Sets/2014

2014 was the fifth and final year of the HERO FACTORY sets.

The Rocka Crawler

History

Promoted as a "soft reboot" for the series for an unknown reason, 2014 is where sets are play sets this time while some of the sets in Bionicle's 2005-2007 sets are play sets. This set year has one set wave called "Invasion From Below", and this wave is split into two smaller waves. One for the early half of the year, and the other for the late half. The set year has fifteen regular sets. The backgrounds in the sets' front art take place in Antropolis City. All but two of the sets come in foil packs, and the other two are large box sets. The Heroes, who are in their new forms, are mini-figures who pilot giant mechs called Battle Machines, which use the "Character and Creature Building System", or CCBS for short. These Heroes are seven members of the Alpha 1 Team, and they are Preston Stormer, William Furno, Daniel Rocka, Dunkan Bulk, Natalie Breez, Mark Surge, and Nathan Evo. The Heroes fight against small insect-like and rhinoceros-like creatures called the Jumpers, which are mini-figures, in their Battle Machine sets. There are giant and mutated counterparts to the Jumpers called "Beasts", which also use the CCBS system, and they fight the Heroes in their sets. Like the 2013 set year, it is unknown why Jimi Stringer or Julius Nex do not have their own Invasion From Below sets.

The early half of the year had eight of the sets. Two of the sets are small, four are medium-sized, and the last two are large sets that come in foil packs. The small sets are Evo Walker and "Jaw Beast vs. Stormer". The medium-sized sets are Stormer Freeze Machine, Furno Jet Machine, Rocka Stealth Machine, and "Flyer Beast vs. Breez". The large sets are "Splitter Beast vs. Furno & Evo" and Evo XL Machine. Both of the large sets come in foil packs, like two of the three 2013 ones. The winter sets were released in January 2014, though they were delayed until March for North America for an unknown reason. However, the sets came earlier in the Washington Square LEGO Store near Portland, Oregon in February 14, 2014.

The late half of the year had the remaining seven sets. These sets' backgrounds take place in the Jumpers' underground lair underneath the city rather than the city's surface, like the early 2014 sets. Two of the sets are small, three are medium-sized, and the last two are large sets that come in boxes this time. The small sets are Rocka Crawler and "Tunneler Beast vs. Surge". The medium-sized sets are Bulk Drill Machine, "Crystal Beast vs. Bulk", and Breez Flea Machine. The large sets are Surge & Rocka Combat Machine and "Queen Beast vs. Furno, Evo & Stormer". Both of these large sets come in boxes. The Queen Beast set includes a Battle Machine called the Evo Spider Machine, which is as large as a medium-sized Battle Machine.

There are also two promotional small sets, which come in plastic poly-bags, but none of them appeared in the canon.

When Bionicle's 2015-2016/Generation 2 toy line was announced in late 2014, Hero Factory was cancelled at that time.

Featured Elements

Each regular set has at least one Hero mini-figure. The Splitter Beast and Surge & Rocka Combat Machine sets are where each has two. The Queen Beast set has three. The Heroes are made with a new mini-figure building system that is more flexible and are made of more parts than the ones from Bionicle. Each Heroes is made of nine pieces; one for the featureless head, one for the helmet, one for the black torso, one for the gunmetal gray body armor, one for a white, circular 1x1 tile piece that represents a Hero Core and have a Hero Factory symbol printed on it, two for the arms, and two for the legs. The Heroes' new forms and armor are identical in shape, but their helmets are unique from each other. The helmets are based on the ones that the Heroes wear in the 2010 and 2012 sets. The Heroes carry various regular-looking weapons and equipment. In some of the Battle Machines, one of the Heroes has communication devices on his or her left forearm that is made of two pieces; one is a transparent blue and printed tile piece and the other is a clipping brick, where its stud part can be attached to the tile piece and its clipping part to the Hero's forearm. In the winter wave sets, the Heroes use guns, where each is one piece. In the summer wave sets, the Heroes use new guns called "click shooters", which are made of two pieces and can be loaded with a stud piece. Pressing a lever on the gun fires the stud. In the Queen Beast set, the Heroes have a longer version of the first type of gun, which is the first type of gun with a binoculars piece attached to the front of it. All of the guns represent the Heroes' laser guns in the story. Evo, Stormer, Furno, Rocka, and Breez first appeared in the winter wave sets, and then Surge and Bulk in the summer wave sets.

The Battle Machines use the CCBS system. They are of various sizes, which are small, medium, and large. They have various functions and body structures. Each of them has an armor piece or two that has a printed picture of a Hero Factory symbol and an arrow sign below it. Some of the Battle Machines are humanoid while the others crawl on 3, 4, or 6 legs, like an insect. Some of the Battle Machines have arms. Some of the Battle Machines have black clipping pieces on their armor that can attach their pilots' equipment for storage, like how the 2012 Hero sets can use their clipping pieces to attach their Hero Cuffs for storage. Some of the Battle Machines can use pieces of their armor to contain their pilots' equipment as well. The rest can do both. Some of the each of them has an opening transparent different-colored canister. Each of the canisters can contain a Jumper or a Hero, and has two transparent stickers, each on one of the sides of the canister. All of the canisters except the Stormer Freeze Machine and Furno Jet Machine's are green. The Freeze Machine's canister is blue, and the Jet Machine's is orange. The canisters are detachable. The summer set Battle Machines are made with TECHNIC pieces. The Evo XL Machine, which is a large humanoid Battle Machine, can be connected with four more arms from the winter wave Battle Machines. The Surge & Rocka Combat Machine, which is a Battle Machine as large as the Evo XL Machine, is two Battle Machines combined as one. One of these Battle Machines, which is a detachable mini-jet that is as small as a small set Battle Machine, is attached to the top of the other, which has four legs and is larger than a medium-sized Battle Machine. The top parts of two summer set Battle Machines that have more than two legs, the Bulk Drill Machine and Breez Flea Machine, are detachable gadgets that can be used to take the mini-jet's spot on the bottom part of the Combat Machine after the mini-jet is detached. The Evo Spider Machine's canister can also possibly be used to replace the mini-jet, despite this not being advertised.

Each of them has an orange or lime green cockpit with one black lever on each side that can be moved forwards and backwards. Each of the Heroes has a pin on the backs of their torso armor that allows him or her to be connected to a hole in center of the cockpit to have the Hero seated in it. The Hero can also put one of his or her hands on one of the levers to represent the Hero controlling the Battle Machine. Each of the cockpits' sides can also contain various devices. The cockpit is located on the main body of the machine, and can be detached from it to represent the cockpit being ejected from the machine. Each cockpit also has a blue or gray visor that opens and closes at the top of the cockpit, and it is in front of the Hero when the Hero is seated. However, the Rocka Crawler does not have a visor for an unknown reason. The visor has three transparent stickers; two on the sides of the visor, and one in the bottom center of it. That sticker has the Battle Machine's pilot's name on it. Each Battle Machine is also named after its pilot. It has the same primary color as its pilot, though the mini-jet part of the Surge & Rocka Combat Machine is blue, like the other part of the Combat Machine, rather than gold.

Each of some of the Battle Machines has a different Plasma Gun, which is a Goo Shooter, a variation of the Plasma Gun, in the story. Each of the blasters is comprised of two pieces, which are spaced two studs apart and attached to the set by one or two axles. The blaster is fired by squeezing the midsection. Some of the Battle Machines have flick-fire missile launchers, which can launch missiles by pushing the missiles out of the launchers. Some have both kinds of guns.

Each Battle Machine set has 1-2 normal Jumpers. The Evo Walker set has 3. The Queen Beast set has one. Each normal Jumper is like a Visorak mini-figure from Bionicle's 2005 play sets, as it has four flexible legs. The Jumper can jump, hence its name, by pressing its back and then letting it go. It is made of three pieces; one for the main body, one for the carapace, and a tan pin piece that connects the other two. Some of the summer wave sets have Jumpers that have blue carapaces rather than black. While all black Jumpers have three types of Jumpers, which are that they either have red, orange, or green bodies, the blue Jumpers only have orange and green bodies, and there are no blue Jumpers with red bodies for an unknown reason, though it is possible that you can use parts from the other Jumpers to build such Jumpers.

All of the summer wave sets but the Tunneler Beast one has at least one Jumper cocoon, which is composed of three leaf-like parts and a connector, while the Tunneler Beast has one of the leaf-like parts. The Queen Beast set has two cocoons. The cocoon can contain a Jumper or a Hero. The top parts of the leaf-like parts are rubber, so they are bendable, allowing the cocoon to be peeled to be opened up. The bottom parts of the leaf-like parts are hard plastic, which are connected to the connector. There are three translucent colors of the cocoons because of the top parts of their leaf-like parts, which are red, green, and blue. The bottom parts are black.

The mutated beasts are giant counterparts to the Jumpers that also use the CCBS. They are of various sizes, which are small, medium, and large. They have various functions. All but the Tunneler Beast and the Queen Beast are humanoid in shape while the other two are centaur-like. Each of the beasts has a head that is made of two different-sized pieces, each being one of the beast's jaws. The smaller jaw piece has an axle hole that can be used to connect it to the beast's neck. The upper jaw part has the beast's eyes printed on them. The jaws snap by moving one of the jaws to open and close the beast's mouth. The mouth is large enough to contain a Hero. Some of the beasts have overbites while others have underbites, depending on how their jaw pieces are aligned. The beasts have various claws. The three summer set beasts, the Tunneler Beast, Crystal Beast, and the Queen Beast, have the similar hand design, where four fingers can move forwards and backwards. Each of the beasts larger than the small set ones are armed with various weapons. The Queen Beast can carry a cocoon on her rear end.

On the fronts of the top parts of the foil packs and boxes are drawn pictures of the sets.

Each of the regular sets' instruction manual has a non-canon comic that is made in the same style as the pictures on the foil packs and boxes and based on the set. It also ends of the sets' combination models appearing to continue a fight between the Heroes and the Jumpers. The manual also has a different checklist of mini-figures, their equipment, and cocoons that you have, depending on what set wave was the set released in.

List of Sets

Small

Winter Small Sets

• 44015 Evo Walker
• 44016 Jaw Beast vs. Stormer

Summer Small Sets

• 44023 Rocka Crawler
• 44024 Tunneler Beast vs. Surge

Medium

Winter Medium Sets

• 44017 Stormer Freeze Machine
• 44018 Furno Jet Machine
• 44019 Rocka Stealth Machine
• 44020 Flyer Beast vs. Breez

Summer Medium Sets

• 44025 Bulk Drill Machine
• 44026 Crystal Beast vs. Bulk
• 44027 Breez Flea Machine

Large Sets

Winter Large Sets

• 44021 Splitter Beast vs. Furno & Evo
• 44022 Evo XL Machine

Summer Large Sets

• 44028 Surge & Rocka Combat Machine
• 44029 Queen Beast vs. Furno, Evo & Stormer

Promotional

• 40116 HF Hero Minimodel
• 40117 HF Villains Minimodel