Mint in Box: LEGO NEXO Knights Clay’s Rumble Blade
Let’s get ready to RUM-BUUUUUUUULE!
We’re jumping to the NEXO level of Knightly armaments with Clay Moorington’s personal vehicle, the Rumble Blade!
The box does a fantastic job of showing the finished toy in it’s full glory as well as a cross-sell for the Merlok 2.0 app I gave my thoughts on last time. The contents includes three bags of assorted parts — around 367 in total — a sticker sheet and an instruction booklet.
The set includes a nice assortment of 5 minifigures, though technically I guess three aren’t truly minifigs but their own unique little pieces but for the sake of ease, let’s just refer to them as minifigs.
Ash Attacker and Scurrier are two little army builders, devoid real personality and just generic cannon fodder. They share the red and black colour scheme of all the lava monsters and while the Ash Attacker looks like a more colourful orc from Lord of the Rings, the Scurrier’s unique three-piece body makes him stand out a fair bit.
The Claybots are an adorable double act of little robots who seemingly act as squires for the knights, providing support as needed. They share the same double-printed face so you can distinguish them if you wish.
Clay is the leader of the NEXO Knights; A humble farm boy who proved his valor and earned his NEXO Powers when Jestro and his lava monster army attacked. He’s rendered pretty well in plastic form, looking super heroic and even with the limited minifigure articulation, he can pull off some cool poses.
In addition to his broadsword, Clay can be equipped with any of the three include NEXO Powers, which include Backlash Lightning, Phoenix Blaze and Slime Blast. While I haven’t had the chance to scan any into the app yet, I can imagine they’re your typical chain lightning, fire AOE and poison projectile attacks in-game.
The first bag contains all the parts you need to build the Sword Speeder. It’s rather a simple build, with the cockpit providing most of the focus until you expand into the ‘blade’ of the flying vehicle and the wings. Once built, it’s a sleek little number and fits with the blade-wielding Clay’s aesthetic. I especially dig the forward-swept wings that give the look of a hilt and ties the whole sword-plane idea together nicely. There is room for Clay to pilot the vehicle as well as some neat weapon storage.
The second bag features the two vehicles for the Claybots; the Sword Break Bikes. Each is built identically, with the huge wheels being the central components that keep the vehicles together. Again, fairly simple build but you have to build everything twice with some mirrored components. The finished bikes make a nice little duo and also include storage for their weapons.
The third bag builds the… I don’t think this thing has a name but it’s the central body for the Rumble Blade and acts as both a launching platform for the Sword Speeder and as a mobile artillery station. It’s a fairly uninteresting, bare-bones build but is an ultimately vital component to the end result. Still, look at those big chunky wheels!
The completed Rumble Blade is a thing of beauty. The colours and silhouette remind me of some the colour toys of my youth. It’s got shades of the Thunder Tank from Thundercats and it’s action features really remind of the Buzzard vehicle from M.A.S.K. It’s a robust design and all it’s base components hold together in the combined form pretty solidly. While the Sword Break Bikes can be launched in tandem thanks to the sled that runs through the core of the base vehicle, the Sword Speeder has to be manually unhooked but that’s a minor nitpick on my part.
All in all, for an RRP of £29.99, I can highly recommend Clay’s Rumble Blade because I had an absolute blast with it. The build is simple and fun and results in one of the most bad-ass LEGO vehicles I’ve interacted with in recent years. There’s a lot of playability in the set itself and the NEXO Powers add more play value for the game too.