OER: Red Horn The Terrible
Offsite photo: Should I poke this?"It seems I chose my time well. The battlefield below is strewn with the bodies of Blue [Zoid] warriors. No-one remains to stand in my path. No-one but Mammoth! Let the traitor beware! Let him live in fear! For I am Redhorn the Terrible! I am remade, renewed! And my enemies shall be as dust beneath my feet."
Red Horn the Terrible, as the above implies was nasty, uncompromising, and ruthless, especially if he felt betrayed. And betrayed he was: Mammoth plotted to do him in and take leadership of the red Zoids. He was successful about the do him in half, but not in keeping leadership. Red Horn was rebuilt with added pointy horns by Scavenger, and returned to give Mammoth a good dramatic dismembering. If one is making OJR-OER parallels (and they're there, at least in the scenery), Red Horn stays Zenebas-y. This is suiting, as in my opinion it's the single best expression of their design aesthetics. It was also the Emperor's ride of choice for some time, and bodyguards too. Oh, Sabre Tiger does a pretty good job, but Horns are stompy, angry, and stubborn. They just feel Zenebas-y.
I had an NAR Horn already...in fact, it was one of my first stompy Zoids, picked up at a KB Toys after its clear cousin so impressed me. You can blame Gambino, you can blame the UK comic. Whatever it was, a combination of old marketing, character attachment, and my love of Red and Dark Horns latched onto my brain and made me want some old-school too. Because I'm cheap and MIB examples aren't exactly common, I grabbed a built Red Horn The Terrible off a UK seller.
I always disassemble-clean-reassemble if I at all can, and in the process the old tail clip and dying stickers gave out. Superglue fixed the former easily, and the latter I did my best to save two Zenebas logos.There's not a terrible amount of color difference between this guy and my cheapo KB Toys NAR, but what difference there is really shows in the right light or with them side by side. The red is much richer and a bit more ruby, having a definite depth to it that makes the new Horn look almost washed-out. It's one of the best reds I've seen on a Zoid, with only the shinymetalflakeZenebasred on EL beating it out for coolness factor. The charcoal cockpits also look awesome with silver pilots in, though two of them have migrated elewhere since my newer Zoids are shiny-starved. One of them went to a Redler that soon flung itself at Red Horn in an obvious attempt on its life, causing me to move the pilot to Gildy instead. Ungrateful little bastard...no, not you, König Wolf. You got the other one but you're being nice about it, so stop looking at me like that.
So much for no stupid obscure jokes, eh? At least I haven't mentioned warning labels yet...aw, damn.
Horns still are fun to build, even though I can do it from memory. They're a very pleasing combination of simplicity and engineering like many Zoids of that era, with the legs being especially creative in how they got such a good shape out of so few pieces. They don't take long to build, but it's a fun trip, and they're one of the most addictive variants I've ever encountered, on par with Command Wolf and Redler. They'resimilarly awesome in motion. Walk, chomp jaws, and spin a gun isn't much on top of what most battery-ops manage, but Red Horn is a master of the stompy, clomping along on the floor with a steady rythem you can actually hear on most surfaces. It may be Liger-sized, but it carries itself like a far larger Zoid.
If you don't have some kind of Horn, get one. I really mean it, get one. It doesn't matter which, though I'd avoid the Hasbro Dark Horn if you can't get a CP-03 too. If you're already a fan, picking up an OER Red Horn is worth your trouble if you can get a fair price. The differences are subtle at a glance yet good, and, like lizards, Horns are always better in swarms.
Written February 9th, 2006. Updated/rewritten March 2009.
