Having finally finished going through the recent Arethyr Wave, I’m ready to start digging back to some of the earlier Mythic Legions releases that I’ve missed. Today we’ll set the Wayback Machine to the Advent of Decay, which was the second big dump of Legions figures, with a look at Brother Mandibulus!

It’s no secret, I do love me some Skeletons, and Mythic Legions has given us some truly memorable bone warriors. Brother to Morgolyth and Malleus (two figures I have yet to review here), Mandibulus is billed as being ruthless and focused on destroying all who oppose his family’s legacy!

And, oh boy, is this a creepy fellow! Mandibulus is an intriguing combination of the Orc’s armored limbs, and the sculpted tabards worn by some of the Knights. His armored bits are painted with a dark and rusty finish, which goes great with these pitted and jagged pieces. He has plate armor skirt to protect his hips, and crude and imposing shoulder pieces, all of which we’ve seen many times before. The tabard is painted with a black and red pattern, along with some muddy splatter down below the belt. And while the tattered red and black softgoods pieces are technically supposed to be a skirt, I actually prefer using them as a short cape.

The head sculpt is all new, and it’s pretty damn great! Mandi’s got a simple copper colored skull cap with a sculpted chainmail coif spilling down from it to cover the sides of his skull. One curved horn protrudes from the left side, while the right one is broken off just above the base, and a spike juts out the back between the two. His eyes are covered by a visor, and the armored collar that circles his neck obscures the lower half of his face.

The visor can be flipped up to get a better look at what’s going on under there, showing Mandibulus’ mouth is locked in a perpetual scream. There’s some beautiful paintwork on his skull, giving it a brownish rotted finish. You also get a regular skull as a substitute head if you want, but why would you want to replace this masterpiece of a portrait?

Mandibulus comes with an excellent assortment of weapons, starting with the Orc scimitar. I liked this crude piece of cutlery as an Orc weapon, but I think it works equally well in the hands of a skeleton warrior. The sweeping blade swells into a clever-like point with a circle punched through it to lighten it a bit. The hilt is comprised of three curved bone horns, or perhaps fangs, and the blade has a rusty finish with several nicks taken out of the blade to show it’s seen a lot of action.

Next up, he comes with a stout, flanged mace for crushing the heads of the vile fleshies! The blackened head has painted brass rivets, and the shaft is sculpted with a wood finish and a butt cap. It’s a dark, knightly weapon appropriate for a dark skeletal knight!

And finally, we get this spear-axe type thing. We’ve seen this before as well, I believe last encountered with one of the Goblins. It’s another one of my favorite weapons, and I think it pairs perfectly with Mandibulus!

Mandibulus is an excellent addition to my Skeleton Legions, and yet another fine example of just how adept The Four Horsemen can be with mixing and matching parts, some new paint, and a new portrait. This guy oozes a lot of personality for a Skeleton and he instantly looks like he should be leading the other boney brutes into battle. Is he my favorite so far? Well, I don’t think anyone will ever rival Skapular The Cryptbreaker as my favorite Mythic Legions skeleton, but I’d still rank Mandibulus pretty high on my list.