Masters of the Universe - She-Ra added (update 01/08)

[white knight]

Yes, I noticed there was a tendency to take a characteristic of the figure and add -or to the ends of names and call it a day: Skeletor, Stinkor, Spikor, Webstor, Rattlor,... Even He-Man in the French version was Musclor. 

[white knight]

Having painted a second, improved version of Teela, the earlier version became obsolete. I could of strip her, but most of the paintjob was perfectly serviceable and since I learned about there being a Snakemen version of Teela in the MOTU 200x continuity, I wanted to do a Snake Teela as she could have appeared if done in Filmation style. So I went about repainting her skin in a green tone, and her eyes yellow. That the earlier, flawed skintone had left some rough patches here and there didn't really matter, as it all worked with the Snakemen theme. I painted her sword green, after the 200X Snake Teela toy figure accessory, though I left the shield as it was. Her base was repainted in my Snakemen base colours. A relatively quick job that meant I could keep using the figure without having to repaint a complete figure. Result!


She-Hul... I mean, Snake Teela!


... in all her green glory

The concept is inspired by the MOTU 200x episode "Second Skin", where King Hiss used an artifact that could turn regular people into Snakemen. In the story, Man-At-Arms, Mekanek and Teela were temporarily turned into Snakemen and battled He-Man. They were returned back to their human selves after He-Man destroyed the Serpents Ring and the Ophidian Spire. There was a toy version made of Snake Teela after the cartoon that looked like this:



The 200x Teela design isn't quite the same as the Filmation Teela we know and love, so I tried to reimagine what Snake Teela would have looked like in a Filmation episode. With their love for reusing recoloured footage, just like the toys loved to reuse recoloured characters, a simple green repaint seemed a likely interpretation.


I will stop your evil, Remcor, I....... will....... join you!


You have to fight it, Teela! - I can't... and I don't want to!


Teela vs Snake Teela

[Cherno]

A rattlesnake tail would be a cool addition

[white knight]

True, but the 200x cartoon version didn't have it either and this was a lazy repaint. 

[Mason]

Nice rendition of a much more off-beat and yet brilliant idea!
 

And it only cost you half a paint job and saved a figure into the bargain.
Too right it was a result!
 

[white knight]

It's becoming obvious that I'm really not very good at doing female faces. She doesn't look too bad in the flesh and the bad pictures aren't helping, but I botched the eyes several times which ended up messing up the face a bit. But at least now I've painted at least1 of each unique sculpt in the Quest Miniatures first wave of MOTU figures.

Evil-Lyn is the only female member of the Evil Warriors, at least in Filmation continuity, and she is an evil witch who aids Skeletor as his second-in-command with her powers of darkness. She is vastly more intelligent than Skeletor's other minions, and while she admits that she is not as powerful as Skeletor, she readily confesses that she hopes to seize her master's powers and lord it over Eternia herself one day. Her background has changed a bit depending which continuity you look at. In recent years she has been both said to have been Prince Keldor's lover, before he took the grievous wounds that made him turn to the dark magic that made him into the Skeletor he is today. Other stories claim she was a crew member of the same Earth spaceship that brought Queen Marlena to Eternia.

The figure is another Boris Woloszyn sculpt from Quest Miniatures and the last unique sculpt of the first wave. The pictures don't show her off to her best, but that doesn't detract from the fact that I somewhat botched the face on this one (redoing the eyes several times will do that). Otherwise, she is straight up with no conversions other than the homesculpted base.


An Evil Witch and her wand...



With Teela:

Though we come from the same mould, we are nothing alike!


The full complement of painted Heroic and Evil Warriors so far.


The Evil Warriors: Beastman, Skeletor, Evil-Lyn


The Heroic Warriors: Man-At-Arms, He-Man, The Goddess, Teela

And a bonus picture of the completed first wave of Quest Miniatures MOTU miniatures:


Quest Miniatures Wave 1

[Dr. Zombie]

Spectacular!

I love everything.

[Arundel]

How have I missed this thread?!?!? Spectacular work, WK! Really looking forward to seeing where this goes. Do you plan to game with them? If so, what rules do you plan to use? I've always thought Pulp Alley would be quite good for the setting, aesthetic, or whatever it is. 

[Mason]

There is nothing wrong with Evil-Lyn to me.
She looks great!
 


Love the group shot.
Now Boris has to keep up with you.
 

[Dr Mathias]

Whoa, cool thread here! I really like the treatment you gave them!

So is there a set of six then? I better buy these

[Muzfish4]

Awesome thread!

Love what you've done with the miniatures and scenery.

[white knight]

Thanks for the love, people! 

Love the group shot.
Now Boris has to keep up with you.
 

He's working on 6 more. Meanwhile, I still have a load of conversions and recoloured versions to keep me busy.

So is there a set of six then? I better buy these

Yep: https://www.etsy.com/nl/shop/QuestMiniatures?ref=shop_sugg

How have I missed this thread?!?!? Spectacular work, WK! Really looking forward to seeing where this goes. Do you plan to game with them? If so, what rules do you plan to use? I've always thought Pulp Alley would be quite good for the setting, aesthetic, or whatever it is. 

I haven't looked at Pulp Alley yet, though good to know. There's someone tinkering with a fanmade set of MOTU rules, so will definitely give that one a spin. 7TV is another possibility.

I picked up a 1980's MOTU boardgame that seems very suited for use with miniatures too. Just need to tinker a bit with it to expand and improve the combat sections. The basic premise and production values are pretty good for something that's over 30 years old though.

And a MOTU Hero Quest conversion also seems interesting.

[Mason]

And a MOTU Hero Quest conversion also seems interesting.

With a 3D board, of course!
That sounds like a great way to expand the project.
 

[white knight]

Indeed. Would love to do sets for inside Snake Mountain or underneath Castle Grayskull. I already have a few good accessories for Skeletor's throne room. 

[white knight]

Since the question of rules came up, I also added a review of an old MOTU boardgame to the blog: http://motu-wargames.blogspot.be/2018/04/games-rulesets-he-mans-challenge.html

Part of wargaming MOTU requires a set of rules. I will explore the options for both tabletop and boardgames, both created specifically for MOTU or adapted from a generic game. There actually seem to have been at least 4 MOTU boardgames that I know of, not counting the infamous RPG that is reputedly unplayable (I'll still try to get it for completeness' sake), but, mostly being aimed at kids, not all of those are of the kind that lend themselves to a proper miniatures game.

 To kick this off , I will start with an original MOTU-themed boardgame from 1984 that landed on my doorstep this week, courtesy of ebay and my wallet. To the best of my knowledge, "Le défi de Musclor" (He-Man's challenge), produced by Nathan, was only ever available to the French speaking market. At least, I couldn't see any English language equivalents.


Box cover


Backside

At first glance, the premise and game components immediately look very promising, giving it the appearance of a simplified version of a MOTU-themed dungeon crawler. Productionwise it looks good. The game features some not quite but close Filmation style art throughout and the Castle Grayskull screen looks very cool.


Opening the box. The instructions booklet looks neat.

The game plays on a tiled gameboard, consisting of two parts, divided by a cardboard screen of Castle Grayskull, meaning you play part of the game outside the walls and part of it inside. The inside section is raised, so it's about level with the gate opening.


First section of the board


The Castle Grayskull cardboard screen. This reminds me of the gamemaster screen in the old Hero Quest. This is one of my favourite items in this set.


Inside the Castle, with a spot for the deck of cards (top left) and Skeletor's throne room where the final fight will occur (top right).


When it's all set up, it's quite a big layout.

The game uses 2D6, weapon- and combatcounters outside the castle, eventcards with traps and random encounters inside the castle and cardboard cutouts in plastic stands of the main characters, so on paper, that makes it perfect to use with miniatures.






The square tokens are used outside the castle, the round ones are used in the final confrontation with Skeletor

Interestingly, it is the Heroic Warriors who start outside the walls and the objective of the game is to get inside and defeat Skeletor. The 4 player characters are He-Man, Teela, Man-At-Arms and Stratos. Skeletor is represented by a card instead of a cutout figure. Beastman and Merman are present in the weapon counters.

During the first part of the game, each tile is covered with one of the square tokens, face down, and players move across the board outside of the castle (using the dice) and can collect weapons that will increase their chances to make it to Skeletor once inside the Castle. They will also need either a Battlecat or a Wind Raider to cross into the Castle more easily (instead of trusting on a lucky roll of the dice). If they encounter Merman or Beastman, they will lose one of their weapons.

Inside the Castle, the player has to make his way to Skeletor's throne room and the shortest route will be the most treacherous. Different weapons will help against different monsters/traps.


The event cards are used within the Castle walls and include traps and random encounters. The cardback is another great image of Castle Grayskull.
 
The final battle against Skeletor is decided with the dice, where any remaining weapons the player has will count as a +1 modifier to his advantage. You have to win three times in order to win the battle. If Skeletor wins three times, you are defeated and thrown out of the castle. The game then goes on until one of the players makes it to Skeletor and defeats him.

One thing that is a bit lacking for the discerning wargamer is the combat phase which is overly simplified. I might tack on something a bit more interesting to resolve combat with Skeletor. Likewise, I think I would make it so that when Beastman and Merman are introduced, they are added to the board and could engage players in combat instead of just stealing their weapons.

All-in-all I'm still pretty pleased with this purchase as the board looks fantastic for something that's 34 years old and after some tweaks to the rules, I look forward to giving it a spin, using my proper miniatures of course.