Re: Hot Toys - DS001A-C - Iron Man 2: 1/6th scale Hall of Armor Collectible Specs & P
I opened one unit to get a good feel for the build quality and my first impressions of the set.
Packaging:
The halls are well packed with the new grey styrofoam inserts we have been seeing with Iron Monger, Hulk, etc..... Smells like Hot Toys plastic crack air fresher. As it has been noted, you should unbox these spaced out in a ventilated area.
Overall mine came undamaged and only a nick on one corner of a bottom hall box. It's nice that each hall is carefully packed and already together, you just need to choose power source and it's off to the races.
The Hall:
As for the looks once out of the box, it has some heft. Much larger than you would think a bay would be(at least to me) which is a great thing. The plastics appear to be ABS and have several smooth and frosted finishes on the side walls and a smoothed two toned grey back wall. There are stickers on each side of the backplates that I think makes the back wall look toyish, but thankfully it will get covered up with a Mark in the bay. Every panel is screwed together and it would be very easy to take the bays apart. I will be disassembling the hall to fit into my diorama. The way Hot toys developed the hall lends this set well to make some nagging features better with a little work.( More on this below)
Light feature:
As it has been stated, you'll need a surplus of batteries to light these candles, 6 AA and 3 AAA per Hall. The walls use 2x's the batteries as the base, which powers 10x's as many lights.
The side wall pieces light up well. They are top and bottom pillar lit, it could have used more lighting in the middle part to really make the light spread better.
The back wall detail and platform with the hologram blue lights look very nice. When it is all lit up, the toyish look of the plastic really goes away and the hall is way more impressive than when not luminated. Overall I love the lighting as it is not overly bright and allows for good shadows and definition for the figures to stand in.
Power:
This is one area I am very excited by Hot Toy's design. Each wall battery compartment is attached to the unit in the back. The wall allows enough room to cleanly wire up the side walls with conductive wire and daisy chain them to a consolidated power source. It is pretty easy to do and is a non-evasive mod to wire all of the hall electronics together. So the fact it comes apart the way it does is quite awesome!
Goodbye stupid batteries and buttons.
Value:
So bottom line. Is this set worth $799 plus tax/shipping?
No.
This is clearly a splurge piece.
However, it would totally be worth $75 a unit just as MrClean stated earlier. It is definitely overpriced for what it is and does.
BUT......for me, I am absolutely thrilled with it. I did not pay much for the Mark 1-7 suits. My total investment for this display is extremely lower than most folks. This allows me to forgive the pricing of the set more than others evaluating this from a value proposition. If your investment in the armors and HOA is over $3,000 I can totally get the pause in adding it to the collection.
I will caution that Hot Toys did not make many of these sets, outside of BBTS and Sideshow I have not seen very many of these 7 packs available and most e-tailers sold out pre-orders with no additional units allotments ordered. So if you are in the market for one, I would put some thought into how and when to get this set. I cannot see it being around long after a first discount comes through for them given the low volume of buyers and units available, if it comes to that at all.
If you think you want this set and have the budget, definitely pick it up. Especially if you already have all of the armors. I cannot wait to get it all together and up on my shelf.
I had to get a soldering iron out and change the solder connections to make the damn thing work right. Good news it worked. So just a fair warning if anybody's hall doesn't turn on with batteries or through the DC adapter, this could be a issue. Here's a pic of the right wire positions.
