If you asked me which of the eight Fall 2012 mass-release Halo Mega Bloks sets had been at the bottom of my wish-list, I would have immediately responded with “the Orbital Banshee Blitz 97010”. I’m not big into Covenant Banshees in-game, and I’ve had bad experiences with the Mega Bloks Banshees from the poor-quality of the first 2009 Banshee to the shelf-warming nature of the years-old individual Banshee set you can still find on shelves in most stores. So it’s not that I wasn’t looking forward to this set–it wasn’t even on my radar. But new is new, and I ordered this set just like all the rest. And despite my initial prejudice against this set, I actually don’t hate it at all now. In fact, I think it just may be a nearly perfect Halo Mega Bloks set…

The Right:

I would be remiss in my discussion of this Orbital Banshee if I didn’t start out by bringing up the Banshee from the very first Halo Mega Bloks set I ever got: UNSC Hawk vs. Covenant Banshee 96810. The Banshee in that set was–to put it mildly–a piece of crap. It was incredibly unstable and prone to literally exploding in my hands if I held it with anything other than the utmost care. And frankly, it didn’t look that good either. This Orbital Banshee is a whole other story. The stability of this vehicle is off-the-charts compared to the original Covenant Banshee, and it looks worlds sleeker and more accurate than that one did.

A major contributor to the great aesthetic of this set is the indigo-colored bricks included. I adored the hell out of the new indigo effect used on the bloks in the Covenant Seraph 97015, and I continue loving the look of those pieces here. They add a large degree of extra-dimensionality to the set, and really make it feel like other-wordly alien technology. I honestly wouldn’t mind a bit if MEGA Brands went back and redid every applicable Covenant vehicle set with the new indigo effect bricks.

One of the things I’m loving about recent Halo Mega Bloks aerial vehicle sets is the addition of flight stands. The Covenant Seraph came with a tall and highly-useful flight stand that really enabled the piece to shine. The Covenant Orbital Banshee flight stand isn’t nearly as tall or impressive, but it does give you a way of displaying the Banshee hovering slightly over the air instead of permanently sitting on the ground. MEGA Brands is under no obligation to gift us with flight stands like this at all, and I for one am grateful to see these included.

The canopy on this Orbital Banshee can be opened all the way forward thanks to the ever-useful hinge pieces, revealing a cockpit that is the absolute perfect size for an Elite to lay down and grasp the handlebars. An Elite figure looks natural piloting this Banshee and fits ideally into the cockpit. Meanwhile, the twin Heavy Plasma Cannons look downright scary protruding from the front of the craft. In short, this space Banshee is sheer beauty.

One aspect of this set that I was pretty stunned by was how much I really like the Point-Defense Turret. In the prototype photos of this set, I always sort of viewed the Point-Defense Turret as a throwaway piece. Even when I got the Orbital Banshee Blitz 91010 in-hand, I left assembling the UNSC Turret for last. After I finished building the Mega Bloks Orbital Banshee, though, I was pretty surprised by the number of pieces leftover to build the Point-Defense Turret with!

The UNSC Point-Defense Turret is a lot more involved and interesting than I expected it to be. I thought it was just going to be a handful of pieces I’d put together in a few seconds, but it’s actually a very nice and interesting build. I’m not saying building this automated Turret is equivocal to the Mega Bloks UNSC Elephant or anything, but it ends up being a quality part of this set. The turret can swivel 360-degrees around the base, and both barrels can be moved independently and raised or lowered to any position, where they’ll stay firmly in place. Great engineering and design makes this Mega Bloks Halo Turret a lot more fun than you’d expect.

As with most sets, a sticker sheet has been included. My obsessive-compulsive nature ordinarily makes adding stickers a tedious task for me, but they’re. The big beneficiary from the stickers this time is actually the UNSC Point-Defense Turret. Ordinarily, Halo Mega Bloks Turrets can be a little plain, and this automated Point-Defense Turret would have certainly been really drab itself without extra details. The decals hugely improve the Turret with the yellow-and-black caution lines on the base of the Turret and the giant UNSC Logo on the front. It looks fantastic instead of looking like a wasted piece as I feared it would. The decorations on the Orbital Banshee itself also really make that vehicle shine. This is some of the best use of stickers I’ve seen on a Halo Mega Bloks set this year.

It doesn’t happen particularly often, but my very favorite part of this Halo Mega Bloks set is a generic Spartan figure. Why? Because it’s the Fall 2012 orange addition to the Halo Mega Bloks Spartan army. This time out it’s our very first orange Spartan EVA! MEGA Brands has done a superb job of sprinkling orange Spartans in throughout the line, never inundating us with orange but slowly and subtly building toward a complete orange Spartan armada.

I only have a handful of Spartan EVAs in my collection, so adding my favorite Spartan color to the mix makes this my favorite figure in the EVA armor permutation yet. The armor is a bright and vibrant orange, not at all like the “Rust” color that the McFarlane Toys orange Spartans utilize. There’s a time and place for the dark Rust orange, but the colorful orange of the Mega Bloks Spartans is eye-catching and gorgeous. I particularly love that the indentations on the dome of the helmet are painted in a slightly-different color than the rest of the gold dome, and the paint wash over the orange brings the whole figure together.

The other figure included is an Elite Pilot with silver flight harness. Since this is a flying Covenant vehicle, it’s not exactly a shocker that we’re getting an Elite Pilot here. I have loads of them already, but I like the silver color of this one, so he’s good enough–especially considering he’ll be virtually permanently unseen flying the Mega Bloks Orbital Banshee anyway.

The set includes two weapons: the new Rocket Launcher and Focus Rifle. Both of these weapons are recent releases, and while I already have both, I’m pleased to build my stock of each of these rare weapons with this release. As is typically the case with vehicle sets, both weapons are unpainted, but I actually don’t mind the unpainted black Rocket Launcher at all–it complements the colors of the orange EVA Spartan nicely.

Finally, you get one “Customize!” piece with the set: a silver Elite Combat helmet. I whine a lot about the number of Elite Combat Mega Bloks figures we get, but I’ve never had a silver Elite Combat figure, so this “Customize!” piece is a welcome addition to my collection.

The Wrong:

Nothing, really. For a $22 Halo Mega Bloks set, the Orbital Banshee Blitz 97010 feels extremely complete and worth the cost. I wouldn’t have minded two or three more clear bricks to extend the height of the flight stand, but what we get here is all very well-executed and worthwhile.

“Where Can I Buy It?!”
I purchased my Orbital Banshee Blitz set from online retailer BA Toys. They tend to get almost every set in-stock before any other online or brick & mortar retailer, and, well–I just can’t wait!

Overall: I absolutely never expected to be giving a high grade to this set, but the Halo Mega Bloks Orbital Banshee Blitz 97010 is just an all-around excellent set. The Orbital Banshee is an improvement in every possible way over the original Banshee from 2009, and will make a great new vehicle for your Mega Bloks Covenant spacecraft fleet to oppose the Mega Bloks UNSC Sabre. I didn’t expect to care about it at all, but the UNSC Point-Defense Turret is also wonderfully-executed and much more fun than you’d expect from an automated turret. Both figures are unique and well-done additions to my UNSC and Covenant ranks, and I’m even happy to get an Elite Combat piece. And to top it all, you even get a little flight stand for the Banshee! I wasn’t anticipating this set, but even so, the Halo Mega Bloks 97010 is top-quality work and earns a high recommendation.