The Energon Pub

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I finally opened my KO swoop. heres a quick rough review. Techspec sheet missing but all other paperwork looks good except the sticker sheet which is quite rough, ive bought dinobot copy sheets before but these are inferior. the catalogue was behind the card and I initailly thought that too was missing.

The big question: 'is swoop any good'?. Well overall its BETTER than expected. I dont have a vintage to compare it with so this is on its own merits although the one vintage swoop I have seen never gave me the impression of a solid tightly tooled/engineered toy that say sludge or grimlock is.

before I go any further: the face IS painted!!! It has a silver lower face and black upper.

QC issues. left hand is missing its screw.
guns dont fit into the hands well atall.
right wing hole is too big for the gun to fit
chest paint does have some rubbed areas.
one of the 4 red circular parts that holds the red chest sections to the torso has the screw overtightened so it deforms the circular part, this could interfere with opening/closing the chest but is fixable.

the good news is that the previously mentioned issue seen at actoys review (china) whereby the beak pin scratches the chest paint is not an issue here. AS long as you pull the chest sections out far enough the whole head assembly neatly fits into the chest. The overall sculpt is really neat although the forearms seem untidy (again im not sure how swoop compared to the other dinos in that respect). The chest paint is rather thin and dull compared to the bright thick red stuff on the other dinobots i have and I can see many fans respraying the chest if he can be taken apart easily. The chrome is pretty good even in not really bright. Overall the toy is quite solid, when you fold the robo legs up onto swoops back they click into place nicely and once you turn him into robo and push the robo legs up to meet the dino feet it take a bit of a push the legs around teh pin at the knee are a bit loose but it still stands OK. the wings dont fold right back but im not sure thats going to cause any issues. it stands well. oh and the actoys review showing poorly aligned leg halves are fine in this example.

Overall this is more solid and well put together than i expected, but overall it doesnt touch say a C9 sludge in any respect (did swoop ever???).

is it worth $100? a big NO, but i'd not have felt cheated to have paid $50 with shipping considering this is a clever KO. once prices drop assuming they do they will make great kitbash pieces.

Overall, better than i expected but not as good as i was hoping for! But certainly not a piece of junk. Im not sure how successful the KO makers would be with the other dinobots for eg as swoop seems quite simple compared to the others.

microclone.

ok, a little issue popped up. One of the little right shoulder screws came out so his arm fell off BUT in unscrewing (so i can access the back of the shoulder to rescrew) the two rear screws holding the right red torso half the right half comes away no problem allowing me to (hopefully) rescrew the shoulder (or glue it if the hole is bust) anyway this is also perfect timing to sparay the torso a nice bright red as it comes away very easily in one piece.

the reason the screw came undone is the hole on the two halves of teh shoulder are just off 'tolerance' for the peg on the top of the arm, I slightly modified the hole so when the shoulder rotates it doesnt try to upen the two halves which is what caused the screw to loosen. The screw is back in and although not tight is holding the arm in OK.

microclone.

Your review is quite helpful.

If not for elminating the impuse to buy one of these guys.

Thanks.

counterpunch. glad i could help. I did it primarily as there isnt yet a review up in english. had i found a review like this I would have NOT bought one! AS i said, its not terrible but not great either. What i do notice in dismatling swoop is that it is by far the simplest dinobot to make, i suppose tha lack of rivets makes it easier too. I'm going to spary the two chest halves as bright a metallic red I can find! Ok so i have reduced my $100 purchase to a $20 pile of pieces, but i have had some fun in the process, maybe i'll slide him down the bannister later.

microclone.

Nice review! I think I'll hhold off buying one as well, my original one is good enough.

Yeah, I'll be watching auctions VERY closely to make sure I get a G1 and not a KO. I suppose the "MIB" tag will be my first red flag from now on, won't it?

Since it's apart anyway, shouldn't you paint the chest blue for show accurateness?

Thanks for the tip. I was thinking about one to go with my G1 MISB swoop for a comparison, but you've saved me teh coin. Thanks man.

yes, im probably going to use a metallic blue on the torso, i'll need to remove the paint from the matal first, then prime, any hardcore diecast sprayers who can offer me some product advice??

thanks.

my advice on this KO? if you can get one for under $50 then it would be just about worth it (the box is sweet), the fact i paid $79 for the re-reissue of megatron collection #6 makes that (megs) look like a MAJOR bargain. Actually what i didnt say in the review is that the actual transformation is realy quite smooth and the feet even make a nice reassuring click when turning from and into robo! it really is quite cool, just NOT worth $100. Oh and for anybody whos now not buying you can Paypal me a $1.00 for saving you $99 LOL(ok, thats meant to be funny!)

microclone.

i did a custom using the KO swoop, the torso paint really needed removing. i also painted the face which luckily is factory painted so it was easy to use acrylic.



microclone.

looks good.