Profile Card

Magical Rhyme: ""

Faction: Darkling Lords
Series: Series 1
Released: 1987
Totem:
Magical Power:
Magical Totem:
Magical Device:
Hand-To-Hand Weapon: Guns (x4)
Primary Colour: Purple
Secondary Colour: Blue

Reviews

The Dagger Assault is the largest Visionaries vehicle which was released, and other than the Iron Mountain playset would have still been the largest Visionaries vehicle (even after series 2). The toy seemed huge to us growing up, I remember getting it for Chirstmas as our parents could not wrap the toy as it was so large (obviously they could have if they had more paper). The is larger than most GI Joe vehicles, and larger than most of the Transformers which we own (making it the longest toy that we have to date). Toy could argue that the GI Joe Mobile Command Center is larger (I would argue the same).

The Dagger Assault was the centre piece of any Visionaries Collection (other than any series two toys) and a central part of the Visionaries cartoon series. It featured a magical chamber that would trip a Spectral Knight of their powers. This was repsentedf in toy form by a large compartment where could fit two or three Spectral Knights laying down, and had holograms on either clear side panel. The Dagger Assault could hold all 6 of the Darkling lords (two in the year, two on the catapults, one pilot and someone in the Dagger Dart (the flying drone vehicle which was launched from the Dagger Assaults "launch pad".

I will state now that I am a massive fan of this toy. OK it's fairly simple in design, two rear wheels, a skid at the front and lots of straight edgesr but the toy feautres dual catapults, the dagger dart, two staff holders behind the rear figure holders, a few guns and lots of holograms.

The Dagger Assault is made from the purple Darkling Lord vehicle plastic, and features light blue parts and gold plastic parts. Its quiet amazing but the gold plastic does not seem to suffer from the Gold Plastic Syndrome which plague Transformers releases around this time. The guns generally just get broken due to to heavy handedness or lost.
The original prototype toy for the Dagger Assault featured the same design and features but differnet colours. These can be seen thanks to scans of Hasbro product catelogues, and indicate that the toys were developed prior to the completion of the Visionaries marketing book (which contains the colour guides for all series one characters and vehicles). Changing the gold to blue was a good idea, due to what we now know as GPS (teh gold plastic syndrome mentioned earlier).

The 1988 Hasbro product catelogue lists the toy on page 91 as follows:-

This dark and deadly vehicle surges with ominous magical power! Incredible built-in holographic dungeon, reduces men to mere mortals. Complete with detachable scout flier, twin side-mounted catapults and child activated battering ram!
Includes pilot, Reekon, with his own chest hologram.
Style Number: 7850
Pack Style: Box
Pack Size: 280, 640, 230mm (H,W,D
Pack Qty: 3

Toy Images