In many ways, these minis are where Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark truly began. When I first wrote the rules that would eventually become Horizon Wars I was not in a good place financially or, indeed, mentally for a variety of reasons. I was still deep in with the Lenton Monolith, but I just couldn't afford to keep up with the meta. I lacked, as the saying now goes, the spoons to buy, build, paint and play it, but I yearned for tabletop wargaming.
In search of a cheaper alternative I stumbled upon EM4, whose plastic ranges of 28mm sci-fi and post-apocalyptic warriors sits alongside companion sets of plastic spaceships and plastic mechs/robots.
The moment I saw the mechs, I knew they were what I was looking for and, even before I had my first two boxes arrive in the post, I had the core rules of Horizon Wars down in note form.
Image (c) EM4 Miniatures
Here's a shot of the larger mech from my own collection:
To an extent, when it comes to fielding these mechs in Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark, these couldn't be simpler. They are the epitome of the light, medium and heavy mech. But they do come with a selection of different weapons.
The rocket pod could obviously feature as a Rocket, Missile or Smart Missile upgrade. The double-barreled weapon looks like it could be a good indicator of the Laser upgrade. The right arm-mounted weapon says "Plasma" to me. And the left arm, well... in a good light we could probably give the Gatling upgrade on the basis that it's clearly intended to be a short-range weapon.
The single-barrelled weapon I tend to file under "default vanilla".
But though those are my interpretations, you are welcome to come up with your own. The minis are incredibly cheap - still only £4.99 for two medium, two light and one heavy mech - so you can afford to chop them up and mess them about for something that ticks the exact boxes you'd like to tick.
Here are a couple of examples based on the minis pictured bottom left of the photo above. I love what the hobbyist here has done with the antennae and decided that these would count as Command upgrades, with the Medium mech being a two-star command and the Light mech being a one-star. But I have also given them both a command specialism. The Intelligence Officer can confer the Guidance trait on elements, whilst the Operations officer can make elements Rapid(+1). This suits the Medium mech standing off and supporting elements to hit enemies from out of line of sight. While the Light mech will lead a group of rapid elements (mobile infantry or light cavalry) in harassing and flanking attacks.
Cost | P | M | F | A | D | Special | |
Medium Mech | 32 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 4 | Rapid(3), Laser, ** Command (Intelligence) |
Light Mech | 22 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Rapid(4), * Command (Operations) |