By VinceHoffman
Mar 12, 2019
The Marauder is a Jiralhanae-specific vehicle like the Brute Prowler and Brute Chopper. Interestingly while the Brute Prowler and Chopper both feature Covenant sourced anti-gravy repulsors to suspend them above the ground, the Marauder’s origins are much older and native to the Jiralhanae home world. It is a actually an armored hovercraft floating on an air cushion which explains all the air intakes and ducts in its design. The only Covenant derived tech on the Marauder is the crew-operated adaptation of the same Class 2 Plasma Mortar as seen on the Type 48 Covenant Revenant. The Marauders secondary weapon system is Jiralhanae in origin, a missile launcher capable of striking air or ground targets.
So I guess Mega Construx figured we would all buy this set on the strength of Sgt Johnson’s beautifully realized Green Machine exo-suit… ‘Cuz discerning collectors aren’t going to be happy with the stock Banished Marauder hovercraft build which makes up the bulk of this set. Tough words right? Aptly deserved IMO. So was there any redeeming design features of the Marauder build? Well it does feature a pair of completely and cleverly realized jet engines on a steerable linkage and I liked the gill-like side exhaust vents a lot too. As for the rest of the build… Well it looks like the designer sketched out a basic idea in bricks, but then didn’t bother finishing it.
Rebuilding the model to my admittedly high standards pretty much doubled the stock brick count without meaningfully changing the overall dimensions of the model. The completed stock model seriously looks half done. Notably absent this time around is the set-specific molded cockpit hull like that found on the Banshee, Locust, Prowler, and Shadow sets. It was no mean feat achieving a teardrop shaped cockpit with the stock parts and a few similarly colored pieces from old Spiderman themed sets. The end result could have looked so much better than the brick-built cockpit had the cockpit shell been a new 1 or 2 piece mold with a couple paint apps. Take a look at the Banished Banshee for an awesome example! It was also a bear sorting through thousands of “MM” grey color code blocks looking for the darkest dye lot variations in order to achieve a reasonable match with all the new “AWC” dark grey camo bricks used in the set. Did we really need yet another shade of grey added to the existing block color palette?
Notable features of my top-to-bottom rebuild were the aforementioned cockpit, addition of missile launch tubes behind the cockpit, an improved plasma cannon turret, extended engine nacelles, and a game-accurate hovercraft skirt-base for the vehicle. All parts used are Mega Bloks / Mega Construx however there were a few custom parts. The first is plainly visible at the engine intakes. The completed part is a both-sides-smooth tile with a hole drilled for connector pin mounting. The second modded part corrects a flaw in Mega’s design. Their cockpit construction would put a stack of two plates on top of the driver’s shoulders. Even if you remove the Brute driver’s spikey shoulder pauldrons, the two plates above each shoulder leave only the top of his helmet sticking up. As the bottom-most grey right-angle plates only attach at top and side I sanded away most of the material on the bottom of these two plates. Now my Brute’s head fully protrudes in game-accurate fashion. As always I worked hard to hide most of the exposed studs.
BTW, the built-in projectile shooter is a complete bust in this stock model. Pressing down on the trigger hard enough to actuate it consistently breaks the turret before sufficient pressure can be applied to actually shoot. Even after my more robust rebuild this remained the case. Not a big deal to me as I dislike the feature and designed it out of my rebuild.
So I guess Mega Construx figured we would all buy this set on the strength of Sgt Johnson’s beautifully realized Green Machine exo-suit… ‘Cuz discerning collectors aren’t going to be happy with the stock Banished Marauder hovercraft build which makes up the bulk of this set. Tough words right? Aptly deserved IMO. So was there any redeeming design features of the Marauder build? Well it does feature a pair of completely and cleverly realized jet engines on a steerable linkage and I liked the gill-like side exhaust vents a lot too. As for the rest of the build… Well it looks like the designer sketched out a basic idea in bricks, but then didn’t bother finishing it.
Rebuilding the model to my admittedly high standards pretty much doubled the stock brick count without meaningfully changing the overall dimensions of the model. The completed stock model seriously looks half done. Notably absent this time around is the set-specific molded cockpit hull like that found on the Banshee, Locust, Prowler, and Shadow sets. It was no mean feat achieving a teardrop shaped cockpit with the stock parts and a few similarly colored pieces from old Spiderman themed sets. The end result could have looked so much better than the brick-built cockpit had the cockpit shell been a new 1 or 2 piece mold with a couple paint apps. Take a look at the Banished Banshee for an awesome example! It was also a bear sorting through thousands of “MM” grey color code blocks looking for the darkest dye lot variations in order to achieve a reasonable match with all the new “AWC” dark grey camo bricks used in the set. Did we really need yet another shade of grey added to the existing block color palette?
Notable features of my top-to-bottom rebuild were the aforementioned cockpit, addition of missile launch tubes behind the cockpit, an improved plasma cannon turret, extended engine nacelles, and a game-accurate hovercraft skirt-base for the vehicle. All parts used are Mega Bloks / Mega Construx however there were a few custom parts. The first is plainly visible at the engine intakes. The completed part is a both-sides-smooth tile with a hole drilled for connector pin mounting. The second modded part corrects a flaw in Mega’s design. Their cockpit construction would put a stack of two plates on top of the driver’s shoulders. Even if you remove the Brute driver’s spikey shoulder pauldrons, the two plates above each shoulder leave only the top of his helmet sticking up. As the bottom-most grey right-angle plates only attach at top and side I sanded away most of the material on the bottom of these two plates. Now my Brute’s head fully protrudes in game-accurate fashion. As always I worked hard to hide most of the exposed studs.
BTW, the built-in projectile shooter is a complete bust in this stock model. Pressing down on the trigger hard enough to actuate it consistently breaks the turret before sufficient pressure can be applied to actually shoot. Even after my more robust rebuild this remained the case. Not a big deal to me as I dislike the feature and designed it out of my rebuild.