Blood Bowl, the bitter revival...

BLOOD BOWL'S BACK! EVERYONE WANTS TO PLAY BLOOD BOWL!!!

The Wurtbastards were undefeated in their 3-4 year run,
primarily as a non-digital opponent couldn't be found.

Not that the living rule book rules were invalid, or that what's been described as the greatest miniature game ever has had any lack of devoted fans ready to play...right? They've always been ready to play...

Real Life names redacted.

Sure. That's exactly what they'll tell you. However currently I'm the odd one out here locally as Blood Bowl mania sweeps thru our gaming group, as I can only bitterly recall 5 years ago when I recreated the old templates, bought and painted a team, made a custom pitch, bought dice from the NAF, and read the rulebook till I memorized it, only to find no opponents.

Period.

Where was this eternally devoted fanbase? Ah yes, playing the fucking Blood Bowl video game. It was 'just as good' and 'far easier' to play...presumably as they could play at home whilst wearing just their boxers...(((cringe))).

Three to four years after, annoyed that no one ever wanted to play, tired that all of my BB efforts had come to naught, and even more tired of shuffling around a team, templates and board for a completely dead and gone (tabletop) game, I sold it all off.

Yet now, with Blood Bowl's re-release? So-called 'die hard' fans are coming out of the wood-work. Indeed, people who haven't been to game night in years are suddenly clearing their schedules for it, and all I can think is: Where the fuck were you people 5 years ago when I was begging for anybody to play????

Oh that's right, you had a video game instead and couldn't be bothered. Technically nothing's changed but hey, why not jump on the band wagon with everyone else right? Right.

Edit: Wolfy commented and I have to agree that this sudden burst of interest in BB will probably have the same lifespan as our recent revival or GorkaMorka. Potentially less given that its the holiday season, there's already grumblings about the local 'that guy' population is showing interest as well, and one of the main proponents of starting up a league has already made mention that he probably can't make it this weekend, etc., etc.... 

Skaven outbreak!

o/

This is coming a little late after yet another long weekend spent with the family. Unlike the last however I was able to get some painting in. Quite a bit actually, though Skaven are rather easy to paint (speaking of easily painted minis, I also finished off a Blood Bowl lineman & brought two more close to completion).

Above you see my second & last Stormvermin & five verminkin for the Clockwork Forage. With these my warband is now fully painted with quit a few spare models in which to swap out in the case of casualties, new hires, etc.. My favorite of the bunch is he one with the meat cleaver. However that's not a Skaven weapon option so I'll just treat it like a dagger.

I would like to use him as a hero model, but Skaven heroes can't start off with shields. So I'll lump him in with the other dagger wielding slaves and just wait for a roll of 'the lad's got talent' to make him into a hero.

We're set to play Mordheim tonight actually, though I'm going to try out a different Skaven warband. This will make for only a half painted warband, but will let me try out a few other weapon options. While less experienced than the Clockwork Forage, my Reiklander opponent's dice consistently hate him, so my odds of victory are still pretty good!

Edit: I just bought a cheap rat ogre off of ebay, so i think I'll wait on using the new warband till that arrives!

Well, I got two out of three.

o/

I finished off the last two slaves (verminkin) for my Mordheim war band yesterday. They're the two on the left side, back row. Now I just need to set up the wheres and whens to get some practice games in. Several of us (myself included) have played Mordheim in the past, however it's been several years. So its more a case of relearning rather than remembering the rules. My 'alternate' war band's leader is also painted and as quick & easy as the rats are to crank out, I may have all of my extras painted in short order as well (unless I get side tracked again, as would be my usual).

I also finished painting up a a Blood Bowl lineman and....screwed it up (hence the title to this post). He's a casualty of not painting any BB minis in a while. I applied an overall wash of delvan mud, and then realized that that was wrong. On the others I used ogryn flesh, or brown, whatever its called. I tried to sop off as much as possible, and then applied the ogryn wash but the damage was already done. Now lineman #31 is veerrry dark. Yes, there will be some simple green in his future. He'd already be in it, except that I'm currently out of the stuff.

Three blind...rats?

o/


Okay so they're not really blind, but it sounded catchier than 'some more random stuff'. Anyways I painted three Verminkin (or rather slaves) for the Clockwork Forage this week. This leaves me with just two left, after which my starting/prototype Mordheim warband will be completely painted before they even reach the table! Kinda feels like I'll be breaking one of the seven seals of the apocalypse...

...moving on.

Despite my best efforts, as well as those of eriochrome, I still hadn't figured out exactly how to scale my Blood Bowl passing template correctly, as my board is scaled slightly different than the official GW boards are. However while perusing a thread on the NAF forum the other day I found a PDF of the old BB reference sheet, which conveniently had this chart on it. With the ranges clearly being 3/3/4/3, it was a matter of a few simple adjustments, and my passing template is now to scale! Huzzah!


Speaking of Blood Bowl & the NAF, I received my new set of blocking dice recently (if you pay the $10 membership fee to join the NAF they send you a set). As you can see, they are green! The Wurtbastards were quite pleased and have taken this as a sign of Nuffle's favor.


...and onto one more random topic...

The photo at right shows yet another PvE fitted Jaguar that I have in EVE. Like the one I posted previously, there is an extra module mounted. However, instead of one of the guns, it is a salvager turret. Going into my fittings window I saw that the salvager was fitted into the first high slot. So apparently whatever gets mounted in that slot has an extra turret mounted on the ship, although it doesn't provide any actual benefit. So, mystery solved. :-)

Revisions

o/

After posting pics of my Blood Bowl templates yesterday, eriochrome generously measured his own passing template and left those measurements in my post comments. As my template was way off, I revised it & you can see the side-by-side comparison of the two at right. This evening when I go to play Dark Heresy, I'll bring my templates along for a comparison to the real things. Many thanks again to eriochrome!


While on the subject of changes, my old Dark Hands (and originally Iron Hands) Landraider Cursader entered the chop shop last night for a bit of cosmetic alteration.

Old parts on the left, and new on the right, and a last look @ the engine.

It now belongs to the Aurora Chapter. The front doors didn't come out quietly as expected, and so the new ones were trimmed and glued into place (hiding the engine & the white Iron Hands interior). On one hand that sucks (cause its all painted) and on the other it doesn't (because the FW doors never lined up right, so they didn't open in unison, nor ever close all the way). I'm sure that someone will question the Imperial/Crimson Fists icons that were used for the Iron hands, and the reason for that is this tank was purchased well before IH doors were available. The Aurora will instead just get some custom decals for their doors.

Home Field Advantage

o/

As you all know I've been pondering Blood Bowl here lately, however all I have is a team. I think GW still sells the boxed game, but if so then the rules inside are no doubt reprints of the originals and therefore obsolete. True they could have updated them in the box, however as 'teh interwebz' are hoping the next 'mystery box' is Blood Bowl, I doubt it. Its not like GW really supports any of it's games aside from 40k, WHFB and that other one that nobody plays but they're contractually required to keep around.

So going on the cheap as is usual, I've been perusing ebay for a BB board....and that's really not a cheap option either. Boards (or rather the 'pitch') tend to go for quite a lot just by themselves, even when in poor condition. So the next option was to make one. Usually this entailed foam board and far more effort than I would like to make for a game that I'm only considering. However it was a dead slow day @ work yesterday, and after some perusing the internet for size specs, and some google images for the turns/rerolls/etc., and I 'made' my board using Adobe Illustrator, as seen below:

This is a scaled down version, obviously.

It took me a few hours but I'm rather pleased with it. I've printed it out @ actual size, roughly 23" x 34" (we have a ginormous printer here too). I made a few phone calls and found that Kinko's can laminate items that are up to 36" on the short edge. So that's now on my 'to do list' for next Saturday when I'll be near Johnson city (which has the closest one).

So currently its laid out on my dining room table (which is actually the perfect size for it as the center extension isn't use). I put the team on it to get a feel for their new home turf, however after a photo they were unceremoniously removed as I don't want to potentially scratch it prior to lamination (not like they have any opponents anyways).

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to see if I can find some BB template images & specs to recreate those as well.

On second though, a pile o' work just landed on my desk (finally!) so the templates will have to wait a bit.

My side projects continue.

o/

I've gotten four more BB players (and a ball marker) painted these past few days. I usually paint them in pairs, one lineman & one of the other position models. This brings me up to eight finished. Enthusiasm seems to be bubbling just under the surface here locally, so I suppose I ought to download & reread the rules again.

In truth this was probably a good time to pick up a team as I'm once again heading towards 40k burnout. I play minimum once a week, often two or three times. Plus, no longer having the vast array of armies that I once had, I cycle through my lists with greater frequency making it easy to get bored with what I've got (and due to the incessant price hikes, its even more difficult to change that). So we're kinda looking at alternative games. The cheaper the better (in contrast to that statement, I do need to get some more Heavy Gear minis).

Blood Bowl I can do (assuming someone has a board, dice, templates, etc.), Necromunda & BFG, good to go, and I recently ordered a handful of Skaven off of ebay to use for a possible Mordheim warband. NO, I'm NOT making a new WHFB army (I've already had to state a few times)! I figure all I'd need is a single regiment box, and I'd have all I need to play. My city fight terrain isn't quite right for Mordheim, but should be close enough.

Speaking of ebay, I finally sold off the remnants of the 110th Ryza IG. The funds from that in turn paid for a cheap guardian squad to use with my FW conversion kit, as well as two extras to make an extra Exodite heavy weapon team. I also got a dirt cheap ($11 with shipping) Scout squad (both squads are still on the sprue). That should bring the Exodites up to about 1200 points, and the Aurora....well I have some ideas for them, but that's for later as those plans are contingent on this week's ebay auctions.

Forming the team.

o/

As expected, the plastic BB minis are quite easy to paint and I can crank them out relatively quickly. I already had an idea for a theme, so the decision on a color scheme was relatively easy as well. I wasn't sure how I wanted to number the players, so I tried large & small decals. Finding both pleasing to the eye, I decided to keep the small front & back numbers on the linemen, and the larger numbers on the more specialized players.

As for theme...

Of all of the provinces in the Empire, Stirland has always been my favorite, most likely because C. L. Werner's Mathius Thulmann series (my favorite of the various Warhammer series) takes place primarily in Stirland.

Stirland is considered to be the 'backwater' of the Empire (like the rest of it is so civilized). Relatively poor, Stirland's armies' uniforms tend to be mismatched and grubby in appearance, and often sporting their traditional heraldic colors of green and yellow (true BB teams aren't part of the army, but the team ownership is obviously of the patriotic sort). As everyone knows, when it comes to painting I'm firmly in the 'green is best' category. So a dirty, mismatched look for a bottom rung Stirland Blood Bowl team is what I aim to make.

The first thing any self respecting BB team needs is a good name. Going with the Stirland theme, I googled & downloaded a nicely detailed map of the province, and then pondered names for a bit (with a bedazzling array of possibilities). In the end I kept coming back to the capital city of Wurtbad. A name so awful that I had to use it in some way. Going several rounds with that, the perfect name finally came to me: The Wurtbastards.

Perfect!

Then of course the players themselves need names. The important ones anyways, linemen tend to fall into the faceless masses unless they rank up some impressive skills down the road. Most names generally come in time, after a notable in-game moment or some such thing. I do have one named player thus far though, my thrower (and as is always fun, a little story to go with it).

The bastard son of a wealthy burgomeister, Ben took a fondness to Blood Bowl in his youth and started playing as soon as he was able. Blessed with a natural affinity for the game, he quickly rose to preeminence with the sport, and it seemed that he could do no wrong. That's when the trouble started. A famed womanizer (like most Blood Bowl players), after a few dalliances with the wives & daughters of nobility led to a never ending string of legal troubles. Soon these troubles overshadowed his skill on the field, and political pressures of the angry nobility sent his career into a downward spiral. Given this reputation, any woman of worth kept their distance, leaving him no choice but to partake of Empire's the brothels. Now only the worst teams are willing to risk the political & legal baggage that comes along with the adding 'Ben Brothels-Berger' to their roster.

I found a few things to talk about.

o/

My Sister's wedding went rather flawlessly this past Saturday and the happy couple are probably on the beach in Florida right now! (actually as hectic as the past week was, and as early as it is right now, they're probably sound asleep) Anyways, despite a lack of hobby related progress over the weekend, I did have a few things pop up late last week.

First, The Triceratops exhibit is done!!!! Given the rush to get things done towards the end, the sacrum & the replacement ribs weren't painted by me, but they're reasonably close to my paint jobs so most people don't notice. The rib casts I had originally painted weren't usable for a variety of reasons as I expected. All in all it was a fun project involving close to a dozen people (mostly volunteers like myself) and a lot of hard work!

It'll be on display in the museum's traveling exhibit hall for another month or so and then...somewhere else, probably the new annex which is still under construction (but almost ready to open). The Museum will have possession of the cast for another year and a half or so.

Next I have a veritable can o' worms as you can see @ left. On a whim, and for no particular reason, I bought a cheap, plastic human Blood Bowl team off of ebay. I have 17 total (the 11 you don't see here are bathing in simple green right now) as well as two ball markers. I haven't played Blood Bowl in years, and admittedly don't have much desire to. THAT said, once Murl of the former 13th Cadian blog sees this post, he'll likely start foaming at the mouth with enthusiasm to play (much like when he discovered my Cygnar when I had thought about trying Warmahordes MkII).

I played in a BB league some years back, but it wasn't much fun. Trying to learn a game (with lizardmen, a bad choice I was told) in a league where everyone is playing to win (and thrown dice were not uncommon) is more or less a recipe for failure. On the pro side, BB has a low mini count (like Mordheim & I wouldn't mind trying that again, hint, hint...), and encourages the use of funny/parody styled names the latter of which I always find appealing (and more on that later in the week).

And last but not least (or maybe it is the least, ...snicker...) another friend of mine has jumped onto the blogging bandwagon starting the Warfrog's Hobby Blog. He's bursting with enthusiasm (indeed there were 4 separate posts yesterday alone!), but once the 'shiny & new' feeling wears off I figure he'll settle into a normal posting routine. Go & check it out!