Lego Set 40 — Uziel

The Uziel was the poster child of the MechWarrior 4 series. A unique design on its own, its ubiquitous presence in those games’ promotional material guaranteed that I would never forget it.

Although my first BattleTech-themed videogame was MechWarrior 2, I actually never tinkered much with it. It just wasn’t that fun for my adolescent self. Heresy, I know. I did play a bit but never had the drive to complete the campaigns nor to get back to it once the novelty cooled down.

MechWarrior 4, though, was a completely different beast. I first saw the trailer, also the opening video, on a video game show on TV — remember those? It was so cool, even if it was so different from the Succession War Era I was more familiar with.

Once I found the game in a local store, I had to get it. I went on to play innumerable hours of it and the expansions. Gosh, I sunk so many hours on Mercenaries and Black Knight. The gameplay was so much more streamlined compared to MW2. Some people do not like that, as it draws away from the simulation aspect. On the other hand, to people like me, it was so much simpler to boot the game and play a few quick sessions in a satisfactory way.

The Uziel medium ‘Mech was heavily used in the promotion of MechWarrior 4 and it was even on the cover. Not really a surprise, as it has a truly remarkable design. Menacing and sleek. To me it was the second-best medium ‘Mech in the game, standing only behind the Bushwacker. It packed a punch, was quick and had decent armor. You cannot ask much more than that from that class.

I’m not completely satisfied with the model I came up with. But I think it still evokes the general lines while retailing the simplistic philosophy I attempt to uphold. This model uses standard Lyran colors and 48 parts.

Let me know what you think. Do you think I made justice to the original? Did you play MechWarrior 4? I’m always happy to find other fans of those games, so leave a message if you are one.