Blood Bowl Orcs

The Green Streaks

I finally finished my Blood Bowl Orc team, The Green Streaks. These were meant to be done for Eucalyptus Bowl in April, but that got canned due to COVID-19. I really struggled with these due to the multiple stages. The shoulder armour trim, for example, is dark grey then white then dark grey then metallic. Repeat times a million...

The figures are resin, from RN Estudio.

Orc Blitzers are some of the best players in the game. Unfortunately, they've all been sculpted with the same face.

Blood Bowl Orc Blitzers

The Black Orc Blockers are on 30mm bases.

Blood Bowl Black Orc Blockers

I like both these throwers, and can't decide which I prefer. Maybe the mad scientist goggles, by a whisker.

Blood Bowl Orc Throwers

I don't mind the orcs with hair.

Blood Bowl Line Orcs

As a rule, I don't add blood to weapons- these are the exceptions, using Army Painter Glistening Blood Effect.

Blood Bowl Orc Star Players

I've filled out the team with some cheerleaders from Shadowforge, and some squigs.

Blood Bowl Orc Cheer Skwad. Hubba hubba!

I think squigs are a great GW invention. Three are from GW, and the helmeted one is from Goblin Guild. I plan to use these as game markers and tokens.

Blood Bowl Squigs

I'm very glad that these are finished now.

Blood Bowl Elves

A bit of a blast from the past today, from 2005. I don't have anything new painted, so here is more of my progression through Blood Bowl teams. These were my fourth team, Pro Elves from Shadowforge. Pro Elves, or just Elves, are neither High nor Dark nor Wood, although these girls have stood in for a High Elf team as required. Their team name is I Seldi Serci Suluo. I was nerding it up big time, and this is (I think) Quenya for The Maidens of Blood Bowl. Really.

Blood Bowl Elves from Shadowforge

I went for a white and silver scheme, because many other teams at the time were very dark with black undercoats, and my girls would stand out get noticed. I learned a lot about painting white from this team- note the blue and grey shadows. I think it was the first time I used a white undercoat. I'm pretty sure I used enamels! They're showing their age with a bit of chipping, and my painting style has changed/ improved.

While I was doing the Blitzers I was thinking about how their eye sockets looked like gas masks. I was thinking of filling them with a clear resin or varnish, but somehow got the idea of using clear sticky tape, and was able to use it on all the other elves as well. I can really see the elves having high-tech helmets to protect their beautiful faces. It has held up over all the years!

Elf blitzers

Elf throwers

There are only two catcher poses, so I used paperclips to add variety to this important positional with prancing, leaping poses.

Elf catchers

Line elves

I made this conversion from a Reaper figure, to represent Star Player Princess Moranion. I'm really happy with how she came out. Milliput!

Princess Moranion

...and her hair

Reaper 02808 Taryn, Spearmaiden

The support staff have flowers from Milliput. If I ever get around to it, I’ll make some more flowers to add to the players’ bases so you can swiftly see extra skills (e.g. ‘All the red flowers are Block’ etc.). The last cheerleader has a very weak ribbon holding her up and she suffers from chronic droop.

Elf coaches

Elf apothecary

Elf cheerleaders

I must mention that this team won ‘Best Painted’ at the inaugural Eucalyptus Bowl, with a monstrous trophy. Still stoked.

I refined my playing style using these girls. They’re agile and fragile, so you have to make a fast offense and a stalling defence with depth, ready to switch to the offense when your opponent makes an error. Getting ‘Dump off’ on a catcher is great fun. They remain my all-time favourite team so far, being an economical, fast and agile team. I wonder if I will prefer Slann when I get around to them?

Blood Bowl- miscellaneous figures

I've accumulated a small collection of miscellaneous Blood Bowl figures over the years.

Thrud the Barbarian

This is my interpretation of Thrud the Barbarian, a Star Player who sadly doesn't exist in the current rules edition. It is a conversion of a Hasslefree figure, which I picked up from Crusade in Cardiff in 2005! Hasslefree must have been about a year old as a company, and this figure has sat in my pile of shame for over a decade until I dusted it off for the Analogue Challenge 2016! Foolishly, I primed it on a humid day and it is a far from smooth basecoat. It doesn't show from a distance, and I was in a hurry, so I let it slide.

Guaranteed to score.

Zara the Slayer

I'm using this figure as Zara the Slayer. I can't recall for the life of me who made it. I believe there was an original variant sculpt wearing even less...

Team Wizard

Here's a team wizard, straight from Unseen University's wardrobe department! A cool figure from Impact! Miniatures, he's got the fireball and lightning bolt spells on his belt. Could do with a funkier staff, though.

To accompany him is Pete the frog, also from Impact.

Bloodweiser Babe

Here's a Bloodweiser Babe, also Impact.

I've already shown her Dwarf counterparts, but I think they belong here as well.

Referees

Here are two human referees. The first is an original GW figure c1991.

The second is from Shadowforge.

Sports Reporter

Finally, a goblin reporter, which was a variant from Impact. CCC was the Central Coast Corsairs, a club I was involved in about 10y ago which has gone the way of many gaming clubs.

Blood Bowl Humans- The Nuns

This will be the first in an occasional series going through my Blood Bowl teams in a chronological order, not including those already covered on my blog.

My very first Blood Bowl team was Dwarves. I got beaten a lot because I had no idea how to play.  It wasn’t just that I didn’t own the rules and had to rely on my opponents telling me what I could and couldn’t do, but also I didn’t have a clue about tactics. I didn’t take Blitzers because I couldn’t see the advantage in their (relative) agility, and because they didn’t have Tackle. I’d just line all my guys up on the line of scrimmage in defence. (Now I’m better- and I own a copy of the rules!).

A few years later, and I guess about over ten years ago, I had met a new wargaming opponent, Sangraal. He was teaching me DBA. The concept of units supporting adjacent units in a battle line and pushing opponents back sparked a few memories, and I said to him, “I think you’ll like Blood Bowl.” We then got into it in a big way, he’s run many Australian tournaments, and I haven’t beaten him in yonks (and I don't think we've touched DBA since...).

My first team in my re-finding of Blood Bowl was Shadowforge's nuns. I actually wanted to play the bunnies, but Sangraal got there first, and I’m glad he did because the nuns- The Bad Habits- were awesome. They opened my eyes to the potential of Blood Bowl to be non-GW, with conversions and customised support staff and allow you to really personalise a team. You know I'm having fun when I've got more support staff than players!

The Bad Habits

The linesisters

Sisters Patience and Goodness

Blitzers- Sisters Faith, Hope, Charity, and Salvation

Throwers- Sisters Sweetness and Light. These are some of my all-time favourite sculpts

Catchers- Sisters Chastity, Prudence, Virtue and Temperance. I really like human catchers.

Mother is the centrepiece of the team. She is still one of my favourite conversions, from a Reaper ogre. I went nuts with Milliput, and she always gains attention and compliments. My favourite moment with her was when I pulled off a last-turn highly unlikely play and got the ball from one end to the other and passed it to Mother, who caught it. To score, she needed to Blitz one opponent out of the way- Triple Skulls! I forgave her.

Mother

Before the operation

The Apothecary is the Reaper Angel of Light. I do better white now.

Apothecary

Other support staff from Shadowforge.

The monk is a generically useful figure for many games.

These are from RAFM.  The mad nun is my wizard, and I've had plans to change the lantern to a chainsaw. Someday.

Support staff

The reroll markers are also from Reaper.

Reroll markers

Cheerleaders are from the ever-useful West Wind and Shadowforge.

I love the cheerleader personalities.

I never went to a Catholic school, but it’s a common question I get from people who have seen the team. I also get a lot of questions about whether or not I have a nun fetish- sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t! Some friends got me a wind-up Nunzilla (she shoots sparks as she walks) to be a team mascot.

It's interesting looking back at these figures. I hadn't found my current painting style yet, and these are decidedly clunky, especially in close-up. There are a few chips I should touch-up. Still, I really enjoy the sense of uniqueness and ownership that the conversions and support staff bring to the team.

More Blood Bowl Dwarves

As part of the B9 Tourney swag, we received three dwarves- two from Stonehaven, and one Shadowforge. I picked them up at Eucalyptus Bowl in July, and was able to paint them before the B9 event. I wasn't initially sure how to paint all of them.

The first (from Stonehaven) was easy- he became a straightforward barman, and nicely complements my existing barmaid (from Four A).

White wine spritzer?

Because Dwarf teams need Bloodweiser Babes- right?

I had a flash of inspiration when I realised that the next figure (also Stonehaven) reminded me of Derek Zoolander!

Ridiculously good-looking

And so the Blue Steelers were conceived. I've already got a dwarf team, the Kneecappers, but now I could get a Shadowforge one... The miner could be Grim Ironjaw, or Flint Churnblade. I went for astrogranite basing, which is dull but would complement the team's mining backstory.

Clearly she shaved her beard

At the B9 tourney itself, the organiser (Babs) set up a speed painting contest if we finished our games early. I couldn't resist, and this is my finished result:

I'm quite stoked with this. She was new in her blister, and after my first match I cleaned off flash, epoxy-ed her to her base, and slapped on a coat of Skull White. After my second match, I swiftly and neatly painted the skin, clothes, hair, and flocked the base- in about 40 minutes! (no glue to the base, just Goblin Green and dunk in flock!) After the third venue, I added a few shades and highlights over 10-15 minutes, but most of the work had been done. I smugly received the Speed Demon award for this effort, but admittedly the only other entrant was Babs and he partially disqualified himself by being the organiser and not playing all the matches. Yay me!