Planet X Nemeios

Prelude: Remember IDW Star Saber? The murderous religious zealot who enjoyed slicing non-believers in half? Good. And remember how he was able to powerlink with Victory Lio? No? Well, your memory is good then, because IDW Star Saber never had a Victory Lio to powerlink with. Until, that is, Planet X released a Victory Lio to go with their IDW-styled Star Saber Kadmos. So here he is, Nemeios, the IDW Victory Lio we never had. Let’s say go!

Robot Mode: Nemeios is a roughly Ultra-sized robot, pretty much the same height and mass as Kadmos. He has the usual Victory Lio look, mostly black and gold with white and red wings, complete with shoulder guns, hip guns, and a big rifle to boot. He has his characteristic golden lion helmet with the stern-looking face as well, so everything fits. This is definitely Victory Lio, no doubt about it.

Articulation is excellent, no complaints at all, including articulated hands, ankle tilt, twisting hip, turning head, and fully articulated wings and guns, too. Just about the only bad thing I can say about the robot mode is that he has some trouble holding his big gun, the grip does not fit solidly into his hands. Apart from that, though: a pretty cool robot mode.

Alternate Mode: Nemeios is a triple changer (technically a quint-changer if you include his two combination modes). His first alternate mode is, unsurprisingly, a robotic lion. The transformation is pretty basic and somewhat reminiscent of your average G1 beastformer. Fold in the legs, unfold the beast’s hindlegs, robot arms become front legs, beast head replaces robot head, done. The lion is basically a black rectangle with golden beast limbs, a lion’s head, and the same winged gun-rucksack as the robot, but it does look pretty good. Fair warning, the joints on the beast legs are extremely tight, but they do work just fine. So bottom line: a decent beast mode, though without any big surprises (and no tail, either).

Nemeios also has a jet mode, though it’s a jet in name only, to be honest. It’s really just a black rectangle with wings, little more than that. Thankfully the big wings do make it look like some kind of flying thing, at least, but still: a flying black box. It does have a landing gear, though, so there is that. Worth a mention: Nemeios’ hip guns have no good place to attach in either mode, sadly. They can still attach to what was the robot hip, of course, but it doesn’t look that great.

In total let us admit that Nemeios’ alternate modes aren’t really all that great. They’re not bad, mind you, but they clearly take a back seat to the combination mode (see below).

Add-On Parts: Nemeios comes with an entire rack of replacement parts for Kadmos. Apart from a new, slightly shiner head, most of these parts are new joints. As I wrote in my Kadmos review, Kadmos did have a few loose joints, so in order to accommodate the weight of Nemeios in their combined mode (see below), those joints need toughening up. It’s a relatively simple swap, done in about 15 minutes or so. It’s interesting, though, because Masterpiece Star Saber went through the same thing in order to accommodate the weight of KFC Simba. Well, it can’t be easy carrying all that excess weight.

Combined Jet: Nemeios can combine with Kadmos in jet and robot mode. In jet mode they basically attach end to end. Nemeios wings and guns are reversed and the shoulder pieces of the robot mode unfold two plugs that attach to Kadmos’ knee pads which are at the rear of its jet mode. For all that the two jets are only connected at two points, the connection is amazingly solid, no wobble at all. Both jets’ landing gear are at equal height, so you basically have a seven-point landing gear for the combined jet. Nicely done. So while the combined jet does not look terribly aerodynamic, it looks very, very cool in my book.

Combined Robot: The main purpose of any Victory Lio is to become an upgrade for Star Saber. Nemeios splits into six components to accomplish that. His winged backpack with the guns becomes the backpack for the combined figure, nothing surprising here. His two legs (each which half a hip) become boots. His arms and chest halves become shoulder pieces. And finally there is his head, which can be attached in one of two places. You can go the classic route and attach it to the back (see pictures 34 through 42) or to the chest (see pictures 25 through 33) for a bit of that Predaking vibe.

Either way, the combined Victory Saber (Leon Kadmos? Victoria Gladium? Xífos Níkis?) looks fabulous. It was a great idea to put parts of Nemeios on the shoulders instead of having one huge backpack, this way the figure looks far better proportioned. Also, with parts of Nemeios’ cannons enhancing the sword and the large gun, the entire combined robot looks almost in scale with itself. It retains the full articulation of the Kadmos robot, the only slight limitation is the big shoulders clashing with the wings a bit, but seeing as the wings can be moved back, that’s not really a problem.

A few things about the combination process: one cannot help but notice that Kadmos was not originally designed to accommodate a Victory Lio. One, you need to remove Kadmos’ boosters and wings in order to put on the winged rucksack and two, the connecting ports where the rucksack attaches to the back could be positioned higher for greater stability. As a result it takes a bit of effort to get the rucksack to attach solidly, but once you have it in place, it’s pretty solid. Same goes for the feet and boots. I’ve found the easiest way to attach the boots is to remove Kadmos’ feet, plug them into the boots, and then reattach the booted feet. No problems with the shoulders, though, and Kadmos’ cockpit can still attach on either shoulder, too.

As mentioned above, you can attach the lion head to the back or to the front. If you choose the front, though, you need to remove Kadmos’ smaller robot first, otherwise there is no room. The smaller robot (in jet mode) can attach to the big gun, where you can fold part of the gun forward to make room for him. It works, but it kind of bugs me a bit that the actual Kadmos robot is now outside the combiner and simply a part of the weapon. So I’ll leave the lion head on the back, which is the classic Victory Saber look anyway.

Bottom line for the combined mode: fabulous. The assembly process might not be quite as smooth as it is for other combiners, but it still works just fine and the resulting robot is amazing.

Remarks: Star Saber as he appeared in the IDW comics was a very different character than the Star Saber we remembered from Victory. He was a zealot, a murdering crusader, and he never combined with Victory Lio to become Victory Saber, either. Still, after Planet X brought us an IDW-styled Star Saber in the form of Kadmos a few years back, they finally decided to go the distance and bring us a similarly styled Victory Lio, too, who could combine with Kadmus. I like to imagine it that Murder Saber indoctrinated some kind of innocent beast bot to become his accomplice in smiting the non-believers. Like most Planet X figures, Nemeios takes his name from Greek myth as well. He is named after Leon Nemeios, the Lion of Nemea, who was slain by Heracles as part of his legendary twelve labors.

Let us be honest: Nemeios, like pretty much any version of Victory Lio you’d care to name, is not something you’d buy as a stand-alone figure. The robot mode is cool, but his two alternate modes are mediocre at best. No, you buy any given version of Victory Lio because you want to link him up with the appropriate version of Star Saber. Same here. Nemeios works superbly well in combination with Kadmos and the two of them are easily the best Victory Saber I’ve had in hand yet (HasLab Victory Saber still pending).

So bottom line: if you own Kadmos, you need to buy Nemeios. If you don’t own Kadmos, try and find him and then buy Nemeios!

Rating: A-