This is the third and final year of NEXO Knights. While the line has been a bit hit and miss over the last few years, especially AFOLS looking for a clear cut castle or space range, I for one will miss is once they are gone. I have gathered a good number of the Knight’s sets over the last few years- while the actual builds have been interesting, I have ultimately dismantled them all and used the parts to rebuild Classic Space sets. Add air tanks and they look like fantastic space men and women, ready to explore the galaxy.

But, just as the Classic space sets were without any form of antagonist, until the arrival of Blacktron, I have found none of the  antagonist characters fitting into my vision of a NEXO- Classic Space Utopia. The bad guys just haven’t captured my imagination: demonic lava beasts and rock monsters are great in the fantasy landscape afforded by the castle line, but as villains in a science fiction/space theme, they are haven’t appealed to me. As such, I was excited when it became obvious that the villains in this final season were far more sci-fi inspired than any of the others seen to date.

While the new series is yet to air, the ‘Tech Infection’ theme, has the villains looking suitably more futuristic than fantastical. We see a collection of white skinned villains, with varying levels of cybernetic components, and lime green printed circuit motif’s on their faces to imply a level of ‘infection’.  Their Black green and silver uniforms, with a red eye makes them an instant army, with sufficient variation to make them interesting. But more on that later.

The ships in this wave are black with transparent fluorescent green. Some dark stone grey is also present to fill them out. Unfortunately, we only have two sets currently available, and the series’ cancellation means we are not going to see any more released in the future. I would like to present some of the best aspects of these sets over the next couple of weeks, starting with the Twinfector 72002

This is a small set, with 191 pieces and three minifigures: Aaron, Pola and the mysteriously named…’Fred!’  It retails for AU$29.99 GBP19.99 $USD19.99.  I picked mine up with a modest discount from a big box retailer.

The Minifigures.

This set comes with three mini figures: Aaron, hola and Fred. Aaron we know and love from earlier series. His armour has received an upgrade, with lots of new gold trim.  Mabel the Cavoodle loved him, and took him for a little run before I could photograph him! Please excuse the tooth marks. He has the green helmet we have seen previously, as well as a trans fluoro orange visor.  He also has pearl gold armour which fits over his upper torso, giving the impression of a late eighties power dresser! His head features the standard laid back smirk, as well as his big grin.  His shield is pearl gold, and features a new  ‘Merlock Power’: on its own, it is worth 5 strength in battle, but it can be enhanced with other shields which you have collected along the way. I love this figure, and will probably get a new copy, and add it to my army of NEXO Spacemen.

Fred and Pola, our antagonists, share leg and  torso prints. Yes, LEG Prints: after so many of the superhero figures had unadorned legs this year, I was beginning to think that they were not going to appear at all, however here in the home grown licence of NEXO Knights, leg printing is still happening. While the legs and torsos themselves are black, the arms are titanium metallic(TLG)/ dark pearl grey (BL) – this is thesame colour as their armour and Fred’s helmet. Hola has a magnificent mane of purple hair, recoloured from the LEGO Batman Movie sets. They both have a small armour covering their upper torso, obscuring the red eye print.

Fred looks normal enough, until you turn his head around, and it becomes apparent that he may not be quite feeling himself. He also has a heavy duty helmet.  Pole has a mane of flowing purple repurposed hair, and appears to already has some form of cybernetic enhancement. On the flip side, the eyes change from red to green, and a fine network of printed circuit inspired elements appears.

The Build

The Twinfecter is essentially two mirror image speeder bikes, which bind together and reform as a three wheeled buggy.  In turn, the bikes have mirror image wings. As such, the build process is a little repetitive.  However, we encounter a few new and unusual elements along the way to keep things interesting. The shape of the wings owes a lot to the utilisation of the black 4×4 modified plates with 3×3 circular quadrant cutout ‘4×4 plate with arch'(design ID 35044/ Element ID 6208787). This is a new element this year, and this set is one of the first places it has been seen.  When four of these plates are put together, a 6×6 circle is left in the middle. We also have some corner tiles, interlocking to remind us of nifty ways to use them, and many trans green elements.

We also have these fantastic techno spiders – I presume the vectors for the tech infection.  They fit into stud shooters and can travel a reasonable distance, despite the extra weight:

The individual bikes look pretty slick, but perhaps a little unfinished. The main difference between the two is the use of the 4×6 cockpit in trans green for one, and using the villain’s shield as a wind deflector on the other.  I am impressed with the use of the big wheels as the rear jet for the speeders, and wonder how a large ship using these might look.  Spider launchers located at the from complete the look. this set is also the largest source of ‘Blade number 9’, the white point bit  at the front, containing 4 ( and a spare). Both of these speeders are quite swooshable with the wings deployed.

Both of these speeders come together: fold the wheel to the side, rotate the front armature and tuck the wings up, and we have a monster trike.  The wheels spin smoothly, and the vehicle is quite zombie around the living room floor.

In Conclusion:

So what do we make of it all? Black, black, dark grey, titanium metallic and trans fluoro green… it is almost like Blacktron from the 80’s, but with Trans Fluoro Green instead of Trans Yellow, and slightly less defined blacks!  Let us, for the time being call it Greentron.

The common design motifs across the range of enemy figures means that it won’t take long to get a cyborg army up and running, and there is sufficienct variation between the faces to allow them to line up together.  The black-grey with green highlights is reminiscent of both the Borg and  the Jem’ Hadar from Star Trek Television Universe. Certainly they are extremely effective, and just a little bit scary.  You could add back helmets and outranks, or just leave them as they are to be the next invaders.

My main issue with this set is its relative size, but for the price, even with these three brilliant mini figures  it comes in around 10p or US cent per piece, but AU15c/piece. However, the larger wheeled elements would certainly account for this to a certain extent.  The number of black curves and green highlights really stands out to me, and I do suspect I will get another to increase my parts to work with to build a larger ‘Greentron’ ship.

Overall I feel the colour scheme is fantastic, and the final vehicle is very effective.  The new mini figures, both NEXO Knights and Villains are appealing to me, as are the new elements – the cut out plates, and ‘spiders’ especially. I do feel the individual speeders are lacking a little something, but I think some extra black parts out of the collection will help it a lot! I look forward to combining some of the cockpit elements and coming to terms with their geometry.

Overall I award it 3.5 out of 5 Arbitrary Praise Units.

I will be sad to see the NEXO Knights leave our shelves, as I have found them amongst the more inspirational sets for me over the last few years.  I have enjoyed the builds, but I have enjoyed developing my own models out of them too.  I look forward to looking at the Berserker Bomber in a week or two, to see what else the Tech Infection has to offer this year. I may well have a large project to work through before then however!

But Wait, There’s More!

Over at LEGO Rebrick, they are running a NEXO Knights related contest:

Build the ultimate mech for the NEXO Knights Universe: what does your ultimate NEXO KNIGHTS mech look like? GOOD GUYS AND BAD, big mechs and small, they want to see it all. Show the team at Rebrick your most amazing, most creative, most wild NEXO Knights mech for a chance to win…

There will be one grand prize winner, who will receive:

• 72001 Lance’s Hover Jouster, 72002 Twinfector, 72003 Berserker Bomber, 72004 Tech Wizard Showdown, 72005 Aaron’s X-bow, 72006 Axl’s Rolling Arsenal, 70357 Knighton Castle
• A $400 USD shopping spree on LEGO.com
• A NEXO KNIGHTS poster signed by a LEGO designer
• A collection of NEXO KNIGHTS merchandise

There will be two runner up winners, who will receive:

• 72001 Lance’s Hover Jouster, 72002 Twinfector, 72003 Berserker Bomber, 72004 Tech Wizard Showdown, 72005 Aaron’s X-bow, 72006 Axl’s Rolling Arsenal, 70357 Knighton Castle
• A $100 USD shopping spree on LEGO.com

I look forward to seeing what people build as a tribute to this theme, which has had a mixed reception. There is no doubt though, that there are some extremely passionate fans of the theme out there: I look forward to seeing what gets put together for this contest.

Until Next Time,

Play well!

Addendum: the LEGO Inventory lists the canopy as being ‘trans bright green’ but it certainly fluorescences under black light…