I saw these first hand at Toy Fair and they were amazing. Here are three new pics showing the sets.

These small sets will retail for around $9 U.S. each.

The small boxed sets will retail for around $13 U.S. each.

The large sets will retail for $17 U.S. each.

Some really good stuff here. I can’t wait until these show up at retail. Though, there are a lot more sets on the way besides these. Check out my coverage from New York Toy Fair this year to see more. NYTF Halo McFarlane Micro Ops!

These realistic sets are fantastic for those who want to build a diorama but don’t have the room for the larger McFarlane line. As well, you’ll be able to get sets that will never be done in the larger line.

Personally, I love to build scaled perspective dioramas. That is to say larger things in front smaller things in back. So for instance, I might have a action figure sized ghost in front and one of the micro ops ones in the background to give the illusion of distance, yet keeping the diorama relatively small.

Here is a gallery of the upcoming Hlao Avatar minifigs. Remember folks, these can be mixed and matched. (with exception to the Warthog)

Cute little things. I believe they are to retail for $3 each and are blind packed in a plastic tube.

McFarlane’s Halo Anniversary Series 2 has hit and I’m happy to bring to you my reviews of the figures.

The Sentinel features the following articulation:

•  Ball Joint Head
•  Hinge Shoulders
•  Hinge “Elbows”
•  Hinge “Wrists”
•  Lower “Mandible” hinge joint

Guilty Spark feature only the eyeball turning to reveal a red eye, as it’s sole articulation.

Pricepoint: $11-15 US depending on store

The Pros and Cons:
Pro: These have been long wanted “figures” from many fans. While not really much for articulation, Guilty Spark plays such an important role to the original trilogy that it was almost a must that it be made. The Sentinels were at times allies and foes during the games and make for great forerunner army builders.
Con: Guilty Spark is relatively plain. Even though you can spin the eye to it’s red position, that’s the only thing that turns red, whereas in the game more of it’s blue lighted lines turned red. That is near impossible to do on a toy such as this, so it’s easy to overlook it. Though i do plan on doing my own custom red version. The Sentinel has me a little disappointed. If the arms lined up right, I’d have been extremely happy with it. However, as you can see from the pic below, they were misaligned at the forearm and wrist joints. This made it look like it was damaged, rather than a pristine construct of forerunner design. I do wish McFarlane could do more about Chinese quality control on these. If this had been packaged differently, it may have gotten into consumers hands in better condition.

I bought 4 of these so I could have extra sentinels. Unfortunately only one of the four was good, while the other three all suffered from some misalignment in the upper arms.

As such, my overall impression of this pack is not favorable. They are both figures I very much wanted, but the outcome left something to be desired. Sculpt wise they are great. How the sentinel was constructed, not so much.

The UNSC emblem part is the other wing. Not much to say about that.

From here on the rest of the wave gets better, thankfully. So I’m able to “suffer” the two figures I wasn’t as impressed with.

Now for the pics of this set:

-HFFL

McFarlane’s Halo Anniversary Series 2 has hit and I’m happy to bring to you my reviews of the figures.

The White Multiplayer Spartan features the following articulation:

•  Ball Joint Head
•  Ball Joint Shoulders
•  2-part swivel Elbows
•  Ball joint wrists
•  Limited Ball joint Torso
•  Ball Joint Hips
•  2-part swivel Knees
•  Ball Joint Feet

Pricepoint: $11-15 US depending on store

The Pros and Cons:
Pro: Is one of if not the first color variation that Joyride made during it’s tenure as the Halo action figure license holder. So this variation is a nod/throwback to that. As a white base color it lends itself well to custom paint jobs.
Con: Really an unnecessary figure. If you weren’t into collecting Halo figures back then, the color variant really means nothing.

My particular feeling towards this figure is “meh.” I bought it solely for the UNSC part to complete the Shield. Unfortunately, once I got it, I had even more buyers remorse. As you can see in the photo below, one of the legs near the waist has a HUGE black mark on it. It really detracts from the figure for me. I know McFarlane can’t really regulate Quality Control when the figs are being manufactured in China. Still, I as a consumer shouldn’t have to explain this either. Mind you I did buy mine from an online site that I use frequently. Had I bought this in store, I’d have looked over the figure to make sure the paint was good. In this case, I’d have passed on this particular fig.

The UNSC emblem part as you can see also has a shoddy paint job. So needless to say, my overall feeling toward this figure is very disappointed. Had it not had the UNSC part, I likely would have passed on it.

One thing I wish McFarlane Toys would focus more on is campaign figures, meaning specific characters. If they are to do multiplayer figs, then make them in the typical team Red and team Blue colors and from there only a rare few other colors, like Master Chief Green, Steel, and white. yes, this was a white figure, but it has smudgy metallic blue markings on it.

Thankfully, this was one of two out of the five figs from this wave that I wasn’t as impressed with. The other one isn’t bad, but it has it’s drawbacks, which you’ll see in another upcoming review. For now the pics:

The figure comes with a Battle Rifle, which is always welcomed. Note the black mark on the leg, visible in the two most left views in the pic below. One other thing I didn’t mention above was that this figure was so horribly posed in the package that it cam out bow legged and I tried to fix that. You can see in the right most view that the lower portion of the one leg is grossly aligned.

Note that the figure comes with a frag grenade and a wing piece of the UNSC emblem. AS you can see by the one I got, the paint was horribly misprinted. Sigh.

Now, all my problems with this figure aside, if you find one with a good paint job, should you get it? Well, that depends on if you want to complete the UNSC emblem or not. Or, if you have a feeling of nostalgia towards the Joyride figures. As I mentioned above, this would have been one figure I’d have passed on. That’s saying something too as I collecting very near everything McFarlane Halo.

-HFFL

Before I get to each figures review I wanted to quickly post the wave as a whole and the buildable UNSC Emblem that comes with them if you get the whole wave.

The card back is the same for each, so I’ll post it once here. Only change is the UPC from figure to figure.

-HFFL