Halo: Flashpoint Mastercraft Resin Fireteam Phoenix Review

In March, I was fortunate enough to pick up the Halo: Flashpoint Fireteam Phoenix – Show Special Limited Edition Fireteam at Adepticon. Mantic had a healthy stock on Saturday, typically the busiest day of the convention, so that was fantastic. Usually, exclusives are something you have to rush to get, but I was just able to walk up and pick up a set. That being said, this set is only available for the 2025 season, so you’ll want to pick it up soon. Fireteam Phoenix is available in soft plastic in both the Recon Edition and Spartan Edition core boxes, so fortunately, this is not a unique box that you have to chase down in order to have the pieces for play. The resin pieces are, however, absolutely superior in design and material than their soft plastic counterparts, and I cannot wait to paint them up!

Let’s see if these Spartan warriors are worth the hype.

Contents

The box itself isn’t all that exciting to look at, and is rather understated sitting next to the regular Halo Flashpoint boxes. The figures come unassembled in polybags, separate and loose, within the box. Each figure and base is marked with a letter (A, B, C, or D) on the connection points of each part. Here is each figure included:

1x Mastercraft Resin Spartan Deadeye with M392 DMR

1x Mastercraft Resin Spartan Brawler with CQS48 Bulldog

1x Mastercraft Resin Spartan Mark VII with MA40 Assault Rifle

1x Mastercraft Resin Spartan Zvezda with VK78 Commando

The parts are covered in the oily release agent from the manufacturing process, so I highly recommend washing them with soap and water before assembly and painting. I unbagged everything, threw it into a water strainer, and then washed all of them together. Thank goodness each part was labeled, or else that may have been an unfortunate mistake on my part.

Author’s Note

Packaging mistakes happen, and I discovered that my Spartan Brawler was given the Assault Rifle instead of his shotgun. 

I messaged the Mantic support team and got a reply within 48 hours and a notice they were shipping me a replacement part. I am based in the United States, and so with Mantic based in the UK, it took about 6 weeks for the part to arrive. They actually sent me a full replacement figure instead of just the part.

The support team was amazing. Accidents happen, and I promise you you’ll get a lot better results by being kind and treating the support staff like people (because they’re human too.) Please don’t be that guy and Karen your way to the support team - it’s not necessary and you’re making the rest of us nerds look back. 

Assembly

Since the parts are labeled, assembly is a breeze. Arms and legs are pretty obvious for assembly (well, unless you can’t tell your ‘left’ from your ‘right,’ in which case that’s a whole separate issue). I had to do very little trimming on the pieces themselves. Some still had residual manufacturing bits, but that was very easy to remove. 

Since this is resin cast, regular model plastic glue won’t work. Plastic cement is composed of polystyrene, a chemical that melts the plastic surface, causing polymers in the parts to meld together and form a cohesive bond. Since this is not the right type of polymer, the chemical reaction isn’t going to occur, so you’re going to want to use standard super glue. 

Super glue is composed of cyanoacrylate, a bonding agent that reacts with moisture that bonds pieces together once it hardens. Personally, I use Loctite Super Glue Gel Control because it holds quickly and dries slowly, so you can move pieces around before it hardens. 

Material Quality

The resin cast is superior to the soft plastic for getting those hard angles on the armor. It’s sturdy enough, too that should you accidentally drop it, it won’t shatter like SLA resin would. Because of the resin cast, the model gets a lot more details, making the helmet and weapon details that much crisper.

Bent Weapons/Arms

If you have ever worked with resin cast before, there is a good chance you’ve encountered warped weapons or annoyingly angled floppy bits. These pieces are not exempt from the rule. I’ve seen a lot of people criticize Mantic for this, but it’s really not justified. This, unfortunately, is a reality of this kind of production.

NOTE: The shotgun and knife were heat-warped (something I see shared a lot on forums and community pages. This is a really easy fix, fortunately. If you need to reshape your resin cast pieces, check out this great video by Raging Heroes on how to reshape the pieces. In short, put the warped pieces in boiling water for 10-20 seconds, remove, reshape the piece as you need to, put in ice water, and done. This will save you and their support team a lot of work and headaches because chances are most, if not all, of the pieces are going to be like this. 

Bases

These bases capture some of the iconic maps of Halo, generic enough to be from any game’s multiplayer (or campaign) map, with lots of great details to bring out. They’re certainly easier to customize than the flat bases from the core sets, and look better, too!

SUMMARY

If you want to level up your Halo: Flashpoint squad, then these pieces are a must-have. They’re high-quality, dynamically posed, and are going to be a blast to paint. These are really going to enhance the tabletop and battleground experience!

Pick up your Limited Edition Fireteam Phoenix from Mantic’s online store today or from their booth at the upcoming conventions they’re attending this year.

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