You are here: Home » Featured » Brute Minor

Brute Minor

March 2, 2012 | By Errex More

Although Brutes are an alien species already produced in the Halo 3 line by McFarlane Toys, it took until Series 4 of the Halo: Reach line for them to make an appearance.

The rank selected for the debut of the species in the Halo: Reac line is that of Brute Minor. Not unlike the rank designation seen on other Covenant species, the Brute Minors are the less experienced warriors in the pack, but that doesn’t make them less formidable as opponents, since the average Brute is well over 7 feet tall and incredibly strong and resilient.

The Brute Minor figure reflects this, as it is one heavy chunk of plastic. The new character design incorporates changes made on the morphology of the species, making them more ape-like than the Halo 3 designs, which were more bear-like. The new Brutes look reminds me of the cave trolls from the Lord of the Rings movies, mixed in with a bit of Uruk-hai.

The sculpture is very good, although not terribly intricate. The basic body is very muscular and for the most part is covered by thick, rugged skin with only a few furry patches on the back.

Brute Minors wear very little armor, consisting mostly on a chest plate, a couple of plates over the biceps and a light helm, all painted in a metallic blue color. All of these pieces, including the helmet, seem to be glued in place, but this gives an idea of what sort of customization we can expect in the future for other Brute ranks.

For a figure that is almost naked, the joints are fairly well hidden in the basic body sculpture, giving us an articulation spread like this:

• Hinged jaw

• Barbell jointed neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Lower biceps swivel.

• Pegged hinge elbows.

• Barbell jointed wrists.

• Barbell mounted torso.

• Barbell jointed hips.

• Pegged hinge knees.

• Barbell mounted ankles.

Now, although articulation range is generally decent, there is a snag. Due to the bulk of the upper thigh, the hip joints have a very reduced range, which in turn limits the usefulness of the knee and ankle joints.

However, considering these creatures are rarely seen piloting any sort of vehicles (except, probably, a very specific type of bike), what little range there is, is probably enough to achieve interesting poses and there is no denying this Brute is very stable on his feet.

The paint job on the Brute Minor is very good. The most striking bits are the blue armor plates, although the really nice part is the skin, which looks very realistic and has a nice organic texture enhanced by a very thin shading wash, as well as spots of pinkish discoloration that reminds me of young elephant skin.

As far as weapons go, the Brute Minor doesn’t really has a lot to show. The main weapon he comes with is a Brute Spiker, which is a nasty looking pistol with curved blades protruding from the sides of the barrel. One thing I didn’t expect though, is that the new Reach Spiker is actually smaller than the Spiker from the Halo 3 line, which is rather baffling although probably the Reach version is more in-game scale accurate.

The other weapon packaged with the Brute Minor is a single plasma grenade. There is really not a lot to say about the tiny purple plastic sphere. It has the peg hole drilled in, and the peg from the Spiker can fit in, but the Brute Minor has nowhere to carry it, so I’m giving the grenade to an Elite figure instead.

Overall, the Brute Minor is a very satisfying figure to have. There is something intrinsically cool about figures that really fill out a package, and with the Brute Minor it really feels like I’m getting my money’s worth in plastic.