KR|Enmity Review #6: Modi-Rha

Toy prototype details

Name: Modi-Rha^TM

Subtitle: athletic mistress

Line: KR|Enmity

Item type: action figure - Nº 5 in the line.

Character details

Name: Modi-Rha

Married name: Cleorsu^TM

Classification: human

Sex: female

Relationships: wife of Wordron, mother of Barkos^TM

Home: Tahron

Era: 20 years before Foundation

Affiliation: Dark Legion

Rank: duchess and, temporarily, deputy ruler of the small Kingdom of O-Kin.

Background

First appearance: KR|Enmity #1 - Flares of enmity

Brief bio: the orphan of Nemhisto^TM and estranged sister of Demo-Rha^TM, after her father's murder Modi-Rha aimed at taking combat duty, aspiring to become an accomplished warrior and seek revenge. Wishing to offer her formidable athletic skills to any army willing to pay for her sustenance, she joined O-Kin's Golden Eagle armed force and quickly rose in the ranks as a top of her class. Hearing of her superior fighting skills and knowing her desire for vengeance for her father's death, Duke Wordron tricked Modi-Rha into believing that Lord Tafmohr^TM, O-Kin's ruler, was responsible for executing Nemhisto and persuaded her to assist him in his plan to overthrow the monarch. Meanwhile, the young servicewoman became Wordron's wife and turned into a frightful slaughterer who eventually helped the evil duke challenge King Li-Khon^TM for the throne of Tahron.

Articulation

Standard, excluding hinged abdomen.

Description

Head: half-Asian features, her skin, hair and eyes have an albino character, but their colour, instead of being completely white, tends to a very light-toned violet. Her haircut is an asymmetrical shave on one side of the head that leaves the rest of the hair long (however, the side is not completely shaved, but buzzed very short with a tribal design)

Body: apart from her neck, stomach and hands (which show a very pale, light-toned violet skin), her body is covered down to the toes with a tight purple uniform

Wearables: a gold armour with purple details, a gold choker, two gold armbands, two gold bracelets, two gold shin guards, a gold belt (with a square blue buckle) and a short purple leather tasset skirt. Her armour is equipped with two loops for storing her daggers and ornamented with the Dark Legion symbol, i.e., a diamond-shaped black gemstone, which, when looking deeply into it, shows a subtle discolouration resembling a demonic face.

Modi-Rha's stylised armour; the circle at the centre of the chest piece represents the Dark Legion symbol.

Action feature

In the comics, Modi-Rha is sometimes shown to possess the paranormal ability to move at superhuman speeds. To emulate the motion blur she gives off while in rapid movement, the figure comes with four translucent purple speed effects that can be attached to her forearms and her lower legs. The add-ons work very well, giving her a nice momentum effect while she's standing still.

Weapons and accessories

Aside from the four speed effects, Modi-Rha comes with a variety of accessories. A number of these accessories, her requisite twin rapiers and triple daggers, are related to her swordsmanship and knife throwing skills. The two swords have purple protective hilts (each constructed to provide protection for the hand wielding the sword) and long slender, sharply pointed golden blades, and can clip onto the back of Modi-Rha's armour in a criss-cross pattern.

The pair of trident daggers comes in two forms: closed and open. Each knife has a purple hilt, as well as a golden blade divided lengthwise into three parts, which fictionally fold together to resemble a conventional blade when sheathed in the loop on the front of the armour. When Modi-Rha unsheathes these weapons, the two side blades of each dagger open to form a trident, flying apart until they are stopped by the ends of the curved crossguard.

Additionally, the figure includes an alternative head, a chalk bag, Lord Tafmohr’s sceptre and... a kid! The alternate geared up head wears an eagle-themed purple helmet with a half mask and gold details. The best way to describe this headgear is saying that it resembles Wolverine's mask quite closely, with the nasal shaped like a beak and the two large gold headpieces shaped like wings rather than fins. Her bright eyes are visible through the eye-holes, while her mouth suggests a fierce expression.

Being an expert boulderer, Modi-Rha uses chalk on her hands to absorb sweat, which is stored in a black leather bag that can be tied around her waist.

The sceptre, which was stolen from O-Kin's legitimate ruler, is gorgeous. It's basically an amethyst geode (which, in my opinion, slightly recalls the shape of a skull) on a translucent, glassy stick; the material of the stick is rendered in a clear, milky-white plastic, while the crystals inside the geode are purple. The staff's elaborate eagle-themed end, handle and top, sculpted like a foot, a pair of wings and a head respectively, are painted with a gold finish. The bird head-shaped piece is topped with a gold hoop that, similarly to a bubble wand, holds the geode in place. There's also an orange blast effect that can be slotted into a hole inside the geode, mimicking Modi-Rha's magic ability to use the sceptre for generating and shooting small plasma orbs. The glassy stick could use a little more colour or a reddish effect to simulate the powering up phase before the shooting, but this sceptre is a great accessory as is.

Finally, Barkos, Modi-Rha's and (allegedly) Wordron's son, comes in the form of a 12 cm (almost 5") tall, fully articulated figure. He reminds me of a teenage version of Loki, characterised by a pale white skin, longish black hair and blue eyes. He also has pointy ears, while his eyebrows seem to be missing. He wears a very simple outfit, consisting of a fairly long sleeveless dark-green vest with silver collar, armholes and hem, plus dark-green trousers, as well as silver bracelets, boots and belt.

Final thoughts
Character value: ♦♦♦♦ Modi-Rha is a solid addition to the Dark Legion lineup

Articulation: ♥♥♥♥ Perfect for such an action-oriented fighter/athlete character

Sculpt and paint: ♣♣♣♣ I can’t fault the sculpt at all, she's beautiful! And the paint is very clean. Her design really fits in well with the military-fantasy style of this series

Accessories: ♠♠♠♠♠ The love and care taken with all the added accessories went well beyond my expectations

Playability: ♪♪♪♪ She's a kickass character and her figure reflects that well enough to keep me happy

Overall: ☺☺☺☺ Modi-Rha is absolutely another really well designed, well articulated, and sharp looking KR figure.

KR|Enmity Review #5: Ir-Ash

Toy prototype details

Name: Ir-Ash^TM

Subtitle: sharp-tempered captain

Line: KR|Enmity

Item type: action figure - Nº 4 in the line.

Character details

Name: Ir-Ash

Family name: Amhalgaard^TM

Classification: primivod mammal

Sex: male

Relationships: Tir-Hing's older brother

Home: Tahron

Era: 20 years before Foundation

Affiliation: Theriom

Rank: captain; Prince Royal; occasional engineer.

Background

First appearance: KR|Enmity #1 - Flares of enmity

Brief bio: King Li-Khon^TM's firstborn son and heir to the throne of Tahron, Ir-Ash undertook an unremarkable military career and became enraged by his father's decision to transform the kingdom into a democratic republic. Inflamed with hatred against his brother Tir-Hing, who had first proposed to allow the people of Tahron to choose their ruler, he was subsequently banished from the family. Possessed by a choleric and vengeful nature, Ir-Ash became an outcast and revenged his debarment by kidnapping his brother's children. Many years later, after returning in a monstrous form with an army of fellow pariahs, he swore to establish his rule and endeavoured to dominate Tahron.

Articulation

Standard.

Description

Head: predominantly ursine (even if he's a primivod, a fictional anthropomorphic marsupial), characterised by a long, thick middle brown "real" fur that surrounds a pale brown-skinned face. The bare (apart from a sculpted beard) face includes a pair of subtly pointy ears, glaring blue eyes with reddish pupils and a large dark nose. Displaying his brow furrowed and his mouth closed in a downward curving shape (with the left corner of the lower lip slightly jutted forward, exposing a sharp yellowish upper fang) gives his face an overall bad-tempered expression. Three yellowish bony sagittal crests faintly protrude from the long synthetic hairs of his mane, which is fixed to the head piece underneath the attached face (the latter works as a sort of detachable mask)

Body: his limbs are covered with a middle brown "real" fur (which is slightly shorter than the one on the head), while the fur on the torso is sculpted to accommodate for the armour. His hands wear a pair of black leather fingerless (except for the thumbs) gloves, which expose his four pairs of pale brown-skinned fingers with long dark-grey claws

Wearables: a golden-yellow armour with red details (including a triangular gemstone at the centre of the breast plate), a studded black leather armband around the left biceps, two studded golden-yellow bracelets, two black leather combat boots with golden-yellow greaves that buckle up at the sides, a studded golden-yellow belt and a leaf-shaped, gold-studded red leather-fringe loincloth. His outfit is embellished with a number of embossed (on the armour around the neck and on the greave tops) and engraved (on the bracelets) Theriom emblems (i.e., a seven-pointed star with the two side points elongated), as well as with many studs and rivets that are individually painted in metallic gold.

Ir-Ash's stylised armour.

Weapons and accessories

Although Ir-Ash is portrayed as an extremely strong hand-to-hand fighter, his figure has no action feature, but it does come with a few great accessories. Firstly, his armour leads to a wood-metal backpack that is abundantly packed with blunt weapons, specifically six flanged maces. Each mace has an all steel construction and a red leather strip wrapped around the handle for a more comfortable grip. Similarly to weapons like the pernach and the shishpar, the heads of these bludgeons are variously shaped with either six or eight knife-edged flanges, making them capable of penetrating the enemies' armours with no problem. The weaponry is all detailed nicely and fits in the back perfectly (apart from two maces that are combined with a pointed tip at the top of the head and with an axe blade at the end of the shaft respectively, have longer shafts and hang off the backpack securely) and Ir-Ash can hold any of these weapons in either hand.

The figure also includes a maroon cape. The large hole for the neck, together with a hanging down part on the back, allows the cape to be worn without removing the figure's head and the maces to be stowed in the pack on Ir-Ash’s back.

Additionally, there is an alternative face that can replace the standard one and is inspired by a comic issue in which Ir-Ash's face is drawn with a slightly more savage look. This is characterised by a dark brown skin tone, a menacing, dastardly grin (with the mouth wide open to expose all four massive pearly white fangs) and a red diadem bearing a golden-yellow Theriom emblem (which hides the transition from sculpture to fur a bit better). Wow, this face sculpt is far more fearsome than the regular one.

Last but not least, Ir-Ash comes with a surprising accessory, a snaky creature that serves as the first instalment of a new Build-a-Figure concept in the KR universe. Basically, some of the action figures in the KR|Enmity line will come with a part needed to build an even larger figure, specifically a four-in-hand beast-drawn vehicle that was shown as Lor-Drek's personal transport in the KR|Foundation comic book series - the Baryanoid-Cart^TM! The included baryanoid is a fictional legless, slithering amphibian, characterised by a stocky snake-like body, black-striped reddish skin, a flat head, a cranial crest resembling a gill arch, a pair of dorsally placed bright orange eyes and Ichthyostega-like jaws armed with large sharp teeth. Its most distinctive features are the long curved protrusions on the sides of its skull, giving the head a boomerang shape similarly to a Diplocaulus. The creature is sculpted in a stand-up position and has a ball jointed head. It comes with a piece of equipment used to direct it, which includes a bronze bit that goes in the mouth of the baryanoid, and a pair of leather reins that are attached to the bit.

Final thoughts

Character value: ♦♦♦♦♦ I'm happy to get another member of the Amhalgaard family (and what a member, I mean, he's pre-Deptilion!). We need lots more of those, start with Gax-Uhr

Articulation: ♥♥♥♥ His fur is fun and unique and doesn't hinder the articulation at all

Sculpt and paint: ♣♣♣ I really like the standard face sculpt and the golden-yellow/deep red colour scheme

Accessories: ♠♠♠♠ Above all the accessories, the inclusion of the alternate face sculpt satisfies my craving for the design variety seen in the comics

Playability: ♪♪♪♪ PoliganToys has managed to do a lot here to make the figure interesting enough to me to play

Overall: ☺☺☺☺ He’s going to stand out on my shelf, no matter where I put him.