The ShockWaves are designed for Traxxas style 3.8″ rims and will also be available as pre-mounts on black Pro-Line F-11 wheels with 17mm hexes. More information will be available on these very soon, until then HERE is the link to the official Pro-Line website.

Dare to click on a BigSquidRC TGIF Myster Link? You know you want to!

Part number for the Agrios is #58549, street price is $499, and they are expected to start hitting hobby shop shelves in late May. Hit up THIS LINK for more information on the Agrios on the official Tamiya website.

How about reading more Tamiya news? Check out THIS LINK right here on BigSquidRC.

The new part number is #6401-F111 and it has a street price of around $590. The latest edition of the Thunder Tiger MT4-G3 should be hitting hobby shop shelves in late May.

Hit THIS LINK for all the information on the new MT-G3 at the Thunder Tiger website, and check out THIS LINK for more Thunder Tiger news right here on BigSquidRC.

The Rival Mini Monster comes with a 2.4 Ghz radio system, four oil filled shocks, 370 brushed motor, and 6 cell Ni-MH battery pack. It’s an RTR, so it is ready to drive right out of the box, and its part number is #20111. June is the expected release date, and you can get more information at THIS LINK on the Associated website.

Looking for more Associated news? Check THIS out right here on BigSquidRC.

Pro-Line designed the new Desert Militia MT to fit all the popular Traxxas monster trucks like the Revo, Summit, and Maxx series trucks. The part number is #3401-00 and it has a street price of $32.

How about some more Pro-Line News right here on BigSquidRC?

Monster trucks are the weapon of choice for a true basher, their large tires give them plenty of ground clearance for grass driving and driving over large clods of dirt. One of the latest entries in this product categories comes from Helion, a division of Firelands Group and an exclusive product at HobbyTown USA. We’ve been trying to destroy the new Helion Invictus 10MT for weeks now. Did we succeed? Read on…

From: Helion RC
Direct Link: Invictus 10MT
Unboxing Pictures: Unboxing the Invictus

Review By: Cubby
Pics By: Cubby

Specs:

RTR or Kit: RTR
Age: 14+
2wd or 4wd: 4wd
Shaft or Belt: Shaft
Electric or Gas: Electric
Waterproof: Yes
Scale: 1/10th
Length: 16.61″
Width: 13.27″
Wheelbase: 10.83″
Motor: Radient brushless, 540, 3500kv
Speed Controller: Non-sensored brushless, Radient Reaktor
Low Voltage Cut-off: Yes
Radio: Helion HRS-3.1, 2.4 GHz, 3 chan
Differential: 2 gear diffs
Slipper Clutch: No
Driveshafts: Bones
Shocks: Plastic bodies, oil filled
Servo Saver: Horn type
Screws: Phillips
Spur/Pinion Pitch: 32 pitch
Bearings: Yes
Tires: Helion chevron pattern, foam inserts
Battery: 8 cell, 1800 mah Ni-MH
Part Number: HLNA0248
Top Speed (measured by BSRC w/ 2S Lipo): 26 mph
Warranty: 90 days limited
Street Price: $290

Primary Competition: Traxxas Stampede 4×4

What’s Needed To Complete: Four AA batteries

Build Quality: We saw no leaking shocks, nothing was binding, no excessive flash, camber/toe settings were in the ballpark, everything appeared to have been assembled correctly.

Test Drivers: Cubby, Brian, Tim, Sam the Noob, and Iron Mike

Test Venues: RC Outlaws in Collinsville IL, Cliff Cave Park in Oakville MO, CostCo parking lot, and a backyard.

Set-up Notes: We ran the Invictus bone stock initially, then went to a 2S 6500 mah MaxAmps lipo with Traxxas connector adapter later in testing. We used a Hyperion 720iNet3 to charge both the stock pack and the MaxAmps.

Turning: Just like the rest of the Helion line-up the Invictus has a LOT of steering, in fact too much on high bite surfaces, and so much the truck is hard to drive in a straight line. The front end is overly planted making the rear very loose. In a typical corner the Invictus plants hard at turn-in and the rear starts sliding around.

Jumping: The Invictus is a backflip machine. Leave the gas pounded off a jump face and the Invictus loves to backflip, even on small jumps. If you are coming from 2wd or from 4wd with a center diff, the Invictus is lots of fun to backflip but for normal jumping the lack of a center diff makes the truck ultra sensitive to trigger input. A slight stab of the brakes on a 2wd barely nudges the front end down, on the Invictus a little brake drops the front like a brick. Otherwise, due to the large tires and decent suspension take offs and landings are a joy. The big tires and all the travel can soak up crazy amounts of airtime. For example, when jumping off a second story roof the suspension/tire combo soaked up the ultra high impact landings arguably better than many other vehicle we’ve recently tested.

Bumps/Whoops: The Invictus is a beast in the gnarly stuff. Once again those large diameter tires and ample wheel travel can soak up some very rough terrain. We found the spring and damping rates worked well with the chassis, just point it and pin it, it will blast through the chop like a champ.

On-Road: Overall, the over-steer of the Invictus makes it hard to drive on-road and in the corners the rear end likes to slide out. It certainly soaks up pot-holes and road-joints very well, but generally it was hard to drive. There is an upside, the Invictus can be made into a much better on-road machine with a few simple changes.

Grass: The Invictus drives quite well in grass. It has decent ground clearance and those chevron tires give just about the right amount of side-bite.

Tires: Obviously the stock tires are chevrons so they look scale (which is very cool in our book). For actual rc driving they weren’t bad. They give very good bite in mud and they are manufactured from a compound that lives a long time but isn’t rock hard. For their intended use on a monster truck the stock tires hit the mark quite well. The foams were right in the ballpark, not too soft nor too hard.

Power: The included Radient Reactor brushless system has decent overall power. It provides enough power to wheelie, backflip, and throw crazy roost. However… the stock power system cogs like crazy and it runs really hot. The Invictus is overgeared out of the box, and the stock battery pack is not capable of putting out enough current to quench its demands.

Even by simply holding the Invictus up in the air and hitting the gas it cogs and takes a long time to hit max rpm (and it gets worse when the wheels are actually on the ground). Stock, the power system just isn’t set-up for a vehicle of the rotating mass of the Invictus.

We did drive the Invictus multiple times with the stock set-up, meaning stock gearing and battery. The 8 cell Ni-MH ended up running even hotter than the motor (more on this later), proving the stock pack just isn’t up to the task it is being asked to do. When switching over to a lipo (that we know first hand can handle some pretty insane current demands), it still cogged more than we’d like to see, indicating that it was over geared or the brushless system just wasn’t up to the demands of the rotating mass involved.

To get down to what the truck actually drove like, all stock it coggs a lot and often times took a while to get moving (in both forward or reverse). Once actually moving, after its soft low end programming, for sure it had good yank. It had decent top end (although it couldn’t pull its entire gearing) and had enough mid-rang snap to make big jumps, blast up hills, etc. Going to a quality Lipo cut most of the issues out, still some cogging, but a lot more mid-range yank.

To boil it down, yes, you can drive the Invictus with the stock battery and gearing, but I would highly recommend dropping as many teeth on the pinion as will mesh up, and going directly to a quality 2S Lipo.

Radio: The stock Helion radio had great range and weight distribution. The trigger was of a decent size and was nicely located in relation to the grip and wheel. The wheel had a decent foam on it and all the spring rates felt perfect. Overall, a decent and very usable RTR transmitter.

Broken Parts: We did not break one part on the Helion Invictus, even after crazy/stupid abuse. However, we did have some issues. The first thing we do with a new test vehicle is do a mph test. That takes about 2 minutes then we start taking pictures. While we are taking pics we are somewhat cautious to not break the vehicle. So… halfway through the first pack while taking pictures the Invictus spit out one of its front driveshafts. Our local HobbyTown USA didn’t have one in stock yet, so it was a day-ender. We hate day-enders, especially when we didn’t even crash or abuse a vehicle and it happens. Because it might take a while to get a replacement (They are at local Hobby Towns now, but we got our truck early) we dug through our parts box and found an Axial 96mm shaft that was just slightly shorter than the one the Invictus spit out. The Axial bone was much thicker than the Helion part, so we had to bust out the Dremel and do some mod’ing. An hour later the Axial bone would fit in the Helion’s outdrives. When we put the front bones back in we tightend up the pillow balls to make sure they couldn’t accidentally pop out again.

We then went on with our normal testing and didn’t break anything. The Helion lived through some massive crashes, deep water dives, and generally proved tough as nails. If a test vehicle lives through normal testing we start doing stupid stuff. The first “stupid” test was to huck the Invictus off a second story roof. We did that (3 times) to grass with absolutely no broken parts. We then flat landed to pavement from two stories up and ended up bending the center driveshaft bad enough that we will need to replace it.

Misc Notes:

The Helion motor runs hot, but the battery runs even hotter. The hottest day we drove the Invictus on was 70 degrees Fahrenheit, yet we saw motor temps over 160 degrees and over 165 on the battery. The battery got so hot its heat shrink shrunk, the high temps have us concerned about the stock battery life.

The Invictus is very waterproof. We had it over its roof in water multiple times with no ill effects. Kudos to Helion on how waterproof the Invictus is.

The speedo fan was quite loud, but things get hot, and it apparently needs it.

We didn’t notice this out of the box but after a bunch of runs the rear hubs had developed a lot of slop, causing a wobble in the rear tires under power.

We had a lower front shock screw back out. No biggie, but something to keep an eye on.

The clear pinion/spur cover looks neat and helps keep the nasties out of your gears.

We measured run-time at 9 minutes. The stock pack is listed at 1800 mah, but we measured it just over 2000 during a 1C discharge. 9 minutes run-time sounds like a long time to an old schooler, but feels quite short compared to the “norm” now days. When we popped in a 6500 mah MaxAmps it would run longer than we felt like driving it for.

The stock body clips are of a nice design. Sadly they are a bit too thin and bend easily (then disappear).

We’ve been blown away by the packaging from other manufactures lately, the artwork on the Helion box is a bit disappointing.

See the two neat little flags on the back of the body? Look fast, because they won’t last there long.

The red anodized pieces that come stock on the Invictus look cool.

The drivetrain on the Invictus rolled exceptionally free. This is a good thing, it means nothing is binding, giving you longer runtimes and more performance.

The stock servo is quite slow. Normally that is a bad thing, but on the Invictus it helps take some of the bite out of the trucks over-steer.

I was getting the truck ready for the first top speed testing when I realized there were no AA batteries for the transmitter in the box. I dug through the box and searched all over for them, I simply couldn’t find them. I then called Brian and chewed him out for “stealing the AA’s” out of the Helion box. Brian is quite the practical joker, and he owes me about a hundred pranks, so I thought the missing AA’s were his idea. I was wrong, the Helion comes with everything you need to get running except AA batteries. Helion, can ya please just drop in some cheap AA’s? Thanks in advance!

Best Mod Under $5: A new pinion, any pinion smaller than the stock.

Best Mod Over $5: A high quality Lipo battery.

Summary:

Time To Bash: C We didn’t use the included charger. Why? Because the manual says it takes “4-5 hours” to fully charge the pack. That is forever in the RTR bashing world. If you are using an aftermarket charger you can hit the track in about an hour.

Workability: B Good layout but we are not fans of Phillips hardware.

Car Show Rating: C Scale looking tires with good looking rims couldn’t overcome the body and graphics. We were just not feeling it on this one.

Bash-A-Bility: B Having a “day ender” on the first pack isn’t good, but at the end of testing we didn’t end up breaking any parts. This leads to some serious potential!

Fun Factor: C We had a blast running the Invictus through water holes, over mulch piles, and across a rough field, but the cogging and over-steer held back its fun factor score.

Handling: C The Invictus had its upsides- great suspension and ground clearance, and it’s downsides- too much steering and too touchy to trigger inputs while jumping.

Value: C The Invictus is $290, the Stampede 4×4 is $430, that’s a $130 difference. The problem is that it will probably cost you over $130 to catch up the the Stampede in electronics quality.

Parts Availability: C Our local HobbyTown USA didn’t have the front bone we needed to get going early in testing, but we knew we had the truck before it actually shipped! Helion parts are only available from a HobbyTown USA location, and as of this writing, they do have the parts in stock.

BigSquid Rating: C+ You have to admire the Invictus for taking the best we could dish out without breaking any parts, and with a few mods it can be an epic basher. However, out of the box its power system, over-steer and dog-bone issues keep it from hitting the mark.

Want to see more unboxing pictures? Check out THIS LINK right here on BigSquidRC.

Other features that stay the same on the DMT VE-R are 4wd, a 2.4 GHz radio system, and big bore shocks. The part number is #30844B and the street price is $380. Hit up the Kyosho America website for more information.

Check out THIS link for more Kyosho news right here on BigSquidRC.

From the moment it was announced we have been wanting to get our hands on the Thunder Tiger e-MTA! Well we now have one in our possession, and it was time to get it out of the box! Enjoy the pictures!

Keep reading (or click through) for even more photos!

That battery compartment looks like a tight squeeze, but we will find out soon what we can jam in there.

Looking for more Thunder Tiger news here on BigSquidRC? Click Here for more.

Speaking of Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull, I tried one of the new “Blue” Red Bulls the other day, it tasted just like a liquid Sweet-Tart.

March Bashness is off to an Epic start. I don’t think we’ve ever had such a great group of bash-mobiles in the Sweet 16 before. Every single truck was a pretty outstanding basher, but you guys have voted and we’ve now got our Elite 8.

So… in our Elite 8 we have two Axial’s, two Traxxas, one HPI, one Vaterra, one Thunder Tiger and one ARRMA. What does that tell you? Five of those are exclusive Hobbico lines, that’s what it tells me. The big-buck-basher-crowd is a highly sought after market and this year it appears Hobbico is putting out the kinds of products that consumers are really latching onto.

The non-exclusive to Hobbico brands, Traxxas and Vaterra, will certainly give them a run for the money. Traxxas has an enormous Army of loyal followers and the Vaterra Twin Hammers seems to have a perfect blend of features that appeals to an extremely wide variety of consumers. Yes indeed, the Elite 8 this year represents some incredible vehicles, vote for you favorite at THIS LINK.

On a different subject…

Did you see that Associated put out a full fledged bash-mobile, their new Rival Monster Truck? Associated has tried to be all hardcore “racers only” the last couple years, but then they put out their “Qualifier Series”. At this point Thunder Tiger (AE’s parent company) is kicking ass on the basher side of things, so AE could legitimately go uber-racer only. But… then they go and start confusing consumers by putting out basher gear. Hey, we are a basher website, the more bash machines the better for us, but confusing consumers just isn’t a good marketing plan (short or long term).

Oh and… in case you didn’t get the memo- 2013 just might be the year that big 4wd MT’s return to glory. Let’s see here, the old school Savage is still very much alive and kicking, the Revo is still incredibly popular among the bash crowd, the Thunder Tiger MT4 G3 blew up huge (and now has a brother called the e-MTA), and AE has their new Rival. Monster trucks ruled the basher world for years upon years, if we see a couple more new entries into the class I’d say it would be a full blown revival. ARRMA is rumored to be coming out with an uber 4wd MT, and if one of the Horizon lines were to jump in (hint, hint) I would think 2013 would be the best year ever for monster trucks. Any which way, consumers looking for uber-bashers have a kick ass selection to pick from this spring.

That’s it for now ya bunch of lunatics. Have a great week, vote for your favorite rigs in March Bashness, catch our Wednesday night G+ show if ya can, and as always support your local hobby shops and bash spots.

YOUR Cub Reporter