@MCLegoboy said:
"Also known as Roxor from Bionicles of Doom. Poor guy got beat up in that series of videos, but that precursor alloy held up and he survived every misfortune thrown his way; what a trooper..."

I understood about 3 words in that comment but it sounds appropriately Bionicle-y.

@Mr__Thrawn said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Also known as Roxor from Bionicles of Doom. Poor guy got beat up in that series of videos, but that precursor alloy held up and he survived every misfortune thrown his way; what a trooper..."

I understood about 3 words in that comment but it sounds appropriately Bionicle-y.
"
Oh, this has absolutely nothing to do with the actual lore. Bionicles of Doom is a series of 5 videos made by Doct0rSeethes on YouTube back in 2007 to 2012. It follows the adventures of three Bohrok in this guy's back yard (AKA the Great Fields of Doom) as they discover a "teleporter" and then proceed to enter it. It's a short series, roughly 30 minutes in total, and there was big hiatus between the 4th and 5th installments, but as a whole, it's stupid, a bit dated with its use of texting acronyms and microsoft voices, and yet totally worth it and the humor still lands. It's one of those throwback things I watch from time to time because there's just something about it that connects with me.

@MCLegoboy said:
" @Mr__Thrawn said:
" @MCLegoboy said:
"Also known as Roxor from Bionicles of Doom. Poor guy got beat up in that series of videos, but that precursor alloy held up and he survived every misfortune thrown his way; what a trooper..."

I understood about 3 words in that comment but it sounds appropriately Bionicle-y.
"
Oh, this has absolutely nothing to do with the actual lore. Bionicles of Doom is a series of 5 videos made by Doct0rSeethes on YouTube back in 2007 to 2012. It follows the adventures of three Bohrok in this guy's back yard (AKA the Great Fields of Doom) as they discover a "teleporter" and then proceed to enter it. It's a short series, roughly 30 minutes in total, and there was big hiatus between the 4th and 5th installments, but as a whole, it's stupid, a bit dated with its use of texting acronyms and microsoft voices, and yet totally worth it and the humor still lands. It's one of those throwback things I watch from time to time because there's just something about it that connects with me."

A) this proves how little I know about Bionicle

B) that sounds fun, I’ll have to check it out

My biggest memory of these was having a cousin who said she thought "those Bionicle chicken guys sure look fun" referring to the Bohrok. I managed to find a Nuhvok in an old local pharmacy about two or three years after the set was released and got it for her so she could have a Bionicle chicken guy too. :P

The Bohrok are an interesting case of clone sets. There are 12 variants of one core design with the exact same build (only the shield pieces on the hand and the rubber Krana "brain" were unique molds set by set with the Krana being randomized). There are rumors that the release of the Bohrok-Kal in 2003 nearly killed Bionicle's momentum since sales were sluggish on what was a six set wave that was a recolor of a previous six set wave. It seems Lego knew this going in and tried to pack the Bohrok-Kal with a random blind bag search for hidden metal Krana variants inside randomly packaged boxes (Vacuum Metal Krana Kal and the rarer Sterling Silver Krana Kal). The Bohrok lacked the attempt to give each character a unique profile that the Toa Mata and Toa Nuva had tried to with their limited piece variations.

Heck I'd dare say the ancillary sets to the Bohrok line, the Bahrag, the Bohrok Va, Boxor and Exo-Toa all had more creativity and uniqueness to them than the main Bohrok themselves did. The Bohrok Kal had no ancillary sets in their wave, sandwiched between the release of the Toa Nuva and the massive "Mask of Light" wave that tied into Lego's first film that was released later that year.

What really saved the Bohrok was their alien and mysterious nature in the story, the cool factor of having enough to build up a swarm, and their play features (attacking neck feature, the ability to roll up in a ball and roll around, a lever function to fire their Krana brain out, etc). The Bohrok is a great designed toy to play with, but getting more than 1 reveals how each set has the exact same gimmick and nothing unique. While I love Bionicle and look at it fondly, trying to picture myself as an adult when the Bohrok launched with no knowledge of the Bionicle story; and well I can understand where the AFOL's criticism in the era was coming from. With that said... I do always point this kind of stuff out to help those who didn't get the Bionicle appeal in the early 2000's to understand why I and many other kids ate this up. It was always the Bionicle story that sold the sets, and well Bionicle was certainly a better option than Galidor, Jack Stone, and well about 80% of everything else Lego was doing in that era that wasn't Star Wars/Harry Potter/Adventurers. I like to think that the "big ideas" Christian Faber, Bob Thompson and Alastair Swinnerton had in the back of their heads shown through the Bionicle story's early years, and was enough for many kids to know in stuff like MNOG and the Greg Farshety comic books that Bionicle was "talking to them" and not "talking down to them." I am honestly still surprised as an adult to what some of the themes in Bionicle were that I failed to pick up as a kid but now are much more crystal clear in retrospect.

Also the Bohrok look great as army builders, I have 9 of the 12 Bohrok variants and they just look cool on a shelf despite that clone build. There is probably a reason why in lore Lego advertised Bohrok as a "swarm" with thousands of thousands of them... they really wanted Bionicle fans to buy more than just one.

What I've already written about Bohrok sets can be applied here to Nuhvok. I can't even think of any particularly-worthy moments attributed just to Nuhvok swarms in the BIONICLE comics or books, so I'll just add my thoughts on my history with the set.

Nuhvok was one of the last Bohrok I got, part of a three-pack I found at Sam's Club that also included a Pahrak and a Lehvak. Because the bottoms of the canisters were obscured by the cardboard tray that held all three together, I couldn't ensure these particular Bohrok came with the Krana Xa, the "swarm commander" Krana and my favorite of the eight Krana designs. Regardless, by the end of 2002, I was just happy to have a complete collection of the suckers.

As a result of getting Nuhvok simultaneously with two other Bohrok and near the end of the year, I didn't get to spend much "quality time" with this set before leaving him in "hibernation" in the canister/pod. I will agree the color scheme is pretty great, but with the Toa Nuva ascendant and the incoming threat of the Bohrok Kal (not to mention the Rahkshi), Nuhvok and his comrades quickly became "last year's toy".

@xboxtravis7992:
The way I heard it back then was that the Bohrok-Kal were concocted as a stop-gap measure. Sales had already peaked on the original Bohrok, and the Rahkshi weren't due out for quite a while, so the Kal were something they were able to pull off in a pinch with minimal work as all they had to do was apply a new set of color schemes to an existing design, slap some new graphics on their foreheads, and have marketing work up new packaging. Afterwards, they realized that they needed a more constant stream of sets so kids wouldn't run out of stuff to buy, where before I suspect they figured kids would just keep buying regular Bohrok to build up a swarm and discovered that they were basically content to just buy one of each.

But the chromed Krana-Kal were never officially released. The two Krana that were randomly packed in those sets were a white-metal Krana-Kal (actual metal, but non-precious, of the sort used to make gaming miniatures, and with the sharp tips blunted) and a sterling silver Krana-Kal (actual sterling silver, with a modified shape that replaced the sharp tips with rounded ones). The chrome Krana-Kal were intended to be released at one point, and all eight shapes were molded in light-grey plastic (you need a rigid surface or the chrome will flake off), and again all eight shapes were chromed, but storywise only the Xa needed to be produced (both the WMKK and SSKK are limited to the Xa shape). Unless someone else has managed to complete a full set in recent years, I believe I still have the only privately owned complete set, including all 48 Bohrok Krana, all 48 Bohrok Va Krana, all 48 Bohrok-Kal Krana, a full set of the variant shade of purple from Gahlok Va, a full set of light-grey plastic Krana, a full set of chromed Krana, and both a WMKK and SSKK.