Manchu’s Horizon Wars Project

[Manchu]

I bought Horizon Wars almost five years ago, when it first came out, with no plan or even inkling of whether or how I was going to actually try it. At the time, I had basically nothing in the way of miniatures smaller than 28mm scale. Well, Anno Domini 2021 is The Year of the Mech for me. Already since January, I have painted 30 mechs for BattleTech and 12 more in 28mm scale for Gamma Wolves. For whatever reason, the time is finally ripe, too, for Horizon Wars.

For those who don’t know, Horizon Wars was published by Osprey Games — not as part of its super affordable if quite modestly produced “blue series” but rather in prestige hardcover format with a beautiful layout and some evocative original art. If you’d like to get a copy yourself, it can be a little difficult to find the Osprey version for a reasonable price. But never fear. Designer Robey Jenkins (of Precinct Omega fame) has gone on to revise and expand the game as “Over the Horizon”, which is available as a full-color hardcover POD via Wargame Vault.

So what is Horizon Wars? The basic idea is, it’s a combined arms game with conventional forces like infantry and tanks but also flyers and ... of course ... mechs! As in BattleTech, mechs are the Kings of the Battlefield in Horizon Wars. The game is minis-agnostic and I selected some eminently affordable CAV plastics from Reaper, just perusing the online shop for whatever I liked. I now have enough for two sizable forces, which at this time (in the classic spirit of Advance Wars) are simply Team Blue and Team Red.

In Horizon Wars, elements across all types come in three categories defined by having a Presence Value of 1, 2, or 3. There is no given basing convention for the game, as it is also scale agnostic, but I think the assumption is using the same base size for everything ... which is a bit too boring for me. After painting BattleTech stuff for the last couple of months, these 10mm CAV models feel truly epic and I wanted the bases to help convey that.

So I made up my own basing convention related to Presence: P1 elements go on 40mm, P2 ones go on 50mm, and the mighty P3 titans go on 60mm. Here’s a pic of some WIP elements for Blue Team, featuring three elements of P1 light infantry, two P2 medium mechs, and a hulking P3 heavy mech.

[Jagannath]

Very cool, I like Horizon wars a lot though I mostly play Squad Hammer now with my 6mm. These look great - 10mm is a cool scale.

[Easy E]

I was also a fan, but other projects kept taking priority and I never got the models I needed/wanted. 

Maybe now I will have an excuse to get that CAV Dictator model I have always wanted!

[Manchu]

They are certainly priced to move!

[Splod]

Looking good! I do always like regular basing conventions across a force 

It's just a pity HW is out of print and hard copies are so hard to find 

[Manchu]

I think the “expansion” book Beyond The Horizon available via Wargame Vault is actually an expanded version of the whole game. Might email Robey to confirm — but it is available as a POD full-color hardcover.

[Andrew_McGuire]

I was just about to make the point that the description of Over the Horizon on WV terms it a ‘companion’ to HW rather than a revised version. If so it would be fairly useless without the base game. A clarification is definitely required.

Edit: I now see the question has already been posed at Wargame Vault and answered by the author. Over the Horizon is what the description there says it is, an expansion of and companion to Horizon Wars. At the time the answer was posted hard copies were still available, but it is now listed as out of stock at his web store, precinctomega.co.uk. There doesn’t even seem to be a PDF. I couldn’t find a contact form or email address there so was unable to enquire about plans for making it available again. I’ve now done so on WV.

[Manchu]

I just posted a question on the HW FB group about how new players can get started considering the rule book is OOP. Will report back.

[Manchu]

Haven’t heard back from Robey yet but other FB group members have said that Beyond the Horizon does NOT contain the base rules and that Precinct Omega and Stratos minis are partnering to get a revised second edition into print, which will not be compatible with Beyond the Horizon. Hope that helps and I will of course report back with any further details from Robey as/when.

In the meantime, here are the rest of the conventional elements for my Blue Team army, posed with the Mechs and Infantry to give a good sense of relative size. What we have here are 2x Heavy Cav (P3), 2x Armored Artillery (P3), 2x Light Cav (P2), and 2x Mobile Infantry (P1).

[Andrew_McGuire]

Thank you for that update. I hope further details will become available shortly. I did notice the original book listed at Caliver Books for £15, but their cataloguing is somewhat haphazard and this may not be up to date.

[Manchu]

From Robey via FB:

Yes, it's tricky.  You can still get the e-pub from Amazon, I think. Strato should be requesting Hardwar, which is based on Horizon Wars but isn't a version two per se.  There will be a second edition published by Precinct Omega, but not until 2023.  Currently, your best bet is to try to find a second hand copy.

I went ahead and ordered a copy of Beyond from WV and willbe happy to answer any questions about it when it arrives.

[Andrew_McGuire]

Rather than wait two years for the 2nd edition, I’ve just ordered a copy of HW from Caliver. Will have to wait and see whether it’s actually in stock.

[Manchu]

I hope you can get a copy. It’s a really neat system and a shame it’s getting tougher to find with such a long wait til reprint.

[YPU]

Always happy to see more small scale big robots and tiny infantry here on LAF!

I hope you can get a copy. It’s a really neat system and a shame it’s getting tougher to find with such a long wait til reprint.

This seems to be a problem with a lot of Osprey games. They appear to go for a scattershot approach, continually putting out games and only following up on the few that prove a big success. Gaslands, the rampant system, and of course frostgrave. It makes sense I suppose, but it does mean some great but overlooked games get left by the wayside.

[Andrew_McGuire]

I’ll report as soon as I know the situation with Caliver. I saw plenty of copies on eBay but all were in North America or other foreign parts so postage to UK prohibitive.