My Marauder Gun Runners figures showed up Friday and I had a little time to play around with a couple today. I ordered a set of 3 as my main pledge; black, grey and desert tan. I added on the red and green versions. There was a bonus head with a painted balaclava, a MGR figure stand for each figure and a random pistol and rifle for each figure.
My order came with two extra tactical vests, tan and grey. I'm assuming that was just a thank you type thing because I don't remember it being listed in any of the Kickstarter updates. The pistols were random and mostly the same but the rifles were all different. I received a Barrett .50, FN P90, QBZ-95, FAMAS, and one of the old G.I. Joe style laser rifles.
Each figure has a head, a tac vest and a bunch of various pouches, holsters and knives to attach to the mount points both on the figures and vests. The figures all have modern Hasbro Joe type articulation with the exception of the chest, these have waist articulation which works better with the web gear and vests.
The gear all seems to fit the mount points, I didn't have anything that had a post too large for any of the holes I tried them on. The tan vest that came with my figure did seem to have holes that were too large, everything kept falling off so I swapped in the extra and stuff fit better. But everything is pretty loose, especially on the tac vests. It's even mentioned in a letter with the figures that if you're just displaying you'll be fine but if you're going to play with them, you may want to think about gluing stuff on. At least with a water based glue unless you're sure you want to make something permanent. Getting everything on and arranged was a little finicky but looks good when it's done.
Of the two helmets I've looked at so far, the helmet on the green figure in the pics doesn't fit very well and is loose. The other is solid and I like the look of that type of spec ops helmet. The vests are really nicely done and I like the number of and positioning of the mount points, you have a lot of options of how to arrange the gear. Each of the figures have two pouches that will hold magazines but I didn't have any MGR rifles with removable mags to try out...but I'm assuming they're working pouches and that's a solid design choice. The holsters and sheaths all hold the pistols and knives correctly and are pretty stable so the whole assembly will probably fall off before your weapon falls out when posing the figs.
All of the joints on the figures that I've looked over so far work well but do take a couple flexes to limber up. They all seem pretty solid with two exceptions; the hips and knees. The hips have a socket on the leg side and a post w/ ball on the torso. They're friction fit together and can come apart without damaging anything. I'm fine with that but the black figure has a really loose right socket on the hip and the leg kinda falls off. All of the figures have the same knee "issue" in that the plastic insert feels really weak. You can flex the leg side to side because the plastic is so soft. It seems to hold up ok with the little moving I've been doing but I'm worried that over time it could break down or I'll snap it not paying close attention or something.
These are definitely geared for collectors and are perfect for customizing by swapping heads, vests and gear or even painting them up. They'll work almost as-is with your Joes but you can also work them into sci-fi stuff and even Star Wars. Some of the parts are really small and easily misplaced if you aren't paying attention. They're not really designed to get on the floor with and play unless you want to get into gluing some stuff in place.
Overall I'm happy with the figures that I got. I still need to get the grey, red and black figures out and assembled to get a look at the alternate tac vests and helmets with those figs. I was interested in the green as sort of an Aliens Marine figure and red as a Crimson Guard type character for my joes. Not sure yet what the other three will be for or where/how I'll fit them into my collection. They may just end up being generic Joe type figures somewhere.
I would recommend these for anyone that has a use for highly customizable figures in dios and that type of thing. Know what you're getting into with the accessories and you'll have a lot of fun with them I think.
