The Miniatures

RACE FOR THE MASK OF LIFE (RFTMOL from here on) features three main structures and a total of eight minifigures. Amongst the miniatures you have THOK, ZAKTAN, HAKANN and REIDAK one the PIRAKA side, for the toa we have HEWKII, JALLER, HAHLI, and NUPARU. Between this set and lava chamber gate, you will have all the figure except for KONGU unless I’m mistaken, a big drawback in that even with these two sets, after spending around 100.00 USD, you STILL have to buy more to get a complete set of these excellent miniatures. The do have their drawbacks and I feel I left out some key details from the previous reviews, and while this only comes with 8 figures you receive all of their tools. Like last year the tools look hardly like the tools the full sets use, and personally while these are good for MoCing and adding some details into bigger MoCs, I would be very please if they had the miniature versions of the full sized tools.

Shape wise the PIRAKA and INIKA miniatures are all pretty much the same with the exception of the heads and colors. The colors going so far as to have THOK be made of the proper off white, and, though not featured in this set MATARO has his proper true white color. I do wish that the INIKA had the appropriate torso’s in a mini version, but none the these guys are great despite some details I hate, such as how the arms don’t necessarily hold on too well compared to other miniatures. The legs don’t bend anything like the other miniatures produced be the LEGO company but they do twist at the hip where they attach. Not counting the tools, there are seven parts in the INIKA and eight in the PIRAKA, who have that additional spine.

Both the INIKA and PIRAKA heads feature the same small slot at the back of the heads and for the neck to attach to the torso, but not big enough for a plus rod. A definite bonus is these holes make for extra uses, and anyone who buys all the sets will quickly accumulate more miniatures than they will want to bother with, I admit I’ve only built the twelve that came with PIRAKA STRONHOLD and have only been grabbing the necessary figures for each playset’s pictures. Some of us will be clever in how to use these parts, but the majority of you will likely use them for fingered hands in your MoCs. The heads though are probably going to be a pain to think of uses, put I think the extra heads will be used as parts of little statues and such. I also noticed you can plug the head onto the torso from the plug in the back of the head instead of the neck, and place a little colored piece for an eye to create a neat little one eyed robot, if you can ignore the eyes and teeth patterns on top. Also of note, have you seen the new board game? It comes with six INIKA miniatures, but they are not as detailed and are a solid color instead of having the multiple colors and the detailed eyes. I don’t know if they come with any tools but perhaps for MoCs they are worth looking into?

The structures

The set comes with two lava boats and a tower, which seems to be a starting point going by the box pictures

The INIKA boat

The boat which seems to be the INIKA’s vehicle, at first glance is rather plain, but is my favorite of the two. It feels kind of hallow and I wish the pontoons were more rounded, but they aren’t too bad. It feels rather sturdy from the mid-portions but if I were you I’d not try holding it by the pontoons themselves but from the sections they are attached to. Anyone worried about the pontoons popping off, they don’t too so easily, thanks to a thoughtfull combination of technic reinforcements.

This boat turned out larger than I was expecting, and for the four man toa team the INIKA have plenty of room, though it’s hard to make them “man” the cannons because the closest spot to stand on is covered in a flat part that prevents them from staying on, for a moving vehicle this isn’t wise. On the other hand with them there you lose out on maneuverability of the turrets and you cant get in there to fire them very well, but at least you have a nice spot a few studs away to fit them and still fire the cannon.

Both a drawback and a plus, each of the two cannons have a “LEWA NUVA” blade that is reminiscent of a small sail, I can imagine the INIKA using these to steer. In fact, when on the ground you can hold it by these cannons and efficiently control movement, twisting and turning the ship. Getting to the drawback, a big ship like this could use a couple clips to hold more ammunition, but apparently someone got the smart idea to overload a small surf board on a previous set with those, instead of putting them on a boat large enough to handle them! Though you would lose out on that nice sail look, the tower the set comes with uses that BRUTAKA mask as a target for a mechanism (more on that later) and not only is it hard to hit, you need several decent shots to get it to trigger so reloading gets to be a pain.

The INIKA boat’s mechanism is very interesting, and appears to be a sort of boarding craft. The upper half of the boat’s middle slowly rises up and moves forward and back down again, essentially extending out twice as far, while the main portion stays parallel to the ground. The nature of the gears allow the middle to stay posed at that position, though it does wobble a little from one of the lower gears being a little loose but remains steady and strong, perhaps until it gets closer to it’s forward most extension. The mechanism moves kinda slowly but it provides splendid control. I must note that you SHOULD NOT try to speed things along by moving the midportion directly, the gear structure only allows it to be adjusted from the knob in the back (decoratively resembling a rotor but it would be cool if an actual rotor where use here) and moving it any other way might beak some parts. A little cool thing to not is that you have a nice little chamber that’s exposed when the mechanism is used, large enough for a sleepy toa but the instructions use it as a zamor storage. A drawback though is that to extend the mechanism out so far, would mean anything in there could get in the way, especially if you want to adjust it till the moving technic bars were all perfectly level to the ground so your toa could run across and jump off when boarding something, namely the opposing boat belonging to the PIRAKA. The last bit of interest seems to be a lack of spacers on the main gear shaft that turns the mechanism. These lack of spacers allows you to unclip and pull the gear shaft out a little more for a better grip and easily pop it back in place when done, though this may not have been intentional. Again, anyone fearing this mechanism might pop off, we have a similar reinforcement to that of the pontoons to hold it in place.

Lastly if you don’t mind modifying it, you seem to have plenty of room to pop on some KRAATA canisters to make it really float, but I’ve only tried this idea on an older concept MoC with limited success. With the extra space between the pontoons you’d have plenty of room to make this modification.

The PIRAKA boat

Firstly, nothing says egotistical like slapping your face on everything, the PIRAKA boat features BRUTAKA’s mask on the front, almost suggesting one way or another he wants to get first shot at the mask of life, next to the mask is a clawed arm on both sides, which work rather well and would have more grabbing potential without BRU’s mask in the way. Right behind the mask is apparently one of two sails, which can be steered from the very back, where conveniently the claw grabber mechanism also resides. A simple knob turns the sail which also houses a cramped cannon, which unlike the INIKA’s boat can only aim side to side. While the PIRAKA have no need to blast their own tower the INIKA boat has to, so they have their cannons on a socket joint. Seeing as how the PIRAKA have no need to fire at anything above them but at the opposing boat, there’s no real problem here. A design flaw in the cannon is that the red horns on the sail/cannon can knock unaware PIRAKA over the rail on the upper deck if you turn it too far, the only real spot the PIRAKA could face forward without twisting his waist, though you might also squeeze one on the lower deck right behind the cannon. It’s difficult to squeeze one PIRAKA on the boat, let alone all four so its understandable THOK was left behind at the tower on the packaging. The second sail takes up too much space and I wish either that was gone, or the deck was larger by at least four studs on the sides (even two would do the trick), which would be far from being too large and wouldn’t get in the way of the mechanism controls.

Decoratively this one feel far more flashy compared to the other with the VISORAK mandibles on the side as well as the REIDAK tools which stick out in that gold color, perhaps another color would have been better, such as the same silver the sails uses, but the mask on the front wouldn’t be tied in as well, but then again maybe that could have been silver too, would certainly attract more MoCers to the set since they already will have bought plenty of spare BRUTAKA masks with all his good parts. The REIDAK tools seem to be giving the effect of paddles along with the gear in the back as a rotor. The VISORAK mandibles seem to be like a smoke pipe and are somewhat adjustable, perhaps they can be used to hold some cargo across?

The claw mechanism as mentioned before, is operated be a bar in the back with two knobs. The knobs only serve as a grip and is used to push and pull on pluss rods that open and close the claws. It’s nice that you can use the one bar to control the claws one OR both at a time, you can get some skilled maneuvering out of the design. The bar itself slides across some smooth plates, the same as the claws at the front, and I don’t seem to have any trouble with operating this mechanism except for the tight spots you have to cramp the hands into.

Overall this boat feels thicker, sturdier and more cramped so you get a completely different style to that of the other boat, plus it feels more streamlined while the other boat is more raft like in nature.

The Tower

The tower overall is fun and a nice addition with the set. It features a rubber band that pulls the bars up when the mask is shot and releases the brake preventing them from rising. The bars shoot right up despite my doubts as I was building it, and the force can shoot a PIRAKA mounted to the tip of the tower a couple inches in the air once the target is triggered. Not only that you get that cheesy “pull the pin” mechanism that lets the axe swing down to smack any intruders. Thankfully the design is reinforced with technic bars, without them the design would pull itself apart when the target was hit and the force of the rubber band pulling the rod hit the top. I only wish more sets featured this reinforcement, even though it can look ugly. Personally I would have added some armor to that bar if I were the designer, to blend it in better. My main complaint though is where the gates take you. If you were the INIKA you would walk up, after having shot the gate open and have to dodge that axe, only to walk through and see what? MORE LAVA! They might as well go around, but that’s if you don’t imagine there’s a wall or something and this is a gate forcing them to go through. I wish it lead to a small room with some sort of artifact instead. The tower is small but cool and the axe arching overtop works great with the NUURAHK tools side be side over the entrance, though I feel it could have used a trapdoor too, so the INIKA just getting past the falling axe would fall right in. Being small and light, and the multicolored rock (To give it a rocky look) being hallow you can easily pick up and retrieve the victim if such a modification where made. I should have mentioned more in the LAVA CHAMBER GATE set which uses the same rocks, that the front has what looks like a big set of three steps someone could hoist themselves over, with the back having a more traditional staircase, where you’d start at one end and walk up to the top at the other side. The sides of the rock are made to look like a steep rocky side.

Fun with other sets

As far as this set goes, you have some good playability when combined with other playsets, to be specific I think LAVA CHAMBER GATE goes great with this one. The INIKA’s raft, though it wont actually fit through between them when positioned together so they make the big bridge, if you leave a gap just big enough for the raft to fit through then it also leaves just enough space for the mechanism to raise the upper half a short ways just under the gap. This is fun in that it completes the bridge section’s gap, allowing someone to run across, though they’d have to jump down a short ways onto the top of the boat and then pull himself up the other side of the bridge…Perhaps the picture will show you better what I mean. You will have to fold the cannons down to do this as they are too tall for the boat to fir under until you do. Of course anyone willing to modify the INIKA’s raft with the two sets will very likely take the ammo clips off the smaller lava boards from LAVA CHAMBER gate to make two rapid fire cannons to shoot the bridge down more effectively.

As for the PIRAKA’s lavacraft, it could fit under the bridges without the gap between them, though the sails are a problem. You could easily take them off, or take of the mask on the bridge and leave a small gap for the blades to pass through, the last option, blow the bridge apart by hitting the targets, of course the PIRAKA’s boat can’t aim it’s cannon up worth gukko droppings. Lastly, playing these guys with the PIRAKA STRONGHOLD perhaps isn’t the best option in my opinion as it would be an endpoint for a battle, but then again you could do the whole “Board the stronghold” bit using the INIKA’ boarding mechanism. But in that regard it would have to be up to your imagination, and if you could afford them all. If you can afford every last one, I’d hope you have a long hallway and patient parents, so you could reenact the scene on the back of the box showing the lava river and the PIRAKA installations. You could take the INIKA’s boat by each stop blasting PIRAKA as you went and raiding their bases.

However if you cannot get them all, I would recommend this set along with LAVA CHAMBER GATE, and maybe that PIRAKA OUTPOST set if it has the last guy to complete the set of six INIKA you wouldn’t get with just these two.

Overall

For $60.00 USD (Ouch) this set seems rather pricey, It’s definitely worthwhile at the $50.00 USD (which I thought was the true price, but that’s the U.S.A.’s price online, in which shipping will take up that extra savings). If it ever goes for sale at $40.00 USD that’s when I’d really feel you should nab it. It’s a great set though I have my dis-likings. As I’ve said with the other playsets people willing to modify it will have the most fun, if you plan to, make the PIRAKA boat’s upper platform larger and add a couple turrets, try to add that tapdoor to the tower and add the kraata canisters to the INIKA’s boat and you’ll have a much happier time with the set. Lastly, please pardon how I didn’t notice I was supposed to add the little red horns to the mask on the PIRAKA’s boat until after I took the pictures.