Archive for the ‘Blood Bowl’ Category

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #14 – The endgame

October 20, 2012

For me, this 2012 season of Blood Bowl is over. After playing the 13 league games and finishing third in our division of five, I made it to the playoffs – somewhat to my surprise. Less surprisingly the first playoff round proved to be my undoing, with Vikings IF sending the Drakwald Ravens packing, as well of killing one of my veteran ghouls, Karl Eye-Popper, and putting Ludwig Wightenstein in a wheelchair with a thoroughly destroyed hip. The poor wight suffered a “smashed hip” result in his first game of the season, never amounted to anything during the games he played, and received a second “smashed hip” in the Ravens’ last game. Poor Ludwig!

With my gaming part done, it’s time to look back upon the season. All in all I was more than pleased. My last season of Blood Bowl saw my orc team the Naughty Grinders finish with a 2-2-6 (wins-draws-losses) record from ten games, whereas this season the Drakwald Ravens managed a 4-5-5 record from a total of 14 games. So, fewer defeats, twice the victories and more than twice the draws. Can’t really be disappointed!

The Ravens steadily upped their game throughout the season, and before the playoffs actually had a four match long undefeated streak with two wins and two ties. The only thing I wasn’t happy about was my team’s seeming inability for violence. While a virtue outside the Blood Bowl field, 11 inflicted casualties in 14 matches is appalling, especially compared to the league (sans Ravens) average of over 21. Out of those 11 casualties no less than five were executed (tee-hee) by my number one flesh golem, Max Hurtheimer.

The more I play Blood Bowl, the more convinced I am, that this is the best game GW has put on the market. Blood Bowl combines luck and skill wonderfully – while sometimes horrible luck can bring you down no matter how good you are, most of the time the more skilled player will have the upper hand. It is an important skill in itself to minimize the role of luck, in other words the number of dice rolls you make. While I’m slowly learning the game, the more experienced players often seem to be a move or two ahead of me, no matter what I do.

What makes our Blood Bowl league especially fun is the narrative built around it on our internet forum. Press releases are made after matches, game reports are written for every game and players provide other content such as news, advertisements and rumours or even obituaries of dead players. A great example of this was the surprising death of one of my werewolves, Anti-Christian Wolff. Having just scored a touchdown, Wolff died due to amazingly bad dice rolling during a routine block against a dwarf player. The interpretation was that his heart suddenly gave out. This lead to several news items:

Ravens head coach disappointed in dwarf fans’ racist chants

This sprang from a few of our friends who were watching the game and celebrated the death of the werewolf by chanting the now-legendary “hukasta rukkaset!” which is Finnish for “make the wolf into mittens!” They were interpreted as being dwarven fans.

Dwarf fans respond to racism allegations

In this item the dwarf fans accused of racism were shocked and appalled. They claimed the chanting was a joke, nothing more. This was a parallel to several then-current events where Finnish politicians made racist comments in public, and then claimed that they had been ironic or joking.

Werewolf overbreeding: “This would be illegal with humans”

This was an adaptation of an actual news item dealing with genetic problems caused by overbreeding in dogs.

Drug scandal in the league! Warpstone overdose to blame for Anti-Christian Wolff’s death?

In which a Norse team’s werewolf comments that the combination of overbreeding and warpstone use is a deadly one, and that it is a public secret in the werewolf community.

2 in 1 furry mittens from Stockkleinemann sale!

A parody of then-current sale campaign of the Finnish department store Stockmann. Made by dwarven artisans, the luxurious leather mittens could be turned into furry ones by the touch of Moonstone™.

And so on. This is what makes our Blood Bowl that extra bit special. It’s very similar to the idea of Warpg’s I’ve often talked about.

What’s next? Well, there are still games to be played in this season’s playoffs, and then at some point it’s time for the 2013 season. I’ve already bought a new team from Impact Miniatures, the Middle Kingdom humans who are done in a classic Greek/Spartan style. I’ll have a lot of fun coming up with a back story for those guys. With all this, I’m happy to report that in our group Blood Bowl is alive and well!

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #13 – Repainting for nothing

April 18, 2012

A few days ago I did something I don’t usually do: a slight repaint on one of my models.

I had this werewolf from West Wind, who I originally painted for my Underworld project (now sadly defunct), and happened to need another werewolf for my Blood Bowl team, the Drakwald Ravens.

Click for a larger version

A quick pant and base repaint later, I had a new player, Anti-Christian Wolff. Apart from the base and the pants, I didn’t change the model and the differences apparent are due to photography. This repaint was actually a step back, due to my decision to not highlight the black on the Ravens’ uniform. It does make for a sleek, sporty wolf though.

Click for a larger version

Anti-Christian’s debut started out pretty impressive, as he scored what proved to be a winning 2-1 goal against the crafty bourgeoisie dwarves of Blackpit Arsenal. A few turns later a disastrous sequence of dice rolls meant that poor Anti-Christian dropped dead – from heart failure due to the elation from the goal, we concluded.

That’s Blood Bowl for you.

Posted in Blood Bowl, Miniatures, Vampires/Werewolves | Tagged , | 3 Comments »

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #12 – The Coach

March 24, 2012

It’s time to present to you the coach of the Drakwald Ravens, Nekromantti Ruuminen. As is apparent to my Finnish readers, he is based on Antti Muurinen, the former head coach of the Finnish national football team. I named my coach in a spot of Finnish punning, and his Finnish name translates as “the necromancer Corpsy”.

Ruuminen has built a reputation for solid positivity in our Blood Bowl league. It should be no surprise, as this is what his real-life counterpart looks like:

That open smile, that wonderful moustache!

After the games, he tends to spout lines such as

Against an opponent like that, a tie can be seen as a victory, as can a narrow loss. Even a crushing loss, such as today, should be seen as a positive learning experience, and as such, a victory.

Coming up with a suitable model to represent him on the sidelines was a grueling task. You wouldn’t think so, but it was. Out of sheer curiosity, how many smiling human miniatures do you own? Check it out, you might come away empty-handed. I did, at least. I spent a good while browsing through different manufacturers’ catalogues, thought about sculpting my own, asked around on forums and was left with no great solution to the problem. The few smiling miniatures were stylistically unsuitable for my uses.

Finally I happened to notice a model that was sitting on my desk. It was one that I received from fellow blogger Sho3box as part of one of our trades. The model was that of a man dressed for a wedding, about to pull a gun from inside his jacket. Now, it’s a cool miniature and there’s even a matching bride, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how I could best use him.

A bit later I had my coach. I used ProCreate putty to add the all-important moustache and to turn the mini’s fairly gruff expression into a smile. I sculpted the pistol grip he was holding into a handkerchief, and that’s pretty much it. I did a very quick job on him, and painted his eyes larger and more cartoony than usual. He came out looking like a kindly magician from a kids’ movie. Not my smoothest or neatest paintjob at any rate, but still: great success!

Click for a larger version

I can’t keep myself from posting a song relating to Muurinen/Ruuminen. It laments the coach moving on. The chorus says:

“Wind, blow to where my walrus lies, play a moment with his moustache! Tell him of my love, tell him how I miss him, tell him that I’m still waiting.”

The song, a parody of this one (go ahead, treat yourself to some quality Finnish pop music – English lyrics included!), has become something of a running joke in our Blood Bowl games. Quite deservedly so.

 

Posted in Blood Bowl, Miniatures | Tagged | 10 Comments »

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #11 – The League of Extraordinary Fun

March 14, 2012

Our Blood Bowl league has taken off magnificently. So far we’ve had a grand total of 19 [sic] games since the start of the season in January, and the fourth round of matches is almost finished.

The Swamp Shamans' Kroxigor Shiva prepares to lay down some hurt. (Click for a larger version)

Blood Bowl has really become something of a “thing”. The games and the league are turning into something much more than the sum of their parts. Let me list (since I’m partial to lists) some of the things that make it so much fun:

  1. Social events. This is really what the games are turning into. More and more people will flock to see games played by others, offering their commentary and interpretation of game events, having a few beers and simply having a good time. With people working, studying, getting children and things like that, quality time like this tends to be hard to come by in the same quantities as five to ten years before.
  2. Narratives. We’ve long had an internet discussion forum, which is nowadays almost completely devoted to all things Blood Bowl. One of the best aspects are the narratives building around the league, its coaches and its players. From the bitter hometown rivalry between the wealthy dwarf team of Blackpit Arsenal and their working-class opposition, the chaos dwarves of Blackpit Chaotic to the naughty nun team of the Marienburg Spankers (with their trademark pass action declaration  “Nun shall pass!”), the narratives, game reports and the like are often hilarious stuff. All the ten players in our league are avid role-players, and as such no strangers to happily making up intricate stories about simple events. The narratives also form something of a pressure valve, allowing frustratingly bad luck with the dice to be explained away as bribed referees and the like.
  3. Excitement. Blood Bowl is an excellent game – I think the best one Games Workshop has ever created. It strikes a good balance between skill and luck. The games tend to be really exciting, with adrenaline levels spiking and palms sweating as a mere 2+ roll stands between victory and defeat. Today’s game was a great example, with the Lustrian Swamp Shamans squeezing a 3-3 tie against the Sea Elf Seahawks with a daring passing play – only succeeding on a roll of 6.

The Seahawks' elves Shanghai and Singapore try to stare down their cold-blooded opponents. (Click for a larger version)

These things combine to make our Blood Bowl league so much more than just a bunch of games played with miniatures. I can’t tell what it exactly is, but I can honestly say that it’s been a long while since I’ve enjoyed miniature gaming this much.

Posted in Blood Bowl, Miniatures | 2 Comments »

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #10 – an unkindness of Ravens

February 1, 2012

Did you know, that a flock of ravens is actually called an “unkindness”? Really! Read a column on the subject here.

Anyway, this curious piece of linguistics brings me to the main point of this post – namely my completed Blood Bowl team. There are a few extra models, and I have one werewolf pending a repaint. Other than that, here are the Drakwald Ravens in their gothic glory.

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As you may have noticed, there are some players in the photo that haven’t been introduced yet. They are:

Arthur Schopenhowler the werewolf. I simply love this model from West Wind, see the review here.

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A man can be himself only so long as he is alone. 

– Schopenhowler

Jürgen Habermassacre the flesh golem. The model’s a tank zombie from the FU-UK sculpting competition a few years back.

Click for a larger version

 One never really knows who one’s enemy is. 

– Habermassacre

Georg Henrik von Wight the..wight. The model is a custom build from GW plastic parts.

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If one is satisfied with things, one doesn’t complain about the downsides that exist, either. 

– Von Wight

There you go! An actual, completed project. Should I need another werewolf, I’ll simply give the pants and base of a previously painted West Wind critter a quick repaint.

Posted in Blood Bowl, Miniatures | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments »

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #9 – Zombie incursion

January 9, 2012

I’ve been painting like crazy lately. Our 2012 Blood Bowl league has kicked off, and the Drakwald Ravens have already faced off against the Lustrian Swamp Shamans. I managed to field an almost fully painted team, but still have two half-finished models to go. The main step my painted team took forward was me painting six zombies in pretty much two evenings. I pretty much used my basic zombie recipe, and I think it worked fine here. As usual, flat colours only for the “uniforms”.

So here we go, new additions to the lineup: Martin Eyedigger, Friedrich Dark-Engels, Immortal Kant, Gore Marx, Gut-lob Frege and Hurt Gödel. Of these guys poor Marx and Gödel never made it past their first match and Frege is yet to make an appearance.

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While we’re talking about the match, man…it was for me Blood Bowl at its worst. Or no, not really, so let me rephrase that. It was a good game of Blood Bowl, with my luck at its worst. Let me just put it this way: the most amazing moment of the match was poor Ludwig Wightenstein missing a trivial block against a weaker opponent, going down on a roll of double skulls, re-rolling those into another set of double skulls and receiving a shattered hip permanent injury. I should at this point note that the probability of such a chain of events is considerably less than 1/100 000. Needless to say, my opponent Joonas (of Dusty Gamer) had a field day.

To use a quaint expression, the lizards tore me a new one. A whole bunch of new ones, actually.

Oh well. At least my team is pretty. In a ghoulish, dead sort of way.

Posted in Blood Bowl, Miniatures, Zombies | Tagged , | 5 Comments »

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #8 – Two ghoul for school

December 28, 2011

First of all, pardon for the awful (if there is another kind) pun in the title. It was my rather quaint way of letting you know that I’ve completed two new models for the Ravens. Let me present to you… Karl Eye-Popper and Oswald Strangler!

Both are ghouls from Mantic (reviewed here), and lovely miniatures to paint. What made them even easier to paint is the fact that I made the conscious decision to leave the uniform colours without shading to convey something of a game piece vibe as opposed to something more realistic. So, plain black and purple it was. To counterbalance this, I did some extra work on the skin and the self-inflicted wounds, trying to make the former deathly pale and dirty and the latter nasty and infected. I’d love to hear your comments on whether it worked or not.

Here are my new players, along with their thoughts on their existence.

Blood Bowl Mantic ghouls

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Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.

– Karl Eye-Popper

This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.

– Oswald Strangler

Posted in Blood Bowl, Miniatures | Tagged , | 5 Comments »

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #7 – A new star

December 22, 2011

Another player has joined the ranks of the (painted) Ravens: Ludwig Wightenstein. Ready to beat down opponents not only by reducing philosophical problems to linguistic puzzles, but also with his mechanical claw of nasty death.

Ludwig Wightenstein

Click for a larger version

Ludwig is an all-plastic conversion composed of several bits and pieces. The torso and pauldron are from GW’s Empire knights set, while the head, left arm and legs are from their classic (80s-90s) plastic skeleton set. The right arm is from GW’s zombie set, and the right wrist with the claw comes from Mantic’s ghoul sprue. I also greenstuffed tattered remains of clothing around his waist to mask the join between the legs and the torso. Wightenstein’s right arm still bears old, undead flesh – no doubt kept in its state by some vile magic in the claw.

He was given a quick, simple paint job. I went for a rusty, old armour look. The clothing (or rather lack of it) posed a problem, but I tried to convey the black and purple uniform of the Ravens nevertheless. I’m fairly happy with the model, but less so with my progress with the team. The league is scheduled to kick off soon, and I’d love to field a fully painted team for once.

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #6 – First peek at the Ravens

December 7, 2011

The Blood Bowl heat is still going strong. Earlier I showed you the pitch, now it’s time to take a peek at the team. As shown before, our Blood Bowl teams have mostly taken their inspiration from existing teams and this time’s no exception. My Necromantic team – the Drakwald Ravens – is modelled on the NFL team Baltimore Ravens. The black & purple theme fits perfectly into the undead look, so this was an obvious direction to go to.

In an effort to avoid buying too many new miniatures, I’ve tried to use miniatures I already own. The only exception to this are a bunch of Mantic zombies, which I’ve been wanting to get my hands on for a while. Even these I managed to buy second hand at a low price. The rest of my team consists of Mantic ghouls, West Wind werewolves, FU-UK tank zombies (as flesh golems) and two wights assembled from bits and pieces. As most readers should know, I’ve started a few projects along the years, mostly revolving around the undead and various related critters. It should come as no surprise, then, that I’ve more than enough minis to make a Blood Bowl team. Funnily enough the zombies were the one thing that I lacked! This is mainly due to actually converting all of my medieval-ish zeds into a more modern look.

Naming is always important in Blood Bowl (to me at least). The BB/Warhammer universe is filled with more or less succesful puns and bastardisations of existing contemporary and historical names. Never one to skip a chance for some groanworthy punning, I decided to name the Ravens after various philosophers of the German-speaking world. Enter such stars as Immortal Kant, Georg Henrik von Wight, Arthur Schopenhowler and Karl Eye-Popper. Oh, I had so much fun with these. If I ever need foreign additions to the team, I’ll be sure to include David Exhume and John Stuart Kill.

Anyway, I’ve already started painting my team and I’m happy to present you my first flesh golem, Max Hurtheimer. He’s a Left 4 Dead inspired tank zombie from the 2009 FU-UK sculpting competition. In Blood Bowl, the flesh golems are usually creatures styled after Frankenstein’s monster, but I’ve always wanted to find a good use for my two tanks, so I figured they fit the bill just fine. The paintjob’s a bit more messy than my usual fare, but I still like him as I think he manages to look pretty menacing and corpse-like. He was painted mostly following my general recipe for zombies.

Click for a larger version

That’s it for now. Expect to see some more Ravens in the near future. I plan to grind through painting them in short order. After all, it’s just 14 or so models, one of which is already painted (as well as another, if I just repaint the pants and the base). How hard can it be?

Posted in Blood Bowl, Miniatures | Tagged , | 5 Comments »

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #5 – The pitch

December 4, 2011

As I mentioned in the previous post, I started working on a new, 3d pitch for Blood Bowl. To my surprise I’ve already finished it. No, seriously! I’ve actually completed a miniatures-related project in short order, go me!

What follows is a quick tutorialish look at the process. I built the pitch mostly following CoG’s example. I’m a firm believer in recycling old stuff, and I’m happy to report that I didn’t really need to spend a lot of money on this project.

My first step was cutting up an old leftoverf piece of blue foam sheet. There was a slight problem with this, as the piece wasn’t completely symmetric and was a few millimetres too narrow at one end. I simply chose to accept that this would lead to some wonky lines, but was better than having to ditch the piece and needing to cut a new one. In case you wandered on to this post looking for the pitch dimensions, I made the squares 29mm, with the pitch being 26 by 15 squares including the endzones. I used masking tape to tidy up the board edges.

The sheet was then painted using cheap craft store acrylics and a large paintbrush and left to dry for a good while.

Click for a larger version

When the paint was dry, I sprayed the board with a thin mixture of water and PVA glue and chucked on a variety of flocks. I left the board to dry for a fair few hours (5-6 probably) and then, using a large brush, dappled a similar thinned down PVA over the whole board to seal the flock. I then left the board to dry overnight.

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With the board dry I painted in some splashes of blood – this is Blood Bowl, you know. I then stuck pushpins at regular intervals along all edges of the pitch to mark the squares. At this point I was reminded of the fact that the field was asymmetrical indeed, and I had to do some fudging to make the squares work and fit. This naturally led to some very…interesting squares, but it’s nothing too serious.

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After sticking the pins in, I connected the pins with string length- and breadthwise to make a square grid. This grid was then used to mark the corners of the pitch squares.

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After that there was only the dreary, dreary task of painting in the pitch lines and the little crosses denoting the square corners. As a finishing touch I painted the edges of the board with cheap black acrylic paint. The finished table is shown below. And no, it’s not that askew, the photo angle is to blame!

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Even with all its little flaws, I’m still very happy about my work on the board for several reasons. First and foremost is that I actually made it, instead of starting work on it and then half-finishing it and sticking it in a closet. It’s now finished, and I don’t have to do anything to it anymore. Second is that I managed to use some of the old stuff I already had lying around instead of buying a lot of new. Third is that it actually looks pretty neat, and I can’t wait to get some gaming done on it.

So there you go! With a serious Blood Bowl heat going on, I’ll probably next tell you about my new, low-cost team. That’s a topic for another post, though.

Posted in Blood Bowl | 5 Comments »

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