Review - Fans Hobby MB-25 AeroBlade
Fans Hobby MB-25 AeroBlade is coming in for a landing! This flying wedge assault craft is ready to take on the Decepticons solo, or by combining with and powering up MB-18 Energy Commander! Let’s check out this latest addition to the collection!
*Review and Photo Gallery based on a production sample provided by Fans Hobby
Vehicle Mode
AeroBlade is a crazy amalgam of a stealth bomber, fighter jet, and basically a flying weapons platform. This guy is armed to the absolute teeth with firepower and armored components. When he’s fully equipped and in his flight configuration I can’t help thinking he looks like a Power Ranger roleplay weapon, some sort of energy bow that would sort out the monster of the week with one blast!
Equipped with landing gear, functioning missile launchers, and a ton of painted details this toy is tons of fun to swoosh around and feels incredibly heavy and solid to handle. Just don’t spend too much time thinking about the real world aviation implications of this flying brick! Let your imagination have some fun with it and you’ll have a blast.
Robot Mode
Just as solid in bot mode, this guy is bricked up like nobody’s business! A huge blocky silhouette with shoulder pylons that would make Ultra Magnus blush, and leg mounted weaponry that would make Fortress Maximus jealous and Trailbreaker scoff over his Engex in Swerve’s. This is an absolute love letter to the Energon era of Transformers right down to the last detail.
Articulation is really decent considering his design, with only the absence of a waist swivel really detracting from the experience. The armor gimmick that allows the figure to split in half down the center is pretty well hidden within sculpted details with the exception of the head sculpt which sometimes has a wider seam than I’d like running down the center of it. If you mess with it enough though you can get it pretty tight and it looks good.
Here’s the run-down:
- Head - Limited rotation, about 45º left or right, with some slight up/down.
- Shoulders - Ratchet Joints, 90º out and forward. Nothing backward (blocked by armor).
- Bicep Swivel.
- Double Ratchet Joint Elbows.
- Wrist swivel and Open/Close fist with no individual finger articulation.
- Ab Crunch (about 45º forward).
- No waist swivel.
- Thigh swivel, and ratchet jointed thighs (front/back) to just under 90º forward, about 45º back, and a friction joint that hits just under 90º to the outside if you manipulate the thigh/waist armor.
- Ratchet joint knees with hidden engineering. Bends to 90º. You can fake a double knee by splitting the lower leg and bending another 90º for some poses.
- Ratcheted ankle rocker, 3 clicks to approximately 45º. Full 360º rotation at the ankle and toe bend up/down.
Aside from needing to manipulate the hip skirts/thigh armor to accommodate certain poses in the legs, everything is very easy to use and intuitive. All the joints are incredibly strong and secure and there’s no issues getting this fella into a solid and stable pose. If I could ask for anything, a waist swivel and improved head articulation would have been nice, but I understand their limitations given the design and gimmicks they needed to include.
Combined Mode
AeroBlade splits down the middle, and then again into 4 individual components for combination with Fans Hobby’s previously released MB-18 Energy Commander. The separation can be done from Robot or Vehicle mode without any trouble. The red components will need to be transformed into arm or leg configuration from either mode, however the blue components are ready to combine already if you came directly from Robot mode.
Simply remove the drone limbs from MB-18, and connect the arm and leg components of AeroBlade in the same way to complete the combination. Take your choice between a winged flightpack mode with the red components up top, or a blue toned armored artillery battle mode with shoulder mounted twin cannons and underslung rocket launchers. You can also mix and match with the drone limbs if you want a more asymmetrical look. The blue plastic of AeroBlade matches the submarine drone perfectly, and if you happened to pick up the second drone set with the claw hand, you could put together a fully blue combined mode that would look pretty cool!
There is an included replacement head for Energy Commander, with a sharper sculpt and less rounded eyes. The original head was ok but this is a huge improvement in my opinion.
The new head is on the left
Articulation is mostly retained with the only apparent limitation being a lack of bicep swivel with using the jet components for the upper body. However, you do get the use of a waist swivel from Energy Commander, so it’s easy to achieve really dynamic poses with the powered up combined figure.
This is a combined set that functions phenomenally, which was a nice change of pace after the more contentious mix of Tsunami and Meg-Tyranno, and the better but still not perfect set of Naval Commander and his buddies. No issues posing or balancing, no fighting to achieve what you want. Just solid joints, great articulation, fun gimmicks, and these figures feel great in-hand whether combined or solo.
Final Thoughts
No complaints on this set, aside from my own nitpicks about the lack of a waist swivel and the head gap. Nothing that ultimately takes away from my enjoyment of this figure for me. That’s coming from someone who never even collected Energon back in the day too! Nostalgia has nothing to do with it for me, This toy is just tons of fun to mess with and even more cool to combine with the already fantastic MB-18 Energy Commander. I really hope we see a couple more recolors out of AeroBlade (and Energy Commander) aside from the convention exclusive “Obsidian” decos that were only available at TFCon.
Fans Hobby MB-25 AeroBlade comes highly recommended from me, especially if you have Energy Commander to go with him. The combined set is something I can see myself picking up and messing with on the regular. I don’t think they are leaving my desk any time soon!
Pick up your own Fans Hobby MB-25 AeroBlade directly from Fans Hobby or from your favorite 3p Robot Toy vendor! If you don’t have Energy Commander already, there is a two-pack of the Core Robot, packed with AeroBlade as well if you aren’t interested in the trailer and drones that come with the full release of Energy Commander.
