6919 - Planetary Prowler

Rating:
Pros: Some good parts
Cons: Same problems as the rest of the theme
Contents: 247 pieces including 2 mini-figs
Price: $44.99
Reviewed: 19-Sep-2000
Reviewed by: Gareth Bowler

The Insectoid fleet stood poised to conquer the Earth once and for all. Soon the puny, pink fleshling humans would be nothing more than slaves to the master race of Insectoids! Sitting in the cockpit of his Planetary Prowler assault tank, subcommander K'ish Grkeekikineeshik grinned a sinister grin, twitching his mandibles. There was a flash of light and the entire fleet was transported to random locations on the surface of the helpless Earth. Unfortunately, somebody had made a gross miscalculation of size. No sooner had the subcommander arrived on Earth than he heard a booming voice exclaim, "Not ANOTHER @#*%ing roach!" and then down came The Shoe...

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This is, arguably, one of the better Insectoids sets, but it is still guilty of the same crimes as the rest of the theme: large, specialized pieces, excessive preprinting, and somewhat goofy looking mini-figs. Having said that, the large legs in this set aren't nearly as bad as the wings that come in other sets. Those are quite clearly bug wings and will never be useful for building anything other than bug wings. The legs at least might be useful as struts or supports or some kind and it's nice to have a couple in my collection without shelling out 80 bucks for the Arachnid Star Base. It's also the only decent sized Insectoid set that doesn't come with the Insectoid Light 'n' Sound Cyber-Proboscis. Some might see this as a bad thing, but this is one of the reasons I bought this set over the others.

The design is roughly cockroachy with the obligatory magnet mounted at the rear. The back legs rotate up and down, but the little ones are all fixed. There is a storage area disguised as a cockpit at the rear, another one up front, and a small, detaching hover-chair-flying-thingy device for the droid. Did I mention there's a droid? There is. There's also an Insectoid, although oddly enough he comes with a black human air tank instead of the usual Legion of Doom shoulder pads.

Pieces of note include a 2x2x4 black brick with studs on the sides, two spring-loaded pieces, one of those bottom halves for the extended canopies (this time in black), and a dark green extended canopy. I've been trying to get one of these canopies for a while now. This seems to be the only set to include one outside the two big expensive sets in Space Police II, which has been discontinued. The one here has a little preprinting, but that's nothing a little Brasso won�t fix.

Anyway, to sum up, this is a good set; probably the best Insectoid set to pick up if you just want to sample the theme, but not a great set. If you can find it on sale, even if it's just for $5 off, it's probably worth getting.