Starting today I’m locking down Wednesdays to begin covering the big boxes of Mythic Legions figures that arrived. If you’re unfamiliar, this is a line of 6-inch fantasy figures designed and produced by The Four Horsemen Studios and funded via Kickstarter. I’m starting with Sir Gideon who was the figure I chose as my Backer Reward before I kept piling on more and more and more. I still question whether I should have gone all in, but I’m very glad that I at least bought as many figures as I did, especially after seeing how quickly the pre-orders sold out. I’ve heard more than a few backers refer to the arrival day as being like Christmas and that’s a damn good analogy. I’m going to take my time opening these and relish every moment!

Before getting to the meat of the Feature, I’ll toss out some props to T4H and the way they ran this Kickstarter. Yes, it technically missed the target ship date, but not by a lot, and their communication along the way was absolutely impeccable. I don’t want to slag any other recent Kickstarters, but when it came to this one, my confidence never wavered. They really had their act together, they didn’t send out signals promoting false shipping expectations, and from start to finish it was a professional operation. Oh yeah, and the figures they produced easily met if not exceeded what they promised. Let’s start with a quick look at the packaging!

The figures come in packaging that is quite similar to past figures from T4H. You get a bubble that wraps around the edges of a card. This makes for a nice carded presentation, while still being collector friendly. You just bend back the tabs on the bottom edge and slide the card out to get at the figure. The card back is generic for all the figures, but it features some nice background art on the front and back. The back of the card also shows some head shots of other figures and has a little story about the fiction behind the line.

The packaging is customized for each character through an insert at the bottom of the bubble. The left side panel has a faction emblem and the right side panel has a head shot of the character along with his name and a brief bio. I’ve got to admit, I was not expecting that! The figure is secured to the tray with a simple twist tie. His sword is mounted beside him and all the other accessories are baggied behind the tray.

In the bags you get a dagger, a shield, two pieces of shoulder armor, a belt, and an extra head featuring a different style of helmet. The shoulders simply peg into holes in the back of the figure. The belt is probably actually a shoulder strap, but I find it a little snug, so I opted to use it as a waist belt. To put it on you pull the figure apart at the waist. Seriously, it’s all right! A big feature of these figures centers around their ability to mix and match parts. Nearly every part of articulation on the figure can be detached and while swapping parts wasn’t one of the features that motivated me to get in on this line, I can’t deny it opens up some amazing possibilities.

The figure itself is absolutely gorgeous. Sir Gideon features a sculpted white tabard and a suitably heroic set of gold and silver armor. The details include tons of scalloped overlapping plates, tiny rivets, and all the belts and straps that “hold” everything on. It’s such a remarkably detailed sculpt that it’s hard to believe it’s mostly part of the buck. Layered soft plastic extras like the previously mentioned shoulders, and the “skirt” serve to further add some depth and complexity to the armor without impairing the articulation. The only possible nitpick I have about the figure’s sculpt is the tab hole in his back. This is supposedly to allow for future customization pieces, but for now it’s just there. A great idea would have been to include a tab with a connector that would hold the shield. For now, we’ll have to see what T4H come up with.

The paint consists mostly of a sumptuous gold that gives off the right balance of brilliant luster and realistic battle gear. The trim is touched up with an equally pleasing silver. The quality of the paint is superb, with very little bleeding or slop to speak of.

The stock head features a form fitting helmet with a raised visor so you can get a good look at Sir Gideon’s heroic face and manly ‘stache. It’s a great portrait and certainly one befitting of the hero of this line. I’d be hard pressed to believe that Strongheart from LJN’s AD&D line didn’t help shape the look of this noble knight, and that’s an homage I can get behind. The paint on his blue eyes is straight and the mustache and eyebrows are clean and sharp. The helmet features some rather extravagant decor in the form of two mighty wings protruding from the sides and a beautiful silver eagle crest jutting up off the top. All three pieces are articulated and can even be removed if you so desire. The visor pegs into the forehead of the helmet, and there are pegs for two positions…

…so you can display the figure with the visor up or down. It’s a really cool option, especially since you can still see his eyes and the underlying face sculpt through the slits in the visor. Of course, if you prefer a different helmet, you can pop this one off and pop on the secondary head…

This one is a fully enclosed Crusader-style Great Helm and as you can see, the eagle standard pops off the other helmet and onto this one so that the other warriors on the battlefield recognize Sir Gideon even with a different helmet. Although, granted it would be hard to miss him in that armor! Despite spending the better part of a year drooling over the pictures and details and waiting for my figures to come in, I never once remember seeing anything about Gideon having a spare head, so this was another great surprise. It’s going to be hard to decide which helmet to display the figure with, I really do dig them both!

Articulation on this guy is all about ball joints and rotating hinges. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles. There are also ample rockers in the ankles to steady him for those wide stances. The waist is ball jointed, as is the neck. I had no issues with painted over joints, stuck joints, loose joints or anything of the kind. Posing this figure feels fantastic and while it looks like a collectible piece, it’s a figure that begs to be played with.

I’ve already given a rundown on his accessories, so let’s take a quick look at each. His large curved shield features a gold face with a black griffon or dragon on the front and a silver border, making for a very attractive piece. The grip is a simple clip that pegs into the shield and clips around the figure’s wrist. I was a little apprehensive about the clip for fear that it would rub the paint off the arm, but it seems like so long as it’s clipped around the wrist joint and not the upper arm, things will be fine. The fact that the clip pegs into the shield is a pretty big deal to me, because that means it can swivel and so you can angle the shield however way you want it, no matter which way the arm is holding it.

The sword and dagger have matching hilts. These are stout and simple looking weapons, which I prefer over super ornate accessories. The grips are painted red and they fit perfectly in his hands. The belt has a single loop to hold the either the sword or the dagger, but not really both at once. Again, I believe the intended purpose for this piece is as a shoulder strap, but I’m just not thrilled with the way it fits across the chest.

If you’re curious about scale, at 6-inches tall these figures are compatible with a number of other lines. The most obvious would be Mattel’s Masters of the Universe Classics, one of the more high profile lines sculpted by T4H. While they are fairly different stylistically, they can certainly interact with each other comfortably and Gideon is easily able to mount any of the MOTUC beasts as well. They also scale very well with NECA’s “Heroes of the Storm” line, which should make for some pretty fun Legions-Warcraft crossovers.

As a Backer Reward for a $45 buy-in, Gideon is the most expensive of the initial assortment, but I think he’s still worth every penny. Subsequent figures that were added on were between $18 and $33, so if I spread his extra cost among the 18 other figures I bought, it all works out pretty well in the end. If you can’t already tell, I’m beyond satisfied with the quality of this figure and I can happily say it was well worth the wait. I’ve got a lot of these figures to go through in the weeks ahead and I’ve also got some of the figures from Wave 1.5 coming, so there will be plenty of Mythic Legions love to go around!