Author Archives: Sal

About Sal

I’ve got tons of experience with Halo gaming and collecting. I feel I have something to offer to the greater Halo fan community. Posts along the way will be about tips and tricks in the games as well as collecting and many more Halo related things. I’ll also repost interesting articles from the official site, Halowaypoint.com, or from fellow Halo fan sites. As I continue this blog, I hope to help gamers who want advice on the games, as well as any collectors with regards to where to find collectibles as well as deals, coupons and so on. You can also follow me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/#!/HaloFanForLife or Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/halofanforlife11. Welcome to my blog and I hope you’ll come back again and again. -Sal

Canon Fodder Issue 96: The Art of War(s)

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This is a reblog from Halo Waypoint:

BY GRIMBROTHER ONE
ISSUE 96

canonfodder-1-18-17-b6fbefdc141f4cd292d763bfde6e1746Greetings, and welcome back to the first Canon Fodder of 2017! It’s been a while since we last met like this, with understandable cause of course – with the Halo Wars 2 Blitz Beta nigh upon us, and the full game launch itself barely a month away, the studio has been abuzz with activity on a myriad of fronts.

With these things in mind, we thought it prudent to kick this year off the right way – with a salvo of salivation-inducing sweetness that we hope will satisfy the many lore-leaning fans who love to linger around these parts. We’ve got awesome new Halo Wars 2 Blitz art, an in-depth look at some rad new recent additions to the Halo: Ground Command arsenal thanks to fellow 343 lore liaison Kenneth Peters, cool community contributions, and more. Shall we begin? Continue reading →

Giveaways for Halo Mega Bloks Hayabusa Spartan figures!

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Just last night I posted on both twitter and instagram messages for giveaways that I’m doing. There will be a giveaway for each.

Instagram:
I’m going to do a giveaway of these 3 Hayabusa Mega Bloks Spartans. To enter you must like and reply to this post and regram (repost) in your IG timeline. Tag me in that repost as well. I will select the winner Friday 8 pm EST time zone. 

I will pay up to the first $5 in shipping. If it’s more than that, the winner will be responsible for the remainder.

So go check out both my twitter and instagram accounts and enter for a chance to win the set of 3!

The Month of Master Chief January 2017 (1/17) Feature 7: McFarlane Master Chief figures

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McFarlane was lucky enough to have the license to produce Halo action figures for several years. In that time they made several Master Chief figures. McFarlane is known for highly detailed sculpts and Master Chief got the full treatment of that.

Chief was made with various armor sets from the lore of Halo.  The quality of the sculpt really shows too. McFarlane did an AMAZING job!

In chronological order from lore.

Here is the armor from Halo the mini series Forward Unto Dawn. The piece you see to the bottom right was part of a Build-A-Emblem series. Once you had all the pieces you could assemble them to make the Bungie version of the UNSC emblem.anniversary2_masterchief_photo_01_dp Continue reading →

Halo Toy Review: Mattel Build-A-Figure Alpha Crawler

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Build-A-Figure Alpha Crawler

Technical Specifications:
Articulation:
• Ball Joint Head
• Ball Joint Shoulders
• Hinged Elbows/Knees
• Swivel Torso
Cost: As this figure is made up from parts of each of the series 1 Mattel Halo figures, to get it, you either have to buy one of each figure OR you can try your luck at buying pieces through sites such as eBay. If you buy the set of figures the total cost of them is $90 for 6 figures. Each figure has one or two pieces of the Crawler, depending on which figure it is. So to nail down an actual cost to this specific figure is a little bit different. I will say it’s worth is about $15. However, the complexity by which you have to obtain the individual pieces makes this more valuable. So I put that amount at around $40.
Availability: Mass Retail

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

FIrst up, you have to have all the parts. Here I’ve laid them out to show them in reference as to how they are assembled (top left). Subsequent steps at assemble show how the Crawler comes together. It’s not difficult to attach parts. However, be sure to get them put on correctly. I at first mistakingly put the rear legs on backwards….

Crawler Assembly Continue reading →

Night of the Mantis!

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I’ve had a chance to play this new COMMUNITY-MADE minigame over the past several days. Let me say it is FANTASTIC! Honestly, I didn’t think something like this was possible in Forge. It just shows the absolute POWER of scripting in Halo 5’s Forge!

The following is a partial repost from Waypoint, with my commentary in BLUE as usual.

NIGHT OF THE MANTIS

A game mode that’s been taking the Forge world by storm, Night of the Mantis, caught our attention as well. In this minigame made by Julianoz1224, the only objective is to protect your base from waves of Mantises. While taking down Mantises, you earn points to purchase new weapons, grenades, and power ups that will in turn help fight off future waves. Julianoz recommends playing with four or fewer players, but the difficulty does scale for five to nine players, and then gets even more difficult with ten or more players.

HFFL: Folks, I can tell you for a fact, the difficulty DOES increase. I’ve played this with as few as 4 people and as many as 8. It gets a lot harder with 8, especially when you play it on harder difficulties!

MANTIS TYPES
The different types of Mantis you will face. Each type will reward your team with different points, as seen on the table below.notm-mantises-21188436d7fc44788c9e7a9fc0705ce8

HFFL: The fact that Julianoz was able to script each Mantis differently speaks not only to what you can do with Forge, but his mastery of scritping it as well! Continue reading →

Halo Wars 2 Blitz Beta

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A few qords from Dan Ayoub, Studio Head of Strategy Games at 343 Industries
This is a repost from halo Waypoint: 

hw2-blitz-mp-beta-blogbanner-1120-x-334-3cd197c27ad9447cab6c814f377e8896

Hi everyone –

Last June we invited our fan community to jump in and get hands-on with a slice of Halo Wars 2 with our first multiplayer beta. As discussed, we received a tremendous amount of valuable feedback on both the technical and gameplay side that has helped the team continue to refine and improve the overall Halo Wars 2 experience as we march towards launch on Feb. 21, 2017. Continue reading →

The Month of Master Chief January 2017 (1/17) Feature 6: My history with Master Chief in the games.

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It’s hard to encompass 16 yeasrs of gaming with one franchise in one blog post. This article is in no way all encompassing, but does give you a synopsis of my history and experience with Master Chief from the video games. Novels and other media have not been included (with rare exception) so that any who just follow the games can read along and not be lost in further discussion.

Fair warning, this article is a long read and there will be no TL;DR.

Pre-Master Chief History:
I was a Nintendo then Playstation guy. I hadn’t even considered an XBOX until a friend of mine had me try out theirs one day while I was visiting. The game I played? Yep, HALO! And so starts my journey.

Halo 1 CE Cover
Halo CE/Master Chief
The ever so brief time I had playing Halo on my friend’s console was just enopugh to convince me to by it. It wasn’t really the console itself, but rather the game. I was enamored by this green armored super solider. The super hero-esque look of him was a big draw. I’m a HUGE Iron Man fan, so Master Chief was akin to him, insofar as te armor was concerned, to me. Continue reading →

Halo Toy Review: Mega Construx Series Challenger Blind Pack figures

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This brand new series is a break from the normal military lettered series. (Alpha-Foxtrot) I’m not sure if we’ll see those return or if Mega is going a new direction and naming the blind pack series differently. Regardless, we have a VERY cool new wave of figures with Challenger, so let’s take a look at each!

Mega Construx Challenger Series Blind Packs

Technical Specifications:
Build Time: 2 minutes building each figure
Set Piece Count: varies by figure
Minifigures: Banished Brute, Elite Zealot, Grunt Minor, ODST, Marine, Mark IV Spartan, War Master Spartan, Helioskrill Spartan
Accessories: Bruteshot, Energy Sword, Plasma Pistol, Assault Rifle, Battle Rifle, Assalt Rifle, Hydra, Trans-green Hydra
Special Features: Removable Armor
Cost: $3-3.50 US (Mass Retail) (ONE figure per pack)

Challenger packet Continue reading →

The Month of Master Chief January 2017 (1/17) Feature 5: Halo 5 Master Chief renders

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While Chief has undergone a number of armor changes over time, today we are going to look at the Halo 5 version with some renders previously released by 343.

Regardless of which armor Chief has worn, he’s always looked strong. Even standing here looking at something, we know not what, he appears to be ready to take action at a moments notice.
h5-guardians-render-the-master-chief-png

“Thought I’d shoot my way out.” Continue reading →