Silver Max

In case you've forgotten (in the 11+ years since we last reviewed them), Shadowrun: Duels is WizKids' action-figure spinoff of the popular roleplaying game that mixes cyberpunk and fantasy tropes, which is how we get this cool dwarf mechanic. Maxwell Eddendorf was born to dwarven parents in the Clyde Hill neighborhood of Bellevue. A natural aptitude with mechanical devices led him first to small rigs of his own creation and then to larger security drones cobbled together for neighbors and local businesses. An interest in real-world applications led him to breaking into secure facilities, which in turn brought him into the local go-gangs, first the Leather Devils and then the 405 Hellhounds. It was with the Hellhounds that Silver Max (his ganger name) first hooked up with Kross, a young ork. After a few encounters with Lone Star Security, Maxwell broke with gang life to become an independent drone rigger. (A rigger, for the record, is someone who builds and controls electronic devices, whether by remote control or direct, Ghost in the Shell-style brain diving. That's just one of Shadowrun's plethora of made-up slang terms, like "go-gang" for bikers or "decker" for hackers.) The Shadowrun: Duels figures were sculpted by Plan-B Toys, so Silver Max is looking really nice. He's wearing a chainmail shirt beneath a red vest with various pins and patches on the chest. The back is sculpted with a large flame design, featuring an anvil and two crossed hammers above it. Of course, it's hard to make out, because of the tool harness he's wearing on his chest - it's a separate piece, molded with pliers, a wrench and some screwdrivers in the front packets, but it's not removable. He has something round in his back pocket, and a small skull on a chain around his left bicep. Silver Max was comfortable among the predominantly human gangs and is willing to work with anyone who lets him tinker with his rigs. He keeps his work in a state of continual upgrade, always trying out some new modification. His sturdy black boots have studs and chains around the top, metal caps over the toes with rough hooks or spikes on them, and metal plates on the heels with a hammer symbol. The right boot has a small pocket on the outside ankle, while the left has three different screwdrivers. This guy is ready to build! Like all the Shadowrun: Duels toys, Max comes with two pairs of hands: one normal, and one with pegs in the palms to help him hold his accessories. While the "holding" pair just have plan metal plates on the backs, the normal pair is much more exotic: the left hand has three short square claws, while the right has some sort of a hook and what looks like a soldering iron on the distal fingers. A tube (power source?) runs from the back of the hand to the ring finger. He wears a complicated device on his right wrist, featuring a flashlight, a saw, and other mechanical devices he surely uses in his rigging career. It, too, has a rubber hose on it. Max's long hair is pulled into a thick ponytail and numerous thin braids. The ones in front of his ears ingeniously hold his multi-lensed glasses on, though if you slide those off, you'll find a face that looks like nothing so much as bearded Robin Williams. Like, straight-up Good Will Hunting era beardo. If it's not intentional, then it's the strongest subconscious influence ever! The glasses may be removable, but they don't count as part of his gear. "Gear," in this case, refers to all the accessories that give your figure a bonus in the game - they all have a point value (you can equip 12 points' worth of gear) and specific dice that you can use as long as the pieces are in play. Max includes a heavy pistol and a large hammer. The latter is useful both for making repairs and for negotiating with larger opponents. He's also got a remote control, a keyboard with a shoulder strap, and a really neat drone that looks like it was built from an old army helmet. He sees his drones as tools by which the weak can stand up to the strong. One of the left hands is molded with the trigger finger extended, but the gun is still too small for it to hold. Also, there's a peg for an accessory on the back of his belt, but it broke off. And of course, since Shadowrun: Duels is a grown-up version of HeroClix, he comes with his 5" display base/storage tub, which will keep track of his three stats. Maxwell is relatively good-natured, though he prefers his machines to people. In combat, he pushes both himself and his devices to the breaking point and is more than willing to test his "babies" to the point of destruction. In terms of the game, he's a good mid-range fighter, using his drone at distance to take away other players' Gear, and his hammer up close to take away their hit points. But even if you don't want to play the game, this is still a cool action figure. He has a swivel neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, hinged elbows, swivel waist, and a T-crotch, which is about average for this line. Silver Max is a runner both because the pay gives him access to bleeding-edge tech and because he wants to test his creations under real-world conditions. He accepts failure in stride, provided he can determine why his devices failed and compensate in the next generation of drones. If you want a cyberpunk dwarf, there really aren't a lot of options, so it's good that this one is quality. -- 02/27/16

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