Review: JoyToy Mecha Types (1/18 scales well with 1/6)

Yeah, I know what you're all thinking... why is a 1/18 scale mecha review not being put into the non-scale forum? Well, truth is, I'm reviewing this more as a 1/6 scale robot figure and not 1/18. For starters, this scales very well and fills a niche that I feel is severely lacking in the 1/6 world. I love robots/mecha and couldn't resist getting this the moment I saw it.

Update: Legion Fear IV Long-range Sniper mecha

Packaging:
It came in a shipping box (which was a good thing)
Shipper by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Out of the shipping box you get a flimsy box (but the contents inside were thick foam slabs)
The front has nice artwork of the mech
Box Front by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

The sides of the box has lineart of the mech
Box Side1 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Box Side2 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

The back of the box has the promo pics of the mech and blah blah blah wording...
Box Back by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Oh... and this box is HUGE. No kidding. Here's a comparison shot with two 1/6 scale figures.
Box Size by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

But now let's get to the juicy part... the mech itself... Ok not yet, it's coming soon.

Assembly: WARNING this is NOT for novice collectors who have no patience and need instructions to put things together. The instructions provided with this is a simple one sided sheet that doesn't really explain anything. It's vague and pretty much useless. Of course, for 1/6 collectors, customizers and/or model builders, this shouldn't really be an issue. I'm pretty sure we all had figures we had to figure out where parts and accessories go.

Sorry no out of box pics, this review came as an afterthought. And I'm not going to strip the soft goods and armor off this thing as it took a grueling 2-3 days to set it up. Yeah, no joke, this took a lot of time and patience to put everything together. I had to rework the strands and buckles in most areas. I also took off all the soft goods on it prior to putting on the armor parts. Again, it didn't help that the instructions were useless and not helpful one bit.

The armor is not fully secured onto the frame of the mech. The armor on the hips and shoulders are a little loose even after adjusting the buckles and straps on them. I wish they had used some sort of clip/tab/peg to secure the armor more on to the frame. As it is, I can see how this can frustrate and annoy collectors. Unfortunately, if the armor is not secured properly, it can be quite fiddly to deal with. It should also be noted that if you just assemble it directly without making any adjustments, you get strands hanging around all over the place on top of it being very fiddly. It's look will also be messy and horrendous. Nothing like what they show on the promo pics.

But aside from all that. After spending grueling days of assembling all the pieces together... it is just plain awesome! A sight to behold and I love it. LOL

Final product with 1/6 scale figures:
Pose 1 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Pose 6 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Pose 7 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

As you can see, this mech scales very well with 1/6. It's also painted with weathering effects applied. Even the pouches have weathering on it. The attention to detail on this thing is simply amazing. I think Joy Toy deliberately did this to appeal to 1/6 collectors in general. It doesn't include a pilot figure (something a 1/6 collector wouldn't care for and keeps the cost down) and who heard of a giant mech carrying soft goods like a soldier? Seems pretty ludicrous in that regard. It's got presence and something my gang of femme fatale wouldn't dare tackle directly on their own. Well, maybe with the exception of Alita. LOL

Articulation: it has a really good range of motion. Balance is not good though as it is generally top and back heavy. Despite that, if balanced correctly, can strike some really cool poses. A word of caution though, it does need some careful manipulation as you are dealing with soft goods and armor pieces that are not secured tightly in place. Depending on how the armor was strapped on, it can easily be dislodged if working with the figure. The pistons on this figure can also easily pop off (but can be easily be popped back in again).

Pose 2 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

But interestingly enough, it's got articulated fingers. Cool.
Pose 3 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Pose 4 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Pose 5 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

And before going, here's a final pic with their Freeman 1/18 scale mech. I think it scales well too. Maybe as a worker bot or something.
Pose 8 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Final note: Joy Toy currently has 5 different models of the Fear mech. They released three to date. The fourth is supposed to come out this month (which I PO'd). I missed out on the first one which looks more like a 1/6 military bot. The third and fifth one I'll skip as it doesn't really appeal to me as much as the second and fourth one. I'll probably hunt down the first one later when I have the funds.

I see what you mean. It really does scale very well with sixth-scale figures -- and so does the shorter one too. Very nice set. Thank you for the review and photos.

This is awesome! I want one of these now. Sadly, my lack of patience, and the lack of decent instructions means… NO.

Very cool mech

I think I saw that one on ebay as well as some other big 1/18 mechs and I do think I may get one because they make nice Combat Bots

GubernatorFan wrote:I see what you mean. It really does scale very well with sixth-scale figures -- and so does the shorter one too. Very nice set. Thank you for the review and photos.

Funny how I have to resort to another scale to get what I want in 1/6 LOL

Stryker2011 wrote:This is awesome! I want one of these now. Sadly, my lack of patience, and the lack of decent instructions means… NO.

It really is awesome and I love it a lot. But, yeah, it's a total PITA to get all the parts on it. I can see this becoming frustrating to some.

henchman21 wrote:Very cool mech

Agreed.

ZeroDelta wrote:I think I saw that one on ebay as well as some other big 1/18 mechs and I do think I may get one because they make nice Combat Bots

The Legion Fear mechs make for some very nice combat bots. Definitely blends nicely with 1/6.

doodlehobby wrote:Yeah, I know what you're all thinking... why is a 1/18 scale mecha review not being put into the non-scale forum? Well, truth is, I'm reviewing this more as a 1/6 scale robot figure and not 1/18. For starters, this scales very well and fills a niche that I feel is severely lacking in the 1/6 world. I love robots/mecha and couldn't resist getting this the moment I saw it.

Dude that is awesome.
I have the same one coming my way too so thank you for sharing the height comparison - he's going to fit right in with my other 1/6 scale dollies.
I plan to slap a bit of paint on this fella and change things up a bit.

Those are really cool! and they work so well within the 1/6 scale figures. They make great heavy support for your troopers.

Allotropos wrote:Dude that is awesome.
I have the same one coming my way too so thank you for sharing the height comparison - he's going to fit right in with my other 1/6 scale dollies.
I plan to slap a bit of paint on this fella and change things up a bit.

Glad to hear. As long as you're patient with this thing, you'll be fine. I think the armor parts were the hardest and most fiddly to put on. The soft goods not as bad as it's all attached via Velcro. So this can allow the user to customize the look more.

BAMComix wrote:Those are really cool! and they work so well within the 1/6 scale figures. They make great heavy support for your troopers.

LOL That they do and I just PO'd for their 1/24 Steel Bone mech. It'll be about the same size as the blue mech. So it'll be interesting to see how well it'll blend with 1/6.

I think I just jumped into another rabbit hole!

Oh that's cool, I'll have to look into this figure and the other one and see if I can find one. I've been looking for some cool robot figures for a while now.

Theboo-bomb wrote:Oh that's cool, I'll have to look into this figure and the other one and see if I can find one. I've been looking for some cool robot figures for a while now.

The company is JoyToy and they make 1/24 and 1/18 mechs. They do have some very nice designs.

Very cool. Some of the Joytoy mechs come with 1/18th scale figures that sit inside. I'm thinking of getting a couple for my son for Christmas.

I am super impressed!
Build quality was way better than I expected and like doodle said - fits right in with 1/6 scale figures.



Articulation is so good, I can actually get a great crouching position even with the bulky armour.
I was worried at first about how restricted he would become with the armour pieces on, but futzing was minimal.




Now that I have him in hand, I'm not sure if I want to paint him up since he looks good as is.

Allotropos wrote:I am super impressed!
Build quality was way better than I expected and like doodle said - fits right in with 1/6 scale figures.

Articulation is so good, I can actually get a great crouching position even with the bulky armour.
I was worried at first about how restricted he would become with the armour pieces on, but futzing was minimal.

Now that I have him in hand, I'm not sure if I want to paint him up since he looks good as is.

Awesome shots.

This thing is indeed great. I just got shipping notice for the Fear IV Sniper. Super excited for this one too. Should pair well with this one. I might have to track down the Fear I Assault mech now.. . Lol

I agree, they look excellent.

Finally got a chance to put this guy together. Same great articulation as the Fear II (considering they all use the same base frame). Assembly time is faster this time around as everything is basically secured by velcro. Also discovered that the frame can be disassembled to make things easier to put on. The only thing that proved a challenge was the 2 piece ghillie cloak. I found it a challenge to get it on and look good due to the broad frame of the mech and how the 2 pieces clip on.

Here's the base frame of the Legion Fear mech (only differences between the Fear mechs are the head and armor pieces):
Legion Fear IV Sniper Base Skeleton 1 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear IV Sniper Base Skeleton 2 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear IV Sniper Base Skeleton 3 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear IV Sniper Base Skeleton 4 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Disassembled (most of it came off quite easily... only the ball jointed upper torso took a bit of work to get off)
Legion Fear IV Sniper Base Skeleton Disassembled by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Some base frame posing (and yes, it can manage to balance on one foot):
Legion Fear IV Sniper Base Skeleton Pose 1 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear IV Sniper Base Skeleton Pose 2 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear IV Sniper Base Skeleton Pose 3 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear IV Sniper Base Skeleton Oops by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Ghillie cloak and armor attached:
Legion Fear IV Sniper Ghillie Cover 1 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear IV Sniper Ghillie Cover 2 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear IV Sniper Fully Suited by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear II Strike and IV Sniper Base Skeleton by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear II Strike and IV Sniper by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

I redid the look of Fear II and removed most of the buckles and strands. I also transferred some of the excess baggage to the Fear IV.
Legion Fear II Strike New Look 1 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear II Strike New Look 2 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear II Strike New Look 3 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear II Strike New Look 5 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear II Strike New Look 6 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Legion Fear II Strike Pose 9 by Vicki Lee, on Flickr

Those robots are so cool! and perfect for something like 1/6 scale space explorers/pirates or just plain enemies! I like how you added the bags to carry their ammo?

Another really great grab, and they both look fantastic together. The engineering behind these things is really impressive, and the ability to get it to balance on one leg — just WOW!

I agree, well found, built, and deployed.

Most of the FEAR mechs work way better for 1/6 than than their intended 1/18. The way the pouches are scaled really make them seem like 1/6.

The base frame looks pretty good even without anything strapped to it. I can think of plenty of uses just for this. Is there any way to buy it by itself?

BAMComix wrote:Those robots are so cool! and perfect for something like 1/6 scale space explorers/pirates or just plain enemies! I like how you added the bags to carry their ammo?

The Fear IV came with 3 satchels (attached under the chest piece/armor) with a magazine inside each one. However, the Fear II didn't come with any extra magazines. It did include a bunch of satchels, though, which was easy to transfer to the Fear IV (since it uses Velcro to attach).

Stryker2011 wrote:Another really great grab, and they both look fantastic together. The engineering behind these things is really impressive, and the ability to get it to balance on one leg — just WOW!

GubernatorFan wrote:I agree, well found, built, and deployed.

Thanks. It's also great to mess with on the desk. LOL

ZombieKev wrote:Most of the FEAR mechs work way better for 1/6 than than their intended 1/18.  The way the pouches are scaled really make them seem like 1/6.

Agreed. I think JoyToy was trying to appeal to the 1/6 collectors when they made this line. It makes little sense to have these huge satchels on a 1/18 mech. Or even have a ghillie suit for that matter.

shazzdan wrote:The base frame looks pretty good even without anything strapped to it. I can think of plenty of uses just for this. Is there any way to buy it by itself?

Not that I'm aware of. JoyToy has only released these mechs as a set. Only way to acquire the base frame on its own would be if someone parts it out from the set like in the 1/6 hobby.