Taildar - Machine Robo Ganseki Chōjin
Tailbone as its name suggests is the tail section of the four part Rock Lords combiner Fossilsaurus. Tonka had intended to release these four figures as 'Fossil Lords'.
For a combiner part, Tailbone looks great as a monster and the combiner's tail end even moves into place to give the figure its own tail. It also has some logical joint articulation and doesn't scream I'm part of a combiner!
Unfortunately, one of the issues with the Fossilsaurus individual figures is they look good but play semi-bad. This may be related to last minute changes in the combiner's design; see Fossilsaurus page this site for more details.
Stiff Arms The shoulder joints are extremely stiff and they need to be. When Tailbone's being a tail, they just stick out of the tail on an angle and as there isn't a ratchet or locking mechanism to support the joints, if they weren't stiff, they'd flop down. This makes playing with him more an act of posing and less about playing. The prototype for Tailbone showed that when in tail mode, the arms originally were to raise over the head then fold in to be covered by the upper tail section; see photo below. This appears to have been dropped as part of the late changes to the combiner's design. A promotional photo (see below) showing a hand painted, production version Gattaisaurer has Taildar's arms raised along the upper sides of the tail. This makes more sense
with the tail widening closer to the hips. It's unknown whether this simply wasn't communicated to the instructions creator and people who took the packaging photographs or whether the promo photo was taken later and in retrospect they thought it looked better. This also would negate concerns of loose shoulder joints as if that occurred, in this orientation the hands will rest on the top of the legs preventing them flopping down.
Weird Weapons Tailbone can hold his oversized weapon but that's about it. With it in hand, the arm can't be lowered any further than where shown below. The two Y angled handles on the back of the weapon can't be used and the forward grip is a mystery. His counterpart Ribcage's instruction indicate the extra handle on its weapon is used for carrying it, however it's not mentioned for Tailbone. This is only necessary because there's no way to lower the arm holding it by the main grip. Oddly, the prototype weapons did work fine for the prototype figures. During late redesign it feels as if the weapon and figure modifications were out of sync or maybe planned something that didn't eventuate; see prototype below.
Name While the character's English name is not shown on the packaging or instructions, Tailbone is printed both with and without the space in various marketing material.
As with the other three Fossil Lords, Tailbone was only sold as a combined set and not individually as Monsterous and Puzzler's parts were.
See main Rock Lords index page for more general details and Fossilsaurus page for combiner specifics.
Rock Lords Europe Bandai 1987
Machine Robo Ganseki Chōjin Japan MR BH-04 Bandai 1987
CREDIT Japanese promotional material scan kindly provided by Christopher L. Mar
