Name: Flowspade
Series: Unite Wariors
Allegiance: Destron
Alternate Mode: Sports Car
Thanks to tha phantom for loaning me Flowspade for this review
SPORTS CAR MODE
Height: 4cm Length: 13cm Width: 6cm
A black and lavender maroon sports car with painted silver windows (including a rear window, with visible seams), Flowspade is a repaint (and retool, in robot mode) of Dead End/Wildrider. She sports black plastic tyres with silver hubcaps; the headlights are also silver. Her hood and boot/trunk cover are painted lilac, along with the front bumper. She sports a Decepticon logo on her hood, rounding out a simple, well executed colour scheme. The colour contrast is sharp and there are lilac plastic outbursts on her doors (a by product of the sprue colours) which perfectly match the lilac paint. It's actually more reminiscent of Skywarp than the Stunticons, which is a good thing - the repaint has done its job.
Play value is about what you'd expect of a Combiner Wars car - the wheels turn and there are attachment points for weaponry. Flowspade's weapon is a double-sided scimitar-esque weapon (it's actually the base of Megatronia's sword), and can plug into the hole on her roof - the side holes are no use. It's black with yellow blades and works well enough visually - standing out because of the yellow. You can of course attach other compatible weapons, if you want.
A good repaint of a solid vehicle mode. While it's a fairly generic mode and a mould that's been used a few times, the colours are distinct enough that Flowspade doesn't feel like she's borrowing anyone else's duds here. And the colours scheme is both striking and well thought out.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Unclip the undersides of the rear, fold out. Swing the back end over to form the boots; separate her boots and fold the undersides back in to form her shins. Press down on the centre of her roof to lift up the windshield and fold back. Unclip the front and pivot down to form her backpack. Fold down the chest plate, pivot up her arms, swing the fists out from within the forearms. Rotate the waist, give her the scimitar weapon and you're done.
The joint that allows the windshield the windshield to lift out - well more correctly the panel on the roof that you have to press down - can require excessive force to transform from car to robot. It varies from toy to toy. My Dead End will happily transform, but it feels SCARY trying to get the windshield out on my Wildrider, and there are some stress marks on that from the force I've had to apply (luckily they're only visible if you go looking for them).
ROBOT MODE
Height: 14cm Width: ~8cm (depending on pose)
A black and lilac robot, Flowspade has lilac feet, thighs, elbows and parts of her chest. Her mouth plate and some other facial features are also lilac, while her eyes and two outbursts on her chest are red. There's some silver on her waist and forearms and a very small Decepticon logo on her chest. The head, chestplate and fists are resculpted. There's more colours added here, but she's still really all about the black and lilac. The head sculpt... well it's Nightbird's. So she's stolen Nightbird's head and Skywarp's colours - which she wears well in this mode.
Poseability is fairly standard for Combiner Wars. Ball joints in the neck, shoulders and hips - the neck joint is somewhat hindered by a transformation joint behind it but still useful. her elbows and knees have hinges and rotators. The feet are fixed in that slightly-spread pose. Her ankles and wrists don't move but she gets a waist joint as part of his transformation.
Her scimitar weapon can be wielded in either hand effectively, it could also be attached to the holes on her shoulders if you really want, but it's an odd look. Incidentally, her fists are resculpted to be daintier (more feminine I suppose) and are open rather than closed (fingers still curled so she can hold a weapon). The chest plate is also resculpted, reminding me of Arcee with a vaguely bosom-shape (it's not in your face or huge, thankfully, just subtle).
Well, it feels like this toy could have been called Nightbird - or that it shares the resculpt with a Nightbird deco - but that's not the case. That aside, it's a good mould with a good colour scheme and some decent retooling. I like that while TakaraTomy have gone and done some feminine tooling, they didn't go down the path of sexualisation - she happens to be female, but it's still about the Transformer. The colour scheme and weapon work well.
VARIATIONS
None as such. She was only sold as part of the Megatronia giftset.
There are quite a few retools of this mould (Dead End came first), she also shares the basic mould with Brake-Neck (aka Wildrider), G2 Dead End, Streetwise, Prowl, Smokescreen, Dust Up, Lightspeed, Unit-3 (BotCon 2016) & Bluestreak.
OVERALL
It's a good mould to start with, Flowspade is a nice repaint and a useful weapon. Sure, she's copied Nightbird's head, but that's not a negative by any means - just notable. There's useful poseability and the rescuplting shows effort. In my opinion this is the best component of the giftset - but I would only recommend her if you're interested in the giftset, given you're unlikely to find her on her own - 8/10.
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