We’re just one week out from New York Comic Con 2015–the next major event that MEGA Brands will be attending! Ordinarily by this time of year we have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the winter wave of Halo Mega Bloks, and this year is no exception. But if you’re hoping to build whole Halo Mega Bloks 2016 sets this winter, be prepared for disappointment: this Halo 5 Mega Bloks Covenant Watch Tower appears to be the only boxed set…

Several weeks ago, photos of a prototype 2016 Halo Mega Bloks Covenant Watchtower set began to leak onto the Internet. Since it’s the right time of year for that,  I wasn’t really surprised–I just assumed that the set was part of the series of buildable Halo Mega Bloks 2016 winter sets.

Well, as it turns out, this Covenant Watch Tower Mega Bloks set is the entire wave of boxed winter 2016 Halo Mega Bloks sets.

While it hasn’t been confirmed via MEGA Brands official channels yet, the word going around is that there will only be a single non-exclusive buildable set released this winter: the Covenant Watch Tower Halo 5 Mega Bloks set.

Now, let me stress something: this is not the only Halo toy that MEGA Brands has cooked up for early 2016: there are tons of Halo figures being released. Single-packed Icons, Fire Teams, Delta Series and Echo Series Blind Bag Figures… if all you care about is building your figure collection, then you’re golden.

But if what really draws you to the Mega Bloks Halo line is buildable sets, it looks like this Tower is it. So let’s take a look at the set…

As you might have guessed from its name, this set includes a buildable Halo Watch Tower (UPC # 887961249033). This is actually quite a treat, as the Watch Tower has only had one previous release as a Target exclusive several years ago. That set is rather difficult to find at this point, so I know many fans will be psyched for a new opportunity to add an all-new Covenant Watchtower to their dioramas.

The set will include two figures: a steel Spartan figure and a copper Elite figure (which looks like the Halo 4 Elite General). Someone will have to help me out with the Spartan armor permutation on this set–the photos aren’t the best, but I think it’s a steel Spartan Warrior figure. Your thoughts, sharp-eyed readers?

The Halo 5 Watch Tower build itself looks to be a little, well… short. I’d guesstimate it’s around 6″-7″ tall, which will sadly make the Sangheili figure manning it easy pickings for a well-trained Spartan. It can’t really be helped though, given the price and piece-count of the set: the set will contain 239 pieces and carry an MSRP of $23-$25. In that price-range, it’d be hard to produce a much larger tower.

But perhaps the two most exciting features of the set are the weapons: this Mega Bloks Halo 2016 set will include an all-new mold for the Covenant Fuel Rod Cannon and also a new gun from Halo 5: Guardians–the UNSC Hydra gun! This is the first release for both of these guns (and the first time I’ve seen the UNSC Hydra released as a toy by any company), so this set is sure to be popular.

How do you feel about the strong likelihood that this Covenant Watch Tower is the only buildable early 2016 Halo 5 Mega Bloks set, collectors? Will you be adding one (or more) of these Watchtowers to your collection this winter?