KR Review #29: Alatryx

I'm ecstatic! Alatryx^TM is finally here! She’s the winged amazon of the Rexodon faction, ready to expand the reptilian army. You might wonder why a bird-woman should be fighting alongside reptiles... well, hasn't science taught us that birds are the closest living relatives to dinosaurs?

This action figure prototype (the 22^nd I have received from PoliganToys) is probably one of the most prominent ones we’ll be getting this year. And she's bowling me over.

Details

Name: Alatryx

Subtitle: winged amazon

Classification: archosauromorph reptile with bird-like traits

Sex: female

Home: Tahron

Affiliation: Rexodon

Rank: observer captain.

Background

Alatryx's only appearance is in the fourth KR comic issue A fateful secret, where she is presented as a wicked warrior fighting on the Rexodon's side. She used to be a member of a civilisation of winged reptiles, who lived high on the peaks of southern Tahron acting as destructive scavengers, until the war between the mammalian and reptilian forces started. She eventually saw in the Rexodons an opportunity for her people to recover and expand their power, and offered her service as an air soldier to Bi-Harr. Despite her ability to fly like an angel, she has proven a merciless monster when engaged into battle.

Articulation

Standard, excluding hinged abdomen. The figure also has a hinged lower jaw and a pair of wings, each with two articulation points.

Description

Head: similar to a bird of prey, characterised by large black eyes, which are surrounded by grey feathers, a relatively long grey-feathered neck and highly elaborate, elongated, colourful (light-blue, purple and orange) feathers extending towards the back similarly to hair. She has a fairly large hooked, serrated yellowish articulated beak with cracked details, nares and, due to a backward-curved bony spike projecting from the extremity of each mandible, a hammer-like shape. There is no question that the beak gives the figure an imposing weight. And I love how wide it opens!

Body: arms covered with colourful feathers, legs covered with grey feathers, scaly yellowish hands and feet with large black talons (three of which point forward and one goes backward in each foot), long tail rimmed by colourful feathers similar to the "hair"

Wearables: a brown armour with dark-blue details, two brown bracelets, two knee-high brown leathery calf protectors, a brown belt and a dark-blue feathery loincloth.

Alatryx's stylised armour.

Action feature

In the comics Alatryx is able, thanks to her wings, to perform extraordinary flying acrobatics and create winds that eventually form thick storm clouds. So, the figure features a great pair of large angel-like wings, which present an excellent paintwork, with sharp lines and vibrant colours that match the hairpiece, the arms and the tail. These wings are articulated via two pegs at half of their length, so that they can expand and fold; when they are fully spread, you can get an idea for how big they are compared to the figure. An alternating hinge attached to Alatryx's back (and normally concealed by the long hair) allows the wings to flap; this joint is moulded to match the feathers colour, thus clarifying that the wings fictionally belong to her body and emerge through an opening in the armour. The articulation itself allows for a lot of good movement and posing options, but... I'll come back to this point later.

Weapons and accessories

Alatryx includes three accessories, a spear, an alternative headdress and a flight stand. The dark-blue spear, with its pointed tip resembling a feather, looks rather offensive with the figure.

I believe the headdress is a new piece, since it never appears in the comics, but it's a great addition and it actually has a reason to exist. The regular hairpiece, although beautifully sculpted and painted, hampers both the head movement and the wings flapping significantly; as a consequence, good poses are extremely limited. One solution is to disconnect the whole wing system, allowing for full head mobility; even though the long hair covers the ugly socket on Alatryx's back, with this expedient she loses her main feature. So, the other solution for having both head and wings mobility is to remove the hairpiece and replace it with the alternative headdress; this is a dark-blue helmet with brown details, topped with two elaborate semicircular decorative elements, which are set perpendicularly to each other. In this way, when looking at the front-facing figure, the helmet gives the impression of being endowed with a sort of halo, while from the side it appears to have a crest of feathers. The front part of the helmet bears a couple of subtle bird-related sculpted details, such as a pair of eyes and a small beak. The cheek protectors extend downward forming two feathery ornaments that reach the shoulders on the front; these elements are actually pliable and don't limit the head movement at all. Personally I don't even mind to display Alatryx with neither hairpiece nor helmet - this bald look gives her a kind of vulture nature that matches the wickedness of the character.

The last accessory, the flight stand, is a major add-on extra for the figure. It has a cool storm-cloud appearance and snaps onto the bottom of the wing assembly (a little plug was created specifically for it), allowing for various flight poses. Alatryx, without her hairpiece, has enough great articulation to make good use of it.

Overall, I like Alatryx. The wings are fantastic and so much of the figure is solid. Sure, I’m not happy about the “hampering hairpiece”, but the guys at PoliganToys can do awesome accessories, so the figure looks great even if it needs a little adjusting to be good. She stands out enough to get a front spot on my shelf and the flight stand puts her above some of the other figures.