As we end 2023, we look back at this amazing year which included the first in-hand Cosmic Legions figures, three new Figura Obscura releases, the continued success of Mythic Legions, and a whole lot of surprises along the way! Let’s take a month-by-month look at the past year from Four Horsemen Studios!
January
As we have done in past years, 2023 began with a wave that was held over from the previous year as the StoreHorsemen preorder for Mythic Legions: Necronominus wound down. This wave proved to be our most popular ever – a wave which included new body builds introduced for both our knight and skeleton figures, and the reveal of the final member of the Dark Four – Necronominus!
February
In-stock sales were on the agenda for February, including sales of some test shots! We had “4 Weeks of Four Horsemen Sales” planned, starting with test shots from the Illythia and Deluxe Legion Builder waves in weeks 1 and 2, and jumping into test shots from the first Cosmic Legions wave for week 3 of these sales! These would be the first Cosmic figures to land in fans’ hands, and we were super excited to see positive reviews on this new line begin to hit as soon as these test shots shipped!
The final week of sales for February featured the “standard” versions of the characters that debuted at LegionsCon that previous year, getting the Unknown One and the Furious Four into more collections worldwide.
February was also when we fully revealed the “Power-con 2023: Demistros” figure that would be available at the Power-con event later in the year!
March
We started this month with a huge announcement – the first ever Retailer Appreciation Wave! This wave, which included new versions of our Figura Obscura Headless Horseman and Father Christmas figures, plus a pair of Mythic Legions characters, was the first time we offered multiple items exclusively via our family of Approved Retailer partners! This proved to be wildly popular with fans and retailers alike, and we look forward to doing similar releases in the future!
March also saw the studio attend our first ever ToyLanta event in GA. It was a wonderful experience, and we look forward to being back in 2024.
As far as shipping, Mythic Legions: All Stars 5 began shipping in March, getting this wave of fan-voted reissues, and brand new characters, into collections right near the start of the year!
April
Cosmic Legions was the focus as April rolled around and the “Outpost Zaxxius” wave was revealed. Unlike previous waves which were revealed via a livestream broadcast, the characters of Outpost Zaxxius were unveiled one at a time over the course of a few weeks with a “Stories of Outpost Zaxxius” short story accompanying each character. This wave included that year’s “Power-con Debut” figures, the first time these would ever appear in a Cosmic wave!
April was also the month where the first LegionsCon 2023 figure reveal happened, as Vorgus Vermillius 2 was unveiled as the “Day 1” figure for that year’s event!
The shipping team remained busy in April as the long-awaited “Mythic Legions Tactics: War of the Aetherblade” figures started going out this month.
May
The popular “All Stars Voting” process began in May, as fans were able to select figures to be reissued as part of the All Stars 6 wave. This voting process would include our first ever “All Stars Alumni” vote, which allowed a previously released All Stars character to be reissued for a second time!
The big news for May was the first Figura Obscura drop of the year. The studio seemed to take everyone by surprise by releasing Sun Wukong, the Monkey King as the 4th figure in this popular line.
The Monkey King release was met with glowing reviews, and he has already appeared on many people’s “Best of 2023” lists. This release also broke the “holiday” theme that had run through the first few Figura Obscura releases, proving that anything was possible with this line from Four Horsemen Studios!
June
The battle of the Order of Eathyron and the Congregation of Necronominus continued this month as “Mythic Legions: All Stars 6” was revealed and put up for preorder! The four fan-voted winners were revealed first, leading up to a live reveal special, and start of the preorder, on June 2! When the smoke cleared from that special, more heroic warriors from Eathyron, and additional undead nightmares from Necronominus were revealed and made available as part of this wave.
June was also a busy month for events, with a return to ToyConNJ on the calendar, as well as our first trip to NC for Heroescon (both events are back on the calendar for 2024).
July
The second half of the year began with a bang as “Cosmic Legions: Hvalkatar, Book 1” figures finally began shipping from our warehouse! Our second “Legions” line was one that had been in development for years before we ever solicited it to fans, so to finally see these characters begin to arrive in collections worldwide was an incredible moment for us, and it is definitely one of the important highlights of 2023!
July was also the reveal of the second LegionsCon 2023 release – the “Wal-torr the Mad” 2-pack! We surprised Walter with this set live during the “4(ish) Horsemen O’Clock” show and had a ton of fun doing so!
August
This was a huge month for us as we traveled to OH for one of our studio’s flagship events – Power-con 2023! In addition to our biggest ever Power-con display, this event also included the release of the show’s Demistros figure, a small early release run of our Power-con Debuts for this year (Opor-A-Tiv83 and Sskur’ge), and the live reveal special for the latest wave of Cosmic Legions, “OxKrewe, Book One – Thraxxon,” held live during the evening of Day 1 of this event!
Power-con proved to be a wonderful experience for us – from the Day 1 teaser of the OxKrewe diorama, to the live reveal of the new wave, to meeting so many fans and friends across this 3-day event – Power-con 2023 proved once again what a special show it is for Four Horsemen Studios, and we look forward to the return of this event in 2025!
September
The second Figura Obscura drop of 2023 happened this month with another character no one saw coming – the Masque of the Red Death! Taken from an Edgar Allen Poe short story of the same name, this release followed the same “surprise reveal” patten that has now been established for this line – with a Friday teaser (and much fan speculation) followed by a Saturday sale drop and lots of amazing photos from Trevor Williams, an early in-hand review by Dorklair, and lots of energy and excitement throughout the toy collecting community!
October
The long awaited return of Mythic Legions: Legion Builder Reinforcements happened in October as the studio partnered with members of the Legions community to help reveal these new figures!
Unlike Reinforcements 1, which were just straight reissues of previous figures, this second installment added a twist to a few previously available Legion Builders, while also introducing 3 brand new figures into the line (along with a surprise reissue of the Silverhorn Sentry). We did a limited “early release” sale drop of these Reinforcements in mid-October, and they sold out immediately!
For those who missed that sale, rest assured that we still have plenty of Reinforcements available! Look for an “in stock sale” on those figures, and a number of others, in February 2024.
In addition to these Reinforcements 2 All-In orders, October also saw our warehouse begin shipping the “Cosmic Legions: Hvalkatar, Book Two – Gravenight” wave, making this the second Cosmic release to hit collections in 2023!
November
The biggest month of the year for Four Horsemen Studios began with shipments from our Approved Retailers of the Retailer Exclusive Headless Horseman and Father Christmas figures!
Of course, the big event of November was the epic Mythic Weekend festivities – including Intern for a Day, G-con: Rising Sons, and LegionsCon 2023!
As this year’s G-con, we unveiled one of the most popular Legions waves ever as the House of the Noble Bear stood against the Sons of the Red Star! New versions of Skapular the Cryptbreaker and Attlus the Conqueror highlighted this wave, along with the huge Bodvar bear mount for the barbarian king!
LegionsCon 2023 was an epic event with so many of our friends on hand to be a part of the fun. We brought out last year’s giant Kkurzog figure, along with 2 new life-size displays – Olek Thygar and Zeerian Spyre from Cosmic Legions! We had our largest ever display of Legions for sale, including a surprise drop – the Valiant Knight!
This previously unannounced figure, which we simply added to the table before the start of the show on Saturday morning to see the reaction it would get, was a way for us to get the improved range of motion found on the knights of the Necronominus wave into Legionnaire’s collections NOW! This was something we had planned for a while, and we had sent the files to our factory so they could start the tooling process months before we unveiled the Necronominus wave specifically so we could do an early release. From the buzz we heard on the show floor all weekend, and the feedback we got after LegionsCon, that surprise drop was very well received! It definitely has us excited to get the rest of the figures with this new articulation into fans’ hands asap (something to look forward to for 2024)!
You can see a full recap of Mythic Weekend 2023 right here.
December
The final month of the year began with our final Figura Obscura drop of 2023. Following our tradition of releasing a new character tied into the holiday season (following Krampus in 2021 and Father Christmas in 2022), this drop was for the most famous of Charles Dickens’ spirits – the Ghost of Jacob Marley!
Covered in the chains of a life poorly lived, Old Marley capped off the year’s Figura releases and our studio’s most ambitious year to date!
What to Expect in 2024?
There is no doubt about it – 2024 is going to be an incredible year for Four Horsemen Studios! This year will mark both the 25th anniversary of the studio itself, as well as the 10-year anniversary of the Mythic Legions line, which debuted at Toypocalypse in 2014! We have a number of very exciting things planned, including some surprises along the way, but here are some things to be ready for:
- All 3 brands – Mythic Legions, Cosmic Legions, and Figura Obscura, will be represented in the 2024 release calendar! Additionally, the long-awaited Mythic Legions: Poxxus wave will begin shipping at the start of the year, and we expect LOTS more to ship throughout 2024!
- February will see an “in stock sale” comprised of Reinforcements 2, along with the standard editions of figures from Power-con and LegionsCon, including the Valiant Knight! Date to be announced – but be sure to follow our social channels for that announcement!
- Our event calendar is busier than ever, with returns to many shows we have done in the past along with events in new locations, including Orlando, FL and Chicago, IL! You can see a full list of our events as SourceHorsemen.com/events
- Of course, LegionsCon is on that event calendar, and this year will be bigger and better than ever as we celebrate these important anniversaries! You can get info on that event at LegionsCon.com
- We wish would could tell you more, but that would ruin the surprises we have planned – but rest assured that if you thought 2023 was amazing, 2024 is going to bring our studio to a whole new level! Thank you for your support – we hope to see you in the New Year!!!
Published on 12.28.23