The Universe line gets another new figure and this time its Armada Blurr as Universe Swerve with Mini-con RoadHandler. Swerve is back again in the Transformers line and ready to side with the Autobots once again to take on RazorClaw and the Decepticon Army.

Personally I always saw Armada Blurr as nothing special and rather a crap toy (then again aside from Unicron most of the Armada Toys just seemed crap when compared to the likes of RiD figures) but oddly it seems that sometimes repainting a figure can do wonders for it. Repainting Armada Blurr mostly red and black has done wonders for the toy, now instead of just looking boring grey the figure stands out as bright red and really makes an impression.

You could say that Swerve is actually a Cybertron/Galaxy Force figure rather than a Universe character because in the Cybertron/Galaxy Force cartoon series you see that Cybertron Blurr is usually always followed by Swerve and a few other characters who look the same. Armada Blurr also appears to be in one episode as well but you only ever see these characters in vehicle mode and never robot mode.

Robot mode looks better than previously and has two colors that match this time (red and black) and just generally makes the figure stand out much better than before. The face has stayed the same from before and this basically is just a repainted Armada Blurr rather than a slight remould such as the Galaxy Force/Cybertron version of this mould which was also called Blurr. The design of the robot mode has stayed the same and still keeps the same faults that Armada Blurr suffered with, these include the lack of movement in the waist and thigh area of the figure but this was a common problem with the Armada toys, however this problem still wasn’t fixed for Cybertron Blurr. The entire of the back section of the vehicle mode is placed on Swerves back and can sometimes cause balance issues. The arms of the figure can move in most places and can still hold the two large guns thankfully. The legs can bend at the knee section but considering that the figure can’t bend at the hip section or the thigh area then it seems a little for Swerve to have knee sections that can bend.

Vehicle mode looks fantastic and looks like an amazing sports car you would just love to drive yourself. RoadHandler (Mini-Con) can attach to the back section of the cars spoiler which folds out the sides of the vehicle which was a gimmick from the Armada series (can’t remember it being used much at the moment from memory) and has stuck with this repaint. RoadHandler can also attach to various other places of the vehicle mode were there are ‘PowerLinx’ ports (pegs basically) and the Mini-Con stays firmly in place once attached to them. The vehicle mode also has the two very large guns attached to it but once there in place they look more like part of the vehicle rather than being two large guns, this is nice as it just makes the vehicle look more like a standard sports car rather than a sports car sporting two monstrously large cannons on top of it like what Cybertron Hotshot looked like.

The part were the sides of vehicle mode fold down seem really pointless and don’t actually add anything to the figure. It seems more like a pointless feature just left over from the Armada series which also managed to carry on over to the Cybertron version of this mould (Blurr) which again just doesn’t seem to serve any real purpose.

RoadHandler looks rather good considering being a Mini-Con, he has more articulation than most do and his vehicle mode looks very impressive when next to Swerve. Sadly RoadHandler was missing in the Cybertron release (Blurr) but thankfully managed to stay with Swerve and the two work really well together. The robot mode looks impressive aside from one of RoadHandler’s arms being the front end of the vehicle mode but that aside it’s still rather good. Not much paint application has gone into RoadHandler however, it seems like he just got repainted red all over with about two smaller places repainted for show (visor and spoiler) which seems rather sad as the Armada version had a little more paint application than this version.

The duo came boxed as standard Universe figures do and they come MOSC with the original ‘Universe’ design packaging. The front had a drawing of Swerve on the bottom and the plastic bubble showed the two in vehicle modes. The back had images of the toys in robot and vehicle modes which also showed there details and status.

Swerve and RoadHandler are fantastic characters and a real treat for anyone who was lucky enough to get there hands on these two. Every Transformers toy line has it’s ‘RARE’ figures and oddly the Universe line has these two, for some reason not many of these figures were released and as such they became very hard to get a hold of and there prices on Ebay and Online became very high. Takara/Ehobby tried to release the item as –USA Exclusives- over the internet but they were just asking way to much price wise. These are fantastic figures and its rather a shame they didn’t get a huge mass release as these are real good figures and one of the better toys released from the Universe line.