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Thread: Toy Review - Generations Deluxe Class Windblade

  1. #1
    Join Date
    28th Nov 2009
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    Default Toy Review - Generations Deluxe Class Windblade

    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)
    Recommended
    Last edited by griffin; 20th August 2014 at 05:48 PM. Reason: hotlinking prohibited without their approval

  2. #2
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    8th Mar 2010
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    I got her yesterday and I really like her. She looks like they did make an effort with this one. That sword is very nice too.

  3. #3
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    11th Jan 2010
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    Thanks for the review. Ironically modern kabuki female characters are all played by males, despite the female origins. I will get her(him). Her. Whatever.

    Is Robotkingdom and tfsource about the only place to get her?

  4. #4
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    27th Dec 2007
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    Quote Originally Posted by Firestorm View Post
    So here we have Windblade, the first ever Fan-Built Bot
    Not quite. Windblade is the first community-decided (elected) concept that was developed into a toy. I think better examples of actual fan-designed Transformers would be 1999's (Archadis, Bazooka and Mach Kick). These toys were based on individual designs that were submitted by fans via a competition run through TV Magazine.

  5. #5
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    4th Mar 2013
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    Just ordered an eBay one last night, should be here within a week. Cant wait to get it in person, Ive read in other reviews that the arms dont tab into the torso very strongly, but I guess ill find out when mine arrives. The paint apps in robot mode look great though, hopefully a third party can create a head sculpt that fits the look of the comics.

  6. #6
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    31st Jul 2008
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    Got her last week. It's all good in robot mode, but the altmode is crap. It's gappy, the legs on top look stupid and it struggles to hold itself together. The plastic tabs at the front in particular are too small and weak to do any good - they needed to be proper trapezoidal-style tabs rather than the friction style.

    Don't go paying a stack of money for her on ebay, only buy if cheap.

  7. #7
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    11th Mar 2009
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    Melbourne
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    Got her today and I like a lot. She's definitely not perfect but it's a good design well translated into plastic form. Here are some quick phone snaps:











    Jet mode is okay. I like how the design is contact and indicative of maneuverability. The rotate turbines are a nice feature. Without the sheath underneath it's gappy in the middle. But with the sheath it sticks just a bit too far for the two rear landing gears to touch ground so it's kind of tricky to display on a surface.









    Transformation is simple and quite intuitive. Nothing we've never seen before.

    Robot mode is the better one of the two modes. Between the wings and the high heels, it IS tricky to stand her up it's not as bad as some people claim. And they do help the legs to have a nice feminine curvature. The face sculpt and paint apps on it are great. Articulation is decent. She could use a double-jointed elbow to help with sword wielding poses though. The neck has a horizontal swivel joint for transformation which provides great up-down movement, but the collar limits side to side articulation a little bit. The sculpt of the upper thigh also limits the poseability.





    Overall if you're not into the unique design the engineering alone is far from satisfying. I happen to like the character design a lot to overlook the small flaws. And I think she looks great with Drift.

  8. #8
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    11th Jan 2010
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    Nice pics! I do understand some of the criticisms but she is still pretty great! And I don't even read the comics. I love her alt mode despite the gaps.

    I paired her up with Drift as well, but the cheesy easily distracted dude from AoE:

    Last edited by Raptormesh; 17th September 2014 at 12:45 AM.

  9. #9
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    27th Nov 2008
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    Windblade is a funny one. She has a fair few issues, but i can't put her down. She is very gangly and lean, and she is fiddly as hell to Transform. Her sword is great and the sheath clipping in is a cool idea, but because its a bit loose it falls out if you lance at it funny. But i like the character, I love the jet mode, I love the head sculpt and the sword.... Its a fun toy. . I wouldn't go crazy hunting it down, but its worth owning if u can get it at a good price.
    i do NOT Play with toys...

    But I DO occasionally do scale model assisted simulations in physical fight dynamics.

  10. #10
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    It's clear they put a lot more effort into designing this one than most of the Deluxe toys of late, but I can't help but feel the material quality lets her down, things fall off or come undone easily.

    Can anyone tell me if there a lock for the two halves of the torso in robot mode? I can't seem to find one so the torso has tendency to split when played with.

    I wish they had used a standard peg rather than a tab for the sword sheathe, it really does fall of all the time.

    Overall a quite ambitious toy for today's deluxe's but alas afflicted by it's limited budget.

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