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Let's get it out of the way now: Worf is packing some serious hardware in his pants. Granted, it's not David Bowie in Labyrinth, where you could see the outline and everything, but the size of the bulge down those not-especially-tight Starfleet-issue strides... well, let's just say I hope Bashir wasn't hoping for a virginal kind of experience with Ezri. And that's not even counting what a Klingon's wedding tackle might look like.
I promise there won't be any more mention of the gentlemen's area (Klingon or otherwise) in this review - I just thought, since the sculptor went to the effort of putting it there, it's only fair to mention it. Plus, with all our talk of female toys' busts and bums, this kind of evens the scales.
As longtime OAFE readers will know (well, some of them might, if anyone thought it was worth remembering),
one of the exceptions I make to my all-girls rule is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Star Trek Nemesis - the source of this figure - wasn't DS9, nor was it much good by any standard, but since Worf looks like he did on DS9, and is wearing the uniform he did on DS9 (the grey-shouldered version), this might as well be a DS9 figure. Anyway, Diamond Select/Art Asylum were evidently a bit confused too, since one of Worf's accessories is an isomagnetic disintegrator, which was only used in Star Trek: Insurrection.
Worf's a big boy - not just in the manner already discussed - and his figure appropriately stands a towering 8" tall. He's physically imposing too, with defined pecs and hints of a six pack underneath the thick Starfleet jacket, and solid arms and legs with the thighs and biceps likewise evident in spite of the thick woollen material covering them. The sculpting on the uniform is everything it needs to be, with realistic creases and contours in the fabric, and clean definition in the ribbed shoulders and the undershirt showing through the open collar. One notable (albeit minor) difference between this figure and Captain Sisko - the sole Starfleet male with this uniform style I have to compare it against - is that Worf's jacket has a visible closure running down the front of it, whereas on Sisko (and the Dax girls) the closure is omitted.
Worf's baldric (a.k.a. his Miss Qo'nos sash) is a separate piece rendered in soft plastic, but despite the softness of the material the sculpt is quite sharp and detailed, capturing the intricate woven/chain-link design, as well as the two medallions displayed on it. Both are accurate to their on-screen appearances; the lower is the emblem of the House of Martok, which Worf joined in 2373. Since it's flexible, and shaped to fit over the widest part of Worf's body, the baldric is removable without much work, though obviously it's rather oversized for other figures.
Worf's face is the same sculpt that was used for Regent Worf -
or close enough that I can't tell - but he looks subtly different thanks to some careful paintwork. His beard is more well-kept, keeping to a nice symmetrical shape without straying outside its bounds, the paint wash bringing out the detail of his forehead and the bridge of his nose is smoother, without sudden dark shadows, and the irises of his eyes are larger, making the eyes feel warmer and more expressive. In short, he still looks stern and formidable, but you get the sense that he's a more contained, self-disciplined personality than his mirror self.
The head shares the Regent's slightly too flat forehead sculpt at the top, allowing the level hairline to show a bit too much, but the hair itself is quite nice work, eschewing any kind of dramatic shading and just letting the very fine, very regular sculpted lines do the work. The ponytail sits away from the back a little, but this is only really noticeable when Worf is looking straight ahead, and you're looking at him from directly behind, which isn't likely to happen that much in the course of being posed for display.
The uniform is well-trodden territory for DS/AA, and they make few mistakes. As usual the black is a matte finish, the shoes are glossy, the shoulders and turtleneck are painted cleanly, and all the colours ring true to the real costume. There are only three issues: the first (and it's very minor)
is the grey of the shoulders extends a little bit onto the right side of the turtleneck, just above the sculpted edge of the jacket, making the tunic look dusty if you look at it very closely. The second is that the internal pegs of the shoulder joints are only painted grey up to a certain point - on the right arm the baldric hides this entirely, but if the left arm is angled straight down, a thin sliver of black shows in the joint. The third, and this is my personal peeve with most of the Trek figures, is that the pips are only painted on. The rank is correct - two solid, one hollow, for Lieutenant Commander - but against the burgundy collar, the gold pips are almost invisible, and even when you spot them they look more brown than gold due to the contrast.
Worf is articulated decently, but as we're accustomed to with this line, sculpt takes precedence in some areas, limiting him. The neck is a balljoint hidden within the collar, though for once the collar seems to sit a little bit too far away from the neck itself - it's not a big deal though. Balljoint shoulders, swivel biceps, hinge elbows, swivel wrists, swivel waist, peg hips, hinge knees and ankles - same as usual. Since he comes with a rifle it's worth noting that he can reasonably well wield it two-handed, though crouching to fire will need something to keep him from tipping over.
Besides the baldric, if you want to count that, Worf comes with six accessories. Seriously, I've only bought eight of these figures (not counting Uhura, who just had the one 23rd Century PADD), and even though all of them are using at least one piece of gear, I've got a collection of leftover junk that'd have Berlinghoff Rasmussen wetting his pants.
He's got the usual transporter pad base, handy for keeping him upright in action poses, or standing on if you want to put him behind some other figures and still have him visible - Worf's has the revised Starfleet emblem on it, with the split bar behind the arrowhead rather than an oval. It's also a bit low down on the plaque, by my estimate, but that's easily overlooked. He also has two sets of hands: a pair of closed fists, and an open pair, the right grasping, the left relaxed.
These hands, I have to say, are a bit of a nuisance to get in and out - compared to the other Star Trek figures I've got, the pegs are very thick compared to their sockets, and of a slightly unusual design (maybe it's a casting error) in which the peg ends in a ball, but then widens again as it nears the base. In effect, you have to get it into the socket twice, firstly to pop the ball in, and secondly to drive the thickening peg fully home. The left fist proved so reluctant to fully insert that, turning it to try to slide the peg in, I accidentally sheared off the ball and top half of the peg. Ironically, after I'd carefully dug the piece of peg out of the socket with a blade, the "broken" peg remaining on the fist worked fine, its thickness keeping it nice and sturdy in the socket.
All those hands need something to play with, so Worf gets three weapons. First is a type-2 phaser, the 2379 (Nemesis-era) model, which is a brighter silver, and thinner and pointier than the usual slimline type-2s used for the majority of DS9.
Moving up a type, he gets a type IIIb variant rifle - the same accessory as Captain Sisko - the grip of which fits tightly, but well, into his grasping hand. And finally, for when you absolutely positively gotta kill every petaQ in the room - and every other room, and probably take out the whole building while you're at it - Worf gets his favourite toy from Insurrection, an isomagnetic disintegrator. This shoulder-fired cannon doesn't quite fit smoothly into Worf's grasp, since - aimed to fire - the grip is at an angle to the hand, and because Worf's so big the shoulder rest doesn't quite fit completely over his shoulder, but the weapon can be finessed into place well enough to pass a casual inspection.
Even though it's branded for Nemesis, this is a perfect DS9 Worf figure - so much so that I very much doubt the DS9 line will bother to do a Worf in this grey-shouldered uniform, unless they just repackage this figure with different accessories.
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