Having followed the Nexo Knights leaks since the beginning thanks to my pal Scar, I feel like I can safely say, that upon its initial leak
the King’s Mech was the most well received set of the initial wave.
With the set in hand, I figure I’ll take a minute, just sit right there and tell ya all about how I became the fresh prince of bel-air and cover the sets aesthetics, functionality, and all that cool stuff.
I guess we’ll start from the smallest things, and make our way to bigger and better things gradually.
The first thing I’ll note is that two Nexo Powers for the shields are included in this set.
My personal favorite of the two is Storm Dragon, cast in trans yellow plastic with a dark purple rim.
The other, cast in trans red, but given light blue print for all but the border is…uh…
Triforce From Zelda
Yep, that’s totally its official name.
Triforce is the default power used for the shield, and for good reason. When all’s said and done, the shield becomes the primary chestplate of the mecha, meaning that Triforce, due to conforming to the mecha’s color scheme.
Next thing to talk about is our minifig selection.
Included are King Halbert, King’s Bot, and Flame Thrower.
Flame Thrower appears to be a generic grunt type, with mohawk and quiver. He’s honestly got some nice prints, especially his legs, but as a whole, I find him quite forgettable. The same could be said of most villain stuff I own so far.
The King’s Bot, to my utter dismay, has an entirely show accurate face. For whatever reason, the stupid toothless grin these guys have really gets on my nerves.
Fortunately, it seems some designers shared that sentiment, as an alternate, mouthless, neutral, expressionless face can be swapped out on the other side of the head
Continuing on, his build is simple, short, but effective for what these guys are for. Namely, to get knocked around by larger and stronger foes. He features new shoulder and torso elements, with a printed 1x1 tile with the King’s crest on it for armor. He also comes with one of the swords introduced with LOTR, and is overall not bad.
Our final figure is the titular king, and he looks quite nice, featuring orange recolors of the Collectible Minifigure series King’s crown and beard, he now channels the true overlord, The Burger King, even more now.
MOCists into making fast food places, eat your hearts out.
That aside, he comes with a nice dark blue cape, and a really cool gold version of the Knight armor prints we’ve seen from the main heroes.
the only disappointment here is his sword, as a bit of the peg sticks out from the lightsaber hilt where it attaches, and throws the whole loo off. Making it look less solid, and really less formidable as a weapon.
As for disappointments for the lineup as a whole, the big one is simply that you don’t get a single one of our main heroes. Personally, I think including Macy would’ve been a great move, as she appears in only one other set, and she is the King’s daughter, after all.
But alas. Wishful thinking.
On to the villain’s side of the conflict.
Our flamethrower gets this neat double crossbow thing that I’m sure has a name.
It uses two copies of the new Bowcaster piece that Chewbacca introduced last year. Either one can be removed and be used as individual weapons, but I hardly see the need.
Overall, a decent little construct, but not the main event.
Speaking of that main event, the Mech itself is wonderful, with a lowset stocky look due to the sunken in head/cockpit window, and the wide shoulders and pauldrons.
It stands at the height of its most recent predecessor’s(The Titan Mech from Ninjago) shoulders. It’s a great height and girth for 30 USD
Speaking of its predecessor, the King Mech fares better in a crucial aspect that many among the fans have been asing for ever since 2015’s winter with Jay’s mech.
Functioning knees.
I’ll give you a sec to wipe away the tears of joy.
Moving on, the mech is also given deep ankle tilts, and heavily restricted movement forward and back. This is to its benefit, as it helps it stand upright.
Hips are also the standard, wonderful and unrestricted. The aforementioned knees bend 90 degrees, as well.
Where this mech falls flat to its predecessor is in the arms.
The shoulders still use good ol’ balljoints, but unlike the Titan Mech, where the ball was at the torso, and the socket at the arm itself, the King Mech reverses that.
This severely hampers forward motion, preventing any truly dynamic poses without some creativity.
The sword arm otherwise isn’t too bad, suffering the same elbow limitations as Kai and Jay’s mechs.
The shield arm, however, is far too heavy, and weighs on the balljoint too much to keep a raised pose.
Some silver sharpie applied to the ball should fix that, but it’s an issue nonetheless.
Said shield arm also has a cockpit, and can be piloted as a separate flyer unit by the King Bot.
It’s nice, but nothing too stellar.
Overall, though, the mech is very aesthetically pleasing, with or without stickers, and simply carries its awesome through sheer silhouette alone, despite some limitations.
In finality, I highly recommend this set to any who have interest or are on the fence.