Like most Swoops, Blade looks like a robot folded in half with his arms to his sides. His head is on a rod that hinges at three points, but he can not turn his head. His beak can open fairly wide. The transparent cover on his head can be removed. He can balance forward on his small feet, but I probably wouldn't trust him to stay upright. His legs are hinged at three points.
Transformation is probably the easiest of the set. Going from robot to dinosaur and back, I didn't notice any stressing plastic or pegs. I don't think you need to remove the wings to do the transformation, but it certainly makes things simpler.
Blade has an impressive 23 inch wing span. For space considerations, I will probably have to display him with his wings off. He has red, blue, grey, and gold paint applications. His line work is in keeping with the design aesthetic of the previous members. Of the three G1 designs for swoop in my collection, this is my favorite.
His feet are badly designed. Although long, they are positioned too far forward for the heel spurs to keep him from toppling backward. He can stand just fine if you have his wings straight out to the sides or bent forward, but if you angle them back, he will fall. My biggest complaint is that Blade is too tall. He's about half-a-head taller than Thunderous and Snarl. He's still shorter than Wrath at least. Too bad only FansProject saw fit to include both blue and red chests in the same box.
His head is on a balljoint. His shoulders are on hinged swivels. He has single-jointed elbows and ratcheted knees. His fists are static. He swivels at the biceps, wrists, and thighs. He has a ratcheted waist, but you only get one click in either direction before the beak gets in the way. His thighs are on universal joints. His feet are on balljoints, but on my copy one balljoint is impeded by flashing. He has hinged toes. His wings are hinged at four points.
His accessories include two swords, two missile pods, a combiner hand and some parts, and the combiner sword. The swords are done in the same style as the previous members, with red metallic paint for the handles. The missile pods can be held in his hands with flip out handles or plugged into his wings. Alleviating my OCD, the missile pods have rectangular pegs so are always straight. They have red and gold paint. The combiner sword blade is red transparent plastic. The combiner hand has gold talons.
Blade will stand on my CHUG shelf where he easily towers over the mostly Voyager figures. I have little interest in the combined form. I still can't help but wonder how much stronger this set would be if they hadn't had to squeeze in the combiner mechanic. I'm just impatiently waiting to have another complete set of Dinobots standing watch over some Autobots.
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