Once again Goodwill Hunter knocks it out of the park and creates a fantastic custom build out of Mega Bloks. Unlike my creations which are done from one set of Mega Bloks only, GWH has the good fortune to be able to make his out of several sets. Rather than me go on about this awesome build, I’ll let him tell you about it in his words. I’ll interject comments along the way.

Covenant CCS-class Battlecruiser Custom Build 

This idea to try this build popped into my head when the Phantom sets went on sale for $15 at Groupon a while back. Unlike Sal’s recent single-set build, 2 Phantoms and a pair of Covenant Anti-air sets ended up providing most of the bloks for this build, along with the usual mix of bits and pieces left over from previous builds. The concept from the beginning was to stagger sets of curved bloks to approximate the organic look and feel of the Battlecruiser design…I think this approach was for the most part successful. 

HFFL: I missed out on that sale or I’d have pounced on it! LOL

I started by creating the basic outline of the ship in grey plates, for which the quarter-circle plates from the AA set were essential. The roughly triangular grey plates from the Wraith were also key in completing the narrower part of the body as well as the rear propulsion pod.
HFFL: This is a great way to start a custom build. Getting your starting layer figured out makes the build much easier to complete.

Similar to the Scarab build, the actual size of the Battlecruiser was determined in large part by the head piece from the Phantom.
HFFL: It’s funny that GWH mentions this as I’m working on a Covenant Super Cruiser (using only one Phantom) with the idea of using the head piece as the starting point.

Once the overall length and width were set, it was just a matter of filling out the top and bottom in line with the guide images I used. 

Here are a few of the guide images I used as a reference:
HFFL: Below are in fact the very same reference pics I used for my custom as well. Great source material!

Most of the structural strength in this build comes from the layer of bloks sandwiched between the original outline plates and another slightly smaller layer of plates on the bottom of the ship. Edging this layer with angled-bottom grey bloks helped maintain the organic feel of the build. 
Lots of fun detail on the bottom of the ship, including the forward fins, glassing weapon, lights, and the piping to the engines.
A pair of Sabre exhausts left over from the Broadsword build, accented with clear blue hubs, made the perfect engines for the Battlecruiser. 
As I was finishing this build, I had a chance to show it to a few new friends who are familiar with Halo. They seemed to like it, but one of them asked, “Where does the pilot go?” Given its scale, I hadn’t really thought about a pilot, but looking at what Mega did with the FUD and what I ended up doing with the Infinity build, it seemed like a fair question. There was really only one place that made sense and would work with how the ship was built, so I squeezed in a control center and an Elite pilot at the front of the ship. While wildly out of scale, it definitely makes the build more fun, so thanks for the idea guys! 
Really happy with how this build turned out, and I was surprised at how sturdy it ended up being given its relative length and narrowness. But as always, if you’re so inclined, I’d love to hear what you think…thanks!
HFFL: I’m pretty happy with it too! LOL I wish I had the extra funds to build something like this. Hopefully Mega Bloks will come out with an official set of this ship.

GWH goes on to say, “this build clocks in at 26-1/2 inches, nose to tail.” Folks on the bloks.hyperboard (where I found this at) asked GWH for a comparison pic. At the time of this writing he hadn’t yet put one up, so put together a quick one using my FUD and two custom Cruiser. (Forgive me of the bad hack job of a crop on the FUD, it was late when I did this and wanted to get it out there.) The ships are to scale with each other (though not in the Halo-verse).

The above graphic shows the official Forward Unto Dawn set from Mega Bloks, GWH’s custom Covie Cruiser, my cruiser I wrote about a week ago, and a much smaller mini cruiser I made last year.

I applaud GWH for his build. He always has some great customs.

I did get some negativity over this though. A person on that collecting forum e-mailed me a quick but mean e-mail stating:

“Goodwill Hunter totally kicked your ass! His cruiser beats yours anyday”

Folks, I’m not in a competition with GWH here (or anywhere…). I create my customs from one set, he from multiple sets. Even if it were a case of just one set each, it’s still not a competition. If it were, I’d never feature his stuff here. I hope you good readers know that I enjoy sharing (with permission) other peoples Halo related work, be that Mega Bloks customs, artwork, videos, etc.

While I of course enjoy being able to show my own stuff, it would be rather narrow minded of me to do only that. Through this blog I seek to share the whole of the Halo community, not self promote.

-Sal