Exo-Force was a theme inspired by stories from Japanese manga and anime such as Mobile Suit Gundam and Robotech. The theme and its sets were based around enormous combat mechs known as battle machines piloted by humans against the mechanized Devastators, Iron Drones and Meca One robots, who themselves possess combat machinery of their own, with the intent of complete dominance of the mountain they live on, Sentai Mountain. What lay at the bottom of the mountain was never revealed. The theme lasted two and a half years, as it was introduced in spring 2006 and later discontinued in the summer of 2008. The working title for the series was Battlepeak. There was a book series based off of the sets. The story in 2006 is based around the Sentai Fortress, its human inhabitants and the mechanical Devastator robots that are attacking them. At the end of the 2006 story arc, three of the humans, Takeshi, Hikaru, and Ryo are sent to find the legendary Golden City. Subsequently, Sensei Keiken, Ha-Ya-To, and the other humans travel to the city.
At the end of the 2007 story arc, human leader Sensei Keiken is captured by the Devastators. The team embarks on a mission to find him, leaving Hitomi in charge of the Golden City. The team rescues Sensei Keiken from the Devastators and Meca One. Despite the sets being discontinued, the storyline has developed dedicated followers, who continue the plot through fanfiction on the The Exo-Force Wiki and other websites. Most of the Exo-Force sets consist of large "battle machines"; these are high-powered, heavily-armoured exo-suits designed to mimic human movement, and are mostly piloted by a single human or robot. Most of these vehicles use Technic joints to give the mech stability with a wide range of movement, and normally come equipped with a short-range melee weapon—a sword, shield or similar—in one hand and a long range weapon such as a pistol or laser cannon in the other. 2006 sets used click ball joints exclusively, while 2007 sets introduced ball joints. Aside from the mecha there were larger combat vehicles, bases, and remote installations such as gates and towers.
Also, all of the final sets released in 2008 included a miniature brick-built robot that resembled its respective mech. The 2006 sets featured power cores, a light-up brick located somewhere in the mech's chasis and connected to one of the weapons by a special fibre-optic cable. This was used to "power up" (Exo-Force's catch-phrase) the battle machines and the weapons attached to it. All of the 2006 sets included a power core, with the exceptions of a few smaller sets, 7708 Uplink and 7711 Sentry. From 2007 on, the power cores were discontinued and "exo-codes" were included in every set. to unlock downloads and additional set information. The 2007 codes were printed directly onto 2x1 flat tiles and incorporated into the set build. The 2008 codes were printed on stickers that could be applied to different brick types in different sets. Hikaru (2006)Takeshi (2006)Ryo (2006)Ha-Ya-To (2006)Tank GunnerHitomiSensei KeikenIron DroneDevastatorDevastator (Green)Devastator (Red)Devastator (Blue)Meca OneHikaru (2007)Takeshi (2007)Ryo (2007)Ha-Ya-To (2007)Hikaru (2008)Takeshi (2008)Ryo (2008)Ha-Ya-To (2008)
A promotional poster from 2006A promotional poster from 2007Our community, 479 want it Our community, 454 want it Our community346 want this set Our community, 401 want it Share your video games moments with us. Be creative and build models or scenes from the games, perhaps your own level or help others by sharing a screen shot?I recently gave my PowerShell Brickset Module a much needed overhaul, so thought it was worth putting a few posts out on how it works and what you can do with it. In part 1 we’ll look at getting started, including download and installation. Brickset is an extremely useful site for keeping up-to-date with Lego based news and managing your own collection of brick based goodness. In addition to the browser based content, they also offer a SOAP based API. My PowerShell Brickset Module takes advantage of this API and provides a number of functions for working with different parts of the site. The recent overhaul of the module includes functions for working with the inventory side of things, i.e. the part which requires a login – the previous version was based only around functions which needed an API key.
To take advantage of all of the module functions you will require both a Brickset account and an API key. Fill out the form here for an API key and they will send you one. Currently they are free. The easiest way to install the Brickset module is to use PowerShell v5 and get it from the PowerShell Gallery. To do that is a single command: otherwise you can get it from Github, instructions in the previous post. Once installed, import the module and check out the available commands: One of the new functions in this release is Connect-Brickset. This replaces Set-BricksetAPIKey and handles the API key, the User login (if supplied) and the Webservice connection. Run Connect-Brickset and both your API key and user login will be available for all connections in the session, stored via the $BricksetConnection variable: You can still do all of the same things as in the previous release, such as getting the number of Lego sets per theme: To drill down into detailed information for a range of sets, we could do something like this:
In part 2 we will look at getting hold of instruction PDFs and Part 3 onto some of the new functions that require a login for managing your inventory…..Oh, this had better not be some plot to keep me out of all the action!" Hitomi is the grandaughter of Sensei Keiken, the leader and founder of Exo-Force. The only female on the Exo-Force Team. Her full name is Hitomi Eve Keiken. She was originally a part of Ryo's team of mechanics. Hitomi is a great mechanic and had the makings of one from a young age. However, she was more interested in Battle Machines, but her grandfather didn't allow her to be a pilot because he feared for her safety and that she would die like her parents. But she disobeyed her grandfather by flying a battle machine called the Blazing Falcon without permission during a robot attack on the Golden City, and saved the day by rescuing a fellow Exo-force pilot, Ha-Ya-To from the robots. After that Keiken decided it would be best to make her an Exo-Force pilot.
After Keiken was kidnapped by Meca One, she was made leader of the Exo-Force according to her grandfather's wishes. With her teammates, she is smart and smart-mouthed, a risk-taker who feels she has something to prove. When she is with Sensei Keiken, she becomes more formal and withdrawn, though she may be prone to outbursts if pushed too far. A skilled mechanic, but more interested in martial arts and battle machine piloting than technical work these days. Grandaughter of Sensei Keiken, Hitomi showed an aptitude for mechanical work from an early age. She was also a very daring and courageous young girl. When the first robot rebellion broke out, she begged to be allowed to fight, even though she was much too young at the time. In the intervening time between the two robot wars, Hitomi got a job working with Keiken and Ryo to design the new battle machines that would be used by Exo-Force. She dreamed of someday piloting a battle machine herself, although she knew Keiken would never approve of that.
Knowing that the ranks were thin after the battle at the Sentai Fortress, she went again to Keiken to ask for the chance to help defend humanity. Keiken finally gave in, allowing her to serve as a guard at the Sentai Golden Tower. Since the city was so heavily defended, Keiken reasoned she would not be in too much danger there. But Hitomi trained in secret, honing her hand-to-hand and sword fighting skills, as well as her knowledge of Battle Machine operation. During a fierce robot attack, she had the opportunity to commandeer an untested battle machine, the Blazing Falcon. Using it to defeat the robots, her heroism left Keiken no choice but to make her a full member of Exo-Force. Hitomi is smart and capable. She has a respectful relationship with Hikaru, a very friendly relationship with Ha-Ya-To, and a sibling-like affection for Ryo. Her relationship is a little more strained with Takeshi, as he believes women should not be in combat (and he really hates having Hitomi boss him around).