Monday, December 10, 2012

Skink Conversion for Blood Bowl







Some basic Green stuff sculpts to make the skink more suitable for the Blood Bowl pitch.



Starting with Skink archer miniature from Warhammer Battle plastic line. Cut away the weapons and the arrow quiver from the back.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Lego set 10030 - Star Destroyer




Lately been busy building this behemoth of a space ship: Imperial Star Destroyer. Huge set with over 3.000 parts... So, slow progress on Blood Bowl front because of this project.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Lizardmen BB Saurus mods



Primer still visible on the knee pad and the base, going for the rust effect on the helmet. Still missing some primary colors, but the general idea is that mismatched gear has been looted and found here and there. And the humid jungle has made the corrosion set in.


Pinning the helmet with double wire, keeps it in place even when going gets rough on the pitch.

Harvesting the Wehrmacht helmet from toy soldier. Iron saw cuts the head easy enough.



Painting still work in progress, grey primer still on helmet, basic green lizard tone with Citadel Foundation Green + some Vallejo blue.





More details of greenstuff mods on Saurus figs.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Lizardmen Blood Bowl team - progress report





Taking the weapon off - and smoothing the cast imperfections.



The start of the Saurus players: bitbox full of Warhammer leftover plastics. Shields and weapons are not needed - detached right hand gives some much needed variation.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Dungeonbowl - Sudden Death update

Three player Dungeonbowl match: starting from lower left corner - Red Anvils (Chaos Dwarf), upper left - Turska Pojkar (Norse) and from top right - FC Vislanders XII (Lizardmen). Norse team has the highest rating 1.830.000 gp - giving reroll inducement for Dwarfs and two star players for Lizards: Morg'n'Thorg and Hemlock. And rarely it is seen that Side Step skill can be used to cause this much Turn Overs and even Casualtys...

Layout had 8 teleports, half of them in the central cave. Here situation seen mid game where Norse Yhetee is camping on Teleport 4, looking for new victims after killing one of the Saurus Lizards. Game spilled some Hobgoblin blood too, when the misdirected revenge of the Vislanders fell hard on the greenskins. Apothecary saved the life of Hobbo nro 10 with Dodge skill - nice move since the same Goblin got MVP and second skill upgrade.

This from the first Lizard rush to the Endzone - Alien figure representing Hemlock, and red Descent beastmen as Saurus figure stand-ins.

All three hobbos ended in the Injured box, and Frenzy Chaos Dwarf Blocker was lost in the void when Teleport misfired the poor bastard out of the game. Almost half of the team gone and Minotaur being the useless Wild Animal as usual rolling on the dungeon floor, Red Anvils Bull Centaurs had the all the responsibility of scoring. They failed miserably.
Every team had a chance to score, here Norse offense runs into trouble when Morg'n'Thorg and Hemlock attack from the behind and Minotaur blocks the way ahead. Finally on the turn 21 (!) Hemlock makes the touchdown and makes the new Lizard teams first win a reality.

Epilogue - Lessons learned
The game went on and on - the Sudden Death rules were in action but they failed in the regard that the Spiked Ball was hard to the touch - leaving the ball usually on the floor and not in possession of any team. It was agreed that new addition to the rules should read: "From the start of the 16. turn for the remainder of the game - Touchdown can be scored on any Endzone on the board, not just the oposite Enzone from the teams starting location." And in addition the rules should be rewritten so that they have some effect even when the ball is not carried by a player.

Few things to bear in mind when deciding where to put those teleport pads. Connectivity : Putting teleports to those hard to reach dungeon dead ends is a good idea: now those parts of the cave design got more traffic and action.
Opportunity attack : Placing Teleport next to walls is usually a good idea - this makes camping at them not so tempting.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Blood Bowl Match Report: Red Anvils vs. FC Vislanders XII

It is the start of a new era: Chaos Dwarf team Red Anvils has opened Blood Bowl home stadium!

This playing field has been on the works for quite a while, it's a two part construction, first there was the Dugout and then the pitch itself.

The first visitor to the new dwarf stadium was FC Vislanders XII Lizardman team. This starting team had full six Saurus lizards and Kroxigor on the roster. With inducements they bought the services of Slibli - the infamous star player of the reptile folk - for this game.

The Hashut blessed the first game with huge blizzard - Sure Feet skill on the Bull centaurs would come in handy.

Red Anvils started with usual left hook wedge formation, but the dwarfs soon found out the hard way that even newbie Lizard team can play some mean ball with all those ST 4 guys...

Only the strong pills of the apothecary saved Minotaur from death after being fouled by Saurus gang. Soon after that the hired gun Slibli killed the most experienced hobgoblin: Xobt Evilstench, number 9 in midfield. The fast scoring greenskin will be missed - but maybe this was the blood baptism needed for the new pitch.
The game was just bashing all thru first half - no touchdowns but lot of casualtys. On the second half Lizards started to form the cage around the only surviving Skink with the ball - but it was busted by Bull centaur blitz.
After the Minotaur was saved by the apothecary the Anvils Injured box was kept clean - dead hobgoblin slave was buried where he fell, under the stone slabs of midfield.
On the 15th turn the Red Anvils hobbo number 10 made the matches only touchdown, winning the game for the dwarfs. MVP went to the Claw mutation Blocker (nro 3), he sure revenged the hell out of Lizards.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Warhammer Saurus to BB Kroxigor


Closeup of the skull detail.

Green stuff sculpt of the left hand and skull detail on the base.
First a layer of Milliput Terracotta to the hand and base.
The modified right hand is glued in place and pinned with the same metal wire that servers as skeleton for the left hand sculpt.
Copper base, magnet and head attached. Had the idea of putting magnet to the base - with that could attach the metal Bone-head marker to the figure, when it looses Tackle Zones it's easy to forget. Starting ideas: something to stand as Lizardman and Slann big guy - Kroxigor. Have noted that too large Big Guy models just take up too much space on the pitch, especially when prone. So, this time around Saurus Lord could do the trick just nicely. Loose the weapon from the right and make new left hand from scratch cos removing the shield would be too cumbersome.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Foam board Blood Bowl Pitch

Glued the black foam board on top of thicker white board. Some turf detail with added Citadel Texture paint.
Some UHU Por styrox glue to hold the Turf in place.
Using pliers to start the right corners of chess styled board, and poking holes for some added grass. Black foam board that has grey backside and foam - nice astrogranite feel right out of the box. 30 mm squares, and made the usual first mistake with using old and dull blade... After some Dungeon bowl its gonna be nice to get back to the regular Blood Bowl pitch. But to make this return nicer started to build new pitch out of foam board, or "kapa-levy" as the material is called here in Finland.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Dungeonbowl revisited


Had few more Dungeonbowl games. One with three players (image of dungeon setup above) went quickly and nicely: ball was in the second treasure chest and High Elfs were fast enough to score after the humans fumbled with the ball... The layout had two alternate routes to each Endzone and 8 Teleports instead on the usual 6.

After this we tried the game with five coaches going at it in the same dungeon, this made the game slow and too random. Plus we played for 16 turns without a touchdown. So, to counter this started to think about some new House rules, namely Sudden Death Table.
More rules and modifications on the works. Mainly to provide more variation and balance to the game when played with regular Blood Bowl team rosters, instead the Colleges of Magic team lists within the original rules.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Chaos Dwarf Blocker - Mutation Magnet Hand

New hand painted with first ink washes. Hand detached from the body. Some Green stuff modification of the hand - bigger the Claw the better. 2mm drill gave the perfect fit for magnets. Old hand and new Dark Eldar claw hand seen next to the base. These strong little magnets came in handy. The smaller ones are only 2mm in diameter. Got these from nice shop with fast delivery Gaussboys. Finally my first Chaos Dwarf Blocker rolled doubles on the advance chart - this meant access to mutation skills. Choose the Claw skill to boost the bashing effect of the team. Wanted the miniature to show his new ability, but with a option to "normalize" it in case of a casualty... But the first thing was to saw the old hand of.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Dungeonbowl First Test

Dungeonbowl? What did you say?

"The key difference between Dungeonbowl and Blood Bowl as is rather obvious from the name, is that Dungeonbowl is played in a dungeon!"

So, giving this concept the first tryout we got some dungeon floor tiles from Fantasy Flight Games Descent and some treasure counters from the same game. Some tape and markers made fast teleport tiles numbered from 1 to 6. Game board after the first turn. Tried to keep the board layout simple and symmetrical. Human team started from red-white endzone on lower left, Dark Elfs opposite from them in Violet-white and Chaos Dwarfs from Blue-white. Six treasure chests were placed in the big central cave. Teleport locations highlighted - those quick-n-dirty tapes don't show too clear in the pictures. All teams grab the closest chest and suffer some turn overs because of the traps. In the picture human team Indian runner is standing over the chest that finally revealed the ball. Human team star player Mighty Zug is first with the ball - and his AG of 2 makes him the first to drop it too. Human screen is fortunately in place - big crowd gathers in the central chamber. Human thrower makes the pass - but lineman have no luck on the catch department. So, Dark Elf blitzer is the next one to try his luck with the pinky disco ball. Elfs throw the ball - but a small miracle happens - and Hobgoblin intercepts in mid flight! Bull centaurs guard the hobbos run. Dark Elf runner teleports in an attempt to prevent the goal, only to get blocked out of the way by Chaos Dwarf Blocker with claw mutation. On turn 8 the lucky greenskin scores a touchdown and thus ends the game.

First impression notes on Dungeonbowl

Game has clearly more randomness than the regular Blood Bowl - movement thru teleports is risky business and the starting location of the ball is rolled with dice. If more random equals more fun for gamers this is not a problem. Ending the game with first touchdown and fewer player figures on the team gives faster playtime, even with three coaches going at it. After the game it was agreed that more alternative routes to the endzones might give good variation to the tactics. We used our regular BB team rosters - not the college of magic lists given in basic Dungeonbowl rules. Inducements were taken with full team value, but only 9 players in game - six starting on endzones, three reserves.