Thursday, 25 May 2017

Unboxing Malifaux - Parker's 'A Fistful of Scrip' Starter Box

"Have you gone through his pockets yet?"

PARKER BARROWS
Parker Barrows thought he was going to inherit a fortune, but it was taken from him by his cowardly brother. The wretch didn’t even have the nerve to steal it honestly; he hid behind lawyers and a judge.

Now Parker stalks the Northern Hills with the Barrows gang, a group of outlaws and bandits just as contemptuous of the law as he is. They steal anything that isn’t bolted down, hitting caravans, robbing trains, and shaking down travelers, rebuilding the fortune he was denied. Parker has his standards, however; when he steals from a man, his victim damn well knows it.

The gang is not picky about who they rob and has stolen from everyone, from the Guild to the Arcanists. The Barrows gang isn’t worried about taking sides; they’ll steal from anyone who has valuables to take. Parker has become more daring with each heist, hitting everything from the Guild’s Soulstone transports to Union payroll trains.

The 'A Fistful of Scrip' box contains enough parts for six miniatures...namely Parker Barrows, his Totem Doc Mitchell (3SS), Mad Dog Brackett (9SS) and three Bandidos (5SS each). It also contains stat cards for each one and eight upgrade cards six of which are for Parker Burrows (two are Limited), one for Mad Dog Brackett and one that's for Parker Burrows or Mad Dog Brackett.

This makes the Soulsstone value of the box...

Parker Barrows (0), Mad Dog Brackett (9), Doc Mitchell (3), Bandidos (5, 5, 5) Total (27) or (30) with a maximum Soulstone cache and (36) with maximum 'out of the box' upgrades.

Sprues
The box has one main sprue in it split into four sub-sections as well as the aforementioned cards. Here's pictures of both sides of them...

Stat Cards
Wyrd Games didn't like my publishing pictures of both sides of the stat cards so you'll have to make do with this...


Lets have a look at each of these models in turn. Should there be any assembly issues with any of the models then they will be listed in the appropriate section and you can view larger versions of the smaller pictures or instruction pictures by clicking on them.

Instructions

Some General Notes on Assembly.
Many of these models contain quite small parts so depending on how dexterous you are you might consider getting yourself some tweezers. Dry-fitting is also always a good idea in case a part needs a tiny bit of extra filing or filling as some of the fits are quite tight. Where the parts on the sprue are quite thin (chains, weapon shafts, cables and the like) then it might be better to remove parts with a sharp scalpel rather than cutters.

Parker Barrows
The Sprue

Assembled
The model consists of eight pieces. The body and cloak are quite substantial as are the separate legs. The arms are small but the attachment points are clearly defined so should cause minimal problems to locate. The two part head is somewhat of an issue as the hat has a 'v' shaped slot in it which attaches to an equivalent piece on the head and the fit wasn't great and may require some trimming. Dry-fit the piece first and be absolutely sure yours actually needs adjusting before doing so...you might be luckier than I was...

Mad Dog Brackett
The Sprue

Assembled
Another eight piece model which again consists in the majority of large easy to locate pieces. The pistol at his side fits into a groove in the leg though can easily slide up or down from the intended position so be careful when gluing that it doesn't move. At least one reader of the blog had issues with attaching his arms at the point they meet the cloak and to be fair they weren't the easiest things to align.

Doc Mitchell
The Sprue

Assembled
Eight pieces again. The body and legs go together easily though the bag is somewhat trickier. Doc's medical bag requires aligning with both arms which themselves are separate from the body so the standard advice about dry-fitting and testing alignment before gluing applies.

Bandidos
Though the sprue uses letters to identify each model (A, B, C) the instructions use numbers (1, 2, 3).

The Sprue

Bandido A/2 - Assembled
The smallest model count of the three Bandidos at six pieces. The cloak is in two pieces but the meeting point is substantial and well defined and the legs that attach to it are a single piece. The separate arms require aligning with one another but did so with little effort. The only issue with this model is a tiny piece of bandanna that attaches at the heads rear which despite having a location point is somewhat fiddly due to it's size.

Bandido B/1 - Assembled
At ten pieces this is the most complex model in the set. I assembled the two part upper cloak piece and attached it before putting the arms in place as this made locating them easiest in my opinion though you could attach them first if you so desired. The attachment points for the arms aren't particularly large so you'll need to be careful when putting them in place. When removing the two 'hair' pieces from the sprue ensure that you've removed any excess sprue material as the fit is quite tight and the goggles alignment can easily be effected by even a minor imperfection due to the shape of the pieces.

Bandido C/3 - Assembled
Another eight piece model. The body attaches to the cloak and the head and shoulder piece then drops onto the body. The legs have well defined location points so are very easy to attach. The pony-tail also has a decent location point though where the arms attach to isn't a particularly large area so be careful of your alignment. As you've no doubt guessed I'm going to say...dry-fitting is your friend here...

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.

2 comments:

  1. i had a lot of trouble with brackett's arms, they didnt seem to fit under his cloak anywhere

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    Replies
    1. I shall add your experience to the article. Thanks for the contribution :-)

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