General Information:
Nemesis Strika is one of the minority of Transformers Universe stickers that seems intended to be the same character (albeit possibly from a different universe) as the toy it is a redeco of. In this case, Nemesis Strika is a redeco of Beast Machines Strika, one of Megatron's Vehicon Generals. Here however, Strika is a Decepticon. The addition of the word "Nemesis" in front of the name suggests either a loss of trademark over the original "Strika" name or an effort to make the name cool and distinctive.
Vehicle Mode: What I've always liked about the design of this vehicle, both visually and conceptually is that this is one of the few Transformers (post G1 at the very least) that is a purely Cybertronian vehicle design. That fact and its rather interesting details really give the impression of an alien vehicle, not a take off from an Earth vehicle. Perhaps one of the most distinctive features of this figure is the front "cockpit" portion which resembles a robot head. Back during the Beast Machines era, each Vehicon was designed with the idea in mind of giving the vehicle mode a bit of a visual personality. Part of this was creating cockpits or "heads" on the vehicles. In this case, it's both. The front grill really looks like a mouth, and the windows look like visor eyes. Other nice sculpted details include cut lines on the sides and the wheel design, which has a nice curved look to it. Strika has a Spark Crystal molded in purple. It's tough to tell just which one it is, it looks like a swirl only, so there's a chance they've stopped recycling old crystals. On top is a tampographed Decepticon symbol, which really looks neat since its laid on a dark purple crystal. The original Strika had a good deco, and her successor does as well, but a very different one. The primary colors used here are metallic copper, mustard yellow, dark metallic silver and purple. Now, this sounds like a very odd combination of colors, but somehow it works. I think the reason for this is that every one of these colors is a very dark shade. Even the mustard yellow is not bright at all, it is very muted. The metallic copper and silver colors really help the toy look like a machine. The purple is used sparingly, keeping it from distracting your eye too much.
I'm a big fan of paint details, and Nemesis Strika has them in spades compared to the average Transformer. The "head" of the vehicle has silver details and a beautifully done black wash which looks like scorch marks all over it (logical since if this thing attacks head on, that's where it would get hit first). Transformation to Robot Mode:
Robot Mode: The mustard yellow color gains prominance in this mode, making up the head, the top of the upper body, most of the upper arms and the legs. The copper color is reserved for armor parts like the shoulder armor and chest armor. A bit of red is actually used on the head, around the face, and the eyes are neon green. Some light grey appears with the ankles and lower arms (on the inside). Overall, not a bad color scheme, but it really would have been nice to see some of the black wash and dry brush effects used in this form. Nemesis Strika has twelve points of articulation, which is on par with the toys of hrr time. Some of these are nicer than others. For instance, her head can only look up and down. But the shoulders swivel and have ball joints connecting to the rest of the arm, so those work out nicely. The knee joints are very stiff, which is good because if they weren't, the top-heaviness of this figure could easily cause it to flop around and not stand. Interestingly enough, Strika's mold has been given slight retool. The chest piece has been given a flat portion in the middle to accomodate a Decepticon symbol sticker. Quite unusual that there would 1) Be a retool at all and 2) That a sticker would be used. Most interesting choice. It looks good, and is unexpected.
Final Thoughts:
 |
|||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|
