I think 2006 was the year I stepped away from Bonkle, for a little bit. I regret never picking up Axonn, because he looks cool, but these Piraka things didn't even look that appealing anymore.

I had Hakann and Vizok of the Piraka. I didn't collect Bionicle but they were on sale and I couldn't resist. Couple of years later I realised that I'm not really a Bionicle person and sold them.

I love this song. I sing it on the way to work.

Haha, Reidak! Not nessessarily my favorite Piraka, but the golden chainsaw-like weapon was nice.

Oh, man. We haven’t had a bionicle set in, like, days.

Fun fact, because Reidak's eye holes are so big, you can actually insert smaller pieces in it. (like studs, for example). This opens up the potential for a lot of interesting MOCs.

@Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:
"In the storyline, Reidak was sort of the "dumb brute" of the gang. Not too bright, but his powers made up for his lack of cunning in spades."

The weird thing about that was, that most of Reidak's official bio material stated that he was actually capable of being very smart and cunning... he just didn't *bother*, preferring to use brute force instead, so he constantly came off as dumber than he actually was. This, though, was one of those things that never got shown in the storyline so is rather more of an informed attribute than anything else.

Reidak was the first Piraka I got, not entirely intentionally continuing an established trend of often getting the black-armoured characters first in any given Bionicle wave that had started waaaay back with the first Onua. Here in the UK, we didn't get the Piraka until a couple of months after they were released in America (staggered releases are... not my favourite thing in the world xD) so when I saw a whole shelf full of Reidaks in a Woolworths store, a few days before their official UK release date? I leapt at the chance to get him ahead of time, even if just by a little.

I really enjoyed these guys when they first came out. I got five of the seven Piraka figures from 2006, the red, green, blue and brown canister sets and Vezon in his titan set with his spider. Vezon also came in another combiner set with the Kardas dragon that could be broken apart to build the original Vezon set along with Axxon and Brutaka; I never got that big set but it does look nice from the photos I have seen (even if it actually has some illegal building methods in Kardas!) I never did get Reidak and Thok though... might have to chase them down to get the whole gang someday.

There are a lot of gimmicks in these sets. Glow in the dark teeth! LED Light up eyes! Zamor sphere blasters! It was a step away from the mechanical gear functions that had last appeared on the Toa Hordika (well just barely) and more towards the figure having play features inherent to specialized parts. At the time I was fine with it, but in hindsight its a shame that Lego shied away from gear functions in the last half of Bionicle.

An eighth Piraka was included in the 2010 Bionicle Stars finale wave, representing the warlord Nekettan. Calling Nekettan a Piraka was a bit of a misnomer, since in universe the only Piraka were the seven members of the gang from 2006; where as Nekettan was the same Skakdi species as the Piraka he was never associated with the gang or any of its members (also Piraka is considered to be a bit of a slur in the Bionicle world... so go take from that what you will). Nekettan due to being built on an Av-Matoran body is significantly shorter than the OG 2006 figures and less impressive in general than the 2006 sets were, but once can pretend maybe Nekettan is a little short and a bit General Napoleon like...

Overall the Skakdi are a weird species in Bionicle. They don't really fit the whole "ecosystem inside a giant robot body" thing very well. Where as Matoran had clear bodily functions for the Great Spirit Robot, the Skakdi were just "ehhh, big ugly brutes" and do still seem like an odd addition to the story even though Skakdi characters like Vezon would go on to become fan favorites.

Reidak's one of my fave Piraka, just because his "cannot be defeated the same way twice" power is so blatantly underexplained... he's like a jacked-up Saiyan or something.

@BionicleJedi said:
" @Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:
"In the storyline, Reidak was sort of the "dumb brute" of the gang. Not too bright, but his powers made up for his lack of cunning in spades."

The weird thing about that was, that most of Reidak's official bio material stated that he was actually capable of being very smart and cunning... he just didn't *bother*, preferring to use brute force instead, so he constantly came off as dumber than he actually was. This, though, was one of those things that never got shown in the storyline so is rather more of an informed attribute than anything else.

Reidak was the first Piraka I got, not entirely intentionally continuing an established trend of often getting the black-armoured characters first in any given Bionicle wave that had started waaaay back with the first Onua. Here in the UK, we didn't get the Piraka until a couple of months after they were released in America (staggered releases are... not my favourite thing in the world xD) so when I saw a whole shelf full of Reidaks in a Woolworths store, a few days before their official UK release date? I leapt at the chance to get him ahead of time, even if just by a little."

I too, had the black Bionicles as my got to get them first. I was just enough into Bionicle to want them, but not enough to get the whole wave (And not rich enough either). By then end of it, I had basically every single Earth Elememt Bionicle, and only a smattering of everything else, with the Fire elememts usually being the 2nd most common. I didn't have many blue or greens by the end.

Mind you, at this point, after quite a few large hauls from Thrift stores, Kijiji lots, and occasionally some bricklinking or Convention shopping, I now have almost a 100% complete set collection (Not counting such things like the Kardas dragon, it's more of a combo model. and I probably have all the parts to build one anyways...)