Covenant Spectre Ambush: Set number 97110

Technical Specifications:
Build Time: 10 minutes sorting, 30 build. Total 40 minutes.

Set Piece count: 183
Minifigs: Ascetic Elite (White); Honor Guard Elite (White); Marine full goggles/mask (Mix Green/Tan)
Weapons: Focus Rifle, Plasma Rifle, Pistol, Missile Pod
Accessories: Sandbag
Special Features: Opening/Closing hatch, multiple double joints, swivel turret, detachable Missile Pod (can attach to figure’s hands with “L” hook pins.
Price/Value: $23 US

The price is okay for the piece count. I go by the average 10 cents per piece, so by that rule the set should have been around $18.50. However, it needs to be noted that there are a few NEW pieces/molds here. Names the Spectre’s hatch and the missile pod. I hope it’s not the last we see of the pod and my gut says it won’t be. Anyway, Mega needs to account for those new molds. So a slight price increase isn’t bad. Especially when we get the uber cool Honor Guard. So it doesn’t come in white in the game. That really doesn’t matter. It’s a GREAT fig. Besides, I’m going to say this one is the head of the Honor Guards. The marine while utilizing same molds has a unique paint appplication. And I LOVE it! I hope to see more marines like this in the future.

Okay, enough of me talking, onto the pics!

Box Front

Box Back

Box detail showing characters.

Box contents

Contents of the big bag in upper left of previous pic.

Pieces all sorted out.

Marine’s last stand.

Missile pod attached to post

First few build steps of the Spectre

Next few build steps of the Spectre

In the above pic we see some nice curved pieces. I especially like the pre-printed pieces. I hate applying stickers and always worry they will fall off. So, I don’t normally apply them. Having pre-printed pieces saves me that worry. Thanks Mega!

Near the end of the build steps of the Spectre

Though this is a small vehicle (smaller than I thought it would be), it has a nice aesthetic. I really like the wine color of the bloks. Just like it’s Revenant cousin.

Final build steps of the Spectre

Normally building blok sets ignore the underside of vehicles. Not this set. I’m VERY happy Mega paid attention here and did the bottom justice. Those bottom rounded pads look great and slide along a smooth surface nicely. (well not that I play with mine, I heard this…um yeah, that’s what I’m going to go with here…)

Missile pod detached from mount. It can be attached to the Marine via “L” hook pins.

Left over pieces and what I made from them.

Summary: This set is fun little set. It’s a quick build, so you can get your Covies attacking the UNSC quickly! (Or display it like I do-again I don’t play with my sets….) The missile pod and accompanying Marine are fantastic extras to this set and help to justify the cost. At $23 it’s a good value. Again with some new molded parts, I don’t mind the cost at all. This is the one vehicle from Halo 2 that I really wanted, so I’m VERY happy Mega made it. The Honor Guard is just and awesome figure and it’s nice to have another Ascetic Elite.

Overall Rating: 9.5 out of 10 medals. Other than I think it should have been a little bigger, this set nails the blok version of the Spectre very nicely. This vehicle is fairly obscure and again I’m happily surprised it was made. While not an iconic vehicle, it has a lot of play value to it. I definitely suggest getting it, especially if you like vehicles from Halo and wants some Covenant variance.

-Sal

I have been waiting a long time to get this since I first heard it was in production around late September/Early October. Then when I saw it in person at New York Comicon last year I just KNEW I wanted this set.

Okay, so there were some snags in this set, which I’ll go over, but stick through til the end. I promise the set won’t disappoint.

UNSC Mantis: Set number 97115

Technical Specifications:
Build Time: 20 minutes sorting, 1 hour build. Total 1 hour 20 minutes.

Set Piece count: 443
Minifigs: Spartan Warrior (Steel)
Weapons: SAW
Accessories: N/A
Special Features: Opening/Closing top hatch, multiple double joints
Price/Value: $35 US

The price is pretty good for the piece count. I was missing several parts when I checked the pieces against the parts list. Still, I proceeded to put the set together, knowing I’d be calling Mega Brands on Monday to have the missing parts set to me.

Normally that alone would really put me off to a set. However, since I had seen this in person, I knew the set was going to be a fun build regardless of the missing parts.

Without further ado, here is the pictorial review with commentary (click the pics to make bigger).

Box Front

Box Back

Box Contents

Contents of big bag from previous pic upper left

The pieces are sorted

Upper body being put together

Top hatch assembly

The upper body is complete except for a missing part. I’ll make note of that in a later pic.

Machine Gun arm assembly

Rocket Launcher arm assembly

This arm is missing two parts. Again, I’ll make note of the in the next pic.

The circled areas denote where there is a missing part.
• Upper-missing 2X1 reverse slope on the rocket launcher arm
• Middle-missing 2X1 modified double round piece
• Lower-missing “T” piece. This one was a bit critical as not having it makes the arm very unstable. It comes off way to easy without this piece.

Leg Assembly

Leg final assembly

The legs were the same build (just mirrored), so I’m only showing one leg here.

Lower body assembly-missing 3 parts.

I made a slight error building this section. Top row second pic shows 2 elbow plates in the wrong postion. I fixed that in the lower first pic.

The parts missing are:
• Upper left-missing pin
• bottom row second pic-Missing small 1×1 slope
• bottom row second pic-Missing small 2×2 “wing” This is hard to see due to other piece built on top of where it should be.

Large section assembly

Final Assembly

Sorry for the blurry shot here. Some better ones are to follow.

So at this point, I was missing 6 parts. Nothing too major, but the “T” and pin parts are fairly important to the stability of the Mech.

Now on to the Docking Station.

Docking Station build steps

Docking Station Final Assembly

Final set shot.

Now this looks good, however, I’m just not satisfied with the docking station. There is nothing like this in-game. So I took the dock apart and remade it with the left over parts. Speaking of…

Left over pieces

Missing parts list

Damaged bag

Here I found the culprit of the missing pieces. Looks like this bag was crimped at the wrong place as there seems to be a burn mark (top circle). The bottom circle denotes a tear in the bag before the parts were removed. Makes sense as I had some loose parts in the box. I thought they might have just been extra. Turns out they weren’t.

Redux Docking Station

And here is the set finalized with the docking stations redone and the computer station added to, plus the minifig. I like this set up better.