Halo 4 Series 3 Jul 'Mdama McFarlane Toys

Jul 'Mdama is the last figure in this most recent wave of Halo figures from McFarlane toys. 'Mdama, as far as I can tell, is the most hard to find figure in this wave and I had to go to eBay to pick mine up. It was still a reasonable price though being only a pound more expensive than what I would have paid for it in store.

'Mdama comes with his energy sword as his only accessory and it's a nice solid piece. The blades are cast in translucent blue plastic with electrical effects added on top and the grip fits well in 'Mdama's hand.

Out of packaging and 'Mdama is a big chunky and imposing figure. His armour is a very dark purple which is sculpted brilliantly. It's very detailed and has some lighter colour in some of the line work to bring them out. His head dress is sculpted in that same translucent blue plastic and is attached to his helmet, which is removable.

The paint work on 'Mdama's arms and especially the hand motif on his chest and shoulders look excellent. Like the Spartans, 'Mdama's weapon has a peg and there's a hole on each hip that the sword can be held on.

And as mentioned, his helmet is removable showing off that pretty Sangheili face of his. Which is again, really well sculpted and detailed.

The articulation in Mdama's head is on a peg which is attached to his long neck - the neck itself, at least on my figure, has a limited range of motion. The shoulders are on a ball and hinge joint as are the elbows and wrists. There are even articulated fingers which is nice.

There's a torso swivel but no crunch forward or back.

The hips are just as poor on the Elite's as on the Spartan's which is still a bone of contention. The knees and ankles are on ball and hinge joints but because of the way the legs are sculpted, the legs can't really doo too much and you can't get him into super exciting poses - he's still great for posing though.

I'm glad to have 'Mdama on my shelf to have an Elite for my Spartans to go up against, but honestly, I'm just not too sure about picking up any more Covenant figures. I have a real love for the Spartan armour so I'd rather spend my money on beefing up the ranks of the UNSC rather than the Covenant.

If you're a fan of Halo and the Covenant though, then this is a top notch figure, really great looking and absolutely worth the money.

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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!

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Custom McFarlane Halo Anniversary Spartan Mk VI

So as I said earlier, I decided to give my spare white Mk VI Spartan a new lick of paint. This is what I started with

Standard white and blue Spartan Mk VI armour. Pretty cool in and of itself but as I had one, I wanted to make a different look.

I started my custom by changing him from white to yellow

I then went ahead and painted the metallic blue sections white so that I could then in turn paint them red

I then added some brown paint to the boots so it looked as though he'd been going through terrain. I did this by given the figure a dry brush of brown paint so that it looked like it had been scuffed and dried in. I also put some paint on a tooth brush so that I could give it a spatter effect up over his legs - front and back.

Finally I gave him a wash using Citadel Shade from Games Workshop to give him a dirty worn and weathered look

Overall I'm really happy with how he turned out and I've now got a new Spartan!

Here's a side by side with my vanilla Mk VI

And a couple more close up shots

Hope you liked checking out my custom! I had a lot of fun doing it, even though it was just a simple paint job!

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!

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