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1142

I just want to post a note here about the 3A Master Chief that recently came out: It’s horrible. The figure almost completely lacks articulation, he can’t grip any of his weapons, the magnet mount features don’t work, and the rubber undersuit is attached via very cheap glue that easily comes peeled off straight out of the box. I already created a more in-depth thread about how bad this figure is, but it didn’t get any love. I’m hoping posting about it here has two benefits: Getting this thread active again and getting the attention of 343 Industries in regards to his horrible abuse of the one-sixth scale Halo action figure license.

3A has been horrible and intolerant of the customers in this situation, to make things worse. They are offering a full refund for the figure “to any customer dissatisfied with their purchase”, but they refuse to take any responsibility for the situation or acknowledge that the figure sucks because they were lazy with it. Instead, they are extremely evasive about it and have even outright lied to me. When I posted about the figure’s flaws on their Facebook page, the 3A administrator blocked me and deleted my posts. A number of my friends who also got the figure have reported the same reaction.

I’ve been e-mailing their customer service back and forth as well, just trying to get some kind of update on whether they’re going to reissue a fixed version of the figure down the line. They’ve lied to me. At first I described my issues to them and demanded some answers and they simply responded with a shipping address. When I told them about being banned on their Facebook, they promised to get back to me about the issue and they never did. So I gave them a bunch of evidence that everyone around the Internet was having identical issues with this figure. They responded by telling me that my figure is an isolated case and that’s why they can’t give me any support. So I politely told them I appreciate their use of nice language, but I don’t appreciate their lying and their unwillingness to help me out and I asked to speak to a superior. That was over a week ago and they still haven’t gotten back to me.

My friends have also reported that they were banned from the official 3A forums. They said it was a similar case to being banned from Facebook, except the 3A moderators outright told these dissatisfied customers that they needed to stop harassing people from 3A. That’s the actual language they used. It’s just appalling. This is a company who shipped a really lazy lemon of a figure. Their official customer service “professionals” are being evasive and even outright lying to people. Their forum moderators are accusing members who want answers of harassment.

It’s just a disgusting situation and I’m posting this here because I really want 343 Industries to notice and kind of prod 3A in the right direction. They had their own customer service disaster less than a year ago with Halo: The Master Chief Collection. However, 343 Industries was responsible about it - they owned up to their mistakes and even compensated their customers. There seems to be less accountability in their merchandising departments, as they haven’t even acknowledged this horrible figure.

343 Industries: Please take notice of this debacle and how badly this toy company is treating your fans. Both you and your fans deserve better than this. Please hold 3A accountable for this terrible figure design. And if you need any more details about this issue, you can feel free to contact me. Of course, there’s also this link to a thread full of people who received the figure and have been discussing how bad it is and how poorly 3A is treating them. Everything following page 129 is about this figure.

1143

On a brighter note: I just got my hands on five of the new Halo 5: Guardians McFarlane figures: Master Chief, Fred-104, Spartan Locke, Spartan Tanaka, and Spartan Centurion. They arrived at my local Target yesterday and I’m happy to report that they’re mostly killer! I can drop a review of each one individually if you guys want me to, but otherwise I’ll just sum them up as a whole. Also, I won’t really talk about Spartan Centurion, since he’s really just a repaint of Fred-104.

They did a lot right with these figures. Every one except for the Master Chief are brand new sculpts. They appear to be excruciatingly game-accurate in terms of sculpt, except for the fact that Spartan Locke is actually significantly taller than John-117 here. Fred-104 and Spartan Tanaka, in particular, look amazing. Spartan Tanaka also notably features a female body sculpt, so those complaints we had about the “Mr. Palmer” figure earlier this year can fall to the wayside. The female sculpt, in fact, appears to be better-proportioned than the male one. I can’t wait to get my hands on Spartan Vale, Linda-058, and Kelly-087.

One issue I have in terms of sculpt is that the hands are still pretty terrible. They’re identical to the Halo 4 McFarlane hands, but the issues are exacerbated because many of the weapons in this series, such as the Assault Rifle and the DMR, feature stock guards in addition to separated trigger guards. The trigger guards mean you can’t slide the figure’s fingers in over the trigger, so the grip is already pretty loose. The stock guard means that you actually can’t slide the figure’s hands onto the weapon’s grip at all, because their hands are simply too large to fit in that space. It seems like using a knife to cut the figure’s first fingers away from the rest of the hand may be beneficial. It would’ve been better for McFarlane to simply include extra weapon hands. Oh well.

In terms of paint, almost all of the figures look really sharp. I would say the paint application is better than many of the Halo 4 series. Fred-104 has these golden armor decals that just really pop and look great on him. Spartan Tanaka’s silver paint captures light the best of these figures so far. I have a couple gripes with the protagonist figures, actually. Spartan Locke is actually super underarmored. He’s got a torso armor piece, a helmet, and completely armored arms and legs. His entire crotch and stomach area are undersuit and really stick out like a sore thumb because of how McFarlane painted them. I went back and looked in-game and the effect isn’t as noticeable there because of the color shading 343 Industries uses. Spartan Locke the figure seems just a little bit off. Other than that undersuit issue, though, Spartan Locke’s paint application is gorgeous. His armor is this really dark metallic blue that shimmers under direct light. His visor also captures the light extremely well - it seems to glow, just like in-game. It’s amazing.

My complaints with the Master Chief are a little bit more simple. For one thing, though he wears the same armor, a lot of the details on it look quite different in Halo 5: Guardians than they did in Halo 4. With that said, the paint application on this figure is almost identical to the ones in the Halo 4 lines. There is very little difference. There is some dark green detail on his undersuit that McFarlane kind of captured here, but it didn’t really work the same way it does in-game, at least from what we’ve seen. Also, the figure’s visor is still more orange than gold. Halo 5: Guardians notably returns to Master Chief’s gold visor, so this is kind of a big detail to miss. Finally, the in-game model of Master Chief features red arrow decals on his shoulder pads and various other places; the figure does not have these decals. They’re completely absent. It seems relatively minor, but for a company like McFarlane that is known for its hyper attention to detail in its paint application, these issues combine to make the figure seem like a rushed repaint of the Halo 4 figure. I mean, that’s essentially what it is, but these missed details would have set the figure apart more if captured correctly. So basically: The Chief figure would have been a hit if they remembered these details, but they didn’t, so it’s not.

I should also note that the terrible hip articulation is back. One of my friends tells me that they spoke to a McFarlane representative at San Diego Comic Con about the figures’ hips and the representative said that McFarlane is aware of the issues and wants to fix them, but 343 Industries’ licensing departments won’t let them divert any resources toward that. So blame Microsoft for the bad hips, not McFarlane. Anyways, the other articulation is almost exactly what you’d expect, but that’s okay for figures this cheap.

I should make a note about Spartan Locke’s articulation, though: It’s completely terrible. Neither his elbows nor his knees can even hit a ninety degree angle. His hips have a rotating swivel, but can be swung neither side to side, nor forward and back; only rotated slightly. His shoulders, his feet, and his head are okay, though. Still, it doesn’t pay to have a protagonist figure who outright cannot be posed. In fact, his arm articulation is so terrible that I couldn’t even get him to bend his arms far enough across his chest to wield his Battle Rifle. It’s really bad.

Finally, a note about the weapon pegs: McFarlane made them too short this time. Many characters feature peg holes hidden between their huge thruster packs on their backs. Partly because of the thruster packs, these weapon pegs are quite literally too short to be mounted in the holes on these figures. It almost would’ve been better to remove the pegs from the weapons entirely. Also, the pegs on the DMRs are actually attached close to the butt end of the rifle’s stock. I have no idea why this is, but it makes the weapon look extremely awkward when you do manage to finally mount it correctly.

So, yeah, overall these figures are stunning. The funny part to me is that Fred-104 and Spartan Tanaka are home runs and definitely the better two of these four figures. You just really can’t beat the paint application, more dynamic articulation, and better sculpts of those two. Master Chief and Spartan Locke sure do try, but with the Chief missing Halo 5: Guardians paint details, he seems more like a rushed Halo 4 reissue; and with Locke featuring some really flat and boring undersuit paint and having all of the terrible articulation that he has, neither of these two figures can keep up with their squadmates. Here’s hoping McFarlane retools Spartan Locke with better paint and better articulation and also redoes the paint application on the Master Chief, remembering the gold visor and the red arrow decals. It would be awesome to see improved versions in Series 2 or somewhere else down the line.

1144

Hey there, dude! I am very glad that I decided to take a peek into this forum, as I was able to see that you posted in my thread. It’s just mostly dead, but with new toys showing up left and right, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

Nice reviews. I always know that I’m in for an honest, well-written review when I see your posts in here. :). That is incredibly unfortunate about 3A. I will be sure to avoid recommending their products to others in the future. That is a terrible business model, and should serve as a reminder that listening to constructive criticism is 1000x better than hiding it. :slight_smile:

The McFarlane toys sound awesome! Did yours come with REQ packs? If this is how Halo 5 does toy-based DLC, then we should all be happy. No one will feel pressured to buy something they don’t want just for in-game content, and it gives collectors a little bonus, sort of an indirect thank you for supporting Halo. I’ve seen these packs in the McFarlane toys and the Mega Bloks Halo Vulture. They make me even happier to continue collecting Halo toys.

Tomorrow, I’ll post some news, and a small text-based review of the Mega Bloks Series Charlie figures I own, including a new articulation Sangheili! :smiley:

1145

So, in terms of news, the Fall line-up for 2015 Mega Bloks Halo has been fully revealed. You can find all set listings, minus the Signature Series, here. The Signature Series set this year is an NMPD Pelican with a landing pad. You can see an image of this here, but the user is most likely incorrect in assuming that the set will retail under $100, given the history of these Signature Series sets.

With that said, on to the review!

The first figure from Series Charlie that I got was the Cyan Spartan Soldier. Something I’d like to point out with these Series Charlie packages is that they have gone back to the basic rectangular shape of Series 1-3. This is something that I am neutral on. I liked the cool designs of the previous packages, but these rectangular ones are easier to store. Moving on to the actual figure, I am very pleased with this particular Spartan. I had no issues with any figures that I got, and the Soldier was no exception. In terms of coloring, there wasn’t really anything special. Some black detailing here, gold visor, cyan on everything else, the usual Spartan mini-figure. The paintjob was well done, and the removable armor and super-poseable articulation make the figure really stand out. I’ve got him next to my convention exclusive Cyan Mk. VI Spartan from 2014. They look really good together. He came with a V2 Shotgun (the smaller Halo 3 version) and a typical black display stand (2x3 with 3 studs down the center). Interestingly, the display stand had a generic code on it, not the code belonging to the individual figure (these codes are still on the outside package, though). All-in-all, a very nice figure that would make a great army builder.

The second figure I obtained was the Steel Orbital Spartan. This figure’s paint job is spectacular, as he has a bright red visor, and steel and black detailing all over. He looks very much like he belongs in the Halo universe, especially due to the awesome paintjob. This figure was coupled with a Silver M6C SOCOM (Suppressed Magnum), which provides an excellent contrast to the figure and really makes him pop! This was actually my first Orbital Spartan, and the figure does not disappoint! The detailing, both painted and molded, is amazing on this figure. Well done, Mega!

The third figure was the Crimson Storm Elite. And my goodness, I think everyone needs at least one super-poseable Sangheili! The removable armor functions exactly like his Spartan counterparts’, but with one key difference: a REMOVABLE helmet! The only downside to this is the fact that the Elite has a permanent hole in his head, to accept the Helmet’s peg, but I think that’s a small price to pay for such an immense novelty! In terms of the articulation, it is also very similar to that of the Spartans, but the legs have TWO knee joints each! This means that fully extending the legs makes the Sangheili taller than other figures, which is a great addition, seeing as fully collapsing them keeps the Elite at normal figure height. This adds a level of realism to the figures without destroying their compatibility with other vehicles and structures. All the armor was very secure and tight (almost too tight), but I was still able to remove everything without too much effort. Great figure design Mega! Can we get Brutes next? As for the weapon, it is a simple indigo H4/H2AMP Beam Rifle. It fits well with the figure and looks great with posing.

The fourth fig was a Green Grenadier Spartan. While the color may not have been super remarkable, I will admit that it does look the most believable out of all the Spartans. As with the other figs, the detailing on this guy is awesome! I absolutely love the molding and painting on these figures, and really enjoy posing them side-by-side! The weapon he came with is new, for me. It is the Halo Reach, etc. Plasma Pistol mold, which means it is smaller and more detailed. No paint detailing of course, but the molded detail is a vast improvement over the original weapon. I thought the Grenadier would look weird with such a wimpy weapon, but it complements him really well, and is overall very nice.

The fifth and final fig (that I got) was the Gold Storm Grunt. Now, Grunts aren’t too spectacular, most likely because of their limited articulation. However, this Grunt is special, because he got a metallic gold paintjob that looks spectacular. The details on him are wonderfully well done, as well. My only real complaint is that he looks like he’s been using Whitening Strips. I’m serious, his teeth are that white! It’s more of a nitpick than anything, though, and the figure still looks great anyway. He comes with another Halo Reach, etc. Plasma Pistol in the same color, and he definitely looks natural with it. Another great army builder!

All-in-all, I can safely say that I recommend Series Charlie to anyone looking to get some Mega Bloks Halo. For $3 a package, you can choose whether you want to surprise yourself or pick and choose figures precisely using the codes. All the figures in this series are great, especially if you want to build an army. Thanks for reading! :slight_smile:

1146

> 2533274806352868;1143:
> I should also note that the terrible hip articulation is back. One of my friends tells me that they spoke to a McFarlane representative at San Diego Comic Con about the figures’ hips and the representative said that McFarlane is aware of the issues and wants to fix them, but 343 Industries’ licensing departments won’t let them divert any resources toward that. So blame Microsoft for the bad hips, not McFarlane. Anyways, the other articulation is almost exactly what you’d expect, but that’s okay for figures this cheap.

Wait… 343 is paying McFarlane to make these figures?
Wow, how the mighty have fallen.
That explains why they basically dont release enemy figures anymore.

1147

> 2533274806352868;1143:
> On a brighter note: I just got my hands on five of the new Halo 5: Guardians McFarlane figures: Master Chief, Fred-104, Spartan Locke, Spartan Tanaka, and Spartan Centurion. They arrived at my local Target yesterday and I’m happy to report that they’re mostly killer! I can drop a review of each one individually if you guys want me to, but otherwise I’ll just sum them up as a whole. Also, I won’t really talk about Spartan Centurion, since he’s really just a repaint of Fred-104.

Lovely review, I actually already bought all them but wanted to read someone else’s thoughts haha. Anyways, for ANYONE out there on the bar about buying these figures… They cannot offer a better deal out there. I have a few tips too to seal the deal.

With a bit of custom work, involving a hair dryer and some wire clippers, you can nip away parts of the figure to improve articulation vastly*.* I’ve been meticulously customizing these Halo 5 figures the past few weeks.

  • I have Kelly about a centimeter shorter than the male spartans
  • Kelly, Locke, Tanaka, Fred all have +90 degree elbow articulation (Though Fred was badass out of the box, didn’t have to mod much)
  • Kelly & Tanaka for some reason have “chest shoulder” molding that prevents them from sticking their arms straight forwards to hold say, a pistol, with two hands without looking like a monkey. Fixed that too. (This problem was apparent on the Orange Scout figure from Halo 4 too, idk why…)
  • Tanaka’s knees can now bend 90 degrees
  • Locke/Tanaka improved hipped articulation
  • Repainted Locke’s light blue waist into gunmetal and dark grey. Looks excellent.When I figure out how to post pictures, I will! ( I also have an instagram so you can see them now if you can’t wait.@HaloFrontier)
1148

> 2533274915926813;1146:
> > 2533274806352868;1143:
> > I should also note that the terrible hip articulation is back. One of my friends tells me that they spoke to a McFarlane representative at San Diego Comic Con about the figures’ hips and the representative said that McFarlane is aware of the issues and wants to fix them, but 343 Industries’ licensing departments won’t let them divert any resources toward that. So blame Microsoft for the bad hips, not McFarlane. Anyways, the other articulation is almost exactly what you’d expect, but that’s okay for figures this cheap.
>
>
> Wait… 343 is paying McFarlane to make these figures?
> Wow, how the mighty have fallen.
> That explains why they basically dont release enemy figures anymore.

I’m amazed by this and glad to see its not Mcfarlane to blame. Haha, why don’t you think they won’t release enemy figures?

1149

Hey Everyone,

Check this out - there is a new Play Arts Kai Master Chief from Halo 5 that is expected to come out in mid 2016.

I’m new, so I can’t post clickable links yet. You can find it here:

https://store.na.square-enix.com/product/294341/halo-5-guardians-play-arts-kai-master-chief

Why don’t they come out with a Cortana figure? She is so important to the storyline… just saying.

1150

> 2533275009514729;1009:
> > 2535442170261981;1008:
> > General question here…I saw (wish I could have brought it home) a Master Chief figure in a salvage/closeout store about a year ago. I’m not sure the actual size of the figure, but the box was easily two feet tall. I’ve been looking for another one since, but can’t seem to find it anywhere. Does anyone know what it was and where I might find such a thing?
>
> Are you sure that it was 2 feet?
> I can’t think of a box for a figure which is THAT big…
>
> My best guesses are Kai Play Arts or something around that caliber.
>
> May I ask what price it was?

I really need to get on here more often…that being said, yes it was at least two feet tall and was $300.00 in the store that I saw it in (which was two years ago now). BTW, still haven’t seen anything like it again. Knowing what I know now I’d max out my credit card to own it since I’ve never seen another one like it nor can I find one anything like it online.