I saved what I feel is the best for last regarding Halo Mega Bloks stuff shown at Toy Fair.
When I first asked what the name of the ship was, I was told it wasn’t to be revealed. Fast forward less than a day later and James Monosmith, Marketing Manager for Halo Consumer Products at 343 Industries, confirms through a post on XBOX that the ship is called a Phaeton Gunship. That’s a cool name and I’ll get into it’s possible significance later in the article.
Now, maybe I’m looking into this too far, but this design reminds me of a cross between the Terminator ships and the ship from the Matrix.
I got shots from many angles of the Phaeton Gunship, so by the end of the article, you should have a very clear view of what it looks like all around. Let’s get started!
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Oh first, before I get started with the pics, a few of the pics are a little grainy. I do not normally like to post those up on the blog, but since this was my favorite Halo Mega Bloks set, I wanted to put them up too.
This first shot shows the gunship practically head on.
A shot from in front and under the ship. This shows some of the detail on the underside. Note that silver upside down ‘T’ coming out of the bottom rear end of the ship. I’m not yet sure what it’s meant to be for the ship.
A topside view gives us a great look at the detail from above. As you can see, the ship is symmetrical and made of mostly black, silver and orange pieces.
A decent side view. In particular, take a look at mind and the front of the ship. Those ‘Key’ like pieces are new for Halo Mega Bloks.
Phaeton in Greek mythology (actually Phaethon), was the son of Helios (Hmm…coincidence???) and Clymene. Phaethon tried to drive his father’s ‘sun’ chariot but crashed nearly setting fire to all of the earth. The name Phaethon translates to “shining” from phaein “to shine, gleam” and from phaos “light”. Phaethon was also the term for a reckless driver hundreds of years ago.1
In modern times, an asteroid whose orbit brings it close to the sun has been named “3200 Phaethon” after the mythological Phaethon.
How and if the Greek mythology applies to this ship has yet to be seen.
All of the above pics were taken at the press preview event. The next two of the ship were taken in Mega’s booth.
The Phaeton has two hatches. One near front that opens towards the back and a near mid hatch that opens towards the front.
There is enough room in the front open area (likely the cockpit) to fit a standard sized figure. The back hatch area can fit two normal sized Halo Mega Bloks figs.
Now let’s take a look at the Promethean that comes with the set. There is wild speculation as to what or WHO this might be. Is it another Promethean such as the Knights, Crawlers and Watchers from Halo 4 OR, is it the Didact reborn?? Regardless of who or what it may be, it looks fantastic. That helmet looks quite evil, don’t you think?
Not that he/it is carrying a Binary Rifle.
And lastly, we get a green Orbital Spartan with the set as well.
Oh and one final pic, this last one from Mega Bloks itself is their ‘beauty’ shot of the completed set.
Okay, is it fall yet, so I can get this and all the other Halo Mega Bloks sets sen at Toy Fair???
And with that, my coverage of all things Halo that I saw at New York Toy Fair 2015 comes to a close. I hope you have enjoyed all the pics and articles I’ve share. Please let me know.
Oh wait!!! I forgot, I still have one more for Dark Horse Halo ships. That will be posted as soon as the Aub, the PR guy from Darkhorse gets back to me with some information I requested…
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-Sal
Any idea on the price of this set?
They couldn’t tell me the price on it yet. I asked for the piece count and they said they couldn’t say that either… Having seen it in person, I’d take a guess that this is a 300-400 piece set. With that in mind, the price is likely around $30-40. Again though, I’m just making a guess based on what I saw.
Oh, the agony of waiting for you to cover this set has been burning in my soul!
I jest, I jest!
On a more serious note, I REALLY like the look of that gunship! And I have been dying to get a good picture of the promethean in this set! I personally think that it is NOT a new promethean type. I think that it looks a little to organic to be a promethean like in halo 4, IMO. As you said it may be the didact, but I think that maybe, it is a real-live warrior-servant! That would be to cool!
Here’s hoping!
And the speculation mounts! Heh, I too can’t wait for the official reveal of who or what this figure represents…
man it is cray awesome when a set comes out that is gonna be something before the game comes out (those new Prometheans be like ” you’re about to get retk”)
I think this new vehicle looks cool and the design does seem very familiar. I wonder what the dome in the front is for as well as the “T” you mentioned.
Do you know what weapon the Spartan is holding? To me it looks like the Rocket Launcher but the picture is somewhat blurry so I’m not sure.
Also, the weapons the figures are holding in the pictures you took are different from the weapons the figures are holding in the official picture. The Spartan is now holding a DMR and the new figure is holding a Lightrifle. Strange…
To be honest, I’m not sure which weapon the Spartan is holding. It could be either the one-barreled rocket launcher or maybe the Hydra. As for weapons differing from display to official pictures, ping that on whomever from Mega set up the display. It’s likely just a mistake, or that the ‘beauty’ shots (the official pics) were taken before the final decision was made as to what weapons would be included. We’re still several months form these appearing on store shelves. There is a small amount of time for tweaks to be made to design choice. Very small…