Monthly Archives: August 2012

The Halo Bulletin: 8.8.12

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The Halo Bulletin: 8.8.12

There is a cool video showcasing weapons form Halo 4. Some we’ve already seen, others we haven’t like the “Saw” and “Railgun.”

One thing to note, there are two version of the video. One with music, one without. I suggest listening to the one without the music to really here the weapons sounds. ON the note of the music, I REALLY hope that isn’t what we are getting for Halo 4. I’m NOT a fan of the “dub-step” style. Well, not for Halo anyway.

There is a nice break-down of the weapons shown with commentary from 343 personalities, most notably Frank O’Conner.

After this there is a long article by Frank O’Conner giving candid thoughts about Halo 4 and his association with Bungie.

The August playlist update may or may not upset you. They (343) are taking away some and rebuilding the lists. Notably, Action Sack is gone, BTB is no TU only, no more Firefight Doubles (Man I’m glad I just finished up my Reach Firefight career).

A custom challenge for beat-downs is laid out to us as well as the Super Jackpot this weekend for playing Griffball (32K credit jackpot).

So go and check out the bulletin, it’s worth the long read!

-HFFL

Mega Bloks Toy review: Versus Snowbound Battlescape set 97068

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Versus Snowbound Battlescape: Set number 97068
(Target Exclusive)

Technical Specifications:
Build Time: 2 minutes sorting, 3 minutes build. Total 5 minutes.

Set Piece count: 100
Minifigs: Blue Recon w/white dusted feet; Red Commando Elite w/white dusted feet; Active Camo Recon (COOLNESS)
Weapons: Battle Rifle (Black); Plasma Rifle (Crimson); Active camo Mauler
Accessories: Covenant power core; clear display stands (can be made small or large, your choice.

Special Features: Turret swivels
Dimensions: The Battlescape is the standard size as all the rest as it uses the same mold again, this time in white/steel colors.

The set has 100 pieces. Most are really the minifigs and that’s just fine. I’m always glad to have a clear figure as I’m a fan of that particular type of toy. (I love to see the inner workings of how a toy is made and clear toys show that very well)

Here are the pics.
Click on images to see a larger version.

Like the other battlescapes, this one features a removable section. This can be place elsewhere on the baseplate if desired.

The turret assembly is quick and easy to build. Really great design. I think Mega nailed it here. I just wish I could get a few more of the turret without having to buy more of the whole sets.

The minifigs are fantastic. Not just due to Recon, but active camo. I like the crimson Plasma Rifle. Close enough to be like the Brute Plasma Rifles. More Power cores please!!!

Summary: A good set for the money. Everything outside of the battlescape itself really drew me into buying the set. Were this made as a set without the scape, I’d have bought 3 more of them.  It’s a good set to get, especially if you want to complete the Snowbound Target exclusive series.

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 medals. Decent minifigs weapons and accessories help make the set from an otherwise overused baseplate set.

-HFFL

Mega Bloks Toy Review: Covert Battle Unit set #97070

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Covert Battle Unit: Set number 97070

Technical Specifications:
Build Time: 1 minute sorting, 2 minutes build. Total 3 minutes.

Set Piece count: 47
Minifigs: Steel (Shark-like grey) Spartan Mk V w/Red UNSC logo on left chest; Steel ODST with red secondary color, 2 steel marines-1 with goggles, 1 with ggogles and mask.
Weapons: Shotgun, Assault Rifle, SMG, Large Machine gun (with turret assembly
Accessories: 3 black backpacks, Bubble shield generator
Special Features: Turret assembly can swivel

Price/Value: $18 US

The set has 47 pieces. How that exact number is determined I’m not sure as each minifig is comprised of 14 pieces each. So that would already put the total over 47. If counted a one piece each then the total is way below 47 with everything else. Really though it doesn’t matter. The set is great no matter what the piece count is.

Here are the pics.
Click on images to see a larger version.


Sorry for the flashpoints…

What’s in the box (bagged)

A quick sort and here’s what you’ve got.

Very cool instruction sheet, almost a mini poster.

As you can see from the above pic, you can have a minifig hold the turret or assemble it and have someone gun it.

The bubble shield is easy to assembly. I like the smokey color of this one.

Covert Ops Battle Unit ASSEMBLE!

Summary: A great little set with virtually not build time. The new Shark Steel Covert Ops color is fantastic. I really like the turret assembly. Given that a 4-pack of figs now costs about $13-14 for the extra $4 or so you get the bubble shield, generator and turret assembly. Is that worth it? Well, in conjunction with the rest of the set, heck yeah. I got mine at 50% from Toys R Us’s sale price. As of this writing they are still having a “Buy on get one 40% off” sale, so jump at this set if you’ve got the chance. It’s worth it.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 medals!

-HFFL

Toy Review: McFarlane Halo Micro Ops High Ground Gate boxed set

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I saw these first at New York Toy Fair this year and immediately was excited for them. They are a fun small size in realistic detail. Great for building massive and small dioramas alike. They also are affordable.

The boxed High Ground Gate set seen here retails between $27-30 depending on store. It’s an okay price, but is leaning toward being a little over priced. I really hope McFarlane doesn’t up the price on these as that would price these sets out of my budget.

The carded pic are directly from McFarlane’s website, the loose shots are mine.

As you can see the set comes with the gate, a Warthog (same as the small carded set), a shooting Spartan, and a Machine Gun Spartan. The micro figs and Warthog make up only about $7 of the set, so that means you’re paying about $20-23 for the Gate piece.

The one really great thing about these sets are their detail and this one doesn’t fail. It’s very detailed and would look great in a diorama.

The turret has little slots to fit the hands of the gunner.

While the place where the turret is normally positioned on the gate swivels. Not really necessary, but a nice added feature.

The Gate opens and closes and looks good from both the front and back sides.

It’s a good set and will look great with the other High Ground sets. I look forward to getting the Laser Tower set to complete this scene from one of Halo 3’s multiplayer maps.

-Sal

Toy Review: McFarlane Halo Micro Ops large carded sets

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I saw these first at New York Toy Fair this year and immediately was excited for them. They are a fun small size in realistic detail. Great for building massive and small dioramas alike. They also are very affordable.

The large card sets seen here retail between $16-18 depending on store. I think it’s a fair price, not just for what you get, but the overall quality of what you get in something this small in scale.

Both “carded” pics are directly from McFarlane’s website, the loose shots are mine.

First up is the Falcon set: This set includes the Falcon, Carter (Noble 1), A crouching marine, and a Pilot. The Falcon has several moving parts that really make this a sweet set. Not only does the cockpit open to put the pilot in, but the rotors spin as well as swivel from top to front. Add to this the side gun mounts fully retract and are quite posable, considering their diminutive size. It might seems steep to pay $16-18 for this, however the detail is great and the moving parts really help to make up for any perceived shortcomings due to price.

Next is the High Ground Bunker set. I thought this a little strange at first but then when you couple it with the High Ground Gate and the very soon to be release High Ground Tower/Missle cannon, it really sells the whole thing. However, this set did have it’s drawback for me. The set comes with the Bunker in several pieces that you can choose to combine or not as you see fit. As well it has a Shade Turret in game accurate colors. For micro figs it has a Red Spartan, Marine, and strangely a Reach style grunt. I say strange because this set is depicted from Halo 3, not Reach and the grunts are completely different.

Be certain to check the bottom underside of the bubble as that is where the two connecting baseplates are. I almost threw away the bubble before realizing they were there.

In the above pic you may see where the front most piece of the bunker doesn’t quite fit well with the rest of the set. In order to make it flush, I had to tape it underneath. Also, these pieces are slightly flexible, which may mean you could have some sag over time. That remains to be seen though. The assembly of the bunker isn’t tight either. The little pegs on the baseplates don’t exactly fit right, but with some gentle nudging you can make them fit.

It may be a little hard to tell that the grunt I’m holding has peg holes so it can fit in the turret. The problem for me is that the legs weren’t evenly straight and the peg and holes were so darn small that I gave up after 5 minutes of trying to make the little guy fit. I’ll try again later, but this time I may use tweezers. The Shade is very nice. As you can see it can pivot up and down as well as rotate 360°.

These two sets start to border on expensive, so I hope in future waves the price doesn’t go up. The Falcon is a solid buy, while the Bunker set alone isn’t impressive. However, if you really want to make a High Ground diorama, then it’s a must buy. In my case I want to make a diorama, so…

-Sal

Toy Review: McFarlane Halo Micro Ops small card sets

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I saw these first at New York Toy Fair this year and immediately was excited for them. They are a fun small size in realistic detail. Great for building massive and small dioramas alike. They also are very affordable.

The small card sets seen here retail between $7-9 depending on store. I think it’s a fair price, not just for what you get, but the overall quality of what you get in something this small in scale.

All “carded” pics are directly from McFarlane’s website, the loose shots are mine.

First up the Banshee set. This set comes with a Reach style Banshee (my preferred version as it’s sleeker than previous incarnations), as well as two micro figures. One is an Elite Pilot while the other is an Elite Ranger.

The Banshee’s four wings rotate slightly and independent of each other. VERY cool set. I want to get another one of it.

Next is the Ghost with Wolf Spider Turret set. This set includes Emile (Noble 3 from Reach) and an Elite, I think it’s supposed to be an Ascetic, hard to tell. Also of course the Ghost and Wolf Spider Turret. The turret comes with an extra “closed” hatch if you want to display it that way. Be forewarned, trying to pop that closed hatch on should be done be small nimble fingers. It’s not for thick fingered folks… The turret does rotate. Do NOT try to take the Ghost off it’s stand. It is not removable. That’s a feature I wish McFarlane would have considered. I broke mine off the stand after shooting the pics…

Thirdly comes the ODST Drop pods. This is a good set with lots of detail. Comes with one deployed pod and one landed pod. Each pods’ front doors pop off and can be put back on easily. As well the side doors swivel out on each. There is a small steel color stand for the deployed pod and a highly detailed dirt base for the landed pod. The micro figures with this set are as follows, Buck, Dare, the Rookie. I think this one has some good value to it given the two pods.

Lastly is the Warthog/Mongoose set. I think this is my favorite set and I can already see this being reissued as a Gauss hog set and/or Rockethog set. Included are a Chain Gun hog, Mongoose (Reach style), micro figures of Marine Gunner, Spartan Warthog Driver, Spartan Mongoose driver.

All in all really good sets. Detail is fantastic at this scale. Price is good to great. If you want to build a diorama, these are certainly the ay to go. I highly recommend them.

-Sal

HaloFanForLife Swag store coming soon.

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I’m working on opening up a e-store for HFFL swag. Simple stuff. Mugs, t-shirts, cards, etc. Prices will be as absolutely low as I can go. I’m using CafePress, so they have a starting charge. At most mine will be only 25 cents to a dollar more than their base price. This covers costs. I’m not in this to make money.

It should be opened in a couple of days as soon as I fix a few graphics.

Mega Bloks Review: Countdown set #97017

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Countdown: Set number 97017

Technical Specifications:
Build Time: 1.5 hours sorting, 5.5 hours build. Total 7 hours.

Set Piece count: 1241
Minifigs: Blue Spartan “Jorge-like armor”;2 Reach style Marines-1 with green eye HUD/1 with gold goggles; NEW UNSC Technician; NEW Brown Spartan Mark V [B]; Standard Green marine with NEW head featuring military cap instead of helmet. Armory items: JFO right arm, CQC left arm, Operator helmet
Weapons: 2 Assault Rifles (black); 3 Magnums (grey); Battle Rifle (black)
Accessories: 2 Reach style marine backpacks; Tools include: Power wrench, wrench, screwdriver, hammer, ratchet, crowbar, lock cutters, monkey wrench

Special Features: Sabre cockpit slides open/close; Yellow gantry ladder swivels
Dimensions: Sabre W 10.5″ H 3.75″-without 4″-with staging rockets L 15″-without 16″with staging rockets / Gantry-Tower assembly W 18.375″ D 9.5″ H 16″
Price/Value: $110US

The set has 1241 pieces. Roughly 80% are for the Sabre, with the rest for the Gantry/Tower.

Here are the pics with some explanation along the way, to help your build.

Click on images to see a larger version.

 


The second pic of the above shows the contents of the big bag from the first pic in the upper right.

Pieces sorted out into the “Brickyard.”

Note in the above picture the yellow circles. The two forward parts of the engines kept falling off. This was due to the +bar being too short and not being a snug fit. For the rest of the build until the end, these parts remained off so as not to fall off and frustrate me. In the end I used double sided tape to keep them snug.

In the above pic the yellow circle shows where there should be a 2X2 double stud sided piece. That piece was missing. Thankfully it isn’t an integral part of the build and would be hidden anyway, as you can see.

The cockpit assembly is terrific. Nice smokey glass, dark grey hatch and the sliding feature works VERY well.

Beautiful, isn’t she?

To save space yet show build progression, I made this animated gif of the gantry assembly:

Next up the control tower/station in steps:

 

In this next pic, you see the junction between the gantry and the tower. The directions call for the silver piece (at the bottom) to already be on the build. I found it much easier to take this off, assemble the bottom part them fit the silver part on top.

Bright yellow!

Here is the set fully completed (without stickers) As some of you long time readers know, I don’t like to put stickers on my sets. This set certainly speaks for itself without the stickers, don’t you think?

Here is the sticker sheet:

The leftover pieces: As usual, I try to make a mini of the set the pieces came in. I was successful in part for a small control station. The miniSabre came out pretty good I think. I even was able to make stage separation rockets for the miniSabre.

And finally the minifigs, weapons and armory bits:

Summary: A fantastic set, with long build time. The price is set VERY well for the set. With the piece count coming in at 1241, I would have expected the set to be priced closer to $125. There are some new parts here like the engine nacelles, cockpit slider and cockpit hatch that really add to the look and playability of the set. I am extremely happy with the turn out of the Sabre, but for the one issue with the front engine nacelles not staying on without a little help. Either a longer +bar or a tighter fit would have fixed that. Still, it’s fixable and not too troublesome. If you display this upright as picture, then it’s not an issue.
The gantry/tower assembly is huge and fits the Sabre well. It really adds to the set. Had this just been the Sabre, I’d have been very happy. I feel the gantry/tower was the extra put in the set that adds to the realism of it.

Overall Rating: 4.75 out of 5 medals. Just one missing non-essential part and the forward nacelles as mentioned keep this from being perfect. But damn, it’s CLOSE. Is it worth getting? HELL Yeah!

-HFFL

McFarlane Halo Micro Ops series 2 preview pics!!

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Several preview pics and information have been released for the upcoming series 2 of the Micro Ops line.

Here’s the intel and pics:

Scorpion:

This set includes a new Halo 4 UNSC Scorpion tank, a heavy ground combat vehicle used by the UNSC during large scale operations, features a hatch that opens and closes, along with a rotating & elevating turret. The set also includes Halo 4 Master Chief and two Marine figures for a total of 4 pieces.

Covenant Watchtower:

This set includes the Covenant Watchtower from Halo: Reach, featuring a working gravity lift that elevates figures from the ground level to the top. The set also includes two Jackal Snipers with Needle Rifles and a Jackal Major with Needler for a total of 4 pieces.

Gauss Hog with Generator:

This set includes a Warthog, the UNSC’s primary ground vehicle, with rotating Gauss Cannon; and a UNSC Generator to be protected by Spartans from enemy attack. Also includes Kat (a member of Noble Team from Halo: Reach), along with a UNSC Trooper driver and gunner for a total of 5 pieces.

UNSC Wolverine:

This set includes a Wolverine, an anti-aircraft half-track vehicle used by the UNSC, that features a rotating turret and driver hatch that opens and closes. Also includes UNSC Marine driver and UNSC Flamethrower Unit figures for a total of 3 pieces.

Figure pack (with Ground Cover):

This set includes Jun and Jorge (members of Noble Team from Halo: Reach), along with a UNSC Trooper, Elite General, Grunt Ultra, and Grunt Heavy figures. Also includes a Small Barrier, a mobile metal ground barrier used by UNSC infantry forces, and a Portable Energy Shield, a deployable cover created by the Covenant (enemy) for a total of 8 pieces.

Covenant Drop Pods:

This set includes two Covenant (enemy) Drop Pods, high-altitude deployment vehicles used by Elites to deploy a single occupant to a planet’s surface. Each pod features a removable hatch door. Set also includes a beach base, flight stand, and two Elite Ultra figures for a total of 6 pieces.

What’s cool is that we’re getting the Noble Squad members in these. Hopefully McFarlane will round out the squad with Carter and the default Noble Six in the next series.

-Sal