McFarlane Toys Halo 4 Series 3 Spartan Thorne

The newest wave of the McFarlane Halo figures have dropped at my local Forbidden Planet and my first pick up from this newest set is Thorne.

The back of the packaging shows the other figures that are available in this latest wave.

It looks like I missed out on getting Jul 'Mdama sadly. I don't have any Covenant figures in this scale and it'd be nice to give my Spartans an enemy to fight.

Also available in this wave are Commander Palmer and a red Spartan Soldier. Sadly, Palmer is supposed to be a female character but having had one in my hand in store, it's a re-use of a male Spartan body in Palmer colours. A real shame as I'd have loved to have had her... I might still pick her up of course. The Spartan Soldier that comes in red seems to be pretty widely available here in the UK, but I believe it's a Walgreens exclusive in the US.

Right, let's get on with looking at Thorne himself.

Firstly the only accessory he comes with is an assault rifle. This is sculpted really nicely and painted in black with highlights in a metallic gun metal grey and a flat grey making the rifle look really good - especially when posed with Thorne.

Thorne himself is a really nice royal blue with silver highlights. There is also a very nice silver dry brushing over the figure giving his armour a battle worn and weathered look which I just love. The gold that has been used for the visor isn't very metallic but I think it works well for the figure - for me, it gives it a more realistic look. The paint on his hands is incredibly clean. His fingers have blue padded areas and there's a pad on the back of the hands which also has the silver dry brushing.

And as is standard with McFarlane Spartans - he has a peg hole in each leg that you can attach his rifle to.

The articulation is something I really like in these figures, mostly because they're ratchet joints and they feel good and secure. The head is on a ball and hinge joint meaning it can look up a little, down, left, right, and there's a nice neck pivot. the shoulders, elbows and wrists are all on a ball and hinge which gives for a good range of motion, but the elbows and shoulders are hindered by the armour. There's an ab crunch which let's you balance Thorne easier, but it doesn't give you a great range of motion.

The hips are a downer, kicking back and forth is about the best that Thorne can do. There's a ball and hinge at the knees and ankles, there's toe articulation and the toes also pivot.

I absolutely recommend this guy if you're a fan of Halo. I like the poses you can get him into, the colour of his armour and the paint apps, and he looks great with other Spartans.

There's been some anger against the price rise for the McFarlane figures, especially as these Halo figures come in a 5" scale, but I still think these figures give you good bang for your buck. And as these things never get re-released the secondary market prices are crazy, so yeah, grab them while you can!

Go Figure!

Halo Megabloks UNSC Fireteam Venom

I'd been thinking about picking up a Fireteam set from Megabloks for a while but I'd never seen one in a store so I'd just never got round to it. Then yesterday I found Crimson, Venom and Eagle. I could only afford one, so went for Venom, next time I'd like to grab Eagle, but I doubt I'll ever pick up Crimson - not too sure on the dark red colour.

As you can see from the back of the packaging this set comes with 5 Spartans, a small terrain piece, and a small armoury of weapons.

Let's look at the terrain first.

I quite like this for what it is. I especially like the purple alien plant life and the sand bag pieces piled up as a piece of cover.

You also get a weapons pod with this set:

This is quite a plain, kind of dark olive green piece that is smooth and rounded as though it was shot from above as a reinforcement pod. It also opens up and can store a gun, the grenades etc

The weapons in this pack are many and in total (including grenades) you get 13 weapons! Let's look at these:

The weapons included in this set are:

5 x Frag Grenades
Assault Rifle
M6C Socom Pistol
Tactical Shotgun
LMG
SMG
Railgun
Battle Rifle
Rocket Launcher

Obviously these Spartans are out to inflict some serious damage!

Talking of which...

From left to right we've got the Aviator, Scout, Gungnir, Oceanic, and Enforcer. These minifigs are all the new style of Megabloks Spartans that include the interchangeable armour and the improved articulation. I love the armour on these guys too, that poisonous (or even... Venomous!!) green is a killer look on a Fireteam like this.

The set also gives you a clear flight stand so you can have a Spartan jumping through the air into battle in this set.

I liked this set a lot more than I was expecting. I really like the terrain piece even though it's small, because once you get the Spartans set up on it, it looks great.

If you see this set in store for the recommended retail price I recommend it. It bolsters your ranks of Spartan and UNSC forces and gives you 5 of the new super poseable minifigures. I've seen this go for silly money on eBay and even Amazon here in the UK, and it's not worth double the price.

Go Figure!

Halo Mega Bloks Blind Bag Series 9 & Bravo Series

I grabbed a few blind bags of Halo Mega Bloks blind bags when I saw them in Asda the other day, not realising that 2 were Bravo Series and one was Series 9. Not that that's an issue, just didn't realise they'd thrown whatever bags they had in a box!

So let's take a look at the Series 9 fig first.

The 8 in this collection include:

UNSC Spartan Security (Common)
Covenant Brute Stalker (Common)
UNSC Flame Marine (Common)
UNSC Spartan CIO (Common)
UNSC Spartan Recon (Common)
Promethean Alpha Crawler (Rare)
Covenant Imperial Grunt (Rare)
Covenant Skirmisher (Ultra Rare)

The common UNSC Flame Marine! I'm really glad I got this guy - love his orange armour and huge flamethrower.

As far as the Brave Series go, there are 8 figs to collect again:

NMPD Trooper (Common)
UNSC Spartan HazOp (Common)
343 Guilty Spark & Flood Combat Form (Common)
Covenant Storm Grunt (Common)
UNSC Marine (Common)
Skirmisher Major (Rare)
Elite Ranger (Rare)
Covenant Brute Minor (Ultra Rare)

First up I pulled the Monitor Guilty Spark who includes the Flood combat form figure. I like the fact that you get 2 figs in one bag, and I'm really glad I got Guilty Spark. The nice thing about Guilty Spark is that nice blue eye you get but it also comes with a red eye to swap out to put him in his rampancy mode.

Second figure I pulled was a rare one!

The Skirmisher Major! He's a cool looking little figure, and it's always nice to get more bad guys for my UNSC to battle!

Stay tuned guys! More to come!

Go Figure!

Halo Mega Bloks 97339 UNSC All-Terain Mongoose with UNSC Spartan Emile

I've found recently that more places seem to be selling off their Halo Mega Bloks sets, which is good for me, but I hope these sets won't end. I found this set in Jenner's today for 25% oof making it £7.50, which I thought was a pretty nice deal for what you're getting in this set - a vehicle and a very cool figure.

Emile, the UNSC Spartan that this set comes with, is a great looking little figure. Paint detail is great throughout with his shiny gold face mask with the kind of skull detail over the front, his armour is grey and black with light brown detailing, silver grey boots, and a red shoulder pad.

Emile comes with a tactical shotgun and a Kukri knife, both of which are flat colours but nicely sculpted. The sculpted detail in such a small figure is excellent overall, as is the articulation.

Emile's head is on a ball joint which lets it turn from side to side and look down (but not up), shoulders are on a ball and hinge as are the elbows, and the wrists swivel. There's a waist rotation, hips are on a ball joint and there's a single joint in the knee. For such a small figure this is a great amount of articulation.

The All-Terrain Mongoose vehicle is a simple little build at only 82 pieces and doesn't take long to put together, but it's nice little vehicle that looks good with the small UNSC insignia and logo. It also rolls really nicely which is a plus.

Emile sits on the Mongoose nicely and is able to hold the small handlebars nicely. There are also foot rests and even wing mirrors on the Mongoose.

This is a pretty small set but for £7.50 I'm happy to add Emile to my Spartan army.

Go Figure!

Halo Mega Bloks Series 4 Blind Bag

I thought I'd go look on eBay and have a little look for blind bag Halo Mega Blok packs to bolster my collection. I'd never picked up any of the earlier series of these blind bags so when I saw I could get 3 bags for £10, I thought that was quite a good deal. And this series had some nice figures including:

Cortana
Purple UNSC EVA Spartan
Yellow UNSC ODST
Arctic UNSC Pilot
Blue Covenant Elite
Copper Covenant Brute
Green UNSC Marine
Crimson Elite Pilot

Any 3 of these would be great to add to my tiny army. Firstly out the bag

The green UNSC marine. Good start, a cool looking character. Second up

Oh. OK, bit of a pain. But onto number 3!

Goddammit.

I guess I'm in the army building game now... Go Figure!