As I have mentioned previously, I have recently started dabbling in the Mega Bloks Collectors series sets – mostly focusing on the high quality, very detailed, and fully articulated mini action figures. (If you are interested to check out my reviews on what I got so far, see the links at the end of this post.) Today I wanted to talk a bit about the recently discontinued Mega Bloks Assassin’s Creed line, and the sets that were never released…
All of the Mega Bloks Collectors sets are franchised properties from video-games or films. The current lines include Destiny, Halo, Call of Duty, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Star Trek. These are not the regular Mega Bloks sets, but higher-end products for collectors with great attention to detail. From all of the Mega Bloks Collectors franchises one of my favorites has been Assassin’s Creed.
I’m actually not a gamer, and don’t care for Assassin’s Creed as a game. However what I do like is the story. The game is set in a fictional history of real world events and follows the centuries-old struggle between the Assassins, who fight for peace with free will, and the Templars, who desire peace through control. This means that the Mega Bloks sets associated with the game include historically accurate characters – mostly soldiers.
People who like to build up historic armies and battle scenes usually collect traditional miniatures, but because these are not articulated, pretty much all you can do with them is line them up and create static displays. Mega Bloks is sort of a mix between traditional miniatures and building toys. Their mini action figures retain the realistic details of traditional miniatures, have the articulation of modern action figures, and they are set in a world of building blocks compatible with LEGO. There is no other company that makes mass-produced, high quality, fully articulated miniatures – so they are quite revolutionary.
The Mega Bloks Assassin’s Creed sets include pirates, Spanish guards, soldiers from the French Revolution, soldiers from the American Revolution, and medieval knights. The characters include accurate clothing and accessories that are fully interchangeable, so you can mix and match them as you like for further variety. Also note that all the weapons and other accessories are compatible with LEGO minifigures. The horses are very nice too and come in three different colors, in case you want to have some of your soldiers on horseback. I have included some pictures here to give you an idea how the figures look like.
Because of the story spanning through centuries, the Mega Bloks Assassin’s Creed sets have really been a goldmine of historically accurate mini action figures. I really wish that LEGO would do something like this! Unfortunately, even though more sets were scheduled for this fall, the Mega Bloks Assassin’s Creed line was suddenly discontinued, and sadly, these were the sets I was looking forward to the most…
One of the unreleased sets includes Jacob Frye from the British Brotherhood of Assassins along with some other Victorian era characters (see above). The other two unreleased sets include medieval knights. Just look at these guys! Gorgeous armor for the knight, archers with working bows… as a fan of medieval history, I was looking forward to these so badly! Myself and other fans have even pleaded with Mega Bloks to please reconsider and release them as a final wave, but they won’t budge. So, I sort of wrote this article to commemorate them. I hope Mega Bloks will include similarly awesome knights in some future sets.
If you would like to check out the Mega Bloks Assassin’s Creed sets in more detail, I have included some reviews from JANGBRiCKS in the video-player below. It was Jang who got me interested in the Mega Bloks Collectors sets in the first place, and I have been following his reviews carefully to select the sets I like the most. And you can also check the Mega Bloks Assassin’s Creed page to see all the sets (this page is now hidden on the main Mega Bloks Collectors website, but you can access it via the direct link I added).
Although the Mega Bloks Assassin’s Creed sets have been discontinued, if you are interested in trying them out, you can still get them at various retailers and also eBay. I actually bought almost all of the Mega Bloks sets and figures I have via eBay, as they have pretty much all of the retired sets and the prices are very reasonable (a relief for someone who is used to the high aftermarket prices of LEGO sets). Here is the link where you can find them: MEGA BLOKS ASSASSIN’S CREED ON EBAY
What do you think? Do you have any of the Mega Bloks Assassin’s Creed sets? How do you like them? Feel free to share your thoughts and own review in the comment section below! 😉
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Very interesting. I wish Lego would release historically accurate figures like these. Neither Lego, nor MB have any realistic historic, or even normal castle sets right now.
Nexo Knights is fun, but it doesn’t satisfy castle fans. Castle used to be a staple for LEGO, isn’t it? And Space too, along with City and Pirates. It looks like from those four basic themes only City remains. Space, Castle and Pirates simply vanished, so we have no source of historic minifigures anymore. 🙁
Space was sorta replaced with Star Wars…
Korean brand Oxford should have some historical sets based on Korean history, otherwise.
the space theme(s) ran for years along side star wars. it didn’t replace it. if anything, licensed franchises, like Star Wars pushed LEGOs own themes out in the long run. I doubt that was LEGO’s own intention, from my perspective it looks like, it is a side effects of the insane focus there is on pop-culture.
I remember one statement, I think it was official, that it had become harder to produce in-house space themes, since they had to differ substantially from Star Wars…
And of course, Star Wars is all over the place, even design-wise, so an in-house theme easily becomes similar to at least one aspect of the universe…
Oxford sets are very nice. But they are limited to Korean history, and some fantasy. No medieval knights and Templars. Plus, while I do like their sets, the minifigs are not as cute as LEGO’s.
Oxford did have one castle theme called Empire (EM3351) which I think is now discontinued. We’ve had it for a couple of years but haven’t built it yet. They also had an oriental themed fortress which was a great build and looks really good made up. Although the minifigs aren’t as refined, the ones from the military series are certainly humorous and no shortage of weapons if you like the theme.
I just did a Google image search. Those Empire sets look nice! And yes, Oxford sets have very nice weapons. But the sets (at least here in the US) are quite expensive. Even more so than LEGO. I do look at the listings from time to time on eBay, as they carry interesting themes and their quality is excellent.
Yeah, that you mention, this is very true; no Classic Pirates, no Classic Castle, no Classic Space. I hope Classic City won’t turn into something bizarre also! 🙄
On the other hand, to us old-timers, Classic City often feels like a re-hashed police state…
Police state with arsonist. Lots of arsonists. 🙄
Perhaps the LEGO product managers believe that kids nowadays want things like Legends of Chima, Ninjago and Nexo Knights and aren’t interested anymore in classic settings like Castle, Pirates or Space.
Perhaps there is another, additional reason: Those new brands are LEGO’s intellectual property and aren’t as prone to be imitated and expanded upon by other brick brands. Everyone is allowed to sell a castle made out of bricks, but imitating Nexo Knights could still be a crime. That’s just speculation, but I have an example for this behaviour:
The miniature games company Games Workshop wrecked their great game Warhammer Fantasy over a similar thought. They got rid of generic dwarves, generic human soldiers, generic undead and so on because whole other companies thrived by producing cheaper miniatures of those themes. Now GW only sells weird armies that are their intellectual property – but many gamers don’t like them and the new rules, myself included.
That’s very interesting. Thanks for sharing. With all the IP stealing going on right now, and getting worse, this could very well be the reason, or at least one of the reasons. It is also probably the reason that LEGO and similar companies are focusing on IPs. It gives them extra strength to support their intellectual properties when two companies are banded together. Disney in particular is well know for vigorously protecting their assets.
Holy Cow! I really wish I could get my hands on a copy of the set with the knights! I think there may be a few out in the wild, probably prototypes and such. Dang, those guys look awesome.
I went looking, there is even a Blackbeard Micro Action Figure!
I might try and find the Borgia Heavy Guard set. That guy looks great!
The Borgia Heavy Guards are awesome. I have both, and they are my favorite MB figures. The armor is beautifully detailed. Interestingly the silver armored guard has two version. The more grayish silver you see here, and there is a shiny silver version as well. That’s the one I have. 🙂
I have been hoping that there are prototypes floating around of the crusaders as well, but haven’t been able to find anything so far. I even checked with cloners, but nothing… 🙁
It’s called the templar order boi; get your facts right. Not only do you get a knight; you get Altair one of the most legendary assassins but at least they did do Ezio, Edward , Connor(asshole character :/), and the French Assassin’s before the product was discontinued. Having the AC syndacite set would be ‘AssAssIn Christmas.