Will It Motu or Notu? Schleich Big Knights Castle

Schleich has been around for quite while. They specialize in super detailed animals and fantasy creatures. More recently, they have been adding figurines and now "action figures". These toys are all pretty awesome and are in a 3 3/4 scale, like Star Wars and G.I. Joe. They have been making playsets and dioramas, as well, and a few of them really caught my eye.

Since I have been on a vintage MOTU binge, my mind immediately began trying to figure out just how well these playsets would scale with my toys. I asked sellers on Amazon.com who responded negatively, but it didn't sit well with me. Being a toy collector for as long as I have been, my mind has become pretty adept at this. Many of you, I'm sure, can say the same. I decided to reach out on He-Man.org.

Nobody was negative on it but they weren't really sure either. One member, Barbecue17, had the playset I was thinking about and had covered it on his blog, which you can check out here - http://www.actionfigurebarbecue.com/2015/09/action-figure-review-big-knights-castle.html. I really liked what I saw from his coverage so he offered to sell me his set for $60, much more reasonable than Amazon and Ebay's prices, which were in the $140s.

So let's look at it!

Firstoff, this thing is HUGE.

As a size comparison, here it is next to Castle Grayskull

The drawbridge opening is much wider and around the same height as the Jawbridge.

So no clearance for He-Man on Battlecat but the Battle Ram can glide through with ease.

So far, my instincts have served me well.

Now, on the walls of the castle, there is a lot of standing room. The figures don't have as much coverage as Grayskull's Right tower but significantly more than its Left.

You can even spice it up with other MOTU offerings.

Aside from the drawbridge and wall, the castle comes with a large central tower. It is here, and only here, where scaling is a bit of an issue.

As you can see, the inner rooms of the tower are a no go but the walkway that opens up is wide enough for He-Man and Battlecat to stride across.

So, let's just get straight to play time and really see what this thing looks like.

You could use this as an extension of Castle Grayskull, or as I will probably use it, the Palace of Eternia.

Minas Tirith much? And yes, that is a custom Evil Warriors battle barge type thing that I made using a Sentinel 7 boat from Toys R Us.

Another cool thing is the dungeon which can be displayed separately from the castle.

"We can all call on the Ancient Spirits of Evil down here."

"Lots of room for activities."

Poor one out for the Jabba's Palace Rancor Pit we never got.

Behind the castle walls, I think, holds the most fun.

Besides what fun is it to storm a castle if you never break through?

So, will it Motu or Notu? I think the answer is definitely in the affirmative. It will definitely MOTU. I am super thankful for Barbecue17 offering this to me at such a reasonable price. There are a couple other sets like this that I think I will get my hands on as well.

Good Journey!

Comments

Mattel DC Retro Action Batman

Late in 2020, I went back through The Toys That Made Us series on Netflix and the Star Trek episode took some time to really dig into the history of Mego. Many of the toys I played with growing up or have collected are technically before my time but Mego was WAY before my time. I always kind of had a general idea of the toys, mainly thanks to Robot Chicken, but something about the presentation of the episode really gave me an itch to try this type of toyline out. I decided to get just one figure, to try it out. If I didn't like them, no big deal, not a lot of time/money wasted. My favorite superhero is Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern/Ion) and I remembered that Matty Collector had a Mego-like brand for a few years. A google search later and I found a Kyle Rayner figure for $10! Perfect. I could hardly ask for a better price for making a trial run. A week later, the figure arrived and I loved it. They had an entire sub series of GL's that I bought and some other items but that is fo...

Mega Bloks Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Updated pics + Custom Tiger Zord

A few years ago, I came across the Mega Bloks Mighty Morphin Power Rangers line on Amazon and went all in. The result was this blog and even my twitter account @BeyondUbernerd . Over the years, though, there was still one zord that I was missing, the Tigerzord. Using an extra Saber Tooth Tiger, I finally filled that void. And since I was already taking pictures, I decided to go ahead and take new pictures of the rest of the zords. And then, of course a shot of the bad guys. I'd still like to make an Ivan Ooze and a Scorpina at some point. I still have the Megazord, my stand in for Titanus, and my custom Serpentera but they were too large for camera shots I was doing at the time. I'll work on getting new pictures of them in the future.

Star Wars Power of the Force Wave 3 Collection

Wave 3 kind of feels more like Wave 2.5. We received 3 more figures from the Empire Strikes Back and 1 from both Episodes IV and V. The time for the Red Lightsaber backing card was almost over as we were inching closer to Shadows of the Empire which introduced the new Lightsaber color packaging refresh for the line. It feels weird that we didn't get more figures with Red Cards. The majority of this line was going to happen with Green Cards, through either Power of the Force or Power of the Jedi. Looking back, it feels odd that Power of the Jedi didn't just refresh the Lightsaber again with blue. Oh well, here are the figures! Hoth Gear Han Solo My first Han Solo was the vintage Hoth Han Solo so it was cool seeing this figure released. These days, you will see a lot of discussion online about the coloring of Han's jacket (is it brown or blue?) or why he was wearing a cap that we didn't see in the film. Neither of these issues struck me when he came out, I was just happy ...

Kre-O G.I. Joe Battle Wagon

G.I. Joe has always had amazing vehicles for your figures to interact with. As the line grew, so did the imaginations of the creators, as each year seemed to provide us with something bigger than the one before. After the U.S.S. Flagg and the Defiant, bigger was no longer an option but that didn't stop G.I. Joe from just going big and bold with their designs. The 1990s era of the line is not universally loved but they gave us plenty of big vehicles, including the Battle Wagon. The Battle Wagon was heavily marketed as an essential item for Joe fans of the time, especially in the DIC cartoon. Unfortunately, I never had it as a kid. It was a high price tag item and, honestly, I never remember seeing it in stores. When I was in college, my younger brother bought two of them on ebay. Being able to see them in person, I had to agree it was worth the hype that Hasbro put around it. I've now moved away from collecting traditional Joes. I'm older and I want my nephews and nieces ...

Bandai Thundercats Tower of Omens Playset

I'm resigned to the idea that I will more than likely never own a Cat's Lair playset. I was truly hoping that we would get one with Funko after seeing the DC Primal Age set but after all of the production snafus, it seems like Funko is washing their hands of the scale. I hope I'm wrong. Anyway, the original Cat's Lair is hard to get ahold of and the ones available online are hugely overpriced in my opinion. I've known about this playset from the 2011 series for a long time but now that I have the Funko figures it felt like a good time go for it. The scaling is NOT perfect at all but it does make a nice display piece. Plus, these are dirt cheap. I've seen some as low as $10. Here is the completed set. Basically a giant cat's head, gate, and tower. The set has magnetic Thunderlynx features. If you use the intended figures, the doors will open automatically on the gate and the towers Cat symbol will light up with a voice yelling, "Thundercats, Ho!...

Ubernerd, Beyond Loserdome

Search This Blog