Seven years ago a colonization expedition of scientists and a military escort disappeared on their way to the Antocles islands. The truth is that the islands themselves are located in a belt of unexplainable magnetic waves that caused the navigational equipment to malfunction and throw the colonizers kilometers off their intended course to ultimately crash near a much less hospitable string of islands. Those same waves caused the hapless individuals to mutate over the years, both physically and mentally, into amphibious, highly-intelligent (if not slightly psychotic) creatures bent on vengeance against the society that seemingly abandoned them.
In high-tech submarine crafts shaped after the animals of the sea, they wreak havoc on the normally peaceful Aquazone colonies. Thus, were born the Stingrays!
When the 1998 catalog came out, there were only a couple of models that attracted me enough to be on my list of purchases when they became available. The 6198 was one of those models and while I wasn't able to buy it right away, it was well worth the wait and has happily exceeded my expectations.
The Sting Ray Stormer is a ship of impressive size designed in the shape of a large manta ray. The bridge of the craft has space for all four crew members and is almost entirely enclosed! This feature is impressive in itself, plus I haven't seen a ship's interior with such open space in years. (The mini-figs can almost get up and walk around inside.) Add to that the great pieces used in construction of the ship: four black 10x10 saucer-bottom sections, two saucer-top sections, and four dark grey 16x13 shuttle plates, and you pretty much have reason right there to pick up the set.
But I digress - access to the bridge can be reached in front by the upper saucer half that flips up, or in back by two wing-shaped plates that swivel open. The giant manta ray "wings" of the ship each house a one-man sleds (not too awe-inspiring, but a nice touch) and clamps that add to the overall appearance. Located just behind the bridge are two small compartments for crystal storage and the tail (which is hinged in two places so that it swings back and forth in a serpentine fashion). The main model is quite cool and in my opinion it beats any similarly-sized model (Aquazone or Space) I've seen since the 6986-Mission Commander!
The craft is mainly built of specialized saucer pieces, large plates, and slopes, so there aren't a lot of regular building bricks here but the number of plates in new colors well makes up for that. The first thing that jumped out at me was the use of brown plates (mainly 2x4 and 2x2s but there are a lot of them). Next came the dark grey plates and pieces including aquazone-octagonal bricks.
Four new mini-figs sport three different body prints and faces, three waist-and-leg elements in brown (a first for me) and the funky looking visorless Stingray helmets. Also included in the set are a manta ray, octopus, and shark.
The unique pieces of the set are the saucer-bottoms mentioned above and four of the odd 8x10 halfdome-and-plate elements mentioned in the 6107-Recon Ray review and two light-grey rubber tubes. All decorated elements are preprinted which is a bummer but there are some 1x2 tiles and 2x2 slopes with computer/control panel prints I haven't seen before (if you're into those).
I would have expected to pay about $90.00 for this model but it's available at stores for around $70.00 which pretty much clinches the deal. All the preprinted stuff and too many colors (black, grey, red, brown, trans-green) were the only thing I didn't care for, but the great price for an awesome ship and four mini-figs makes for a four star set!
![[Purchase Online at Amazon.com]](http://in.adequate.com/i/lego/Ads/AmazonGet-sm.gif)
