Toy Review: Iron Factory IF EX-23 War Giant (Combined)

Iron Factory managed to put out one of the most well-built 3rd-party combiners to date in War Giant.

Producer: Iron Factory

Price: Approx. $200 USD

Release Date: Feb. 2018

Item Height: Approx. 8.75″

Item Weight: N/A

Batteries: N/A

WHERE TO BUY: The Chosen Prime

the time has come for Iron Factory’s IF EX-23 War Giant to be all assembled and reviewed! As per usual, Iron Factory knocked it out of the park and gave me a “desk bot” that will have a spot for some time to come. Check out the video review above as well as my written break down and thoughts along with the gallery below. Please let me know what you think of it all in the comments as well!

Build: Just like the pieces that it’s a sum from, War giant is extremely well put together with strong joints and pieces that connect very tightly. I have yet to play with this piece and have any areas at all that feel frail.

Accessories:Within the sets, there’s a smaller version of Bridge Watcher (Shockwave) in gun mode (he can hold the actual Bridge Watcher toy in alt. mode however it looks very awkward with such a big handle,) as well as a large rifle that is made up of the weapons that come with the individual bots. He holds both of these guns well and looks great doing so (see pics below.)

Articulation: The articulation is the only area where War Giant falls a bit short for me, and you can check out the video above to see it in motion. Overall, it has passable articulation in most area and some parts are exceedingly good like the added panel below the neck that can raise the head up and forward a bit to be seen during shots taken from a lower perspective, double-jointed elbows, and some of the best hand/finger articulation I’ve seen on a Transformers toy in years, and ankle tilt for days. The areas where I feel it falls short art the shoulder raising being limited on the Booster Spear (Vortex) arm and the hips having very limited frontward swing even with the crotch guard skirts being movable and making way for further. It’s still fun to platy with and gets a lot of good poses, but could definitely use some work to get it standard in some areas in order to be great all around.

Overall Score: 8.5/10 – Honestly, War Giant is both a solidly-built and FUN piece when combined. I also personally find it to be the best LOOKING toy homage to the G1-styled Bruticus yet. War Giant’s a piece that does a ton right, but the niggles I have in the articulation are what keeps it from being more close to that “10” score even at a Legends scale. In the end, the things that War Giant does do, it does great but there are definitely a few areas to where I feel it could be more “to standard.”