Bounty Hunter Gunship (#7930)

This one is the Bounty Hunter Gunship, or the Halo as it is called on Clone Wars. I wasn't sure if I wanted this one, but then I saw the episode again and changed my mind. If you're familiar with the set, you'll notice the black assassin droid is conspicuously absent from the photos. That's because I didn't think it was worth the effort to put it together. I don't think anyone would've missed it had Lego not included it in the set. Anyone who wanted one would've purchased the battlepack.

Here's the ship from the side. Both side panels swing open to give access to the cockpit up top and the prisoner compartment below. It would've been nice to fit more than one figure in the cockpit, but we deal with what we have. Aurra Sing is in the driver's seat, Sugi and Embo (with the big hat) are the other two bounty hunters. The geek in me says I should point out the writing on the nose art sticker. It's supposed to say "Nice playing with ya", but as near as I can tell, it actually says, "gaig fshtgho". It seems something got lost in the translation... Maybe they thought no one would notice.

The front view. I do like the looks of the ship, the front looks intimidating. There are a few stickers with this kit, so be careful when putting them on. Most of them are pretty big, which means unless you're really good at pealing them off, you only get one shot at it.

The back hatch opens to show the prisoner compartment. Instead of including the cheap assassin droid figure, it would've made more sense (to me anyway) to include someone who could be used as a prisoner.

The engine pods in flight mode. Sliding the rear section of the tail will move the pods back and forth between flight and landing modes. As you can see, unless you're holding the back of the ship, the weight of the pods is enough to pull them down slightly. The first design flaw in the set.

The second flaw is the lid to the cockpit. If you tilt the ship more than 90 degrees, the lid flips open. This could be somewhat embarrassing during combat. Either the clips need to be notched or the lid needs to be secured when closed. Since there are no studs along the top of the cockpit, notching the hinge seems to be the best bet.

There is a concealed storage compartment when in flight mode. The little blue thing is supposed to be a Jedi holocron.

So, this was an interesting build. Nothing too difficult, but I liked how they managed the engine pod mechanism. This one has a good swoosh factor, but would be even better with improvements to the pods and the lid as mentioned. It's still a fun ship and I'd recommend it for any Star Wars Lego fan.