Mega Bloks Covenant Armor Customizer set: #CNH21

Technical Specifications:
Build Time: 2 minutes sorting, less than 1 minute building
Set Piece Count: 75
Minifigs: Silver Elite Ranger, Purple Elite Zealot, with top armor parts for both silver Zealot/Minor and Purple Ranger/Minor
Weapons: Energy sword, Concussion rifle (1st ever)
Accessories: 2x Covenant crates
Special Features: Tiny spinning cone in concussion rifle
Cost: $10

And on with the pics! (Click pics to make BIGGER)

The packaging has changed from the white of last year to a darker tone with a bronze-ish gradient running diagonally fro top left to bottom right. It looks good. Kind of a little gritty, which gives it some character, I think. Note that on the back if you accidentally mix up the armor pieces, you can refer to it for which goes with which Elite, if you wish to keep sets as pure as possible.

The insert sheet included. Note that it shows all of the pieces that make up the elite. However, as packaged, the arms, legs and waist are already built. So the only things you need to remove or add on are the chest armor, shoulder armor, and helmet. Make note of the parts list, that very small piece in the upper left corner. We’ll get back to that. It’s important!

So here is what you get in the package. There is a small back within one of the crates that includes just a few extra small pieces. Now, before I go on, I must make you all aware of something. I bought three of this set so that I could have one each of the three different types of Elites. This set just so happened to be the ‘good’ one. The other two sets had duplicates of the silver Ranger torso front. The piece that was missing was the silver Zealot torso front. I’ve talked with a few other Halo collectors and have found that this has happened to them. So the problem is persistent. Before you buy this set, check closely to make sure you are getting all three of the correct torso armor fronts.
If you don’t, you will need to make a call into Mega’s customer support: 1-800-465-MEGA (6342). Be courteous folks. The people on the other end of the line didn’t make the mistake. This happens at the product assembly line portion of the manufacturer. Be sure to have your receipt ready. You might need to e-mail them a copy of it for proof. I’ll be calling them up on Monday about my two errors. Thankfully, I do have my receipts, plus pics of the sets as proof.

Okay, moving on…

Here is that small bag of pieces. That very small part I referred to above is i this bag. It’s the one right in the center. It’s REALLY tiny folks. I didn’t realize it was there and it slipped out of the bag. Thankfully it made an ever so tiny ping off of my hardwood floors or I might not have noticed it was a part that dropped. Once I picked it up and confirmed that it was indeed a piece, I went forward.

The piece is a small conical piece that is inserted into the middle of the concussion rifle. I’ll show that momentarily.

So here are the concussion rifle (the first time ever Mega has made one), and the new energy sword design.

Here you see the small part and how it is inserted into the concussion rifle. What’s cool about it is that it actually rotates in place via a tiny nub. It’s a neat little unexpected feature.

Here are the extra armor sets shown a bit closer than before. Again, make sure you have the right silver Zealot front torso armor!

Here you see the new covenant crates. (I really like this design and am very happy Mega made it.) As you can see those 2×1 tiles are placed on top of the crates to represent what color armor is in it. A nice addition, though, IMO, not really needed. You can easily fit the two extra sets of armor in each one, plus the weapons, AND the 2×3 plate for the figure to stand on.

And here they are closed with the contents snugly inside and no gaps from the top and bottom of the crates.

Now, here is where I need to be a little critical of this set. Wrong torso armor aside from above…
If you want to create three wholly different Elites as is partially shown, you can do so only to a little over half the armor. How is that you say?
The thigh and lower leg/foot armor is the same. Mega did not include extras of those pieces to make the other two versions of elites. So what you end up with is silver elites that all have the same Ranger Thigh/Leg/Foot armor. And purple Elites that all of the same Zealot Thigh/Leg/Foot armor. This may or not be a big deal to you. I’ll leave that up to you to decide for yourselves.

It unfortunately IS a bit of a deal to me as I want completely unique figs. Now…there is a sort of work around to this, but it requires swapping parts form multiple figures AND painting pieces. The latter parts is undesirable as you may have a hard time finding an exact match to the color. As for swapping parts, since both the silver and purple come with Zealot and Ranger armor, you can easily switch the lower halves for those. But again, you end up with a Ranger that has a purple top and silver bottom as well as a Zealot that has  silver top purple bottom. Now…the other elite, the minor creates an even further extreme of customization. You will have to find two minors to swap out not only the lower halves to get the right armor, AND repaint them, but you’re going to have to swap out the legs and head too. Why? Well, Minors have flesh colored arms and heads. They do not wear black under armor.
So…how can you do this? Well, you’re kind of in luck. There is not one, but TWO Elite minors with the new articulation out there right now. You can find the dark blue version in the Covie Weapons customizer set and/or you can find the red elite from series Charlie.

Once again, you will have to paint the leg armor to match. So, this can become expensive if you want to have wholly unique figures without having the same leg armor. 

My solution for this that would have also helped to have prevented the duplicate Ranger armor issue would have been to only have TWO sets of armor instead of three. AND that the thigh and lower leg armor would have been included. In this way, you would have just needed to buy two sets each to recreate two whole versions of Elites. As to which two of the three? Well, I would have went with the minor and Ranger because those are the most plentiful in the game. This will be something I’ll be talking about with Mega on Monday. Hopefully they can see my reasoning behind this.

Okay…whew. I know, lots of explanation there, but this is a toy review after all and I want you all to see that I’m fair in this.

Here is the silver figure in all three armor variants (with the same lower half of the body).

And, here is the purple figure in all three armor variants (with the same lower half of the body).

Finally, here are all six Elites with the armor variant. The look pretty good. Just that lower half being the same is a detractor for me. (Not to mention only getting one correct silver Zealot torso armor front…

Summary: The set is is kind of hit or miss with the armor. LOOK CAREFULLY at the packaged parts to make sure you have the correct armor pieces. The articulation is fantastic as this is the new super articulation. The color choice is pretty good too. Other than swapping armor bits, there isn’t any building time to the set.

Overall Rating: I give this set 8.5 out for 10 medals. This set has decent value. However, since it’s only listed as having 75 pieces, I think Mega could have sprung for the additional upper and lower legs of each variant, bringing the piece count up by only 16 for a total of 91 pieces. Considering that there is a general rule of 10 cents per part, at 75, you’re not getting a great value. Even at 91 it’s not perfect, but definitely would have made this set MUCH MUCH better!

Do I recommend it?  Yes. This is a good set for army builders who don’t mind having same lower body parts. It has a good variety of upper armor parts, and the first ever Concussion Rifle made by Mega. 

As I mentioned previously, just look closely for the right armor parts. If you can’t find one that is correct, you should be able to get a replacement part from Mega if you purchase one with wrong torso armor.

Well, this isn’t the type of review I normally like to post. I like mine to be really positive. This set would have been stellar had the armor been correct on all points listed above. Mega kind of missed the boat on this set. It’s still worth a buy though, so don’t let this completely stop you. Just be an informed consumer, now that you’ve read my review!

If you have any questions about this set that I didn’t cover in the review, please do not hesitate to ask me. Either reply below or e-mail me at [email protected]

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think of the review. If you get this set yourself, please let me know your thoughts on it too!

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-Sal