Mega Bloks Halo UNSC Elephant Troop Carrier

Only $83! What a deal from MegaBloks!The set is great, the new upgrade with the figurine joints allow for much more poses, the tank's treads work very well.My favorite thing is the giant cannon on the roof. When it's not in use, it actually transforms and folds to be hidden inside the vehicle.PS The crane really works from extending to lowering the string,

A very very good set overall. A nice large combat vehicle from the Halo universe. It is not without a few cons, but overall is a superb playset that will both entertain the younger fans with a ton of play features, and appeal to the adult collectors. First up a minor comment on the core subject, the Halo UNSC Elephant. Some people may notice the older version of the vehicle which looks very different. This is not really an error. The previous version is the original design of the Elephant Combat Recovery Vehicle from the video game Halo 3. This newer version is a Battlefield Troop Transport featured in the Halo RTS game Halo Wars. The asymmetrical front and the large yellow cockpit canopy are from that games Elephant. There are actually a number of neat details in this new version that highlight that it is more of a mobile barracks and command center.Pro's;- a nice beefy vehicle. Yet still a manageable size for play.- lots of play features. Detailed cockpit. Forward and rear deploying ramps. (The front fits a Mongoose if you happen to have one.) troop compartment with 4 seats, briefing screens, equipment and weapon storage and detailing, and an AI table with a new exclusive AI. (Yellow female), more or less working crane. Retractable gun turret. Lowering support legs for crane and turret operation. 3 machine gun emplacements. Etc. just tons of stuff to do and see.- great figure assortment with 2 named Spartans, a medic, marines and a marine officer. All in the new style super poseable figures.- overall set and part quality is vastly improved over previous Mega Bloks sets. If you have ever bought or built a Mega Bloks set in the past and been frustrated by poor part quality, fit, warping etc, this is not the case with this set. MegaBloks has started using ABS plastic, similar to Lego, and the improvement in part quality is jaw dropping.Cons;- horror of horrors STAMPs! (Stickers across multiple parts) meaning if you apply all the stickers, disassembling the set becomes problematic.- printed instructions are too dark. The set mostly comprises dark camo green and black parts. Telling the color apart becomes important in the later half of the build. But the included instruction book makes it near impossible to tell one from the other. Thankfully the solution is to simply pull up the online digital PDF version of the instructions from Megabloks.com. But it is still sad that the poor instruction printing made it into the product.- missing treads. For some reason when Megablok's designed this version of the Elephant they only gave it 6 tread pieces instead of the full 8 that the vehicle is supposed to have. (And which the previous version does have). While I am sure it is a design decision based on cost and selective compression, it does somewhat compromise the look and massive feel of the beast.Overall a superb set and great value at its price points. One just wishes they had gone one price point higher, which would have turned a really good and fun set into one of the all time best. It is such a fantastic set, that the few failings stand out more than they should. Particularly the missing treads.

Arrived quickly for 12 year old's birthday. He loves the set and all of the features on the carrier. We have tons of legos / halo sets and this is one of the favorites.

When i first opened this box, i was elated. The bags were numbered. Big, red numbers. I thought, 'Finally! Someone figured out that these huge kits would be easier if they bagged the pieces by page or by step! Someone finally figured out that, on these huge kits, sometimes you have to stop partway through, and it'd be great to not having to open every single bag right away!'That elation was short-lived. The bags, numbered 1-6 and 8-13, have absolutely nothing to do with pages, steps, or even parts of the vehicle. The one exception is the bag that contains mostly the final pieces, like the treads, though tucked inside there are three tiny pieces you need fairly early in the construction, forcing you to open that bag two-ish hours before you need 95% of what's inside it. They are not sorted by shape, size, color, geometry, or anything at all. I'm guessing they're sorted by batches that are common across multiple sets, thus allowing each model to be put together mostly from component bags rather than custom ones. This is great for the manufacturer, and annoying for customers.So yes, by step 4 or so, you'll have about a thousand small megabloks bricks all over your floor, table, or other work surface. And good luck if you have to put everything away partway through the construction. Collecting a thousand-odd pieces off the floor to dump them back in the box, then dumping them all back out a few hours later just salts the wounds.Ok, so if you slave through the ridiculous scavenger hunt that is finding the pieces for each step, you suffer through the poorly-diagrammed instructions, you force the little pieces together until your fingertips go numb because they just won't click together properly, you tear a few of your fingernails trying to take some of those pieces apart again because you couldn't tell from the diagram whether the block should have been places 12 or 13 rows in......and in the end, you have a pretty cool vehicle. The pieces, when they eventually do click into place (for some reason, it's a big problem with the 1x2 bricks) really want to stay in place, so even younger children can play with the troop carrier without it just falling apart. (I spend a lot of my time repairing various Lego vehicles, which go together much more easily, but alas, come apart more easily.) It probably wouldn't survive a trip down the stairs, but a few bonks into walls won't cause it to disintegrate.So you just have to decide how much hardship you're willing to endure to get the vehicle in the end. For people less annoyed by playing the 'find two 1x3 bricks in this heap of over a thousand bricks in shades of grey, black, and dark green', it might be a good investment. For me, it wasn't worth it. I'll stick with Lego, because at least their instructions are good and the pieces fit together.

With my son everything HALO is a great gift. This is smaller than the other Elephant but is still a cool set.

Looks great! Only thing that stunk was the bipod for one of the snipers were broken.

My son loves the finished product (toy) but it took days and days for my husband to put together. Unfortunately not as simple to use as Legos.

Was worth the purchase. Very good quality and the level of detail is really good.

It amazes me how many mistakes there are in the instructions and how the bags aren't numbered like Lego to make assembly more efficient. It took days to out this together because we had to search through so many pieces every time. That said, this is a really cool unti once it is all together..