Mound of the Beastmen

Mound of the Beastmen is a HeroQuest fanmade expansion created by French artist Mathieu Pascal in 2013, featuring six new quests journeying our heroes into the dark depths of the Mound of the Beastmen in search of a mysterious artifact, the Black Stone. In these sordid places, they will face the legions of Morcar (or Zargon) who have in their ranks new enemies and new perils. However, a powerful arsenal of never-before-seen artifacts will help the heroes accomplish their goal and gain even greater power. New tiles will bring an original experience to our adventurers, from the sweltering Forest of Shadows to the mystical Halls of Evil. Will you be ready to face the terrifying armies of Morcar once more? Will you succeed in thwarting his vile designs concerning the Black Stone in time?

Let's see what's new in Mound of the Beastmen!

Against the Ogre Horde (reworked stats)

I guess we all agree the variable Body Points system used in the original Against the Ogre Horde was a bit odd. So I decided to rework the Ogre stats but also considering the Elf Quest Pack Ogres. In the original 1992 edition of The Mage of the Mirror they had 10 Body Points which seems being too much (neither a huge monster like the Frozen Horror has so many)! Fortunately, with the new 2023 edition of The Mage of the Mirror, Ogre body points were dropped from 10 to 5. Someone already tried to revisit the Ogre stats in the past, but no one was considering to create a version combatible with both quest packs (ATOH and MOTM). Also the ogre pictured on the new 2022 version of the card (in MOTM) is looking more like an Ogre Chieftain than an Ogre Warrior: same weapon, same hairstyle. He is missing the chainmail spiked fist but he has a spiked shoulder plate attached with a chain. So much common points for me! Also his stats are more similar to the Ogre Chieftain, with just the exception of a lower defense (4 dice instead of 6).

Female Wizard Hero (custom sculpt)

I've always wished for a female wizard to join my party of heroes. One project of mine was to completely re-write the Wizards of Morcar expansion turning it into my own Wizard Quest Pack (since the original pack was never released) and featuring a female hero as it happened with the released Barbarian and Elf Quest Packs. This project was then shelved (but not abandoned) as the real drafts for the two unreleased Wizard Quest Pack and Dwarf Quest Pack came to light recently thanks to one of the original designers who shared them with LucaPaschi (which is one of the greatest HeroQuest collectors I know) and Luca involved me with the process of "restoring" them.

 

 

So, let's go back in topic! This miniature was originally inspired by a drawing from Luis Octavio NB - link here but modified a lot of times during the sculpting process.
Then I was sitting together with my friend Valentina Conte aka Valevidart and she started to sculpt the miniature, at first following the sketch, but then we tried to include elements to recall the male wizard too. The intent was to have a mini which could immediately remind to the official HeroQuest wizard and looking as a model coming from the 90's. I have to say I am not easy on liking something so this mini was subjected to several revisions and the whole process was quite long but in the end I am very satisfied with the achieved result.
Instead of using a solid base, I preferred the miniature to feature a slotta base, removable, so it could be used both as a HeroQuest mini and as a Warhammer mini. Valentina sculpted a classic lipped, rectangular, HeroQuest base which is removable and the slotta tab under the wizard's feet allows the miniature to be mounted on its original base or over any standard base (squared or rounded).

Nature Spells: UPGRADED!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Featured Artist: Staz Johnson (Legacy of Sorasil)

HeroQuest II - "Legacy of Sorasil" was the sequel for the HeroQuest videogame.
It was published in 1994 only as a videogame for the Commodore Amiga and Amiga CD32 by Gremlin - link here. No official boardgame was ever released as a sequel or with this title, so I don't know if this was a Gremlin only project or if it was involving someone else from Hasbro staff but then remained an unreleased expansion as the Wizard and the Dwarf Quest Packs did.

The game box had a stunning cover artwork painted by artist Staz Johnson, featuring the four classic heroes from the original boardgame, Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf (with a new haircut) and Wizard plus four new entries, Knight, Ranger, Cleric and Mystic (last two are female characters).

(more of Staz Johnson art on DeviantArt or ArtStation)

Gremlin Archive website stores high quality scans of the individual artworks for four of the characters: Barbarian, Ranger, Knight and Wizard - link here
I dropped a couple of comments there asking if they could upload more but seems they are lost somewhere. It is possible if more peole ask them for updates, they will find the time to perform a new search and eventually upload the missing ones. These individual artworks were also painted by Staz Johnson.

The rear of the box featured individual artworks for all the characters but the Mystic was missing. While looking at this character in the game and her line art inside the rulebook of the game I noticed she is only dressed with a chainmail bikini and a cloak, so I guessed she may have been removed because of censorship.

Going deeply into this, I contacted artist Staz Johnson asking if he also drawn an artwork for the Mystic and if he could remember if any kind of censorship was affecting her. Staz Johnson was s o kind to reply me and his answer was very interesting:

"Hi, yes I did do an individual painting of the female barbarian. She was the cause of a lot of problems, in the initial layout for the Sorasil cover she was right at the front of the group in her chain-mail bikini. However, it was felt that her look might offend a lot of potential Muslim buyers so she was moved to the back of the group with her back facing toward the viewer, however this still wasn't good enough because her butt was on display, so I was asked to add the blue cape to cover her completely. This is probably why she was left off the cover, because the individual painting I did of her was from the front."

 

characters line arts

Chaos Spell & Witch Lord Spell Cards

I finally managed to retire some of the custom cards I sent for the print! I made two different decks to try how they will look when professionally printed: the Chaos Spell in their Italian incarnation and the Witch Lord Spells (brand new set, I will present in another post). I love the vibrant colors on these ones.
Card size is the same of the European 1989 version, mm 54x80.
I wanted these cards to look very close to the style of the Wizards of Morcar cards so for the Chaos Spells are also using a custom artwork; the background recalls the original one from the American cards while the Chaos Sorcerer has a color scheme inspired by the Chaos Tokens featured in Against the Ogre Horde pack. The Chaos Sorcerer is also represented in the same pose of the Wizard Hero on the Legacy of Sorasil cover art.
The cover artworks are made by Luis Octavio NB and since I didn't want to use anything from the original stuff, the title banners at the bottom were also re-drawn (by spevna_studio) but still matching the original vibes of the 1989-1990 version of the game.
The photos below will show you better the final result; these are the Italian version of the cards, I made an English version for the WL spells too:

Featured Artist: Wyrmwalk and his Zombie Barbarian

Zombie Attack! Just found this supercool Zombie Barbarian art painted by Wyrmwalk on a 11x14 wood panel as a tribute piece to the great Les Edwards Heroquest box art.
He wrote he was a great Les Edwards fan and idolized him when he was a kid.
Wyrmwalk is a lover of all things sci-fi, fantasy, horror, heavy metal, and 70s prog.
We hope to see more of this in the future.
Visit his website for more great art or follow him on Instagram at @wyrmwalk to like the picture.
This picture will fit good as a cover art for a Zombie theme questbook.

Featured Artist: Daniel Smith

A cool HeroQuest image drawn by UK artist Daniel Smith (IG: @daniellesmithart ).
He was so kind to share the image.
If you have an Instagram account don't forget to click on the link and support him.

Dwarf Quest Pack - Unreleased Sculpts

This is the last post about the models from the unreleased North American HeroQuest expansion.
Since none of the figures below were sketched by Donald L. Kueker who confirmed he worked on the unreleased Wizard Quest Pack, we can guess the remaining figures were part of the Dwarf Quest Pack but nothing is officially confirmed (edit: they are now confirmed to be part of the unreleased Dwarf Quest Pack - "The Hammer of Hadrakka").
Some of them are probably (according to my tastes) the worst models of the four questpacks.
There are both male and female dwarf, some kind of chinese dragon (it's a Carnivorous Caveworm), some kind of stone golem and a strange rhino looking creature (the Rock Mole).
The male Dwarf could be a boss or a replacement figure for the classic Dwarf as well as the female Dwarf.
Please note the male Dwarf was originally sketched by Rick Grayson, so it is also possible it was a leftout from the Barbarian Quest Pack (since both Dwarfs are wearing fur clothes) or Rick could have been involved to sketch the figures for the Dwarf Quest Pack instead. That golem is also wearing fur clothes, so another possibility, it could be an ICE golem or even an early version for the Yeti or the Frozen Horror himself (edit: it is now confirmed the male dwarf warrior was supposed to be an enemy for this questpack).
Some of the figures are really strange; although it is unconrfimed, I can recognize the hand of the sculptor is the same from the Frozen Horror figures. Some details really match the style in my opinion.
Also many of them do not have a base (as the giant spider) and are coming from a different mythologic world, like the chinese dragon or the rhino (can it be a statue?). Someone suspects they were not satisfying the required quality standards and so they didn't reach the final production process.
As for the previous posts, I asked Skyknight permission to use his photos.

Check the links below for more information about these rare figures:
- Barbarian Quest Pack - Original Sculpts
- Elf Quest Pack - Original Sculpts
- Wizard Quest Pack - Unreleased Sculpts
- Dwarf Quest Pack - Unreleased Sculpts

 

Wizard Quest Pack - Unreleased Sculpts

This is the first part of my posts regarding unreleased models and prototypes inspired by Rod Phelps (aka Skyknight) photos. In the previous posts I've shown you the 4ups sculpts for the Barbarian and Elf Quest Packs which are basically the prototypes of the models used to create the final miniatures.
Years ago on Boardgamegeek and the Old Scratch Heroquest Forum there were rumors of unreleased questpacks for the Wizard and for the Dwarf. But first I would suggest to have a look at Toco's website at http://tocoking.be where he reported his searches for proof of existence of the unreleased questpacks.
While he was in search of an illustrator to paint a cover for a custom questpack, he get in touch with Rick Graysons, who painted the Frozen Horror artworks:

"With patience he found out that The Frozen Horror was painted by Rick Grayson. Now Rick Grayson has shared with me a concept sketch of the Dwarf wearing a fur cape and wielding a hammer. He clearly stated that he did not work on "Quest for the Dwarf", but nevertheless claimed the 3 characters were concept sketches for the small plastic movers. Following the publication of the picture, SkyKnight confesses he has seen that Dwarf before. A clear hint to Quest for the Dwarf!"

Then he get in touch with Don (or Donald) L. Kueker who confirmed being the one who draw the Mage of the Mirror artworks and... even more:

"Then I started browsing the internet and after a while I got in touch with a studio where Don Kueker worked. What happended next was one of the biggest surprises in my life. (True!) Don confirmed he had been the artist of the box cover for the "Mage of the Mirror" expansion set, and more! He made concept sketches for what appears to be a "Quest for the Wizard" expansion set!"

Toco continues his searches and talking with a lot of artists and he was able to receive some of Don Kueker sketches for the unreleased Wizard Quest Pack but also permission to post them. They are all posted on his blog I linked above. So it seems Don Kueker's sketches featured a female wizard hero, a giant spider, a skaven warrior, a saber-toothed tiger, and a centaur.
So after many years of rumors and unfullfilled requests, Skyknight finally shared pictures of the unreleased models. Seems there is no model for the Centaur while the female Wizard exists but is currently in the hands of another person. Rod Phelps sayd:

"This is the rumored Wizard quest set... or part of it. The saber tooth!!! I know who has the hero for this set and I’m trying to get a pic of her model for ya."

And few days later he continued: 

Back from fishing so day two reveal. Showed you the Sabre tooth and the sketch of the female wizard (borrowed from Toco, just confirming). So now that we went down the Wizard path, any other guesses on what may have been in that pack? Here’s a hint. Was always surprising with games worskshop involved that this was not included in the mix. Update; ladies and Gentlemen. The Skaven!!!

Please note, I asked him permission to post the photos.
Edit: it is confirmed both questpacks exist! the Wizard Quest Pack is titled "The Sinister Sorcerers".

 Check the links below for more information about these rare figures:
- Barbarian Quest Pack - Original Sculpts
- Elf Quest Pack - Original Sculpts
- Wizard Quest Pack - Unreleased Sculpts
- Dwarf Quest Pack - Unreleased Sculpts