When I first saw this blade, I was impressive by the thickness

This is easily the thickest blade I've used!
Bouncing a ball on the bare blade made it feel fast! Although I could clearly feel the difference between forehand and backhand, the difference felt only something like 10%...didn't seem like it was going to be anything more than my Tachi+
Did I mention I love the handle?

I love thick handles on blades, and this was beats them all! The soft feel of the balsa makes it even more comfortable. The blade face was well varnished, clearly more than previous re-impact blade, which I think is very good!

Even the handle has clearly been varnished, which will hopefully give it more protection against moisture.
I dressed up the blade with Dr N Goliath 1.5mm which I had lying around and never tried. Although Achim recommended 1.0mm Mark V or similar, I did not have this. On the backhand I used an old sheet of Dtecs which was still in decent condition, but a few pips missing. Since I'm quite familiar with the LP I though it was a good test. I put a thick layer of foam edge tape (which Achim kindly included!) around the huge edge of this blade, to protect this beauty

Firstly the forehand... boy this thing is FAST! The short game was fine... not really too bouncy, which was no doubt partially due to the rubber. Looping work well... slow to medium pace is very spinny...you can feel the kick of the blade coming in, which seems in deed to add a lot of spin as well as speed. Even the sponge of this rubber is relatively soft, it did not really bottom out until I started looping hard. This is when the huge speed kicks in. The throw becomes very low at this point, and the spin reduces...this is not what this combination is meant for... at high speed I must hit. Hitting was a dream...even at medium pace I was cracking winning at high speed. If I tried hitting at full speed I tended to overhit, which took me a while to adjust, but you really don't need to hit that hard to generate a fast ball, the blade provides enormous speed!

Blocking was very good too as you'd expect. I could easily control the pace, and only a slightly more agressive block produced a very fast block.