Seven Skavens!

Time to turn my attention back to my little collection of sporting rats. You may remember that back in September I put together an Underworld Denizens team by combining my Goblins and Snotlings with a few Skaven. Now it’s time to return to those Skaven and, by adding a few more recruits, turn them into a team of their own. Part of my plan was to get the rest of the team finished but, as I mentioned recently, I’ve got a lot of things on the go at the moment. I’m excited about sporting skaven – but I’m also excited about lots of other things so I’ve got to prioritise. It was at this point however that I remembered some wise advice from that fount of knowledge on all things Blood Bowl – Faust of Double Down Dice – who reminded me of the existence of Blood Bowl Sevens. Sevens is a set of alternative rules for Blood Bowl with the key difference being teams made of just seven players, rather than the standard eleven. So whilst getting my rats ready for a full game of Blood Bowl called for quite a bit of painting Sevens was much more manageable – easily slotted into my jam-packed schedule. Later I’ll try to drum up a few more bodies to bring the team to full strength. To get us started though, here’s a Clanrat Lineman…

…and another one…

Lastly I wanted to add some savage muscle to the team in the form of a Rat Ogre. For this I certainly wasn’t going to pay Forge World prices for the official model, nor was I going to mess around with the plastic kit sold by Games Workshop (I’ve painted enough of those in my lifetime thank you very much!). Instead I had a rummage around on ebay and found myself a Powered Rat Brute, made by ResinWarfare and 3d printed and sold by Mousillon Miniatures.

Here’s the team, all set for action.

Lastly I decided to paint a couple of markers for the team as well.

And there we have it – another team of Seven’s good to go. Next step will be recruiting even more rodents and turning them into a full team, but that’s a job for another day.

Varag Ghoul-Chewer

I think I promised that this month was going to be all about Orks with a “K” but needless to say an Orc has rudely barged in anyway. The infamous Blood Bowl star player Varag Ghoul-Chewer has been on the edge of my painting desk since last Orctober and I finally faced the fact that he’s not going to paint himself – impressive though that might be – so I’d better get on with it myself. Anyway, he’s done now – rival sportsmen beware!

Incidently, those of you who’re viewing this through the WordPress reader may find that some of the pictures are strangely outsized and distorted. I presume this is yet another case of WordPress deciding to make work for themselves and irritate their users by finding something that ain’t broke and attempting to fix it anyway, bless ‘em. If the problem doesn’t resolve itself soon I’ll look into seeing if there’s anything I can do at my end – in the meantime the website doesn’t appear to be affected so if it bothers you (and it should!) please go to convertordie.wordpress.com and look at the posts there.

Anyway, time to get back to the 41st Millennium!

The Shadowland Lowlifes

The other day I was thinking about Blood Bowl teams and pondering how I could cheat and behave in a devious manner in order to achieve my aims (in this case to have lots of teams painted up and ready for a game). That’s when it struck me – if you want dastardly rascals look no further than the Underworld Denizens team; truly a bunch of scheming ne’er-do-wells if ever I saw them! For the uninitiated the Underworld’s teams are made up of a mixture of creatures which make their homes in dank caves deep beneath the earth and emerge only to play Blood Bowl before slinking back into the gloom. The team draws upon the dubious combined talents of goblins (of which I recently completed a team), snotlings (of which I have plenty already painted), skaven and a big guy such as a troll. In other words all I needed to do to get another Blood Bowl team up and running was paint a few rats – and having already painted hundreds of them for WHFB I reckoned that would be no bother.

Having poured over the rules for literally minutes, and applied my next-to-nonexistent knowledge of how the game is played, I concluded that the best thing to do would be to paint up one each of the available Skaven positions, starting with a gutter runner…

… a thrower…

… a stormvermin blitzer…

… and finally a lowly clanrat.

And just like that another team is formed and ready for sporting glory!

It’s been a while since I painted any Skaven so this was a refreshing reminder of how much I enjoy them. If only Games Workshop would do something to refresh the range in a serious way *hint-bloody-hint*. In the meantime though I might well come back to these furry little guys soon and turned them into a full blown Skaven team. Not yet though because the next little while is going to be all about the greenskins!

The Cheatin’ Gitz – Part 2

Last time we were on the Blood Bowl pitch I was working on my Goblin team. Now we’re back with the little green gits to paint up the final three (for now). These rascals come from the Forge World Killer Kontraptions set which I treated myself to a while back. First of all we have the rambunctious Ooligan…

… then the Pogoer (who’s head has been swapped for one from the Night Goblins)…

…and lastly the Doom Diver.

Add them to the various other Goblins I’ve painted lately and there’s a whole new team ready to go!

I reckon I’ve done pretty well with Blood Bowl over the last couple of month but, as regular readers will no doubt have guessed already, there’s still plenty more still to do.

The Cheatin’ Gitz – Part 1

Right, I know what you’re thinking. Another Blood Bowl team Wudugast? Another greenskin team? I mean, fair enough, paint more teams, Blood Bowl is cool, but you do know there’s more to the game than just green guys right? You’ve already got an Orc team, and a Black Orc team, and then there’s those Snotlings that you should be finishing – do you need to start a Goblin team as well? 

Well here’s my excuses. The thing is, I actually have quite a few Goblins already. I painted six of the runty little gits for my Black Orcs and another four for my normal Orcs, which means I have almost enough to field a team already. They wouldn’t be a very good team but still… 

Back when I started my original Orc team I bought myself a set of Goblins, partly to assist the Orcs and partly because I thought at some point I’d like to paint the whole set and have a Goblin team as well. Of course it’s taken me a while to get around to it, but here we are at last. I also have a troll who I might as well get my moneys’ worth out of now that I’ve finally got around to painting him. 

As well as the ordinary Goblin Linemen and their Trained Trolls there are six other positions on a Goblin team. These tricky, sneaky, cheaty little so-and-so’s are where a lot of the strengths (such as they are) of a Goblin team lie, or so I’m told anyway. The art of playing Goblins, it has often been repeated to me, is to drag the opposition down to your level and beat them with experience. A while ago, when I was putting in an order with Forge World, I talked myself into buying models for three of these positions; the ‘Ooligan, Pogoer and Doom Diver. Anyway, that left me with three positions to fill; the Fanatic, Loony and Bomma. I already have a few Fanatics around so I grabbed one I’d already painted and press-ganged him into the team. 

Anyway, enough of models I’ve already painted – lets look at some new stuff! My next step was to dig around in the bits box and kitbash myself a Bomma with a suitability volatile-looking fungal bomb. 

I didn’t really need more Goblin Linemen but I had a couple of them sitting around so I painted them up anyway.

Lastly I turned my attention to the (chainsaw wielding) Loony. I experimented a couple of times with making my own but nothing really looked right. As I was struggling with this however I stumbled upon Slugkap Kipplecrac, a limited edition model from a company called Geek Salad. He was perfect for the job so how could I possibly resist? Better yet, the model I received turned out to be number 007. Those who survive his chainsaw rampages will undoubtedly be shaken, but not stirred. 

The name’s Kipplecrac, Slugkap Kipplecrac!

With these done I’m well on my way to having the Goblin team up and running, especially as I can borrow things like tokens and markers from the Orcs (I’m already borrowing half their players after all!). All being well I should get the final lads finished soon.

The Wight Stripes

Bouncing straight from one undead Blood Bowl team to another might seem like madness but as usual there is a method lurking in there somewhere. My thinking goes something like this; the core of both teams are made up of zombies and ghouls, and in fact I’ve used these interchangeably as I put together the Necromantic Horrors team. That only leaves me with a few skeletons, wights and mummies to paint to get Shambling Undead team up and running as well. So I put my necromantic energies to good use again this week and got the two mummies match ready.  

Followed by a pair of Wights…

…one more Ghoul…

…and four Skeleton linemen.

Put them all together with some models borrowed from my Necromantic Horrors team and we have another completed team. Not bad for a weeks’ work!

Of course, this is still far from being all of the Blood Bowl players lurking on the desk – expect to see more shortly as this sporting extravaganza continues!

The Up-Town Ghouls – Part 5

It’s July, the sun is shining and everyone wants to get outdoors and run around in the fresh air. These long hot summer days are making me feel like taking up a sport so I’m going to spend this month concentrate on my Blood Bowl backlog.

First to take to the pitch are my team of Necromantic Horrors. I’ve been working on these since the start of the year so now it’s time to get the last couple of players unearthed and unleashed. After all you can’t have a team called the Up-Town Ghouls without a pair of ghouls can you?

And just like that the team are ready for action!

Of course there’s still a few other odds and ends before we can call this project done; a couple of counters…

… and a couple of markers. These actually belong with the Shambling Undead team (more on them soon) but I really like the look of them so I fast-tracked them up the queue and decided to lend them out to the Ghouls whenever they need them.

Now they just need someone to play against. I already have my Orc teams but variety is the spice of life and I’ve got plenty more Blood Bowl on the desk so let’s see what else we can get finished over the next few weeks.

The Up-Town Ghouls – Part 4

I’m aware that the last time I posted anything about this team I promised that I’d be adding a couple of ghouls to the roster and since then a) I’ve been completely distracted by other things and b) I’ve still not painted any ghouls. In the interests of redressing the balance a little though here’s a bunch more zombies. 

No-one can accused this team of lacking bodies (boom boom). Here’s all the zombies I’ve painted so far.

Anyway, next time I work on this team it really will be ghouls because those aside the team is almost done. 

The Stupendous Swamptown Superstars – Part 1

Time for some more Blood Bowl players as I make a blatant attempt to pad out the number of models I’ve painted this month with lots of tiny Snotlings, using a mix of new plastics and a few of the old metal models I’ve had sitting about. 

Want to see a group shot of the whole collection so far? Of course you do!

I’ve always had a soft spot for Snotlings (oh all right, I have a soft spot for greenskins of all descriptions but I am particularly fond of the little snots). Needless to say I’ve got loads of them kicking around so expect to see this infestation grow and grow! 

The Up-Town Ghouls – Part 3

More undead sportsmen take to the pitch! After taking a bit of a break to concentrate on Fembruary it’s time that I got back to Blood Bowl and my Necromantic Horrors team. First to come lurching out of the corpse-works we have a hulking flesh golem. 

He’ll be joining his team mate who I painted previously in providing some reanimated muscle for the team.

He’s not alone either, joining him on the pitch are two fresh(-ish!) zombies.

I also added to the selection of Blood Bowl balls I have available with these two disgusting offerings.

With these done the team is coming together nicely, the next thing it needs is a pair of ghouls.