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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 unexplained magnetic fields 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 settlings. 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 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 "wings" of the ship
each house a one-man sled (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 minifigs 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 (specialized pieces, ugh!) 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 that kind of thing).
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 minifigs makes for a six stud set!
!!!4x2ReVu Stats!!!
Rating: Six out of eight studs.
Thumbs up for: An excellent model (I'm even recommending this to Space fans).
Thumbs down on: Too many colors. Also, the overabundance of preprinted
elements limits alternate use of those bricks.
Wallet-Wise: About $70.00 U.S. retail for 398 pieces.
Original review date: 1/18/98
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