When it was announced that the New Jersey Collectors Con would be billed as a “Boss Fight Launch Party” I pretty much knew I had to be there. Seven hours of driving, through some of the nastiest traffic on the Eastern seaboard on Friday… and it didn’t let me down. Not a single bit. The entire weekend was everything it was billed as and more with fantastic toys, excellent friends, and two action-packed days of action figure overload. Who could ask for more?
Boss Fight Studio was in attendance and brought a bunch of cool surprises, and many of the items shown are up for pre-order on BossFightShop.com!
First and foremost, they debuted some new figures:
Series 02 – Wave 3
Lord Vehemous (Dark Mage)
Aspen (Spring Elf)
Blasted Land Female Orc
Lance Steelblade (King and commander of the Knights of Accord)
These four figures will be a part of the third wave of Series 02 figures from the fantasy line, using a mixture of existing and new tooling and all of them come with secondary head sculpts!
Bucky O’Hare Wave 2
Stealth Bucky
Astral Projection Jenny
Deadeye Duck
Along with the three figures slated for Wave 2, we got a shadowed peek at a potential release of the Storm Toad Trooper, currently penciled in for Spring, 2018! Larry Hama will also be writing brand new bio cards for these figures, the first time Bucky fiction will be developed and written in many, many years.
Vitruvian HACKS Upcoming Release (specific assortment not revealed)
Cerisier
Horse
Cerisier was also called the “Cherry Blossom Elf” and “Sakura Branch Elf” and is slated for an upcoming release, though the means and the method for that release were not made immediately clear. A female Gargoyle figure was also shown during the Boss Fight presentation, though her specific assortment was not shared either. At this point, the Horse pictured with the deluxe accessory kits is a proof of concept, but they’re not sure exactly how that particular item will make it to collectors’ hands.
Series 02 Wave 04 (Concept Art Only)
Gargoyle
Twylla (Faerie)
Naga
Barbarian
During their presentation on upcoming product, Boss Fight revealed their line up for the fourth wave of Series 02 figures, including those four figures above. I apologize about the quality of the image above, we are working to get access to something with a bit better quality.
Series 03 Space Figures (Concept Art Only)
Stonefist
Kinsey London
Empress Medusa
Cyber Medic
Sniper Droid
Will McCloud
Antrox Trooper
A’Vast Ye
Cyber Police
Slated for release after the Series 02 fantasy figures, the third series of Vitruvian HACKS will feature space themed figures and those figures look great! Stonefist will make an appearance in the third series as well as Medusa (well her head anyway) and a wealth of other cool looking robots and pulpy space troopers. Good stuff.
Deluxe Accessory Kits
Gladiator Male
Gladiator Female
These two accessory kits include fully painted and decoed accessories as well as a full arm that can be swapped out to give a great armored look. There are more of these deluxe accessory kits in the planning stages, so more to come here!
Boss Fight also had physical samples of Series 02 Wave 2 and their upcoming Mini-Kits, both of which continue to look absolutely incredible!
But that wasn’t all…
Diorama
And of course the immeasurable Dave Proctor built a full blown castle diorama for display and this thing was a.m.a.z.i.n.g. It had to truly be seen to be believed, a mammoth building with awesome figures, both straight releases and customs really showing the immense versatility of the line.
It was such an amazing weekend with visual overload and so much great stuff to see. If you love what you see as much as I did, make sure you are showing that love over at BossFightShop.com by pre-ordering their product!
Run, don’t walk to Kickstarter to throw some support at the awesome guys from Dream Concept Studio who were there in person at NJCC to talk all about their fantastic Zombie Lab project!
They brought the whole diorama and a bunch of figure samples with them to show off to all the crazed fans at NJCC and seeing them in person was IN SANE.
Check out the images below, then sprint to Kickstarter.com to support the project! There are only FOUR SHORT DAYS left to support it. Don’t miss out.
This weekend in Cherry Hill, New Jersey is the New Jersey Collectors Convention featuring a full weekend of Boss Fight Studios goodness!
Featuring the creators of Vitruvian HACKS, the guys behind the thrilling Zombie Lab Kickstarter, MJ from Marauder “Gun Runners”, the guys from NECA, and a wealth of awesome vendors, NJCC will be the place to be this weekend.
There is ONLY ONE TICKET available for what’s sure to be a great custom class on Saturday at 11:00am and there should be some great reveals going on all weekend.
This is going to be a fantastic weekend and I’ll be down there the whole time, so I hope to see you all in Cherry Hill! Check NewJerseyCollectorsCon.com or their Facebook page for the latest info.
A great late summer present as Boss Fight Studio launches their second series of Vitruvian HACKS introducing us to their world of Fantasy!
Check out my Vitruvian HACKS Review Page or just link to the reviews directly below. Believe me, these figures are just as amazing as you expected them to be.
This is one bad ass looking fairy. Though it looks like the proper terminology here is faerie. I’m not sure of the difference from my perspective (to be honest, when I started GeneralsJoes.com I don’t think I ever envisioned myself reviewing an action figure of a fairy or faerie or anything in between) but I know a great action figure when I see it.
As a Cavern Faerie, Lacuna’s obvious trademark are her wings, looking much more bat-like than the insect wings what I’m familiar with when it comes to faeries, but honestly, that’s totally cool with me. It makes perfect sense as well, with Lacuna being a “cavern” faerie that her wings should be more adaptable to creatures who live in caves.
Lacuna is the first figure to feature this new rear torso piece for the HACKS line which has twin ports for her wings (and additional arms!). That’s right, the plugs for the wings are the same as the plugs for the female arms, so not only can you tweak Lacuna to have four arms, but you can also make her more like a “harpy” by giving her wings instead of arms. As one would expect with the HACKS line, they are always pushing their limits.
The majority of the figure uses the familiar female blank template (except for the back of to the torso) and that suits me just fine. In all of our experience with female figures throughout Series 1, it’s certainly clear that the base figure there is pretty great and can be used for countless different figures, apparently even including cavern faeries.
Lacuna’s head sculpt is pretty fascinating, with a huge, meandering hair style and a pair of goggles (apparently developed by dwarves to help filter her vision in sunlight). Apparently driven from her caves by a mysterious skeleton attack, Lacuna now finds herself up among the other denizens of this fantasy world, and she doesn’t seem especially pleased about that fact.
As I mentioned, she has ports in her back for wings, and she comes with two different sets of wings, one closed and one open, which is a nice touch. Each wing has a nice multi-joint peg as well, so they can be posed in either formation, making for a wealth of opportunities for cool displays. Lacuna’s skin color is a nice gray/blue which seems to fit with her cavern lifestyle in great ways. She is an intriguing looking figure and even as a faerie doesn’t follow many of the traditional call outs, definitely going her own way as so many Boss Fight designs tend to do.
Accessories
The first thing you’ll notice about both Lacuna and Aiyana is that neither of them come with as many accessories as the Knight or Orc, but honestly, I don’t feel like they have to. Lacuna’s wings are large enough to make up for it, and as a faerie she travels pretty light anyway. Along with the wings, she comes with a fantastic looking scythe made from what looks like a tree branch and some kind of cave grown crystals that are cast in translucent colors that look spectacular. Her other weapon is a scepter, a magic device that enables her to be a “lightcaster” which is a really awesome story element added to the character. She can hold the weapons very well and their designs are exceptional.
Lacuna is a great figure built around an increasingly interesting character. I don’t know a whole lot about the whole faerie race from fantasy stories, but Lacuna seems like an interesting evolution to the typical narrative and fits the concept perfectly.
Lacuna
Character
Sculpt
Articulation
Paint Deco
Accessories
4.7
Summary
Gray skinned and bat winged, Lacuna immediately brings up some awesome imagery and story ideas for the fantasy series, taking the concept of faeries and adding some really awesome twists to it. Boss Fight continues to do a great job taking existing tooling and evolving it with torso pieces supporting wings, and many other great additions to their already excellent core concept.
So I did it again. Back when Vitruvian HACKS Series 1 was first in its Kickstarter phases, I looked at the offerings and while I fell in love with many of them, there were a few that didn’t especially tickle my fancy, most notably Eurayle. I mean, she seemed neat, but was basically a female blank with some accessories and not much more.
Then I got her in hand and was promptly blown away.
History has repeated itself. While I love the idea of elves, and they’re one of the few fantasy concepts that I feel like I have some exposure to, Aiyana wasn’t knocking my socks off. She didn’t have as much gear as the knight or the orc and she didn’t have the awesome wings of Lacuna. I mean, she looked great, as all of the HACKS figures do, but I wasn’t enthralled.
I am now.
Like Eurayle, the simplicity of Aiyana is one of her strengths. With a simple grass top and grass skirt (plus the gauntlets and leg coverings) you can truly appreciate the impressive sculpting and articulation of the base figure, which is the same as the female base figure we’ve gotten countless times before, but that doesn’t detract from the amazing articulation, balance and poseability that exists within it. Aiyana’s joints are smooth and pose well, and I really love the way her rocker ankles work. I keep hoping that perhaps somewhere along the way, the male figures will get the same treatment.
The sculpting and material of the secondaries for Aiyana help sell the figure as well. They are soft and malleable, easily moving with the limbs and maintaining an awesome look. They fit snugly, yet are easily removable, the perfect combination of aesthetics and function.
Aiyana’s head sculpt is great as well. Her understated pointed ears are complimented by the nicely sculpted and decoed hair, which gives her a ton of character.
But at the end of the day, as usual with these simpler figures, it’s the accessories that really take the figures to the next level.
If I have any complaint with this figure or with Lacuna it’s that the female feet still have a real issue fitting on the Boss Fight display stands. It’s an issue that Boss Fight is aware of, I know, but it would be nice to have that little issue resolved. It’s tough to do with how small the feet are, though, I’m sure, and in the meantime, the rubber clamps that come with the dozens of skeletons you bought can work just fine.
Accessories
Aiyana comes with a nicely sculpted bow and set of six arrows, which gives you just enough arrows to fit in the quiver with one extra to be fired by the bow itself. Speaking of the quiver, it’s a great look, definitely capturing that wilderness feel, but with some impressive functionality. Along with a chamber to hold five arrows, there are also twin sheaths that hold both of Aiyana’s knives.
And her knives are awesome. The deco and rigid nature of the material makes them look and feel as if they’re sculpted stone. She can hold both knives very well and they fit perfectly into the quiver as well. The design of all of these accessories makes them look as if they were crafted by nature, which suits the story of the elves to perfection, yet the gear is all functional and looks great as well. Aiyana can hold the arrow perfectly between her fingers and can be posed firing the bow better than any 1:18 figure I’ve ever seen.
Yes, Aiyana is a great figure that I didn’t give enough credit to when they were all first revealed. As an Autumn Archer, I’m looking forward to seeing what else evolves from the elf story, especially the Withered Branch and the potential for spring elves down the line.
Aiyana
Character
Sculpt
Articulation
Paint Deco
Accessories
4.6
Summary
With her woven grass outfit, her naturally sculpted quiver and what look to be wooden bow and arrows, Aiyana is truly a creature of the forest. A great head sculpt underscores a fantastic figure with an assortment of great accessories. She is the perfect introduction to the HACKS version of the elf and makes for a really fun figure even if she doesn’t quite have all the bells and whistles of some of the others in this assortment.
