Random set of the day: Vorzakh
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 8616 Vorzakh, released in 2004. It's one of 55 Bionicle sets produced that year. It contains 32 pieces, and its retail price was US$9/£5.99.
It's owned by 2459 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
Help me come to life! If you like the set I've chosen for you today, please pledge your support for me on LEGO Ideas so I have a chance of becoming an official LEGO set!
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30 comments on this article
"Better than that classic space schlock amiright!"
-Literally no one because it's okay to like different things made by LEGO.
@MCLegoboy said:
""Better than that classic space schlock amiright!"
-Literally no one because it's okay to like different things made by LEGO."
But seriously, this is next level conspiracy shenanigans.
I will be extremely delighted if Pirates and Castle got the next two RSOTDs, but at the same time a little disappointed if I knew the algorithm got messed with.
I always loved this guy’s hedge-trimmer hands.
@Monopoly:
They look more like metal shears, which makes sense given that all the Bionicle characters are robotic in nature.
Man, he certainly looks angry.
I stopped collecting the Vahki, and ultimately Bionicle as a whole, after 8614 Nuurakh and 8615 Bordakh. I realized I wasn't going to complete the Metru Nui collection as my Dark Age was approaching, but at the very least I got the Dark Hunters and Turaga Dume in the form of the special edition 10202 Ultimate Dume, as well as of course the Toa Metru.
I found the Vahki rather boring as a platoon of robotic enforcers. They weren't very interesting build-wise either, although I liked the color blocking and the fact that they were some of my only Kanoka Disk-based sets besides Toa Vakama, Nidhiki and the McToran Hafu from the Power Pack. It's weird how Nidhiki basically resembles a Vahki but with four legs and two arms, yet is so much cooler because he's not just a robotic enforcer but a Toa turned Dark Hunter mutant, with an actual personality, hilarious chemistry with Krekka and a bitter past with Lhikan.
@MCLegoboy said:
""Better than that classic space schlock amiright!"
-Literally no one because it's okay to like different things made by LEGO."
I appreciate the continuity. (Yes, I did look at yesterday's RSotD; no, I didn't bother to comment, since I have zero nostalgia for Classic Space.)
My brother got one of these when they were new. I think it was the brown one. I was never very impressed with it, as it was the first time that the canister sets recycled parts and features without the excuse of being powered-up versions of the previous wave, as the Toa Nuva were to the original Toa and the Bohrok Kal were to the original Bohrok. To me, this was a Rahkshi rehash with Toa feet, except that the head had a smaller range of motion and the disc shooter in the head didn't work very well. As for the story, I could never remember the Vahki powers and I didn't like the idea of a city with something like fifty secret police to each citizen. The Toa Metru were really neat, though, and the change in setting from tropical island to megacity was pretty cool.
Oh, this is from that followup line to Throwbots, isn't it?
@Rob42 said:
"Oh, this is from that followup line to Throwbots, isn't it?"
That is exactly what my brother and I said when the first pictures of the Metru Nui sets came out, showing Toa and Matoran and Vahki all carrying disc launchers, and pushing disc packs for collectible ammo and extra merch: "Oh, it's Bionicle crossed with Throwbots!" (My brother still says - with a joking smile and a shrug - that Lego must have stolen his idea when he mailed in a drawing of Kopaka meeting a Throwbot as a suggestion for what should happen after the Toa had defeated Makuta.)
You know, until I looked at them now I never realised how efficient this wave was with new parts. A big part of that is due to the head being new, and a very distinct shape, so it doesn't matter that the core of this is a mix of Toa, Rahksi and Matoran parts. Maybe a little cheeky (especially when all these guys share that same head too), but a testament to the flexability of bionicle parts I suppose.
Did these release before or after the Metru? Either way, clone fatigue has to be setting in by this point, with two more years of clone waves to come.
The Vahki were the fully-robotic law enforcement of Metru Nui. Originally designed to keep the peace, they quickly evolved into an omnipresent and destructive police force who would jump at the slightest sign of laziness or rebelliousness from the Matoran. The city's Turaga, Dume, used to keep the Vahki in check, but shortly before the Great Cataclysm he began to send them out in greater numbers and allow more aggression in their missions.
Vorzakh were the Vahki of Le-Metru. They were the most destructive of the units, willing to smash through any building or obstacle to reach their target. Their Staves of Erasing could temporarily wipe a targets memory.
As with all Vahki, the Vorzakh were destroyed shortly after the Great Cataclysm. Without Dume to guide them they were easy prey for the invading Visorak Horde.
The Vahki were some of my least favorite BIONICLE villains, but their online animations are amazing! I especially love the fire one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8lGEfkhvYg
Ah, The Vahki. Some of my least favorite Bionicles. This one's color scheme is the inverse of Nuurakh, which has a red body with green eyes. The colour scheme is also not as good as Rorzakh's, which is very Blacktron.
Hmmm "Biased Huwbot" again.... the next RSOTD had damn well better be Castle or Pirates....
Ah, finally, a random Vahki set was chosen! I liked the idea of crawling spider-like machines, so I got myself 8618 Rorzakh at first, but later gave it away as I found the colours rather dull.
Many years later, I decided to get 8614 Nuurakh for myself after watching the advertisement for the first time (in which I saw how they could glide, climb up cliffs etc), and I just might get 8617 Zadakh as well, given how I'm drawn to brown characters like Pohatu (especially his orange Phantoka form) :D
@Wavelength said:
"You know, until I looked at them now I never realised how efficient this wave was with new parts. A big part of that is due to the head being new, and a very distinct shape, so it doesn't matter that the core of this is a mix of Toa, Rahksi and Matoran parts. Maybe a little cheeky (especially when all these guys share that same head too), but a testament to the flexability of bionicle parts I suppose.
Did these release before or after the Metru? Either way, clone fatigue has to be setting in by this point, with two more years of clone waves to come."
Where I live they were released after the Toa Metru, but at the same time as the Titans. BS01's information is inconsistent.
Is that darth Vader’s castle in the background...?
Woah crossovers ;)
The one thing from a story perspective about the Vahki, is Bionicle made for a simple introduction to Orwellianism and the idea of a Police State with this line. Very politically charged for a Bionicle storyline, but go back and watch the 2004 Flash animations for these and its very obvious that was the overtones the theme was trying to set. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8lGEfkhvYg
I got the four Vahki I was missing from my collection as an adult (including this one) and I gotta say after having all six, they really are one of the weaker villain line ups from the franchise. Neat conceptually, but they have to much resemblance to the Rahkshi in build and concept, while lacking the cool factor the sets prior to them had. The neat thing about the Vahki was seeing how later sets like Nidhiki or Roodaka, or even some Exo-Force mechs were able to repurpose the Vahki parts for other uses.
Then again, I just saw today what an army of Vahki look like and I gotta say, their army building potential does offset their clone builds.
@Your_Future_President said:
"Is that darth Vader’s castle in the background...?
Woah crossovers ;)"
And thus, the plot thickens.
6930 did move ahead of Green Grocer in comments to 2nd all-time now, behind.... My Dad.
All the Bionicle looked like villains to me. They worked better as enemies for GI Joe to face.
Is the arm in the foreground attached? If it isn't, can anyone explain why?
@Paperdaisy said:
"Is the arm in the foreground attached? If it isn't, can anyone explain why?"
It is. It’s so far forward because the Vakhi had rotating shoulders, you could swing them back and forth with a gear on the backs. Good for mimicking swift jabs with their staffs or, if they were in their four legged form, having them scuttle around
@LegoSonicBoy said:
"Where I live they were released after the Toa Metru, but at the same time as the Titans. BS01's information is inconsistent."
They were definitely after the Metru; it was only 2005 that was weird with the release schedule. I've no idea where BS01 got the idea that 2004 followed that pattern too, especially given the pains they usually take to not include anything that isn't 100% accurate.
Vorzakh here was my absolute last Vahki set. 2004 was the first year I went for 100% completion of the main Bionicle line - before then, apart from the Toa, I'd only got one or two sets per canister wave, so I hadn't been hit by the above-mentioned clone-fatigue yet. Keerakh was my first Vakhi - not a deliberate choice, just the only one the first shop I saw them in had in stock! - and, in hindsight, absolutely my favourite of the line; its white colour scheme was crisp and clean and stood out amongst the lineup of its darker-toned fellows.
I got Zadakh and Bordakh a bit later, on Buy-One-Get-One-Half-Price offer; and then was surprised when three of my friends from school sprung different Vakhi on me as birthday presents that year! I still wonder if they co-ordinated that, since otherwise I think the chances of them all picking a different one would have been pretty low...
(One of them was a duplicate Bordakh; but that was because it had only been a few days before that I'd got the BOGOHP offer, which he'd naturally had no way to know about.)
That left Rorzakh as the only one I didn't have. He was pretty low priority for me after that, granted, but I was still set on completing the 2004 line so, after Christmas, I eventually grabbed him too during my hunt for the very elusive Nidhiki. I was disappointed not to find the mask and disk of time in his canister, since they were reported to be included in later runs of Vahki... it was only later that I realised the promo was American-exclusive so I'd stood literally no chance of getting those, no matter how long I'd looked xD;;
My Vote:
o Bionicle
o Castle
o Classic Space
o Pirates
X Not Bionicle
This is the 1111th random set of the day.
Its a sign. Bionicle is winning. SURRENDER OR RUN.
@Wavelength:
I actually collected all six Toa Metru, plus bought at least a couple extras for parts. I think I might have bought one Vahki before I stopped seriously collecting Bionicle, so they definitely came later. Storywise, it made more sense anyways. Characters were released as sets in relation to when they first appeared in the story. The Toa Mata preceded the Rahi and Bohrok, while the Toa Nuva came before the Bohrok-Kal and Rahkshi. The next chapter of the story focused on the Toa Metru, so they were the first wave of the Metru Nui sets. The first antagonists they encountered were the Vahki, so those were the next wave to be released.
As for "clone fatigue", it really depends on the set design, I think. The Bohrok are still my favorite Bionicle villains, followed closely by the Bohrok-Kal. I'm less thrilled with the Rahkshi (while they are the most dynamically poseable wave up to that point, they didn't really introduce a lot of generally useful parts). I think I only bought one Vahki, and decided pretty quickly that I didn't like the design at all. If you like the design, you won't mind buying a whole bunch of them. If you hate it, you might never buy a second. And I say this as someone who built six Exo-Toa, all in such quick succession that I stopped using the instructions to build them.
@TomKazutara said:
"Vortixx MOC goes : GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN"
Canonically all Vortixx were ebon black. But one of the comics made a Vortixx green so he'd stand out from a crowd, so it'd be fun to experiment!
@PurpleDave said:
"As for "clone fatigue", it really depends on the set design, I think. The Bohrok are still my favorite Bionicle villains, followed closely by the Bohrok-Kal. "
Honestly I am still surprised at how much the Bohrok hold up. On one hand it feels extremely lazy that Lego took the same design and made 12 sets out of it. On the other hand though I own ten of the twelve and want to get the last two because its such an iconic design. Roll them up in a ball, attack with the neck, pose them as a figure, launch their Krana from their head, etc. All very versatile for such a cheap entry level figure. While the Vahki could walk on all fours or walk on two legs they never had the same fun feature as the Bohrok ball mode, and the full switch to more "humanoid" villains with the Piraka in '06 then finally the unique villain design for the Barraki onwards through the reboot was nice for variety's sake, it did lack the same iconic status that the 12 Bohrok had.
Yeah, I know Bionicle saved LEGO (for which I am eternally grateful), and I know Bionicle was a massive part of many people's formative years, and I know it has an INCREDIBLE back-story filled with MASSIVE PLOT & EPIC LORE...
...but subjectively this pile of parts still looks like an especially cheaply-made action figure.
@Brickalili said:
" @Paperdaisy said:
"Is the arm in the foreground attached? If it isn't, can anyone explain why?"
It is. It’s so far forward because the Vakhi had rotating shoulders, you could swing them back and forth with a gear on the backs. Good for mimicking swift jabs with their staffs or, if they were in their four legged form, having them scuttle around
"
That makes a bit more sense, thank you, than the box art depicting a partially built figure.
This really isn't my cup of tea, it wouldn't have been if I'd been a child in 2004 either but I guess I can see how for the money it could have been fun for someone who was into action figures. £6 in 2004 is £8.50 now so you don't get a lot of pieces but the volume of stuff isn't too poor.