NECA sent us the new army builder pack with a Triceraton Infantryman and Roadkill Rodney that’s due to hit stores very soon. I love me some army builder figures, so let’s take a look!
The box is a pretty hefty chunk of cardboard with a nice, big window and super cool character illustrations on the front.
The set comes with one Triceraton Infantryman, two Roadkill Rodneys and a bunch of accessories. The accessories include:
- Three Blasters
- Two sets of hands (open and grip) and one trigger hand for the Triceraton
- 2 Alternate drill and battle-damaged heads for Roadkill Rodney (one for each)
- Two longer robot tentacles and 4 shorter robot tentacles
- Two action stands and two dirt stands for Roadkill Rodney
The guns are beautiful. There is a really large one that matches the Triceraton weapons from their episode and two smaller ones that actually match Bebop and Rocksteady’s weapons from “Enter the Shredder”, but all three work well with the Triceraton. He can hold the guns in his grip hands as well as the trigger hand, though on my figure he holds the smaller guns a little less tightly with the trigger finger.
The hands swap easily and stay on securely and I think the grip hands are sculpted such that they double nicely for fists. I’m personally a fan of getting open hands on figures because it feels a lot more natural with a variety of poses.
The Roadkill Rodney comes with some very cool episode specific stuff, my favorite is probably the battle damaged head domes that you can swap on so that Raph can stab their heads. You basically pop the top dome off and you swap it with the undamaged piece. In this way you can also make their drill heads.
Once you’ve put the drill head piece on there, you can pop it off at the neck and place it on the rocky stand to get the effect like these guys are drilling up from underground.
The Rodney unicycle design would make it nearly impossible to stand on it’s own and I love NECA’s solution to this potential problem in a little translucent stand that plugs into a hole in the wheel. They give a nice sense of movement in profile, but I find them unobtrusive enough when facing front. I also was able to stand these guys on some blu-tak, so that’s a possibility if you don’t like these clever little stands.
Each Rodney comes with two smaller arms that swivel and can be removed. There is a bit of bendy wire in there so they are somewhat poseable, though I have to say I really like the sort of wavy wobble they come with.
You can swap out the arms for longer coil arms, but there are two total, so your Rodneys have to share these. They look a little odd on their own, but work very nicely to wrap up opponents’ limbs in a fight scene.
The sculpting on these two is fantastic. I’m pretty sure there is a little Bebop and Rocksteady parts re-use in the Triceraton, but it is very effective. He’s also just MASSIVE, as he should be. I tend to think of the Mirage version or the old Palladium TMNT role playing game when I think about Triceraton, but this beast really works for me on a cool figure level.
I love the relative scale with the existing figures.
I love the robot designs from the ’87 cartoon, and this unicycle-tentacle ‘bot is a super charming design that they capture perfectly here with sharp edges and well-defined panel lines. There is something about the sharp details on this figure that makes the toy seem cooler than it looked on the show to me. Both Rodneys also have a retractable laser cannon hidden in their bodies.
The engineering on this little laser is just so good, the flap opens and the gun folds out, just like it does on the show. There’s a lot of features packed into these little ‘bots. And they are little! Not mouser sized, but shorter than the Turtles as they should be, which again adds some nice scale variety.
The articulation for Roadkill Rodney is pretty good considering the design. The wheels turn, but it’s a tight turn so they will pose better, and they swivel where the wheel attaches to the body and at the two arms.
The Triceraton has the usual TMNT articulation set-up with:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, wrists, hips, and ankles
- Double hinged knees and elbows
- Ball and socket mid-torso, tail, and head
- Bicep and thigh swivels
The head has an excellent range of motion on the barbell ball joints and the swivel in the ankles is very helpful with balance.
Paint is super crisp on these figures and I feel like the inked line look improves with each figure they release. The Triceraton in particular has a lot of inked lines that are sculpted into his face to great effect. I also like the way they did the markings on the body with paint, but at a distance it feels almost 3D.
Overall this is great set and I appreciate how much thought and care was put into developing these lesser-known, but cool secondary characters into excellent toys. There’s a vibrancy to the paint and design that you don’t see in a lot of adult collector figures, a joyfulness that’s kind of contagious. The only issue I have is that I’m going to need to track down at least one more set!
