Got Elric, Brynyar, and Naraka from BBTS yesterday.
At the risk of pissing off the entire toy collecting community... I think Elric is INSANELY overhyped. He's a good figure. Nice head sculpt, armor looks good. The ruby ring on his left hand? Fuckin' beautiful bit of detail there.
But his arm articulation is ROUGH. My right arm also came out of the socket while just trying to get him warmed up into basic poses and while I popped it back in, it does not feel like it wants to stay there, and my biggest requirement for an action figure in any line is just... to stay together when posing him. The worst thing a figure can do is fall apart through basic use. (Okay, not moving at all is probably even worse, and Elric was TOUGH but a quick hot water bath fixed his frozen knees, ankles, elbows, and wrists). between the armor and the hair, his unmasked head has kinda limited ROM (neck ROM I'd say is usually one of the great strengths of Savage Crucible, too).
The butterfly shoulder joint has nice range and is very well hidden, but I lose a lot of the joy of that because the rest of his arm doesn't really want to do much. I can't get either lower part of the elbow to bend, so he's basically got 45 degrees on either arm. (I want to give him another hot water bath but again, don't want to fuck up the shoulders any more than they are.) The shoulder pauldrons are rubbery and awkward, but unlike some of the other figures in this line where I thought you could, in a bit of brilliant design, remove just a single piece of shoulder armor and really improve their ROM, he's only got bare shoulders under there. (I've pulled the top layer of armor off Jaeger, Who-Man, and Kreiger and REALLY liked a slightly less busy look for them.)
I mean honestly, he's fine - I think it's been the insane hype (and my own attachment to the character) that makes him a letdown. If I just bought him from a third-party seller with no hype he'd meet expectations.
Brynyar is exactly what you'd expect if you have Jaeger. The lynx head is great, love the hinged jaw, the ponytail is a very funny and very cool touch. I like his low-key swords. Mine does have a knee that's SUPER loose (the opposite of the strong ratchets on every other SC figure I have), but it's not bad enough it makes him hard to pose, so no complaints as long as it doesn't mean there's some structural problems inside that'll come up later.
Naraka was a pure impulse buy, shouldn't have done it, but of the three he's the strongest one. The half-mask/exposed skull look is INSPIRED. Nothing fancy about his buck or articulation but everything works really well, and I like the fire and ice elemental sword thing he's got going on. It's funny that of the three I got, the one I wanted the most let me down a bit but the one I kinda regretted buying is tough to stop posing.
And despite not being blown away, I went back and was thinking about picking up Veteris Rapax while he's in stock but went to bed before checking out and woke up to this email from Harvinger. I can't tell if it's funny or if it feels like a Linked In post.
You didn’t miss it.
You paused.
Your Savage Crucible items are still in your cart - waiting for a decision.
No reminders after this.
Collect and Conquer.
I'll post back later once I open him. Sadly the follow up order I dod hasn't even confirmed yet.
this is my biggest complaint with 4HM products. It tanks the fun factor when the figure constantly falls apart during basic posing.
