Toy Review - Generations Deluxe Class Windblade

[Firestorm]

Windblade
Series - Generations
Sub-line - Thrilling 30 (30 of 30)
Size/class - Deluxe
New/remould/redeco - New
Wave - 10
Released here - NO
Approximate Retail Price - $25
Approximate Size - 13cm
Allegiance - Autobot
Alt-mode - VTOL Jet
Main Features/Gimmicks - Spinning VTOL blades
Main Colours - black and Red (w/ Blue, Gold and Silver)
Main Accessories - VTOL Sword, Sheath, Fan/Headpiece

Stock Images
http://tfwiki.net/mediawiki/images2/...-Windblade.jpg

So here we have Windblade, the first ever Fan-Built Bot, Star of her own Miniseries by IDW, and Camien City-speaker. Hasbro claims they put 5 times the effort into designing Windblade, lets see if the hard work of the fans and Hasbro has paid off.

Robot Mode

first things first Windblade's robot mode looks gorgeous, it may not have the big eyed cutesy style of the artwork from her miniseries, but she still looks lovely
she's a rather slender figure (like most fembots) but still carries the look and feel of a warrior. her body is made up of red and black plastics, with some metallic blue paint on her chest and wrists, while her head also has red and gold paint to create her "camien city-speaker/ Kabuki facepaint" Windblade has quite a few paint-apps on her (particularly her face) but her wings are entirely black except for the blades of her VTOL fans which are white.
In terms of poseability Windblade has ball-jointed shoulders (with hinging shoulder armour over them, a swivel at the upper bicep, her elbows have hinges and her wrists can rotate. Her waist can rotate, her hips are ball-jointed and her thighs can rotate (although they are a little hindered by their shape) her knees can hinge both forward and backward and her heel can move a little due to transformation. Her head can rotate and based on how she transforms can also look up and down (although slightly hindered by her collar) her wings are also poseable and can be angled at different hinges to have them down by her side, or angled up, or angled back. and her VTOL fans can spin and also rotate like they do in the comics
The only major piece of kibble Windblade has is her vehicle mode cockpit and nosecone sitting on her back in robot mode. but it's not so bad

Accessories

Windblade's major accseories are her Sword and Sheath,
Her sword has a black handle and hilt (that is square in shape similar to animated Arcee's swords) with a white non-spinning VTOL fan in the hilt, the blade of her sword looks awesome and is clear purple although it fades to being completely clear the closer it gets to the tip. and of course the sword can store in the sheath

The sheeth is entirely black and has a peg on one end which she can hold although it looks kinda awkward (this peg is mostly used for storage in vehicle mode) there is another peg which acts as a handle for her to use to hold her sheath in a more normal looking fashion
The sheath also has a pair of tabs on it allowing it to peg into either of windblade's thighs, or onto the sides of her cockpit as weapon storage.

One final accessory that Windblade has that wasn't mentioned before but is included in her instructions is that the golden hairpiece on the back of her head is actually removable and can be held by her as a fan to further her Japanese theme. it is stuck in there quite tightly though
(I couldn't get it out and was scared of breaking it so I couldn't get a picture of her with her fan)

Transformation

Windblade's transformation is, unique but kinda fiddly and awkward. most of her altmode is made up of her wings which unfold and angle down to sit along the sides of her body, her shins collapse up to create her ... (i'm not good with vehicle terms... is it intakes? boosters? whatever) while her calves and heels create her tailfin and thrusters. her arms just fold down to her hips and then just sit there pegged onto the back of her wings.
Her head stores in her chest and her sheath can store on the underside of her vehicle mode
Her transformation can be a little difficult to do since her wings need to peg into various parts of her body which they don't seem to want to do so it can take some time to line everything up to make the wings sit properly and peg in

Alt-Mode

Sadly, Windblade shines brighter in her Robot Mode than her Alt-Mode. unlike in the comics where she was mostly red Windblade's altmode is mostly black with the only red being her underside and her shin-thingies. speaking of which, due to their shape, when in vehicle mode Windblade is left with a large hole in the middle of her vehicle mode, although this can SORTA be improved by pegging her sheath into her underside.
Windblade has a landing gear under her cockpit and also has two molded onto the back of her thighs.
Her vehicle mode can be a little hard to keep together due to her wings not liking to fold the way they should and not pegging in properly.
just like in robot mode her VTOL fans can rotate

Pros

Windblade has a very uniue design and some great paint apps in robot mode, her accessories are very nice and her arms are very poseable, she can store her weapons in a variety of ways and it's always good to get new characters, especially fembots.
She also has a hole in the underside of her cockpit to allow for figure stands (similar to all AOE figures)

Cons

Her transformations is fiddly, and her vehicle mode is gappy and lacks paint apps.
Her robot mode is also quite back heavy which is made even worse by her having such skinny heels the can easily fold against the underside of her foot causing her to fall over and when looked at from side on without her arms down by her side she looks quite hollow

Additional Pics



Final Thoughts

All in all I am pretty pleased with Windblade and think the fans have created something quite nice, there are some drawbacks, but no figure is perfect. I'm not sure if she really has "5 times the effort put into her" compared to other figures, but she is still very nice. and it is great to have a new character and new fembot in my collection (also helps that I really loved her comic miniseries)
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