Malifaux Reviews: Burt Jebsen

Now that the entire first wave of Wyrd’s foray into plastics is wrapping up, how far have they managed to come with a little bit of experience?

If you’ve had previous experience with Wyrd plastics, there are two things you notice when you open the box. First is that they’re now packing instruction sheets for how to assemble the model. Maybe not the most important for models like Burt here, but it’s a nice touch anyway for those slightly more complex ones. Secondly, despite starting to model miniatures without those ubiquitous pegs for fitting them into the slotted bases, they have yet to remold a base without the slot. It’s a tiny thing really, but it would be a nice touch.

On closer inspection, there has been one massive leap forward for gamers everywhere: the pieces are starting to get slightly more sensible. No more random feet, hands or tiny beards for you to almost instantly lose.

How does Burt himself fare? He’s got some pretty spiffy stuff built into that model. The head have to be my favorite parts as they’re just so grim. His face, mullet and lower jaw are three distinct pieces, which tends to lead me to the thought of using them as morbid trophies. Gremlin mullet scalps hanging from your belt? A model wearing Burt’s face as a macabre hat? Werewolf chewing on a jaw he just ripped off the opponent (and the ears. I hear those are the tastiest)? Why not, it’s all good stuff.

The gun is nearly as ridiculous as the head is gory. All those barrels strapped together, he’s either going to hit everything or nothing. A theory well supported by his rules actually, as he can drop his already low accuracy by a little bit to gain the correct suits to automatically gain another shot on a hit. Get lucky or cheat well and he’s going to pump a ton of shots into someone (and then be sent flying away by the recoil) or you’re going to rip up his stat card in frustration as everything misses. The dagger strapped to his thigh might be a little lackluster in the molding department, but again, the eye’s going to be drawn straight to that gun.

As I don’t actually play gremlins, I didn’t have a set color scheme in mind. However, I do play Trollbloods, so I thought it would be nifty to have a Burt that wouldn’t be too out of place running through the Kriels. Thus, trollblood base and highlight for the flesh. For the metallics I had a blighted gold/burnished gold and leadbelcher/runefang steel set going on, but I didn’t like how they were coming out so I mixed some mephiston red into everything.

For the clothing, ‘jack bone with some menoth white base, bootstrap leather and rucksack tan, and battlefield brown/umbral umber. By this point the outfit was feeling a little Han Solo-ish, so I threw in moldy ochre Corellian Blood Stripes down the legs just for kicks. To top it off, and make his mullet even more obnoxious, Mephiston red highlighted by blazing orange. Asurman blue and agrax earthshade washes rounded everything out.