I knew there were fewer paint aps, but when I picked up my first three figures off the pegs, I was dismayed to learn we're paying $10 a pop for less articulation in the main line. I knew the vehicle drivers were going to be scaled back, but some how I missed that the single carded figures were too. And no stand!

Is this all the single carded figures? Three for three on Cobra Commander, the blue Cobra Trooper, and the other wise pretty amazing Zartan.

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Nope. The Joe Trooper has rocker ankles, Snake-eyes and Storm Shadow have double knees and ankles. Its just hit or miss on those POA. Some have it and some don't.

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What Stranger said. Some, but not all.

The explanation used was that figures that didn't "need it" wouldn't have it. But for characters like the Ninjas, they have it, and even better, starting with Wave 2, many more figures will have it. Wave 1 seemed to be the hardest hit with the articulation trouble.

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I know Road-Rock has the weird gun hand, anyone if he has a double joint knee and standard ankles?

Thanks for the info guys. These aren't bad figures by any means... But I think they'd be a lot better with standard articulation.

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Thus far, Cobra Commander, Duke, Cobra Trooper, tank top Roadblock, Zartan have single knee and no ankle articulations.

Beyond that, from what I've seen, it would appear only Flint (his body being a repaint of Duke's) and Firefly sport neutered leg articulation while everyone else retains a full range of motion.

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The 2nd wave Rockblock had standard articulation. Unfortunately now we have to wait until next year to get him.

You know something, Roadblock's probably the figure it bothers me the least on. He's a pretty big toy, so that's a lot of weight on the legs, so he can hold firing poses better than smaller figures that lack said articulation.
Or at least the 3-pack Roadblock can. Don't know how good single-carded Roadblock is there since all he can hold are weird spring-loaded thingers.

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Something I've noticed on the Retaliation figs that have double knees, is that they're using PVC instead of nylon on the knee pieces, now. This is great for customizers, since the nylon that's been used on the knees (and is still used on the ring style joints) tends to be resistant to paint and adhesives sticking to it.

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Some do, some don't. The ninjas seem to be the best articulated of all.

I don't miss the ankle articulation as long as the figure can stand up on his own two feet and stay standing, and so far, I haven't had any problems in that regard.

And I definitely don't miss the double-jointed knees, as I've never encountered very many action figures that I thought that particular feature either looked good or worked well on.

So far, the only thing bugging me is the gun mount attached to Roadblock's hand, and the figure is otherwise a nice piece of work, so I'll live with it.

I'm not missing the second knee joint on the guys they've taken it away from. If they really had to do it, they made the right choices. But I do miss the ankle tilt. I long ago back in the fabled days of RAH thought the POA them old figs needed most was an ankle tilt (which of course didn't then exist outside of 12" figs, iirc). But now that I've had it and don't got it no more, I'm certain it's gonna have to factor into my purchasing.

I've been thinking of trying to give the 3pack RockBlock some Wrecker feet, cut into the RB ankles. Maybe I won't do it to the RB fig I keep long term, but I've got a custom in mind it'd work real nice on.

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I really like the Zartan figure. He doesn't have the ankles or double knees, or double elbows, but he has all the other articulation. He still holds cool poses and is a fun figure.

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I don't mind the single knees, but I did replace Roadblock's feet. I can understand Cobra Commander getting less because he's not an "actiony" character, but I wish Zartan had better legs. Have a custom in mind he's perfect for and now I need to do some major surgery on the legs.

I miss the ankle joint on Zartan, otherwise he's pretty slick, but losing the double-knee isn't the huge loss I thought it would be on the figures that have it. I'm liking the Retaliation figures so far (the ones I've found--seems my area's been heavily picked over--probably all on ebay now!) and they are far more interesting to me than what we got for ROC, so that's cool.

I've seen Duke, but that figure is "DeeJay weird" to me, so he doesn't count. Fuggly.

I have to say the rocker ankles on the ninjas are very cool and add way more to the figures than I thought they would. Some great poses and added stability overall. The Ninja Showdown SE is all kinds of cool.