Dave's Lego Exo-Force Rantlet 8104 Shadow Crawler See http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Lego/Exoforce81 for general line comments. Updated 12/28/06 with Codebrick info. CAPSULE Fairly unposeable, but big and impressive, and with a freaky power source. 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: Shadow Crawler Pilot: Devastator (Yellow-Green) Pilot Eye Color: Red Main Mecha Colors: Black and gray, green accents Weapons: Inferno Discs, Phantom Beams, Shadow Cannons (Destroyer disk launcher; laser cannons; missile launcher) Armor: Persitium, 10" thickness (10" tenatium armor) (Additional Features: Stealth coating; prison pod) (Power Source: Magnetized nuclear plasma) Unit Designation: 8104 Unit Type: Ground Nickname: None Code Bio: One of the most insidious robot battle machines ever invented, the Shadow Crawler takes the war between human and machine to a new and sinister low. Mounted atop each Shadow Crawler is a prison pod, normally containing either a captured EXO-FORCE pilot or other human captive. This effectively prevents EXO-FORCE from concentrating all its power against these battle machines, for fear of hurting the human prisoners. Armed with laser cannons, missile launcher and destroyer disk launcher, the Shadow Crawler is also able to operate in full stealth mode and scale any surface. This makes it perfect for ambushing EXO-FORCE teams. Piloted by a Devastator robot. Build Time: About 35 minutes, 10 of that being part-sorting. Dimensions: Pretty big. The minimum "footprint" of this tripod is a triangle about 10" (25cm) long and 8.5" (22cm) wide at the front. The two front legs are each 45 degrees away from straight forward. The height of the vehicle in minimum footprint mode is 7.5" (19cm). If you splay it out as much as possible without the belly dragging, the triangle becomes almost 15" (38cm) long and 12" (30cm) across at the front, with the vehicle rising a mere 5" (12cm), a little less if you let the belly drag. Colors: The armor is black, the structure is black and medium gray. The main highlight color is yellow-green (both clear and opaque), with red eyes and shooty discs that are a red to yellow blend. It uses a yellow-green Toa claw thing for the spider-like chelicarae (the leg/claw things around the actual mandibles) and yellow-green Viking horns for the actual fangs. Stickers: Techno detailing in silver, black and neon yellow-green. The stylized "8104" appears on the head and the right front knee. The rear leg gets no sticker love, so sad. Articulation: Not a lot. Each knee is a Knights Kingdom universal ratchet, but the hips are fixed in place. The side-mounted weapons are on ball joints, and the disc launcher is hinged to elevate. The prison pod swings open on ratchet joints, cracking into two hemispheres. The lack of articulation is the figure's weak point, although I suspect having hip joints might lead to instability. Weapons: Aside from the fangs and chelicarae, there's three main weapons. Behind the driver is one of the disc shooters of the sort found on the Mobile Defense Tank, but with yellow and red blend discs. I dub it the Inferno Launcher. The right "arm" weapon I call the Shadow Cannon, it's simply two railgun barrels with an armor shield. The left "arm" weapon uses clear flight base rods for barrels (the kind used to hold together some of the mini-set podracers, or to hold a figure out as if flying) and is connceted by a flexible pipe to the rear leg. Presumably the pipe connects up through the body to the prison pod. Other Features: There's a spare fang, the pilot can hold it as a dagger. :) The Exo-Code brick is yellow-green, so there's no unified color scheme for the Robot side's Exo-Codes (all three human codebricks are yellow, but the Claw Crusher's is orange). Pilot Figure: I was wrong in the 8101 review, they haven't abandoned the clear body Devastators. Rather, they Claw Crusher gets an opaque one, but the bigger sets get clear bodies again. This Devastator's torso is made of clear yellow-green plastic with silver paint over it. Additionally, there's a skeleton figure for the "prison pod" section. I've been told by one of the Lego writers that this is not necessarily supposed to be a corpse (although they were tempted to put anime hair on it, and I may just raid my spares for hair for it). My guess would be that the pods use people as power sources, and prisoners inside have an X-ray effect going on. Not skeletonized, just zapped. It certainly looks like the prisoner is being used to power the Phantom Beams. Dave Van Domelen, mmmm, tripods. Too bad it's so difficult to find display space for.