Spartan Air Assault

Technical Specifications:
Articulation:
• Ball Joint Head
• Ball Joint Shoulders
• Hinged Elbows
• Ball Joint Wrists
• Swivel Torso
• Partial Ball Joint hips
• Double Hinge Knees
• Ball Joint Ankles
Accessories: Hydra, Magnum
Additional Contents:
• Instruction sheet showing how to put the armor on
• 2 small pins to attach weapons to figure
Cost: $15-18 (US) depending on where you buy it at retail
Availability: Mass Retail (I got mine from Toys R Us, on sale for $12!)

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

The Air Assault Spartan is one of two UNSC non-character figures in this first series from Mattel.

As with all the other figures in this series, the Air Assault Spartan is shown prominently through the large window on the front of the box. The back shows the figure without any armor, as well as the build-a-figure Crawler. (I will have a seperate review for the Crawler once I’ve completed the regular figures from this series.

Here’s a close-up of the fig without it’s armor.

And here’s the figure in the plastic tray along with all of the removable armor parts and accessories. Note that this set comes with the back of the Crawler.

The instructions are pretty straightforward. And yes, it folds out.

For accessories, we get a Hyrda. This is really well done. Very happy that the Hydra is one of the first weapon accessories to be made from Mattel. As it’s a new weapon first introduced in Halo 5, it’s a welcome addition to my collection!

And we get a magnum. As a now standard loadout weapon, it’s good to have another of these. The hole you see in the middle of it is for attaching to the figure. I’ll show you that momentarily.

Here are two pins used for attaching the weapons to the figure. the smaller of the two is for the magnum, while the large is for the Hydra.

Once again the Crawler piece. As this has spikes on the back, that makes the crawler and Alpha type. Nice gradation from orange to white here.

Now let’s take a look at the armor. Below, I’ve already detahced the hand from the arm. The forearm armor then slides onto the arm and you put the hand back into place. The shoulder armor fits on by wrapping it around the bicep and pushing the peg it has on the underside into the hole on the upper arm.

The Butt plate, for lack of a better description is easily placed on the figure with a peg/hole system. This plate seems a bit thick. Maybe that’s just my thinking though.

˜ext up the leg armor. The thigh armor wraps around like the shoulder armor does. The foot armor goes on like a shoe. The calf armor is in two pieces and has a peg/hole system.  I had a terrible time trying to make the rear calf armor fit on properly with this figure. As you can see to the far right of the graphic below, it’s not snug as it should be. Tried as I might, it just wouldn’t go on correctly. 

The magnum can be held quite easily by the figure.

Here you see from left to right: Hole on thigh, peg in hole, magnum on peg. Very simple and effective way to attach the weapon.

The Hydra can also be held easily and with one hand as shown below.

Lef tot right: Hole between shoulders, peg in hole, Hydra on peg. Now admitedly, the peg doesn’t fit completely into the Hydra. So it’s barely stuck on there. Just make a note of that for yourself. 

The figure has loads of articultion that allows you to put it in many different poses.

Standing at the ready!

Aiming high at an air borne attacker!

Look at me, I’m a little ballerina! LOL

I’m hit, but I’m still fighting!

Evaluation
Sculpt: Well done. Looks like the in-game armor. I do have that issue with the one piece of calf armor. Hopefully that’s just my figure and not an issue systemic with all of the Air Assault figures.8 of 10 medals for my fig. 10 of 10 medals if the issue is only with mine and not with all Ais Assaults.
Articulation: As you can tell by the various pics above, Mattel has done a great job with adding articulation into their Halo acrtion figures. 10 of 10 medals.
Paint Application: The paint is just a little bad on one of my armor bits. The tigh armor. Go back and take a look at it and you’ll see that the two thigh pieces differ in the angled strip. Other than this, the paint is really well done. I’m giving this an 8.5 of 10 medals for my speifici figure. However, on the whole, so long as this mistake isn’t on all of the Air Assault figs, I’d give it a 10 of 10.
Accessories: The Hydra is nicely done. Good paint application to it. The UNSC lettering is clear and crisp. Nice to have that extra Magnum too. 9 out of 10 medals
Playability: Standard playability. It can be pose in many positions. Pretty durable, just take care not to lose armor pieces. I suggest glueing them into place. But of course, that is your decision. 10 of 10 medals.
Overall: 45.5 medals out of a total 50 medals (for my specific one), 49 of 50 otherwise, without the paint and armor issues I had on my figure.

Do I recommend this product? YES. The figure has a good looking set of armor. Hopefully my paint and armor issues are just that, mine alone and not problematic for the Air Assault figure in general. So yes, I do recommend this. However, check the paint of the Air Assaults you may see and pic the one you like the best.

If you have any questions about this set that I didn’t cover in the review, please feel free 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 yourself, please let me know your thoughts on it too!

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-Sal