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Hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your crypts!
Born into the Congregation of Necronominus, Skapular the Cryptbreaker is anything but loyal to his Order. Living an opulent life of greed and depravity has driven Skapular to sell his deadly services to the highest bidder. As an assassin with a mastery of every weapon imaginable, Skapular is a powerful warrior, but his wealth and influence proves even more formidable. Along with the group of killers known as The Sons of the Red Star that he has assembled, Skapular's dangerous methods possess the capability to change the outcome of many a battle.
We already knew that Skapular gets all the fly honeys, but know we also know that he created his own faction just for the money. Also, these living skeleton men are "born"? We knew that Necronominus had "sons," like Malleus, but that could have just been poetic license. Are they literally born as skeleton babies? Boy, and you thought you needed to be careful with a normal baby's fontanelle!
Skapular gets his name from the scapula, your shoulder blade (and fittingly, the shoulder blade gets its name from actual blades, since animal shoulder blades were used as early tools - in fact, the word "scapula" ultimately derives from the same prehistoric root
as words like "scrape" and "shave"). But while "scapular" (lower case, C instead of a K) is an adjective meaning "related to the shoulder," it's also a noun, the name for the short cloak worn by monks. This toy doesn't have anything similar, or even one of the giant capes at all. He does wear some scapular armor, in the form of the rerebraces that seem permanently attached to his bones. Seriously, look at those things: there are no straps or anything holding them onto his arm, so are they just riveted into his body? Ouch! He's also got the short pauldrons, giving him even more scapular accessories!
It does make him look a little top-heavy, though.
Unlike the previous two skeletons, Skapular does not have a bare head. Rather, he wears a helmet and hood combo that give him a very Ottoman Mamluk feeling. In fact, it was that helmet that made me buy him in the Kickstarter. It's one of those rounded helmets with a large spike on top and another, flatter one on the forehead. The cloth drapes around his face, disappearing behind the large scoop collar and blending in nicely with his tunic.
His colors are simple. The armor is silver,
with a minimum of golden accents, while his cloth is a deep red. Is that where the Sons of the Red Star get their name? Who knows! His bones are a dirty color, with a particularly heavy wash on the face, and there are darker shadows airbrushed into the folds of his tunic (except on his back, where they're airbrushed onto the peaks, not the valleys).
The articulation continues to be plentiful and modular, with the figure pulling apart/moving at the balljointed head, swivel neck, swivel/hinge shoulders and elbows, swivel forearms at the top of the gloves, swivel/hinge wrists, a balljointed torso, swivel/hinge hips, swivel thighs, swivel/hinge knees, and swivel/hinge/swivel ankles. There is a downside to this, though, and that's that I'm convinced Skapular accidentally received two of the same thigh bone. Tibeus had the same problem. It doesn't affect his playability, but I'm anal enough that it bugs me.
Skapular's weapon of choice is a spear, which again underscores how happy we are that the Four Horsemen are putting more weapon diversity in the second series of figures. Skapular would have been a perfect candidate for some specialized gear, perhaps a pair of ulus or something? He's got the usual leather strap and a dagger, but what's really nice is his shield, which has the modt ornate design painted ono it we've seen yet! Half is a white field with four red stars aligned vertically, while the other half has thick diagonal red stripes. The painting is not perfectly crisp, which, rather than detracting from the quality, makes it look like a hand-made item that's been in many battles. Love it!
Skapular has an interesting design and an interesting backstory. All that's missing are some interesting weapons, but there's nothing to be done about that... yet.
-- 05/27/17
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