I seem to have found myself picking up a few more NEXO Knight sets than intended.  This Blog began back in January looking at Ultimate Macy And then Ultimate Aaron became necessary to create a fully armoured Green Lantern Finally, I found the largest, and most recently released of the team, in the Wild.  Yes, Ultimate Axl is now out and about, with a RRP of $AU16 (rounded up for the sake of decimal currency, and brevity of keystrokes: this second point I have now negated).

Axl caught my eye originally as part of the Fortrex set.  I like NEXO Knights, but I don’t love it.  As such, the only set I have picked up (outside of the Ultimate figures) is Jestro’s Evil Mobile (70316).  And that was because it only involved frequent flyer points, not actual cash.  I will put this together and see if there is anything interesting about it.  It seems to be one of the least frequently reviewed Nexo Knight Sets out there…and seems to be significantly reduced in a few places around town.  Cause meet effect? I’ll let you know some day.

But back to Axl.  The character of Axl has enormous strength, maintained by eating enormous amounts of food.  He stands a good head taller than the other NEXO Knights, and has an unrealistically proportioned body.  Who would have thought this to be a thing with LEGO figures?

Exploding Axl briefly, reveals his Flame Orange legs and torso, which are both printed. His amusingly sized torso expands from2 studs wide at the base to 3 studs wide where the shoulders attach.  The arms attach by means of a trans hello half technic pin, and are almost another stud wide. The back of his chest piece has a 2×2 stud region to attach his ultimate weapon to. Unlike your standard mini figures, Axl’s wrists have no rotation.  Axl’s torso appears to be the bulky chest piece, place over a standard minifigure body.  Unfortunately, no amount of persuasion with jeweller’s screwdrivers or needle nose pliers could separate the two.  I did not persevere too much in the name of science, as the end result was going to show that the minifigure body was mostly armless.

Putting him together, the final effect is not dissimilar to a Cold War Era Invasion Movie Robot.  To complete the effect, you may wish to polish off the Raging Bull on his chest, and replace his double sided face with something a little more exotic and science fictiony. Speaking of his face, Axl gives the impression of knight who has had a few too many dental injuries in the line of battle, with a solitary tooth poking out between both his smiling and frowning lips.  And he still manages to eat at an Olympic standard. The figure is a good brick taller than a standard minifigure, and, as you can see above, he is considerable bulkier than Macy and Aaron.

Looking at the ultimate weapon, clipped onto his back, we have a technic axle arrangement, with balls attached to the ends.  These then plug into pearl silver constraction figure fists. these rotate back and forth, being limited in each direction by Axl’s body.

His other weapons include a mace, topped with baby bows, an axe and a spinner, with 4 axe blades on.  The Axe blades featured are transparent yellow, and future a stud with a hole on each side.  The blade is three studs long, and (less the studs) one plate thick. There are 5 of these pieces ( and indeed 5 apollo studs) in this set. The combination of blades, with the studs with holes allows you to make a nifty, futuristic laser fence. – as seen above. So: as well as standard stud and tube construction – as seen in the base- and technic based constraction techniques – seen in the swinging fists – we also get several examples of rod/hole in stud/clip type construction as well.  The spinner works well, maintaining rotation for around 25 seconds.

The base is pretty standard construction, featuring the signature Nexo Knights wedge, and also dark blue 2×2 offset plates.  As you would expect with an Ultimate Nexo Knight set, there are 3 shields to scan for the Nexo Knight mobile app: Magnetize, Power Fist and Stone Stun.

So there you have it: I have enjoyed looking at Ultimate Axl: I especially enjoyed the novel minifigure design, and the variety of construction techniques in use.  The new axe blade and helmet visor especially caught my eye.  I am a little disappointed that the bull on Axl’s chest does not easily come off (Is this a request to go back to the days when when we used to need to but stickers onto the torso’s ourselves? Maybe. but only for this set…).

The figure has a little more novelty than the other Nexo Ultimates , and the spinner takes much less reloading effort than Macy’s stud gun or Aaron’s bow! Add the variety of construction techniques, and I guess I need to score it a little higher than Ultimate Macy.  That will make it Four out of Five Arbitrary Praise Units.  What do you think: how would you use the new pieces?  Why not leave a comment.

 

Play Well