Random set of the day: Scorpion Attack
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 8268 Scorpion Attack, released during 1999. It's one of 33 Technic sets produced that year. It contains 85 pieces and 1 minifig, and its retail price was US$15.
It's owned by 574 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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21 comments on this article
Classic animal abuse disguised as child's play. Typical LEGO.
I mean seriously, these guys literally have targets on them. What did they do to you mister cyborg?
@MCLegoboy said: "Classic animal abuse disguised as child's play. Typical LEGO."
It's funny, because I had this conversation with a friend of mine, quite recently, where he said that even his own kids had noticed that a lot of the conflict in Lego sets was evil animals attacking people. Now, even granting that he was probably just talking about City sets (that used to be loaded with bears and crocodiles and sharks), it was a light-bulb moment, because I thought back and it was like, oh, yeah, that's actually kind of true.
I guess the wildlife safari sets that came out, last year, were Lego's attempt to subvert this trend.
@MCLegoboy said:
"I mean seriously, these guys literally have targets on them. What did they do to you mister cyborg?"
I don’t know, but he looks incensed. Scorpions beware.
Technic figure, discontinued colours, prints and parts. Nice.
Hey, I have this set! Two of them, almost (the second copy is missing the spiders). It's... definitely CyberSlam: that weird inbetween that's 90s Technic Fig and yet feels like Bionicle is coming. The vehicle is swooshable and that cannon packs a punch, but the spiders are about as prefab, un-LEGOy as LEGO gets.
I loved those Technic figures. I wonder why they discontinued them?
With the way those "scorpions'" tails are shaped, I think those are actually incredibly angry land shrimp.
No wonder Technic man there is fending them off.
@Zordboy
You forget the evil masterminds with modify the poor creatures to fight, Alpha team and agents, but we got mecha sharks.
Or the aquazone who just draft the animals to support their war.
No the animal treatement wasn't better in the good old time.
@Phoenixio said:
"I loved those Technic figures. I wonder why they discontinued them?"
I’ve wondered the same. You’d think they’d at least make a few of them.
Story-based Technic sub theme? Okay…
I’d kinda like to pick up the Technic cyborg at some point, but I’m less interested in the rest of the set.
I didn't like the then latest Technic figures with wierd faces and printing. Other than that these figures had excellent articulation. But I'm not sure if they will be sturdy enough with the quality today, assuming Lego decides to produce them. Today, parts seem to crack easier...
@Lego_lord said:
"I didn't like the then latest Technic figures with wierd faces and printing. Other than that these figures had excellent articulation. But I'm not sure if they will be sturdy enough with the quality today, assuming Lego decides to produce them. Today, parts seem to crack easier..."
I mean, LEGO has kind of dropped the ball a lot with their quality control recently... Everything they say about their "rigorous testing" is just an attempt at making their brand seem superior to others, when it really isn't.
I like that it features an AKTIVATOR (part 4114736).
AKTIVATE!
Oh that scorpion is just one big piece huh? I thought it might have been a little buildable, the legs look like standard technic plates, but nope just one big old scorpion mould
I actually have one of those scorpions (whilst this is one of two Competition sets I don't have...)
They are kind of funny, but I'm always afraid to either break the tail off or damage the stickers... Really weird that they designed them specifically for this set, especially since Competition's budget would probably be lower in 1999 than it was in it's launch year...
From the feel I would guess they are made from the same plastic as the Slizer throwing arms that came out pretty much at the same time (also in the same colors!)
EDIT:
The cyborg was called 'Sammy Cyborg' in LEGO Mania Magazine and 'Cyber Gladiator' in LEGO World Club Magazine, his opponent (the teal guy) was called 'Nick Stryker'/'Champ Gladiator'.
I loved those figures back then and 'Bright Bluish Green' and 'Bright Violet' are still amongst my favorite Lego colors!
Sadly the later was discontinued in 2003, modern purple often looks to bluish to me whilst that Friends purple ('Bright Reddish Violet' actually from Scala in 2000) is far to reddish...
@Zordboy: And let's not forget Makuta over in Bionicle, using infected masks to turn Rahi feral and violent.
Please don’t tell me that scorpion is one part.
@Be_hapi said:
"Please don’t tell me that scorpion is one part."
Technically, it's 2 parts: There is also a rubber band.
@Be_hapi said:
"Please don’t tell me that scorpion is one part."
I could have said: "I wonder why they discontinued the scorpion figures" :-p
But actually I (also?) wonder how they ever made it into a mould.
@Wrecknbuild:
The how is easy (ask instead how the mold minifig LEGO chain with all the links linked together but never attached to each other). You start out with a big chunk of tool-grade steel and start carving a cavity in it. Then you do the same for the top half of the mold. Throw in some knowledge of mechanical physics, and some trial-and-error testing to get the finished product to work as intended, and some finishing work on the mold (fittings to mount it on the machine, fittings to hook up the feed line for the molten plastic, anything needed to regulate the temp of the mold, ejector pins to clear the parts from the cavities, etc), and it’s ready to go.
But maybe you meant why, rather than how? Given the nature of the theme, targets are a necessary part of the set design. These targets sound like they’re designed to pop into the air if you even brush the little circle on the tail, which eliminates any arguments over whether or not someone scored a point. The first few years of Bionicle did a decent job in that regard, too. Two Toa could fight each other until one knocked the mask off the other’s face. Turaga could do the same with each other. In each of the five Rahi sets, you got a matched pair of animals that could do the same with each other. Bohrok, Bahrag, and Rahkshi were again all evenly matched against another of their own kind. The theme did kinda fail regarding the way these fights were presented in the story, where these ten different basic character classes were only really designed to be able to fight their own mind. Toa (and especially Turaga) against Tarakava was particularly comical because the Tarakava stood so high their masks were out of reach, but their attacks were only designed to punch another Tarakava in the face.