Toy prototype details
Name: TautonTM (Horizon Edition)
Subtitle: transformed fighting lieutenant
Line: KR|Horizon
Item type: action figure - Nº 9 in the line.
Character details
Name: Tauton, aka Evil Tauton
Classification: mutated human
Sex: male
Relationships: Herrion's love interest
Home: Tahron
Era: 15 years after Foundation
Affiliation: Destructomorph (temporarily)
Rank: first lieutenant; expert in hand-to-hand combat and weapons master.
Background
First appearance: KR|Horizon #2 - In the eye of the storm
Brief bio: at a young age, Tauton was asked by King Li-Khon to step into his army of brave Theriom soldiers and take up the arms against the reptilian forces. As a result, he fought courageously with Tir-Hing against Bi-Harr's thirst for tyranny, eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant. In addition to his great abilities in combat and use of traditional weapons, Tauton was also a skilled engineer and constructed a pair of robotic gauntlets as well as a set of advanced electronic weapons, with which he heroically served Senior Minister Desion on the frontline throughout their battles with the revived Destructomorph army. Exposed to a malignant poison during one of such battles, he was uncannily transformed into a hideous, wicked monster. Still endowed with masterful fighting styles, great speed and skilful stealth, this monstrous assassin was equipped with a powered armour by Nemhetra and was given the mission to eliminate all of the Therioms as they battled for control of Tahron. At last, Tauton was forced to ambush and fight against TarmannTM, a young prodigy and expert of several forms of martial arts, who had been taken under his wing and trained rigorously, and who had since replaced him as the infantry's weapons specialist. In their epic duel, Tauton was seemingly wounded mortally by Tarmann's venomous spurs, but in the end, to everybody’s amazement, he recovered his human form thanks to the interaction between his poisoned blood and the valiant soldier's venom. Finally reunited with the heroic Therioms, Tauton was once again called to fight for justice, countering evil with his smashing power.
Articulation
Head: similar to a marine iguana, characterised by scaly, bumpy wrinkled blue-greenish skin, hideous deep-set solid yellow eyes, a wide open mouth showing a number of sharp teeth on the inner sides of the jawbones and a protruding tongue. He wears a golden removable helmet with black details, which looks like made of two different half-kabutos that have been joined by a poorly executed weld, and is topped with a jagged blade crest
Body: torso, arms and legs covered with a tight black suit, claw hands and feet (the latter are bare and show scaly blue-greenish skin). The suit looks smooth at a distance, but up close it appears to be sculpted with techy circuitry patterns. A golden band worn around the right thigh carries a sheath with a small silver dagger, which is unfortunately not removable
Wearables: a black armour with gold details (including two horn-shaped ornaments near the collar, which in turn looks like a sort of mouth shield), two black gloves with wrist guards, two black shin guards (both the wrist and shin guards are ornamented with symbols that are vaguely reminiscent of Asian characters), a studded black tasset belt (with a golden central stud in front) and golden shorts. The armour is fitted with black furry armholes and two golden crossed straps, one of which is covered with studs, while the other has a cyan, glow-in-the-dark band that connects a Destructomorph symbol (i.e., a square-shaped spider, also cyan and GITD, whose back slightly resembles a demoniac face) at the centre of the chest to the left shoulder; the left arm is equipped with a 2-piece golden removable armour, consisting of a lamellar rerebrace attached to an oversized studded shoulder guard, and a spiked bracer with a hand guard extension.
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| Tauton's stylised helmet. |
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| Tauton's stylised armour; the circle at the centre of the chest piece represents the Destructomorph symbol. |
Weapons and accessories
Although in the comics Tauton is depicted as a skilled hand-to-hand fighter even in his mutated form, his figure has no action feature apart from the GITD details on the armour. However, it does come with some very interesting accessories. First up, what really takes his combat skills to the next level is a pair of kusarigama (or chain sickles), each consisting of a kama on a length of real metal chain with a grip (which doubles as a weight for flailing and striking) at the end. Both weapons are painted in black (shafts and grips) and golden colour (blades and chains). The two kusarigama can be stored on the back armour thanks to the presence of four clips (two for the shafts of the kamas and two for the grips), or can be combined into a single badass chain weapon by connecting the two grips.
Additionally, the figure includes a few pieces that are meant to update Foundation Tauton, for representing his older version in the ranks of the Theriom army. The set includes a head, a pair of battle gauntlets and two blast effects. The head is characterised by Asian features, olive brown skin, black hair (with a receding hairline and a classic man bun), hazel eyes, a long narrow moustache whose ends taper and droop down to the chin, and a small pointed chin puff. The two disproportionately large golden snap-on techno-gauntlets can replace the standard hands of the Foundation figure and, like their original counterparts, work both as armoured gloves and sleeve armours. While the gauntlets are characterised by different poses (fist for the left one and chopping hand for the right one), both have been provided with countless details, such as an ornamental grid on each arm guard that reveals parts of the mechanical interior underneath. Each plating on the back of the hand is designed to resemble the head of a wild beast with glossy red (for the left gauntlet) or metallic blue (for the right gauntlet) eyes and a little nose-barrel that shoots blasts of heating (left) or freezing (right) energy, making it easier for Tauton to smash solid objects afterwards. The blast effects, one translucent red and one translucent blue, are awesome and each can plug into a hole on the respective gauntlet.
Final thoughts
Character value: ♦♦♦ I think Tauton is an awesome character and he was translated so amazingly to his Horizon evil version - he just exudes badassery! However, I understand that some might not feel so strongly about this figure, due to him not being a character they got as invested in as others. Nonetheless, I do think he deserved his representation in the line
Articulation: ♥♥♥ He is articulated just the same as any KR figure. He has no extra articulation, nor does he have any flaws
Sculpt and paint: ♣♣♣♣♣ Tauton turned out to be a pretty big success in both the sculpt and paint departments. He’s excellently done, crisp and clean!
Accessories: ♠♠♠ Although he comes with more accessories than the average KR figure, I wish he had been given more pieces to create a more accurate Horizon heroic version of the character
Playability: ♪♪♪♪ No matter what version of Tauton you have on your shelf and what add-ons you give him - evil with weapons or heroic with updates, you know this is one figure that is going to rock it, no matter what options you use
Overall: ☺☺☺☺ I anticipated Tauton to be one of my favourite figures of the KR|Horizon series based on the production photos I was shown. In hand, he’s a pretty solid toy and I think most collectors would be happy with him. Yet, while this figure is damn cool and makes another great addition to Nemhetra's army, the lack of a Horizon-accurate good-guy version of this character will probably cause some controversy.
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