Having conquered countless dimensions, the Dark Axis most recent conquest was the land of Lacroa. The invasion of the kingdom was aided by an enemy of the royal family- Tallgeese, a knight who had been denied entry into the elite royal guard. With the citizens of Lacroa turned to stone and their knight protectors either dead or MIA, the now Lord Tallgeese was placed in charge of his homeland. Enforcing Tallgeese's evil across the barren land were his legions of Pawn Leo soldiers. Seemingly made in their master's image, the Pawn Leo's were roughly the size of a Zako soldier and just about as effective. With short capes to imply their limited amount of magic knowledge, the Pawn Leo's used Lacroa's finest combat technology (crossbows, short swords and shields) to serve their master. The diminutive dullards were split in to teams, with leaders bearing a head crest similar to that of Tallgeese and a red shoulder band. When struck by the enemy, Pawn Leos returned to their true form- a harmless purple dice.
When not serving their master, Pawn Leos were known to engage in an intensive rivallry with the mainstay Zako soldiers, going so far as to take over the Zako-run 'Zako Zako Hour' show.
Ah, the Leo. In many ways it can be blamed for the mess I'm in right now. Gundam Wing was my first taste of the franchise and so the Leo was my first enemy grunt MS. For some reason, it (and the Tallgeese series) stuck out to me. The Gundams were flashy and illogical, but the Leos were stylish yet believable. With 4 Leo figures in my collection, it was only a matter of time until I added the Pawn Leo to the family. So how does the little guy stack up?
In SD Gundam Force, each dimension is based on an existing series and each dimension has it's own enemy grunts- tiny cute cannon fodder that the bad guys use to no end against the heroes. For the UC inspired Neotopia/Dark Axis it's the Zakos (based on Zeon's Zakus), for the G Gundam inspired Ark it's Zakobusshi (based on Neo-Japan's Zaku homaging Busshi) and for the Wing inspired Lacroa we have the Pawn Leos. Since Lacroa is a world of swords and sorcery, the Pawn Leo has a somewhat medieval look to it. This is pretty much limited to the chest area, where we have leather straps and spikes on the front and a short red cape on the back (in the show capes signify the wearer as a magic user, with the knights having floor length ones to show their power).That's pretty much it, with the rest just being the Leo squashed down.
Whilst the line seems to have given up on action features (thank God...), the Pawn Leo apparently didn't get the memo- he has 3 to speak of:
1) A simple one, twisting the arm will make the right arm slash up and down. Ideal for the sword (more on that later)
2) You can choose to have the figure as a standard Pawn Leo grunt or a slightly more impressive commander-type. To do this, you replace the left shoulder 'armour' with an identical one of red colour and insert a head crest into the head (the crest is very similar to the one used by the original Tallgeese). The crest is removed by pressing a purple gem on top of the head, which fires it out as a projectile. Both forms are ok, but somehow the standard form which lacks the crest ends up looking like a commander type which has respectfully taken off it's helmet
3) The final one and probably the best. I'm sure most of you will be familair with anime facial expressions such as @_@ and x_x. These are used in the show, especially by the Pawn Leos, and the figure lets you have fun with them! The Leo's simple face square is a triangular block- one face is a plain, the other has @ and the final one has x. Pressing down on the cape will spin the block around. So you can have a proud Leo standing to attention, a slightly dizzy Leo stumbling around or a KO'd Leo on the floor. It's a fun little feature and adds some novelty to the toy.
The Pawn Leo comes with three accessories- a crossbow, a sword and a shield. The shield and crossbow are both clearly based on the weapons used by the original Leos (the crossbow even has an ammunition drum!), whereas the sword is a simple new design. All three share a grey/silver colour scheme and like the Zako's weapons are sized more to be cute than effective. The crossbow is capable of firing a missile.
The Pawn Leo's articulation is this line's standard- he moves at the waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips and ankles. As usual, most of these are restricted by armour. Painting is nice and clean, with no slopiness unlike earlier figures in the line. Perhaps the biggest problem for me is the scale, or lack thereof. At it's start, the SD line kept the characters in scale with one another but over time this has vanished. Villains that should dwarf their heroic rivals have had the situation reversed on them. Such is the case here- the Pawn Leo feels too large. Comparing it to it's master, it's close to the same height! With a character such as this, small size is important and it's a shame Bandai seem to have missed that here.
Can I reccomend it? Tricky. As with all of the Musha and Knight SD stuff, it's mainly going to appeal to fans who like the original design. However, it's a fun figure and sure to be a success with kids (and adults) with imagination.
Images can be seen here-
http://fun.poosan.net/pamela/etc/sd_pawn_leo/main.html
