As I'm sure you are aware, I have no shortage of casts and projects that would fit with the loose theme of Saturday Morning TV shows from the 70s and 80s, but opted to take a She-Ra: Princess of Power cast as I'd previously used all the other factions from my Masters of the Universe collection for similar events.
In case you are interested, my 40 rating cast list was:
She-Ra: Wonder Warrior - Star
Queen Angella: Daring Rebel - Co-Star
Castapella: Wise Mentor - Co-Star
Princess Glimmer: Commander - Extra
Sea Hawk: Daredevil - Extra
3 Brightmoon Guards: Freedom Fighters - Extra
Flutterina: Phantom - Extra
Madame Razz: Comic Relief - Extra
Prince Adam: VIP: Extra
Swiftwind: Electron Bike - Vehicle
I also took a board for the event, but I must admit that the level of board design had taken a significant step up, and I felt that I probably should have done a little more with my list ruins of Grayskull board.
The Multi-Coloured Show Swap
It's 1987 and the cast of She:Ra: Princess of Power have once again been invited to the studio's annual event to take part in celebratory crossover episodes and talks on the future programming schedule.
In previous years, this event had produced classics like the He-Man & She:Ra Christmas Special, and so the Great Rebellion of Etheria were keen to send a delegation, accompanied by their special guest, Prince Adam, who hoped to find an opportunity to resurrect the fortunes of his own show.
Unfortunately, sinister moves were afoot. The Bloody Red Baron, the ghost of the ancestor of studio boss Sidney Barron, had been seen haunting the backlots of the studio and She-Ra was walking into a trap.
Episode 1: The Creepy Carnival Caper
My first game was against Tavis, who despite being at pretty much every 7TV event I've attended, I've never played until now.
He'd brought a Scooby-Doo cast, but as I had an obviously heroic cast, opted to bring out his Scooby-Doo villainous cast from his own episode, the Creepy Construction Yard Caper.
He has also produced a handy little booklet about his cast, which is about to save me a lot of typing...
***
As the Great Rebellion entered the abandoned fairground, they were confused as to why they had been asked to wait by the Dungeons & Dragons ride, and as the fog rolled in, the began to suspect something was very wrong.
Glimmer organised a defensive cordon, whilst She-Ra, Queen Angella and Flutterina flew off to investigate.
She-Ra caught sight of group of ne'er-do-wells moving through the fog, and plunged into the mist ahead of them.
The Brightmoon Guards pressed forward to discover the figure of a teenage boy standing eerily still by the test your strength machine.
As they approached, his mouth opened, his eyes glowed red and a spectral voice issued forth, "the time of wholesome & technicolour children's entertainment is over, you will become edgy, violent and incessantly snarky, or you are doomed!"
Glimmer and Castaspella didn't know what to say. To be fair, She-Ra usually did all the thinking, and their job was to stand around being confused, look pretty and probably get captured. However. They were even more dumbstruck than usual.
"I think you'll find we are more suited to this new age," came the voice of A.G. Silver, as he and his fellow flunkies stepped out of the gloom, "we may have only appeared in a single episode, but we have transferrable skills. Reaganomics has made the young people wary of corporate America, and we represent the dark side of capitalism mixed with a touch of the supernatural, making us ideal opposition for teen-focussed vampire hunters, FBI occult investigators, or even three hot witches who are sisters."
"But I don't have any sisters," said Castaspella, who was, to be fair, hot for a cartoon.""
Meanwhile, Adam, who has been trying to sneak off to transform into He-Man found himself face to face with a sharply dressed woman in a business suit.
"Good evening, your highness, my name is Argentina Sterling and I have a business proposition for you. Have you ever considered going into the movies? I have the necessary funding and an extremely well written script which is dark, edgy, has several brutal deaths, involves 'cool' teens and we're in talks with Dolph Lundgren. It's exactly what your fanbase wants."
Prince Adam, looked at her and a slow smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. "Go on. I'm listening."
Realizing the existential threat that edgy corporate America represented to children's entertainment, Glimmer ordered the Brightmoon Guards to open fire. However, perhaps the fog was disappating the energy blasters as no damage was inflicted.
"Curse our before the watershed timeslot and consequent lack of lethality!" she cried as the boy with the voice of the Bloody Red Baron disappeared into the fog.
On the other side of the carnival, She-Ra has found nothing of interest except a small mob of badly brought hoodlums that seemed intent on violence.
This was exactly the sort of behaviour that she and her brother had attempted to prevent with their end of episode life advice.
Realising that they would not listen to reason, she kicked Swiftwind into action and flew deeper into the fairground looking for answers.
Meanwhile, caught in her own investigations, Flutterina was surprised to find a teenaged boy appear behind her, his deathly voice shocking her into inaction.
"Scaled-down Barbie dolls do not have a future in merchandising!" he rasped.
She-Ra discovered another group of problematic youths who seemed to complaining about something. They were so riled up that she had no option but punch them into submission do that she could calmly explain them benefits of solving problems through communication.
The fight in the centre of the carnival raged on, neither side able to gain the upped hand, mainly due to using animated ammunition.
The fog rolled in, separating the combatants. Argentina Sterling saw hope for her future in this new age, She-Ra viewed to fight this loss of wholesomeness, whilst Adam just saw his name in lights.
***
We didn't get to the end of Act Two in our game, mainly because neither of use seemed able to hit the broad side of a barn with our shooting, meaning that we still had pretty much our full casts on the table by the end and do the game never sped up.
The final result was 6-3 to Tavis as we'd both managed to defeat an enemy Co-Star, but he'd been more effective at passing the tests to pick up the objectives.
Episode 2 - The Fright Zone
My second game was against Simon, who I've known for years and met through the Batman Miniatures Game. We've not played in a long while so it was really good to get to play him.
Simon had brought along a cast of horror movie villains, which fit into the theme of being extremely early Saturday Morning TV, especially if it was Saturday 14th.
As far as I can remember, was:
Freddy Krueger: Dream Stalker - Star
The Werewolf: Boss Monster - Co-Star
Jason Voorhees: Psycho Killer - Co-Star
Chucky: Psycho Killer - Co-Star
Wolfman & Scarecrow: Hellions - Extas
4 Child Victims: Zombies - Extras
***
Determined to root out dark and violent content from children's entertainment, She-Ra led the Great Rebellion to the spookiest backlot she could find: a graveyard.
She was certain that this would be where she could locate an drive put some real video nasties.
And she was right. This was the haunt of movie monsters being wrung dry in eternally diminishing sequel hell and they had such pleasures to show her.
The monsters evasively slipped through the shadows unseen. These were creatures that only had one response to an attractive blond stumbling through the darkness.
Slash her!
Whilst investigating a gravestone, She-Ra found herself suddenly wrapped in chains and dragged towards a horrific looking Scarecrow.
However, she didn't remain in captivity for long as Glimmer organised the Brightmoon Guards into a firing line and blasted the creature into oblivion.
Flutterina though she saw a group of children hiding at the edge of the graveyard. She knew that they must be terrified and fluttered off to help the poor things.
"I'll be right back," she said as she disappeared into the darkness and the diminutive figure of a possessed doll scurried after her.
Whilst all this was taking place, Prince Adam has been explaining to a mystified Madam Razz why replacing Orko with a rubber-faced Goblin who's mouth didn't move was a good idea.
She was almost relieved he was interrupted by a man in a striped jumper summoning a bevy of scantily clad animated corpses to assault them.
"Oh deary my!"
Angella now led the charge into the horrors, determined once and for all to drive this sort of violent content out of the entertainment industry
Supported by the Brightmoon Guard, they began to obliterate any monster they could find, certain that none of these creatures were capable of repeatedly coming back from the dead.
Unfortunately for her, Freddy knew different, and summoned more disturbingly sensuous corpses to assault Angella.
As they clawed and scratched at her, Angella's mind was filled with nightmarish visions, horrifying her with the idea that despite their wholesome ideas, the Great Rebellion were simply reinforcing the objectifaction of the female form and thus complicit in an industry which transformed women into nothing more that passive objects of desire and victims of violence.
She was so confounded by these thought that she didn't see the Wolfman sneaking up behind her.
Mind you, the Brightmoon Guards did and as she fell he was blasted into smithereens.
As the wall of laser death advanced through the graveyard, the monsters began to flee from the horrible light they shone into the darkness.
She-Ra rode out again to hunt down the remaining creatures, but as they slunk away into the shadows the only one she could catch was a man in a hockey mask.
"How's this for a final girl?" she said as her blade struck true (and blaster beams pummeled into him from behind).
She would continue to hunt down all the monsters she could and clean up the television landscape for children everywhere.
***
This was a really interesting game. I had a very definite ranged advantage, but Simon's cast had some incredibly elusive rules and pinning the down was really hard. This meant that they grabbed most of the objectives really quickly, but we're getting slaughtered once they were out in the open. I used She-Ra really badly in this game and should have sent her instead of poor old Flutterina to hunt the zombie kids.
The final score was 7-6 to Simon, which is technically a draw, and he was running away at the end...look, I've got to cling to something.
Episode 3 - Think Of The Children!
My final game of the day was against Mike, who I have played a couple of times before, and he'd brought his Monster Babies cast.
I'm going to be honest, I'm not usually a fan of the chibi/super deformed aesthetic, but this cast was excellently done as it totally captures the feel of several cartoons of the 80's. Mike had been inspired by Muppet Babies, and only having the bottom half of Nanny was an inspired move. It seems other people agreed as Mike won best cast.
I don't know the exact make up of the cast as he was using the 7TV: Fantasy profiles, which I didn't own until yesterday. However, I'll do my best.
Vlad: Tragic Hero - Star
Frankie: Steadfast Goliath - Co-Star
Ella: Enchanting Beauty - Co-Star
Reptar: Lizardfolk Monarchan - Extra
Moomoo: Not Sure - Extra
Wolfie: Wolf - Extra
3 Bats: Faeries - Extras
Nanny: Witch - Extra
***
Furious at what she saw as the innocence of childhood, She-Ra led the Great Rebellion through the studio backlots, carving a swathe of destruction through any perceived monsters that they found.
Stumbling upon a group of distorted creatures being led by what appeared to be a disembodied set of legs, she knew she'd found more of the edgy and terrible creatures that threatened to destroy children's television and ordered the attack immediately.
The Brightmoon Guards opened up and brought down the monstrosity, and terrible screaming issued from the other creatures, almost as if they were crying.
One of the creatures, a sad looking fellow, ran up to Glimmer and began babbling about nannies and nursery outings. A look of horror entered Glimmer's eyes and she dropped to ground. Curled up into a foetal position and began rocking.
What horrific spell has the creature cast?
The Brightmoon Guards levelled their blasters and destroyed the hulking green brute that was advancing on them.
Worried for Glimmer, She-Ra and Queen Angella ran to help, all the while unaware of a long haired hippy lurking in the sewers with red glowing eyes and a manic grin.
"My plans come to fruition," chuckled the Bloody Red Baron, "even you, She-Ra, shall become violent and edgy with far too much snark"
She-Ra set about the monsters, slaying the wolf-beast, sending the lizardman flying and charging towards the fluttering bats.
The creature with amazing hair and tears in her eyes approached Angella and simply said, "why are you doing this? We're babies!"
Realisation dawned on Angella, and she looked on what they had become.
Flutterina. Innocent and gentle Flutterina, had a manic and hateful look in her eyes and was showing far too much cleavage.
Acting quickly, Angella blasted her into unconsciousness and determined to help these children to try to right the wrongs she had done.
She called out to She-Ra, who was flailing away at the bats around her, "Stop this! They're children!"
A look of comprehension slowly dawned on to the Princess of Power's face.
This is what the Bloody Red Baron had wanted. Once wholesome franchises to become blood-soaked and irresponsible.
She-Ra would not do it. She would not become the thing that she had fought so long against. And if that meant slipping into obscurity for 30 years before being picked up by Netflix for a reboot that's actually really rather good (although there is quite a bit of snark), then so be it.
***
On such an open table, this game began with my Brightmoon Guards being incredibly dangerous, but the tide was turned by a combination of Mike using Ella's dominate ability to cause all sorts of trouble and me sending She-Ra off on a wild goose chase after bats that it turned out she couldn't hurt. This led to my cast getting axed as Vlad worked his way through the Guards in short order.
The final score was 7-5 to Mike.
Overall I had three good games but I used She-Ra really badly in all three. I'm not sure that the Electrin Bike was a good idea, but it did allow me to stick to theme, so that's a win in itself.
***
Just to finish, I'll add a few pictures of some of the excellent boards and casts on display. I'm sorry I didn't get good shots of more of them.
