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.