There is no doubt about it – 2021 was the biggest year we have ever had at Four Horsemen Studios. From the continual growth of our Mythic Legions line, to the successful campaign for our first Legions video game, to the launch of two new lines in Cosmic Legions and Figura Obscura – 2021 is a year we will never forget! Here is a month-by-month breakdown of the incredible year of toy reveals, releases, and surprises from us!
January
We started the year off with a bang by surprising fans with the announcement of our first ever video game – Mythic Legions Tactics: War of the Aetherblade. Partnering with Great Hall Game Studios, we kicked off a private crowdfunding campaign to get the ball rolling on the development of this game.
As part of this campaign, we introduced 4 new “Deluxe Builder Sets” that fans could pledge to receive – a male and female orc, as well as male and female elves! The sets that were part of this private campaign would also include “Forge Founder” designations on the package and they each came with bonus heads not available outside of this initial campaign period!
In the end, this first game campaign raised over $250k – blowing away the funding goal of $100k! Every stretch goal listed was unlocked and it was a great way to begin the year.
Additional content – you can see the campaign page right here.
February
The second month of the year was all about “All Stars”. We held the voting for our 4th wave of Mythic Legions: All Stars figures, and fans began receiving their shipments of Mythic Legions: All Stars 3!
When the dust settled on the All Stars 4 voting, the winners were the heroic Vitus and Sir Owain, along with the skeletons Tibius and Scaphoid. For the second year in a row, we added a pair of Powercon debut figures to the wave (Bryophytus and Mephitor) as well as a reissue of a troll with the addition of a newly painted head in the package. This time it was Forest Troll 2 with the head that originally was found on the Ice Troll!
The All Stars 3 wave became the first new Legions figures that shipped to fans in quite some time, since Covid put such a pause on production for 2020. In fact, All Stars 3 was the first figure wave we had shipped since the Wasteland wave, which honestly seems like forever ago!
March
March was all about sales. The preorder sale for Mythic Legions: All Stars 4 began, and the Friday afternoon insanity known as the “Weekly ISS” (In Stock Sale) kicked off.
We started these sales with some generous quantities of the All Stars 3 series, since those had just shipped out and were now in our warehouse, but after that first week the sale shifted to much smaller quantities of older items. This stock was figures that we had planned to sell at conventions in 2020, but with no shows happening due to Covid, this inventory had been in our warehouse. The variety of items we had to offer was great, but the quantities were small, so we decided to release 6 different figures each week in amounts reflecting what we had available. The goal was to do smaller sales that we could ship out quickly, ensuring that one week’s sale items were on the way before the following week’s sale began! Some people loved this format, some hated it, but in the end it certainly allowed hundreds of Legions fans to get their hands on previously sold out figures each week – and at original retail prices! So from that perspective, we felt that these sales were a positive – even if there was never an Otho available!
April
This was a big month for new shipments, as the long awaiting Arethyr wave finally arrived in our warehouse!
Originally solicited at G-con 2019, the Arethyr wave suffered the largest delay of any of our products because of Covid. When fans finally began receiving this wave in hand, the feedback we received was amazing. This wave introduced the first horses into the line, as well as the first of the evil “Horsemen” characters. Seeing how many figures from this wave have appeared on end-of-year “Best of” lists from toy fans and reviewers, we know that the Arethyr wave was another milestone for the Mythic Legions line!
In addition to the figures and accessory sets from the Arethyr wave, April also saw the shipment of the 20th Anniversary Equaddron figure, as well as the Shadow Equaddron variant. These ogre-scale figures were also incredibly well received by fans and we’ve seen them pop up on some of those “Best of” lists as well!
Additional content – see Jeremy Girard and Chris Gawrych break down the Arethyr wave on “Mythic Conversations”
May
As we neared the midpoint of the year, things really began to speed up for the studio. The start of May saw the release of our “Deluxe Legions Builders” wave, which we kicked off with a fun reveal special that introduced these 7 new figures and a new accessory set! Fans had long been clamoring for access to Legions Builders for army building and customizing needs, and this wave filled that request in a big way. In fact, it became one of our most heavily ordered waves of Legions ever!
May also marked our studio’s first live event in just under 2 years as we returned to ToyConNJ with “the largest inventory of Legions for sale at a show…ever!”. To say that it was refreshing to get back out and see our fans again (even if we all had masks on) is an understatement – and the Legions community came out in force for the event! The line in front of our table was busy the entire 2 days, stretching all the way through the event venue and out the door on the Saturday.
Finally, as the month wrapped up, we clearly had Legion Builders on the mind because we launched another fan vote – this time asking Legionnaires which previously offered Legion Builders they wanted to see us reissue under our new “Reinforcements” banner. The vote for this would end as the month did, but the announcement of the winners would be held back for a few months (more on that soon).
Additional content – watch the “Deluxe Legion Builders Reveal Special” here
June
There were no notable Legions announcements or events in June – in part because we were building up to what would be a amazing flurry of surprises to end the year!
July
We had two huge announcements at the end of July – the start date for a Kickstarter campaign for the Mythic Legions Tactics: War of the Aetherblade campaign and the winners for the Mythic Legions: Legion Builder Reinforcements wave.
The Kickstarter campaign would build on the base established in our earlier campaign. It would include the Deluxe Builders sold previously (minus the Forge Founder bonus heads) as well as a very exciting new offering – the Attila Leossyr and Gorgo Aetherblade Deluxe pack! These new versions of these popular characters would add more value to each figure, including newly sculpted parts, weapons, and premium soft goods.
Another exciting part of this campaign was that the game was now further along in development than it had been in January, which meant the developers had some Alpha Footage to share, which really got Legions fans excited for what was coming!
The Reinforcements wave was another huge hit with fans, as they voted in the Black Knight, Templar, Skeleton, Bronze Dwarf, and Goblin. As an added surprise, we threw in the initial Orc Legion Builder and the Deluxe Barbarian set to round out the wave! Unlike our previous waves, this set was not offered as a preorder, but will instead be in stock items that will be offered for sale on StoreHorsemen.com.
Additional content – Great Hall Game Studios joins Jeremy Girard on “Mythic Conversations” to discuss the new campaign and show game footage for the first time!
August
The Kickstarter campaign ended this month, raising over $281k and once again blowing away the $100k funding goal! Between the private campaign to start the year and this public campaign, the game team has the resources they needed to create what we expect will be a very cool experience set in the Realm of Mythoss!
September
This month started out with a bang, as on September 2 the first teaser for the long awaiting Cosmic Legions was dropped along with the cryptic tag line of “Cosmic Legions Breaks Free – 9/10/21. Each weekday following this teaser we dropped another image, showing characters from this new wave hidden the shadows (with the images expertly shot by Trevor Williams). By the time we made it to 9/10 and our reveal special, fans were in a frenzy – and from the feedback we received, we delivered on their hopes with a wave and storyline that immediately set Cosmic Legions up as a worthy cousin to our popular Mythic Legions line.
This reveal special was actually held from our hotel room at Powercon in California, and the prototypes of the figures were on display at the show the next day. Fans seemed to love getting to see these new figures in person, and we dedicated the entire month of content on our website to Cosmic Legions. Blog articles focused on these new characters and races were published weekly, and our “Cosmic Legions Power Meter”, which unlocked bonus heads and other surprises, kept the excitement of the reveal special going all month long!
Also in September, our own Chris Gawrych and George Gaspar began the weekly "Four Horsmen O'Clock" show on our YouTube channel! This weekly podcast (that is not a podcast) features behind the scenes looks at prototypes, packaging samples, and other aspects of the production of our products. It also features assorted silliness and a fair number of costumes thanks to Chris. You can check out our channel right here.
Additional content – watch the Cosmic Legions reveal special here.
October
Much of October was still focused on Cosmic Legions, but as the month neared its end, we did make two exciting announcements.
First, we revealed that Retro Rags Limited had been named the official apparel licensee of Four Horsemen Studios! Fans who had long asked for t-shirts and other Legions gear could now get designs directly from this company! We have known the owners of Retro Rags Limited for years, and we were thrilled to be able to work with them on this new project.
As the month came to an end, all our attention turned to the upcoming “Mythic Weekend”, including the third annual LegionsCon. As part of this celebration of all things Legions, we announced a very special new figure – Sir Girard!
This figure would be available at the LegionsCon event in a special deluxe package, while a standard edition was announced to be available sometime in the new year.
November
As amazing a year as 2021 was in full, November was really the culmination of all this awesomeness as “Mythic Weekend” kicked off on Thursday, November 11th with a very special “Intern for a Day” event at our studio. Offered as a reward in the Mythic Legions Tactics campaigns, we welcomed Legions fans for a day where they got to get a “behind the scenes” look at our process and products. They also got some fun gifts and some memories while spending the day with fellow figure fanatics!
On Friday, November 12th, the 4th annual G-con broadcast kicked off. Titled G-con: Poxxus, this live broadcast introduced a brand new wave of Mythic Legions figures, headlined by the 3rd of the Horsemen characters and the namesake of the wave itself!
Even though we have done G-con multiple times now, this year was easily our favorite ever! Not only was it nice to get everyone together after needing to be fully virtual in 2020, but this was the first time we had done this in our new studio space. We had more guests than ever – and we even invited the previous day’s “Interns” back to be a part of the fun! Needless to say, this is the blueprint for how we want to do this event in the future since it was a blast for everyone involved.
As for the wave itself – the reveals were met with incredible enthusiasm from the Legions community. From the reveal of robed wizard characters (which had been long requested), to the new “brute-scale” releases, to an actual Mythic Legions dragon (or Dragosyr at least), to the poisonous menace of Poxxus and his steed, Phlogeus, this wave certainly showed fans that even with the introduction of Cosmic Legions into the mix, we were still very committed to Mythic and had lots more great stuff to show for future waves!
As for LegionsCon 2021 - it was incredible! To have an entire room filled with Legions fans, customizers, artists and more was a ton of fun. It was also truly humbling to see the growth that our in-house line has seen over the years. Needless to say, we were incredibly thankful to everyone who was involved with this weekend - and we are already looking forward to what LegionsCon 2022 will bring (trust us - we have some big ideas and we can't wait for this show!).
Additional content – watch G-con: Poxxus here, or see read a full review of “Mythic Weekend” here.
December
As the Poxxus wave preorder rolled on, we began December with a holiday surprise that literally no one saw coming! On Sunday, December 5th – the day known as “Krampusnacht”, we unveiled a brand new figure AND a brand new line! Figure Obscura: Krampus went up for sale as an In Stock item, giving Four Horsemen Studios fans new and old a very fun and creepy holiday surprise under their tree!
So not only did 2021 mark the release of Cosmic Legions, a line that fans had long awaited and anticipated, it also became the year we launched Figura Obcura – a line that took everyone by surprise! This open-ended new line would allow the studio to explore fun ideas and cool characters that may not fit into the existing Legions lines. The Yuletide demon, Krampus, is a perfect example of this! While he fits in alongside Mythic Legions, he is clearly his own thing – and from the number of new fans who told us this was the very first Four Horsemen Studios figure they had ever purchased, we expect Figura Obscura to be an important part of our plans in years to come.
December also marked the shipments of Mythic Legions: All Stars 4, making it the first time we have solicited a wave for preorder and shipped it to fans in the same calendar year! This is in large part thanks to our amazing Production Manager, Chris Gawrych, working hard to streamline processes in our studio and the factories we work with!
Additional content – listen to Jeremy Girard and Steven Biesiada break down this “Year in Review” list on “Mythic Conversations”
Happy New Year!
Wow – seeing it all listed like this makes us really realize what an incredible year 2021 has been. We owe a huge “thank you” to everyone who works at Four Horsemen Studios, as well as our many partners and retailers, for making this year so great. Of course, none of this is possible without the Legionnaires, so a huge “thank you” to everyone who purchased our products in 2021. Whether you ordered a single figure or you went “All In”, you are amazing and we than you for allowing us to keep making cool toys!
What will 2022 bring? You will have to wait and see, but we promise you that you will see both Mythic and Cosmic preorders this year. We also expect to ship a whole bunch of cool toys that were solicited previously, like the Illythia wave, Deluxe Legion Builders, and more! There will also be some surprises along the way – some which you may have guessed, and others which we know will catch you unaware! Be ready – as awesome as year as 2021 was, we are focused on making 2022 even bigger and better. Prepare thyself – the craziness will begin before you know it.
Published on 01.04.22