NEXO KNIGHTS!

I'll forego the "sorry for being inactive" preamble.

So Christmas 2015 brought the release of Lego's Nexo Knights theme and Erik & I (and Lizzie to some extent) are into it big time at the moment.  I've always been a fan of the "elsewhere worlds" twists, so the fantasy-scifi mash-up really appealed to me from the outset.  The bigger surprise was how much the tie-in app game, with its "collect the shields" component and supporting videos, drew my son and daughter in.  It's a masterful stroke of marketing and my hat is off to the Lego Group for their diabolical plan.


At the moment, the three of us own over half the Winter 2016 releases.  After building the sets, I was originally at a loss of what to do.   First I considered a village, but free play usually devolves into Erik dive bombing me to intagib any bad guy I was using, smashing everything in the process.  % year olds can be rather destructive.

I then envisioned some sort of tabletop game to keep things under control, and had come up with a framework, but I let the idea slide as... well... real life comes first.  However, the kids and I had an hour to kill yestersday and I came up with a far simpler version on the fly and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to do a post on it.

Nexo Knights - Monster Attack Game v1.0

Erik enjoying an afternoon of monster thumping

The game mechanics were as follows:

• The object of the game was for the kids to clear the monsters off the board, or for me to get a monster into the Fortrex to turn Merlok 2.0 off;
• The kids each controlled one knight with one Squirebot (i.e. Axl with Chef Eclair for Erik, Macy on her rocket horse with Dennis for Lizzie) and started at the Fortrex end of the board.  I brought monsters in from the far side;
• Each player would activate their minifigures on their turn and they would first move (up to one highlighter pen length) and then attack what they could touch;
• All attacks generated one "hit";
• Each knight could attack twice per turn, while everyone else only once;
• Each knight and squirebot were armored, allowing them to ignore the first hit each turn;
• Knights had 10 health and squirebots 5 health; and,
• One my turn, I rolled two dice and then would 'summon" monsters according to a rudimentary chart I wrote down on an a handy envelope: 

ROLL 1-3: Bloblin (1 health)

Typical annoyance

ROLL 4: Scurrier (1 health)

No different than Globlins in the end

 ROLL 5: Ash Warrior (2 health)

Scary red orcs; I love their new helmets

 ROLL 6: Boss Monster (3 health)

Infernox: for some reason we decided he was the only one not allowed to move the turn he appeared

Moltor: Pretty bog standard guy

Lavaria: that damned spear always gets in the way

Beastmaster: Imitating his awful Russian accent and saying things like "I'll get you, Nexo Nopes!" was a big hit

Post-Game Thoughts:

We certainly had fun.  The combination of Knight and Squirebot gave the kids enough minifigs to cover the board and the armoured rule gave them a sense of heroic battles as they waded through waves of my dweebs unscratched.  Not that I was offering more than token opposition really.  I had a run of 5s and 6s at the start, but things settled down afterwards and, apart from a couple of sneaky runs up the side, there was never really any danger of me winning.  The kids cleared the board after about 45 mins, but could have easily done it sooner if they had planned things out.

Lucky for me we avoided having Aaron on the field because I am not sure how I would have incorporated range attack rules.  We also did not have any Nexo Powers, but they weren't really needed.

One thing that I'll fix for next time is the rocket horse.  It gave Macy way too much range as her movement was measured nose to butt and that added 4+ inches to her reach.

If/when we play it again, I was asked to work in some of the bad guys' vehicles too.  Frankly, some differences between the bosses to differentiate them might be in order first.  I am musing something on the order of:

• Infernox -  6 health but only moves every second turn because he is slow and cumbersome;
• Moltor - lose a movement if he hits you (i.e. knocked down by his giant fists);
• Lavaria - first hit is a miss since she is so nimble, but 2 only health; and,
• Beastmaster - hits twice.

Scurriers could likely use a tweak too to make them a bit different, but I'm not sure what that is yet.  Maybe double movement at the start.

If we ever have more than two players, I'd probably drop the squirebots and simply roll two dice plus an auto Bloblin each turn.  Then again, the game requires on the fly changes as you go anyway to keep it fun for the kids.


Later.

Next time Nexo Nuthins', I will DEE-STROY YOU!  MUAHAHAHAHA!