Dave's War Planets Rant: 1998 Planets First Assortment Planet Water Planet Reptizar Planet Sand CAPSULES Water: Has some serious drawbacks related to putting the pieces together, and the colors are a bit cheesy, but there's a lot of stuff to do with the parts. Mildly recommended. $9.99 at Kay Bee. Reptizar: Really keen ways of integrating things into the planet, and a good overall appearance. However, the planet itself doesn't do much once you remove the vehicles from it. Recommended. $9.99 at Kay Bee. Sand: Lots of stuff to keep you busy, multiple uses for many pieces, good looks...probably the best War Planet so far. Strongly recommended. $9.99 at Kay Bee. RANTS Whole-Wave Notes: This wave of planets all embody a number of common elements which set them apart from the first six regular-size planets. First, there's more ports for the IDPS (Interlocking Docking Port System) pegs found on the Shadowraiders. Rather than a single port on top, each planet has at least two equatorial ports. Water has three, and Reptizar has a port on top. Sand has only the two ports, but is too busy with other stuff anyway. Additionally, once open, there's ports on other parts of the planets. Figures are now all made from the floppier plastic also seen in the Supermoon figure, and all Heroes (as well as the new Commanders) have holes in the base of their feet so as to stand on pegs found on the surface and on vehicles. Reptizar is just covered in these pegs, while the other two have less. Each planet also now has a number of weapons intended to fit into the IPDS holes, in the same way the Supermoons do. Overall, there seems to be a much more coherent design theory this time around, with emphasis on being able to swap things around, for more interaction between the toys. For instance, you could cover the entire surface of Reptizar with Heroes and Commanders from the other races, or mount the Sand Planet's guns on the central Water tower. PLANET WATER Planet: A dark blue, theoretically translucent but too dark to see any light but the Sun's through. There's one triple-tentacled piece which is supposed to be on the outside when it's all closed up, but it's easier to store things if you put both tri-tentacled pieces on the outside. However, other than the tentacles, there's not much more to do with the planet when it's closed. The tiny doors in it aren't large enough to move pieces through (well, you can shove the rubbery figures in, but can't get them out the same way), and there's only one peg for standing Heroes on (the doors don't open the right way to use as platforms in planet mode). An interesting side note is that you can put one of the tentacle sets into this peg. The coloring job looks kinda cheesy, since there's no highlighting or ink washing done, and the plastic is too dark to see the internal details like you can with Ice. The big problem with the planet, and this comes into play when you try to put everything back together, is that it's all held together with tabs and slots. Everything has to be lined up JUST right, or it won't close. This makes closing it with parts inside a frustrating task. This, however, is somewhat paid for considering what the designers did with all the pieces. There's four major pieces, two of which become vehicles (and will be discussed below) and two of which become emplacements. The left shell half has windows which flip up, making it into a hemispherical bunker for the figures to fire from. The central core becomes a tower, with a door at the bottom, IDPS ports and pegs on the top for guns and Heroes. Unlike many of the planets, which just sort of sit there once opened up, the Water Planet gives pretty good play value in its components. Vehicles: The top cap of the planet joins with one of the tentacle sets to become a giant jellyfish creature, which the Commander rides atop. The tripod of tentacles gives it very good stability, and since the driver sits on a peg, there's no worry about him falling off. The right shell half of the planet has wheels which fold out and a driver's area which opens up (although it'll only carry a Drone, the Heroes and Commander have bases too large to fit in the space). It doesn't roll very well, but it's a nifty idea. Then there's two more dedicated vehicles included with the set. A manta ray with movable wings and tail, which shoots disks, and a sort of winged angler fish with wings that flap when you push a button. Both have pegs for Heroes, but the manta's peg is too close to the firing button, so the Hero has to stand sideways. Just noticed...the jellyfish part (top of the planet) is spongy. Launchers: Only one, the disk-shooter of the Manta. Fires its disk about a foot, there's three disks but nowhere special to store the extras. The other weapons are puny little "seashell guns" that fit into IDPS holes. They look kinda like smaller Ice Fleas until you scrutinize them. Figures: The drones are actually all in different poses, a nice addition to the line (I don't mention this facet above, since the Reptizar drones are both identical). Orange shrimp-men or something, yellow plastic with red-orange paint overlaid. They stand out well against the dark blue of the planet itself. The Heroes...aha! Retract the comment about standing sideways on the manta ship, these guys have waist-joints (since they have a mass of tentacles for legs). The torso/head parts are rigid plastic, with joined soft-plastic arms and the aforementioned tentacle-mass legs. The Heroes each carry a trident, while the Commander has a staff (and a different helmet). The colors are dark blue with green-black accents (think Planet Bone's tentacles for the color). Storage: Everything except the tri-tentacle groups fit inside, but MAN is it a bear getting everything inside and closed. Royal pain, I'm telling you. Single biggest drawback of the toy. It does get easier with practice, and one hint is to start with the tank half, place the manta in it, and then snap the top/tower combo onto it. Load in the other pieces after that, and snap the other shell down on top. Overall: Kinda weak planet mode, and assembly's a bear, but there's a LOT of stuff to do with the bits inside. Much better in the role of playset than most of the 1997 planets. (Pause while Dave struggles to put the planet together and sets it aside.) PLANET REPTIZAR Planet: Weird-lookin' thing. It looks like a large reptile has wrapped itself around a chunk of iron. Or, on closer inspection, like a reptile has been built wrapped around the chunk of iron. The IDPS ports are at the top and in the northern half, not really equatorial, and there's a whopping 10 pegs scattered about the surface (granted, several of these go with the vehicles). Pressing a button causes the tail of the red reptile to lash out, although this only really works when you hold the planet off the table. Friction will stop it dead almost immediately if it's set down on a surface. Once freed, the tail can be posed a bit, it has one joint at the base. Moving a pair of guns on the surface will cause spines to spring out along the crest of the reptile, rather nifty effect. The planet doesn't actually open up. Instead, pieces come away from the surface to form vehicle. About a quarter of the surface, the head of the beast, comes away to reveal the interior, which is textured as a cave. Being mostly hollow makes it possible to store all the stuff inside, which is a good thing, since one of the vehicles is pretty big. There is a seam where two pieces join to form the planet: do not try to take the planet apart along this seam! It's glued. There's room on the interior floor for a few figures, but that's about it. The planet's not much of a playset. Vehicles: When you pull the head of the reptile away from the planet, you're not done yet. Like a nested doll, there's a vehicle inside this piece, and what's left over is also a vehicle. The outer shell is called a Rover Beast, and its bathtub-like interior can hold both of the Drones (which are pretty big). It has some clever molding, and might actually be able to float as a landing craft if you're careful not to overload it. The piece you pull out unfolds into a tank, carrying the nifty extendable spines. Next, detaching from the surface is a roughly diamond-shaped piece which has fold-out wings, fold-up tail and swing-out head, giving a "Dino Glider" which looks kinda like a cross between the Cybertronian and Terran modes of Laserbeak. It drops little push-out bombs. Finally, the only vehicle not formed from part of the planet is the Lizard Crawler, a sort of mutant Triceratops with a peg for a Hero to drive it and an IDPS hole to carry the launcher. Not as nifty as the other vehicles, but not bad either. Weapons: Only one launcher, which fires bizarre-looking barrel-headed missiles. There isn't a firing button, you simply push down on the back end of the missile to get it to fire. The only other weapons are the "glide bombs" which the glider uses. Well, and the cannons on the backs of the Drones. Figures: The drones are practically vehicles, being 2 inch (5cm) long dino beasts with "feet puddles" (weird instructions) for the Heroes and Commander to use in riding them. Not as stable as pegs, and there's no real accomodation made for the tails of the Heroes and Commander. The drones are red with black wash and grey armor, with swivel-mounted guns on their shoulders. The heroes are lizardmen with metallic blue boots and torso armor. The torso/head/tail parts are rigid, the rest floppy. Unfortunately, the fact that the tail is rigid causes some problems. The Heroes each carry a pair of guns, while the Commander has a gun and a sword, plus he has a frill or sail running down his neck and back. Storage: Everything fits easily, since there's not much inside the planet. It's rather neat how most of the vehicles form part of the surface. Overall: Really nifty looks, some cool ideas and it all fits together well. The only real problem is that the bulk of the planet doesn't really DO anything. PLANET SAND Planet: Very nice rosy stone color with blue and gold accents. Good pseudo-Egyptian motif going on. This is a rolling puzzle box...you need to either look at the instructions or spend a fairly long time with the pieces to figure out where everything goes. All the vehicles snap onto or into the planet's surface. Pyramid tank snaps into the bottom and gives the planet wheels, the core ship slips out of the center, the scarab fliers snap onto the sides of the bottom half. All you have to store inside are the guns, missiles and figures. If you push the gem in the mouth of the front-side face, you can open the planet up along a central axis. Giving a slight twist at the top keeps it from sliding back down closed. Once open, I'm reminded of a Cylon Basestar, in that there's weapon posts between the halves and launching pegs for the scarab ships (actually, only one of the hangar hangers works, the other one has a hook in the way). It's like a power core, although there's not much place to put figures inside. Careful of the central shaft, it's a bit greasy. On the top half, the "engine" segments fold down to reveal the interior of the top half, where you store the figures. With everything opened and deployed, it's pretty top-heavy, so you probably want to launch the tank before setting it up this way. There's a limited amount of playset potential here, due to the lack of pegs or access to the interior storage deck. You can sort of stand the drones on the folded-down engine pieces, but they're really unstable there. Vehicles: First and niftiest is the core ship, which occupies the central shaft of the planet. It can fire a missile, carry the scarab ships like a Battletech Jumpship, and has unfolding petals which evoke a sort of Vorlon look (although it'd be better if the petals would lock in the open position, they flop back closed too easily). There's also a peg for a Hero to stand on (only the vehicles have pegs, sadly). Next, the pyramid tank forms the wheels of the planet, fires a missile, and becomes a sort of Sphinx when you attach one of the "Mystic Masks" stored on the planet's upper half and add the Commander's wings as a tail. The scarab ships are solid blue plastic and fit very nicely flush with the lower half of the planet, plus they have IPDS holes so they can either rest on the hanger pegs or carry one of the guns. Finally, the Commander's wings separate to become what the instructions call a "Stealth Ship" (took me a few minutes to realize this is what the instructions meant, I was wondering if I'd lost another piece...so sue me for not reading the instructions carefully). Heroes and the Commander can actually ride this ship like a cosmic boogieboard. Weapons: As mentioned, two of the vehicles can shoot the crescent-blade- tipped missiles, using the same firing mechanism as the Reptizar launcher above. There's also four rubbery peg-guns which I get the impression are supposed to all fit inside the planet when it closes, but I couldn't manage to make them fit. Figures: The drones are great shaggy beasts an inch and a half (3.5cm) tall and about as wide, each in a unique pose and with its own melee weapon. They're made from rubbery plastic, but are husky enough that this doesn't matter. The Heroes and Commander have the same basic body, humanoid with a leonine head in gold, with a gunhand on the right arm and the left hand holding an odd crescent-shaped melee weapon. Unlike the Tek Heroes in the Tek Supermoon, they didn't make these out of the rubbery plastic, which is a good thing considering their thinness. The Commander has the wings/ship which attach to his back with a peg and a full mane. Storage: Nothing large can be stored in the lower half, although I managed to hang one of the Drones on a hangar hook. The rest all fit inside the top half or in their alloted spaces on the surface. I recommend putting the drones in last, since they're devilishly hard to extract from the back of the top deck. Overall: This one is da bomb. Easily the best War Planet yet. Puzzling but not frustrating, a place for everything, multiple uses for many parts. About the only complaint I have is that there isn't much to do with the masks, but that may be rectified with later Sand products, like the Moon. They're definitely learning.