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Wednesday 16 December 2015

KR Review #21: Wheel-Wolf

After three months, the KR line finally gets its very first transport - the Wheel-WolfTM!

This vehicle is a great prototype and looks fantastic surrounded by the figures. The only downside? It might be the line’s sole vehicle for a looooooooong time.

Details
Name: Wheel-Wolf
Subtitle: all-terrain armoured vehicle
Classification: land vehicle
Home: Tahron
Affiliation: Theriom
Rank: transport.

Description
The Wheel-Wolf is a six-wheeled armoured fighting vehicle with the heaviest armour on the hull front, which subtly resembles a wolf head. The wheels sport large off-the-road flotation tires, the hull is painted in a camouflage pattern of beige and brown and the large wolf-head is in a silver colour.
The right half of the bodywork, excluding the front part, is hinged at the side of the floor board, specifically at the gap between the front wheel and the two rear wheels. In this way it can open by folding down, in order to reveal the cockpit/cabin. I'm not sure whether I like this solution, since in the comics the Wheel-Wolf has two side gull-wing doors and one large rear door, which make it much more realistic. On the other hand, I understand that in the proposed way it's easier to place the action figures inside. Oh... have I mentioned that this baby is big?! Yeah, it fits two figures comfortably (one on the front and one on the back), even if in the comics it is proportionally much bigger and can carry something like eight or ten people.
The large two-piece windscreen in the front and the two small windows on the sides are the only transparent features of the vehicle. Several parts, both outside and inside, including a high-tech dashboard/handlebar, have a lot of sculpted technical details, such as weapons, tools and electronic devices.

Action feature
The wolf-head armour is designed for breakthrough operations and can slide forward. Also, the wolf's jaws are articulated and can open to reveal a large black cannon.
Additionally, two silver side missile launchers can swing down and spread out; each launcher fires one missile thanks to a spring-loaded mechanism.
The hull opening feature allows the Wheel-Wolf to transform into a kind of attack-station. With the open vehicle in a vertical position, the windscreen can fold open and the wolf-head (together with the dashboard) can swing around into an horizontal position. In this way a figure can stand upright by stepping on the backrest (transformed into an elevated floor) and can control the jaw-cannon via the handlebar. This is also a totally new feature, never seen in the comics, but I actually enjoy it and it makes me like the half-opening oddity better.

Weapons and accessories
The Wheel-Wolf comes with a small set of accessories. First, each wheel can be equipped with a snap-on silver spike, which makes the whole thing really look badass. Furthermore, the roof can be topped with two clip-on guns, one black on the front and one silver (combined with a radar dish into a sort of small turret) on the rear side (or the other way around), both of which can rotate left and right. Either gun can also be attached on the top of the framework in the attack-station configuration. We also get two nicely sculpted plug-in blasting effects, a bigger one for the jaw-cannon and a smaller one for either gun, and a ladder to climb up to the elevated floor of the attack-station.

Overall, the first KR vehicle is a slick piece, at least from a design point of view. The sad thing is that the future of vehicles in this line is quite in doubt, it depends on how the sales will go if and when the toys get to the market. All I know is that I'd definitely like to see more vehicles from PoliganToys!

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