Following the Great Halo Mega Bloks Information Drought of 2013, the floodgates have opened and the tsunami of Halo Mega Bloks news is rampaging in! We learned about the Toys R Us exclusive Halo Mega Bloks Flood Hunters Battle Unit 97160 last week, and now we know the two 2013 Halo Mega Bloks summer sets that will be joining it as exclusives. One is a past release, but the other is a new variant of an extremely popular discontinued set–it’s the Halo Mega Bloks Covert Ops Falcon 97173!

We all know the drill by now–every summer, the retail exclusive Halo Mega Bloks sets hit Target, Walmart, and Toys R Us. There’s always multiple Toys R Us exclusive sets, and summer 2013 is going to be no exception. Along with the Flood Hunter Battle Unit, it looks like we’ll be getting a reissue of the Covert Ops UNSC Wolverine 97172 and a brand new recolor of the Falcon–the Mega Bloks Halo Covert Ops UNSC Falcon 97173.

I’m actually really psyched about the new Covert Ops UNSC Falcon set. The original UNSC Falcon has been discontinued and expensive on the secondary market for close to a year now, so it was a great choice for a refreshed variant exclusive release. The Mega Bloks Falcon looks awesome in black–I actually thinking that I prefer this black color scheme to the original grey color of the Falcon.

The figure selection with the Mega Bloks Halo Covert Ops Falcon 97173 is excellent. Getting another pair of Flood Carrier Form figures with this set is also a huge bonus, as I’m not fond enough of the Flood Hunter Battle Unit set to want to buy a ton of that set just to army-build the Flood Carrier Form Mega Bloks figures. It also looks like we’ll get a minimum of three Flood Infection form figures, which is always nice–we went years without Flood figures and we desperately needed more of them. The Covert Ops Spartan Scout and Spartan EOD look very nice, and are a worthwhile addition to the Mega Bloks Spartans’ ranks.

However, I am very concerned about the price point that Toys R Us will end up charging for the Halo Mega Bloks 97173 Covert Ops Falcon–the original Falcon was a $50-$55 set to begin with, and with the addition of the Mega Bloks Flood Carrier Form figures and the extra charge for being an exclusive, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a $75-$80 price tag on this at Toys R Us. We are talking about the store here that tried to sell the UNSC Rhino for $160 last year, after all. If Toys R Us gives us a fair value price on this set, I’m going to be absolutely stunned.

The Halo Mega Bloks Covert Ops Falcon 97173 set has not yet been released anywhere worldwide, but should hit stores in the United States later this summer–most likely in July/August. The set will be a Toys R Us exclusive in the United States, though the set may be available at mass retail internationally. I’ll update with more information and official photos of the Covert Ops UNSC Falcon as they’re released.

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