KR Review #30: Combat Deptilion

Time for Combat Deptilion^TM getting his due! This is THE Deptilion variant as far as I’m concerned and I was actually anticipating him a little more than Alatryx this month.

This 23^rd action figure prototype from PoliganToys is not just a repaint of the previous Deptilion. He has plenty of new pieces and when you have him paired on the stands with Combat Masq-Lor, well, he rocks!

Details

Name: Combat Deptilion

Real name: ***SPOILER WARNING (to read, select the following text)*** Ir-Ash

Subtitle: armoured monstrous leader

Classification: uncertain

Sex: male

Home: Tahron

Affiliation: Destructomorph

Rank: chief marshal.

Background

Deptilion's only appearance in his combat reinforced armour takes place in the second KR comic issue Hunt for the energy stone, where he's shown to have survived the collapse of the Quartz Tower. This new armour is created by Demo-Rha using dark magic, in order to help Deptilion protect his highly injured body. The monstrous leader can then use his temporally renewed strength to kidnap Tir-Hing and find the energy stone. A similar form of armour is eventually created by Masq-Lor, in an effort to combat the powerful battle suit worn by his enemy during their fight inside the cave in the Bay of Sortok.

Articulation

Standard.

Description

Head: the face is basically identical to the one included in Deptilion's regular release, characterised by dried-out livid skin (in some spots, especially on the left side of the face, the flesh is worn-out and the whitish skull underneath is visible), empty eye sockets which emit a faint red glow, two whitish tusks that look like a sort of handlebar moustache and several orange teeth which protrude from the diabolical mouth. Compared to the previous version, the most obvious difference is the absence of the helmet, which reveals, besides the two whitish horns, a multitude of dark-green living snakes in place of hair; these snakes are fictionally the same that come out from Deptilion's eyes, mouth and neck in the regular release, and now make their way through his cranium

Body: the left arm and the right leg are exposed and show the livid skin with bony deteriorated, half-rotten appearance (in some spots the flesh is worn-out and the whitish skeleton underneath is visible, especially on the arm); also, the two dark-green snakes seen in the regular release are still coiled around these limbs, but this time they are fully removable and not partially glued, allowing for many more display options. The right arm and the left leg are protected by a shoulder/biceps armour and a thigh/knee armour respectively, both red with dark-blue details. He still has claw hands and feet, but with few differences: the hand nails are painted in black and the feet are painted in red (suggesting that he's actually wearing boots rather than just calf protectors)

Wearables: a red armour with dark-blue details, two red bracelets, two red boots, a red belt and a dark-blue scaly loincloth. The blue components of the armour have a nice metallic shine, while each boot bears a Destructomorph symbol on the shin guard.

Combat Deptilion's stylised armour; the oval at the centre of the breastplate represents the Destructomorph symbol.

Action feature

Like with Combat Masq-Lor, the front armour acts as a shell that can accommodate two interchangeable breastplates, one undamaged with the Destructomorph symbol (i.e., a square-shaped blueish spider, whose back slightly resembles a demoniac face) at its centre and one with a significant battle damage, like a big scratch. The plates snap in tightly from the inside of the armour, which must be removed in order to change them. In a similar way, the undamaged shoulder and thigh pads can be removed and replaced with their respective damaged counterparts.

Weapons and accessories

Apart from the already mentioned snakes and interchangeable armour pieces, CD comes with a few cool accessories. The first accessory is his inward-curved-bladed halberd, which is identical to the original one, except from being painted with some subtle blue shades here and there rather than plain silver.

Then we've got two pairs of additional snakes, which plug into two sockets on the back armour and project over the shoulders towards the front; the impression is that these four snakes emerge from Deptilion's armour, to attack an opponent. The cool thing is that these snakes are a bit different from the ones on his head and limbs - they are painted in a more reddish hue and look like cobras, whose neck extensions resemble silver blades. They even have a swivel joint near their necks, amazing indeed!

Additionally, the figure includes a stand, which is similar, but not identical, to the one packaged with Combat Masq-Lor. It is as fully sculpted and painted in beautiful detail as the other one; the stone and seaweed look perfectly matches the design of the labyrinth-cave seen in the comics. It also includes a small removable wall of stones that easily attaches anywhere on the base and allows us to build our display in countless ways.

Overall, I really couldn’t be more pleased with Combat Deptilion. I’ve been waiting for him since I first saw Combat Masq-Lor a couple of weeks ago. The armour, the helmet-less head and all the accessories look great, though I might have liked him to keep his Roman-style loincloth. However, the figure is a bit overshadowed by his Theriom peer, simply because the pack misses something for Combat Deptilion to ride… if only Dinophys had been packaged together, instead of being released by itself!