As you can see in the upper torso shots, the rib-cage pivots when the rod on the back is turned, causing the RAHKSHI to attack as if it was wielding a basic quarterstaff. The shell on the back conceals the dreaded KRAATA brain-slug, and when the RAHKSHI head is hit from above, it will lever the RAHKSHI brainpan up, flipping open the colored shell, and flinging the KRAATA forward, similar (in spirit, at least) to how the BOHROK fling their KRANA. Oh yeah, and they do have a single trans-neon orange hip-joint hidden inside their head to fill the role of eyes. The MASK attached to this piece is more than a bit resistant to being detached, which suggests that it’s not intended to be knocked free by your TOA NUVA.

The lower leg is where the vast majority of the articulation is located, with an unbelievable amount of posability due to the knee-joints, the pronounced thinness of the thighs and shins, and the support offered by the oversized feet. I know the thigh and shin pieces are already drawing lots of attention for their use in MOC-building, but I expect the 10x colored hip-joints (brown being completely new, and most of the rest being very rare these days) will be a very strong draw (in other words, brown might actually outsell black for a change), and now that we can get a better look at how the foot is constructed, the highly useful attachment points will probably result in these being used for armor plates on a lot of MOCs.

While, like the BOHROK, the only pieces that are truly unique between the six flavors are the weapons, I expect the greater posability and the truly sinister look to these creatures will cause them to be much more popular from a purely story-oriented standpoint, and all of those pretty pieces will result in lots of repeat sales.

Unfortunately, when I was sorting through my showroom shots, I realized that I didn’t have a good closeup of PANRAHK. Fortunately, I was able to squeeze one out during my photoshoot in the BIONICLE™ van, which is why it has a completely different background.

The KRAATA are supposed to be some sort of slug, though only time will tell if they serve in a similar capacity to the KRANA or KRANA-KAL. I believe I saw at least two designs in the showroom, but it appears that all six from this photo are physically identical. If there are multiple designs, expect them to be even harder to differentiate than the KRANA were, since the detail on these is a lot smoother.

Continuing the tradition, these sets will ship in plastic pods, but this time they’ve got a twist. Or rather, a lack of one. Not only will these pods have their lids on the bottom, but they pop straight off instead of having to be unscrewed. Furthermore, the pods have a somewhat triangular shape to them (which might explain why they don’t unscrew).

You can see a better view of how triangular the pod is here, plus, you can see the hidden extra feature of the base. If you flip it over, you can use it to store six KRAATA brain-slugs along the two forward-facing edges. I discussed this with Brian, and he said that they are very concerned with making sure the cans and pods have some sort of additional play value above and beyond what the actual toy provides. I must say that this specific design is a great improvement over the TOA and TOA NUVA can tops, since this one doesn’t require any additional pieces for you to display your new KRAATA collection.