6's claws) that make for a pretty stable poser, especially since he has a high ankle joint about a third of the way up his leg. His regular knees are two thirds of the way up. Dex's weapon is a double chainsaw for a right hand. Twiddling a little tab makes one of the blades waggle up and down. LA6: Sinistre has the bulk of the base included with him, and a total of seven twist ties hold it down. Plus a piece of tape wrapped around a piece over the head. 6.5" (14cm) tall at the head, this is the most "McToys"-ish in terms of poseability. Lots of pointless joints in the spiderclaw shoulderpads, V-joint hips, swivel elbows, wrists and waists, small feet. The only ball joints are the shoulders, and the knees and ankles are hinges. The head is not poseable at all. Well, okay, the spiderclaws aren't pointless, I think they're the hands of the I6 mode. This is the one that most clearly is a necro-cyborg and not a robot. The proportions are most nearly human. Interlink 6 Base: Simple enough to put together, but quite rickety. Interlink 6: Okay, time to shut down the editing session and put this monster together. The time is 4:47 PM. It's now 6PM. I finished most of the construction 20 minutes ago, and have just given up trying to figure out where the last few leftover pieces are supposed to go. There's no place for the TS2 turrets to peg on, and the HD1 forearm pad just sort of sits on some bits, it's not connected at all. Plus many other leftovers are just ignored. I guessed from the picture of the combined form that HD1's antennae weren't supposed to be removed in the first place, or RA6's arm guard. Anyway, the assembly isn't terribly complicated...it's just damned frustrating because of unclear instructions, pieces that don't want to come off or go on, and general bad engineering. Interlink 6 is an unposeable mess of shedding parts, and I definitely feel like I wasted $50 and an afternoon on it. A few of the individual figures are worth getting, but the combined form is NOT worth the time, money or effort. If you do want to give yourself a headache and an empty wallet, here's a hint for assembly. Keep the cards laid out on the table or floor, and whenever you remove a piece from one of the figures, put it on the numbered card. After all, one spiky warped bit looks much like another. Dave Van Domelen, should have stuck with his initial impressions and left the things on the shelf.