The Bayou's Most Wanted - Burt Jebson

 WARNING! THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS IMAGES OF 80s HAIRSTYLES THAT YOU MAY FIND DISTURBING. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Who in the world thinks that combining several guns together to create a weapon that's somewhere between a gun and pipe organ is a good idea? The same person that thinks that loading up your giant murder machine of a pig with scrap metal (and a teapot helmet) is a good idea I guess. And by that I mean Burt Jebson, once a lowly rag and bone man Gremlin and now a freedom fighter, waging a one-Gremlin war against the forces of the Ten Thunders. Never far away from his trusty steed Gracie, Burt Jebson trundles through the Bayou with his Lucky Knife, his Backwater Pepperbox and his trusty mullet. Rumours swirl that it's the mullet that is the source of all his power...

For those young people reading - this is a mullet. Pure sex no?

Burt is something of a rarity among Gremlins as he has very high WP, at a very decent 7. His Df is 5 which isn't awful but he does have a nifty Df trigger to supplement his Df stat. If Burt succeeds on a Df duel with a Ram, he hits his All in the Reflexes trigger which allows Burt to make a 2/3/4 damage flip which cannot be cheated. This is particularly hilarious when he gets this trigger against a Sh attack from a model that is otherwise out of his range - it gives him a much larger threat range than his attack would suggest. I find this quite potent when combined with Lenny for the free Rams, it makes people think twice about attack Burt, even from range!

Burt's other 2 defensive tricks are Hard to Kill, which is standard in a lot of models, but nice to see on him because being an Enforcer he can't use Soulstones to prevent any damage, so the Hard to Kill gives him that little bit more survivability. His last ability is a bit dependent on your crew selection and placing. It's called Slippery and it allows Burt, when targeted by an Attack action, to select a friendly model within 2 inches to become the target instead, as long as the chosen model is also a legal target of the Attack action. This is a great example of how well Burt and Gracie work as a team as Burt can pass the Attack onto Gracie who has the ability to heal herself up with her Attacks and Triggers.

Best. Gun. Ever.

Burt's melee attack uses his Lucky Knife and it's a fairly standard attack dealing 2/3/4 damage. His Ram Trigger is Critical Strike, a common Trigger with many of the Gremlins that does +1 damage for each Ram in the final duel total (he has 1 built in). His Tome Trigger (Burt's attack also has a Tome built in) gives another example of his synergy with Gracie as it allows a friendly Pig within 8" of the target to be pushed into base contact with the target.

Burt's ranged attack, his Backwater Pepperbox, is slightly better with 2/3/5 damage. This has 2 Triggers, the Tome Trigger is exactly the same as the one on his melee attack but the other Trigger, which requires a Mask in addition to the built in Ram, is Trigger Crazy and this allows Burt to take another 1AP Sh Attack against the same target but without declaring Triggers. This means that even though he doesn't have the Dumb Luck Trigger like many of the LaCroix damage dealers (Francois in particular) his damage output is still respectable.

Burt has no (0) Actions but he does have a 1AP Tactical Action, which is not something I've used much but I can definitely see uses for in a Wong crew where you want your enemies bunched up for blasts. Crackerjack Timing targets an enemy model and then forces all enemy models within 6 inches of the target to pass a a TN 13 Wp duel or be pushed 5 inches toward the target. Perfect for positioning models for a blast, pulling things away from a marker or even pulling a model out of engagement with one of your models so it can be freed up to go and achieve an objective.

I've been using Burt more and more recently, even in place of Francois in many crews. The two often fill the role of beater in many Gremlin lists as they do very similar things - but I'm finding that in some scenarios Francois is more of a liability. His lower Df and propensity for blowing himself up for higher damage and in something like Reckoning or Collect the Bounty, he's often not worth the risk it would take to use him to his full potential while keeping him alive. On the other hand, Burt can't use Soulstones and without the Dumb Luck Trigger on his attacks, he simply doesn't have the sheer damage output that Francois has.

In the next blog post I'll be taking a look at Francois LaCroix in order to compare the 2 models as they're very much different tools for a similar job. Until next time chere!