Review: 2015 Bionicle Skull Army

Released in July of 2015, The Skull Army was intended to fill the void left by the Lord of Skull Spiders to provide ample enemies for the Toa. The Skull Army was a force of villainous, undead beings whose mission was to seek out and destroy the Masks of Power.

Packaging:

The packaging is the exact same box that we got with the smaller Masters. The front shows off the finished build along with the Golden Mask of the Skull Spiders in the middle of a web.

The back of the box gives us a full size image of that mask along with some demonstrations of the play features. Just like the Masters, the box includes a comic strip showcasing the Lord of Skull Spiders fighting off Protectors.

Skull Warrior:

Starting off the first of the three more toa-like villains is the Skull Warrior. During the build and even now I don’t love how the designers executed the lack of symmetry. A lack of symmetry can come off really well when done right but in this set there’s one leg that has armor and one arm that has armor. I think this does add to the undead theme, perhaps this is just what remains of the original character, but as an aesthetic I don’t love it. Otherwise this is a neat looking set, the blue and orange color scheme is new from as far as I can remember, and I especially love how the feet were constructed to give us an original look with existing molds. I do wish we had just a touch more armor to cover up his bones for the final look of this set, but I understand how this is thematically accurate.

The mask of this villain is very Terminator reminiscent, but it looks incredible. It has a bit of a horror vibe that we haven’t gotten from any previous Bionicle sets.

The Skull Warrior comes equipped with a Freeze Bow up front and an Ice Spear mounted on his back to attack our heroes. The freeze bow functions just as the Protector’s weapons did. It’s a cool function but very impractical due to how easy the studs will be lost. A yellow gear on his back can be twisted to rotate his right arm up and down. When the Freeze Bow is attached to both hands this is a pretty irrelevant function though.

Skull Slicer:

When it comes to the Skull Slicer the first thing I notice compared to the Skull Warrior is that this model doesn’t use more colored parts, but they appear much bolder and noticeable than the light blue pieces of the Skull Warrior. Another improvement for this set is that the asymmetrical elements at the shoulders are executed a lot better than the mismatch of the Skull Warrior.

The mask on this set I have mixed emotions about. It looks good, but knowing that it’s just a silver Skull Spider piece takes away from the value in my mind. With some incredible molds for the other sets, they really couldn’t just make one more?

The yellow gear on his back can twist to simultaneously swing all four arms for a battle. Three of these arms have a simple Hook Blade, the other is equipped with a mask grabber, which is a sweet transparent orange that gives off a high energy feeling.

Skull Basher:

Bringing the muscle to the army is the Skull Basher, which right off the bat we can tell it’s much beefier than the others and utilizes a lot of larger armor pieces to pull this off. The headpiece and horns are just immaculate for a villain and provides a much-needed variation from the previous two sets.

As opposed to a gear function the Skull Basher has a really cool mechanism attached to the back that can both twist when hinged from side to side but can also be pressed in to smash his hands together. I love the ingenuity here, it’s so fitting for this character on top of just being a new type of play function. Overall this set makes me think of a Minotaur and just like the Skull Warrior it presents a slight horror feeling to the army that I’m not used to seeing from Bionicle.

Skull Scorpio:

Last but not least is without a doubt my favorite of the Skull Army Villains, the Skull Scorpio. This build, clearly, is much different from the others and I can’t emphasize enough how nice it was to have a different style of build from every other 2015 set aside from the Lord of Skull Spiders. The build does utilize a lot more Technic elements than the others and has that feeling of an older Bionicle set. Initially I was afraid the six leg setup would feel a bit repetitive of the Nui-Jaga and Lord of Skull Spiders but the actual construction was much different than those sets so while it looks similar, I still felt like I was building a new creature.

The tail features a handle which can be pulled down to pinch its weapon pieces together. The function is fun to trigger, but I wish it had a bit more range as even when tilting all the way forward you can’t get too much beyond the Scorpio’s head. It gets far enough, sure, but based on the size of that tail I would want to see it be able to strike something a bit further away. The two claws up front look great with the transparent orange pieces, but unfortunately don’t function at all other than being able to articulate. Some sort of a rubber band function up front would take this set to the next level.

Golden Masks:

Each villain comes with a golden mask meant to depict its energy being drained with the various gradients. Each of the masks look incredible and while I wouldn’t expect to receive them in these sets, they’re great inclusions and add a little extra value to each of them.

Powered-Up Skull Warrior:

Just like we had powered-up Masters, the Skull Warrior, Slicer, and Basher can be combined to create a Powered-Up Skull Warrior which isn’t much larger than the base sets but is certainly a lot more visually striking. Unlike the powered-up Masters this combination does require you to completely disassemble the three Skull Villain sets to make it, just a forewarning.

Current Pricing & Final Thoughts:

If you want to purchase these sets for your collection you can find them for around $20 in used condition and in brand new sealed condition you can expect to pay between $40-70 per set.

While there certainly is some fatigue for the Toa-style builds that I felt during the builds, as a whole these villains fill the void left by the Lord of Skull Spiders, especially given the fact that these aren’t one-off’s and are meant to attack in multiples of each other. Each model does a good job of being unique and I can’t sing the praises of the Scorpio enough, I love that set.

Score: 7.5/10

Video Review: