Dark Elf Team Acquisition

There's no shortage of Blood Bowl in my neck of the woods, my only lament is that my gaming palette is so full and diverse that there is little time devoted to it unfortunately. I'm still always looking out to add to the collection though and this recent trade was better than I could've hoped for. Right out of the box, err, because of the box, I got...the box. Not that I'm a collector of original packaging or anything, but it was a nice bonus.


Next was the biggest delight and that figs are painted very well. I had even checked my levels of Simple Green before receiving the package just to make sure I had enough to strip the team. One look at these figs and no, I will not be stripping them, they'll play as is! Sure, there might be a few tweaks here and there, but they are good to go. We've been talking about creating an Elf-only division in our Blood Bowl league, the Painsphere. Though I already have painted Wood and High Elf teams, I didn't have a Dark Elf team, and you can never have enough Blood Bowl teams! So look for these sinister players hitting the pitch soon!

Chaos Pact; Small, Medium, and Large

I finished up some of my non-human players on the Blood Gryphons. They seem pretty glossy because I haven't Dull Coted them yet, the weather in my neck of the woods has been about ninety-five degrees every day with about 90% humidity...not good sealing weather. Since my Blood Bowl figs see the most (and roughest) action, I really varnish them down to protect them. Once the Dull Cote goes on they're good to go.


Slab Crag-Iron, my Chaos Ogre; Ogre Kingdoms parts


Lomnis Spannerback, Goblin troublemaker with a one strength


Critt Hakk'ck, Skaven with the (bone) claw mutation

The Blood Gryphons; Chaos Pact Team

With about a dozen games under my belt with the Gorgons I thought I would switch things up and try a new team. I'm not hurting for choices in the extra teams department and had some decision making to do. I settled on a Chaos Pact team for many reasons.

First up is that it is, in essence, a human team with its Marauders. I have a lot of experience playing a human team from way back when so this was a good foundation. Next up is that you can opt to field a Skaven, a Goblin, and a Dark Elf, so my desire to play any of those three teams (more if ccount all the different Elven teams) is satiated. Finally you get choices in your big guys, you're not just stuck with one. These can be Ogres, Trolls, or Minotaurs, or if you've got a huge treasury...a combination of the three.

Admittedly, Brian's nicely painted Chaos Pact team over at Repple Depple was the final straw that persuaded me to go in this direction.


I am using my leftover Norse team as the basis for the Chaos Pact, and the horn-helmed Norse make for perfect Marauders. The team photo at the top of the post shows most of the original paint jobs which were there when I got the team. I've only painted two members so far, the two directly above, but you can see where I'm going with the color scheme. Also, you can see I am using a female model for my team's Dark Elf.


The only good news is that this team is being made up of models I already own, or ones I am trading for. In the case of the old school Troll above, ones I'm receiving from friends for free (thanks again John). I have too many teams in storage to justify spending another dime on a new team. You can also see some of the primed figs I whipped up for the team and haven't gotten around to painting yet. In the case of my Ogre, I was too late; he died by failing a 'go for it' roll causing him to trip and break his neck. That's right, no apothecary!

Anyway, I'll still paint him up along with the others. Since there are no 'catchers' on the Chaos Pact team I plan to use the 'bear claw' gloved Norsemen figures as those players who receive the 'claw' mutation upgrade, seems a pretty natural choice. There's actually no positonal players whatsoever, you kind of create them as you go along with the wide variety of skills they are eligible for. The jar full of figs and fluids is the Simple Green soak, waiting for the next batch to prepare for painting.

Mik the Blitzing Thunderhoof

It's not every day that you get professional-level, animated portraits of yourself in all kinds of different gaming genres. Or, if you're like me and are buddies with just such a person, you may. I can safely say however that there's probably not too many people in the world that have been caricatured as Chaos Dwarf Bull Centaurs!

A few days ago Bi3cuit whipped up a new Blood Bowl themed banner for the Minions of the Monster Master blog. As always, it ain't too shabby, and as I've already said...I'm a friggin' Bull Centaur! Oh yeah, bonus profile pic too! To date:

Mik as a Bolter-wielding Holiday Elf!

Mik as a veteran Mouse Guard adventurer!

Mik's Mouse Guard veteran disguised as Ash!

Mik in HALO-style power armor!

Mik as an Inquisitorial adept agent!


...and of course, one of my favorites. My "almost" zombie survivor portrait!

Red Giant and White Dwarf

If you're thinking you've seen this Minotaur before...you're right! In prepping for the recently held birthday Blood Bowl bash I decided to re-base my Minotaur. Originally he was slated to play for my Chaos team, but they got sold and he didn't have a home. No problem, the Chaos Dwarves were more than happy to sign him. Well, he's a big model no doubt about it, and I needed to slim up his base for sure. A metal washer later and he's good to go.



I couldn't bring myself to field anything unpainted at the tournament so I set about painting the last of my Chaos Dwarf blockers. He was primed white for so long I had to keep something to honor that. Also, instead of using a Lego cowboy hat this time I opted for a regular hairpiece, it's an interesting look for him. His nickname will be "the Coif", and I kept his beard and hair white to honor his longstanding unpainted status.

A.C. Memorial Blood Bowl Tourney

Me, strategerizing for some maximum block dice

Andy said, "Hey, let's play Blood Bowl for eleven hours on my birthday!" I grabbed a football jersey, emailed my buddy Tristan for tourney team-building advice, and hit the pitch. The 'memorial' in the title is a tribute to the fact that Andy was turning forty, not that he had, point in fact, shuffled his mortal coil.


It wasn't just a 'day of Blood Bowl', it was rolled out as a true tournament, with round-robin style match-ups to start the day off with and a skills draft between matches. Other interesting nuggets included double star player points during the games, an additional MVP you could choose to put on a player in the post-match, double earnings, and most importantly for those low armored teams out there...no "miss next game" injury results.

From the photo above you can see that at its height there were no fewer than six simultaneous games being played. A thirteenth player would eventually show up, but a couple of players had to bow out early as well. Overall it was a blast, great food, drink, gaming, and of course, hanging out with friends.


I went with my Chaos Dwarves because, well, I've been playing them the most lately and didn't want a whole new learning curve to throw in on top of a tournament. Everyone started with all new teams, so I had to build my team, Hashut's Hammers, up from scratch. I've actually learned a lot from my mistakes building my league team, the Gorgons of Gorgoth, so that helped quite a bit.

What really helped, as I mentioned, was recruiting Tristan's advice. Of all the friends I've got out there, he travels most frequently to NAF approved (and other sanctioned) Blood Bowl tourneys. I told him my general game plan, what I wanted to accomplish, and he gave me some great tips on how to get there. For the most part, what he really helped with, was the change in mindset in my play style itself. The Chaos Dwarves are a great team, but can be a bit fiddly, and you really have to understand their strengths to get them proficient.

Game One Versus Wood Elves: Win 2-0

I couldn't have hoped for a better draw than my first round against a notoriously low-armored team. The good news for my opponent, Tom, was the aforementioned "no miss next game" injury results. The bad news for Tom was my new play-style focused around fouling as one of my main tools to clear the pitch. Well it worked, quite well. In addition to the multitude of knock-outs, I racked up four casualties as well. I won't forget Andy's reaction in the hallway after the match (he was also the tournament director) when he asked about the casualties I scored but he didn't see any SPP's. Fouls weren't the only tool in the kit though, multiple block dice, blitzing minotaurs, the works all came together in crunchy harmony. At one point I had the Wood Elves down to just two players on the pitch. I was able to walk in two touchdowns to a very agile Wood Elves' zero touchdowns. [EDIT: Somehow I went and deleted my one match shot against the Wood Elves and can't find it. They had a Tree Man too...]

Game Two Versus Norse: Loss 1-0

I don't have a pic of game two, playing Andy's own cleverly named Norse team, Turning Thorty. The score indicates a loss, but it was just two die rolls away from a tie. It was a tough game, the Norse may be AV7, but they all come with a very good starting skill in Block, making them tougher to knock down. Also it seemed my expendable fouling Hobgoblins were always in the wrong place to come up and deliver a swift boot to a downed player. I recall Andy had some miserable luck concerning the 'Sweltering Heat' kickoff table result. What do you expect though? His team was modeled with snow on their bases, of course they're going to suffer from sweltering heat! Anyway, as with the Wood Elves, I cleared the Norse off the board for the most part and surrounded his remaining players. All I had to do was pick up the ball and walk it in for a touchdown on the last turn of the game, tying it up. To boot, the AG3 Hobgoblin selected for the task had the Sure Hands skill! Alas, I failed two 3+ rolls in a row!


Game Three Versus Chaos: Loss 2-1

If Chaos Dwarves are tough, plain old Chaos is even tougher...and they get better minotaurs! My last match was against these guys, The Unknown. This team would eventually go on to be first place on the day and overall tournament winner, so it was going to be tight. Their "fodder" players, unlike mine, were AV8 and had Horns which let them blitz like ST4 players. His Chaos Warriors were like my Chaos Dwarf Blockers, except they were faster and had better agility. I did have a minotaur which he did not, but the edges overall went to him. It was a tough match and the score doesn't tell the whole story. I was down 2-0 for most of the match and only scored that one TD late in the second half, much too late to make a difference really. The casualties on both sides were surprisingly low as well.

Well, that's a wrap. Quite frankly I was ready to roll with a fourth match, but the energy of the assembled players had dwindled quite a bit. In between games all day there was a lot of good food (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and drink to be had. A couple of guys were friends of old that had come in from out of town as well. It was definitely fun, but already people were lamenting the inability to keep playing their tourney team further. My own birthday is this summer, maybe we'll have a tourney part two then. Who knows?

The 2nd One is my 1st One

March is basically over and I'm just now posting my first painted figure of the year. That's unbelievable. Mind you, I do have a lot of irons in the fire right now, but first figure? March? I had jokingly thought after posting record numbers in painting for 2010 that I might sit back and rest on my laurels, well guess what? Yup, laurel resting is in full effect, you've been warned!

As you can see from the bits carnage up above, 2011's first painting foray was for a second Bull Centaur to add to my Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team, the Gorgons of Gorgoth. The Chaos Dwarves are a surprisingly finesse-driven team, coupled of course with sheer brutality. Bull Centaurs offer the best of both worlds, but why have one Bull Centaur when you can have two?

For the model I got a Bull Centaur standard bearer off of eBay. It came painted already, nothing great but it had a coat or two of paint in seemingly the right places. The model also had a large standard in its right hand an a wicked looking curved sword in its left hand. Both of those had to go of course, as did the top half of his big hat to make way for the customary Lego cowboy hat.


I should've grabbed my other Bull Centaur for some comparison shots. Unlike the first one, this Bull is not the official Blood Bowl model but just from the (now defunct) fantasy range. The proportions of the bull body are exactly the same, but this one is noticeably less beefy. Plus his face sculpt is a tad wonky. Otherwise, based up and on the pitch he should blend in well with the rest of the team.


I don't have a name for this guy yet, but I thought "Dances With Hooves" was kind of funny. Hopefully he'll be making an appearance on the team soon, I have the gold right now to buy him, but I'm still waffling. I need to drop a move-busted Hobgoblin for sure if I do, but then again I could buy a fifth reroll. It seems a bit excessive, but I have a lot of skill-less agility two players out there and I like to push the envelope a bit when it comes to the odds. Enjoy!

Great Stuff Over at GW Pertinent

There's some goodness going on over in a fellow blogger's neck of the woods, GW Pertinent, and although I'm an avid reader I never really mention the sites I frequent. Well, Tristan's got a contest up about such a thing, so that was enough to spur me into action. I should say, this is quite the feat in and of itself considering my schedule recently!

So, in no particular order, here's three of my favorite posts of his on different gaming subject matter. They're supposed to all be from the 40k universe, well you might argue they are but frankly I like breaking the rules. Besides, variety is what gaming's all about. And I like breaking the rules.


#1: Warhammer Quest Characters

Obviously I'm a big WHQuest fan as you can tell from my past exploits here. Tristan's taking all of the characters, those form the base game as well as the character packs, and coming up with proxy equivalents to fill in. I particularly like the Trollslayer and Warrior Priest models he's chosen, both of which look better than the actual models that were put out for the game.


#2: Travel Space Hulk

Wow, this project is just way too cool. When I first saw it I knew right away it was destined for greatness. Okay, that might be a bit much, but I knew it was cool. The plan is to have little portable tiles, magnetized Epic figs, and all kinds of corridor-cleansing goodness. When I was a kid I used to really think the magnetized travel mini chess sets were cool, and his post immediately took back to that time of innocence, a time when bygone dreamers lazed about on warm spring days, the grass of the new dawn under their feet.


#3: Blood Bowl

Anything Blood Bowl under the sun can be found here. The thing that impresses me the most is the sheer amount of tournaments Tristan travels to and plays matches in. We're picking up the Blood Bowl gaming around these parts, and I've gotta say it's all of Tristan's Blood Bowl posts that kind of inspire me along the way. Here's a great post about his themed Orc team based off the St. Louis Rams.

Blood Bowl Oskars Tourney

One last pitch-o-rama before I'm sidelined a bit (hey, a pun). This past Sunday we got a bunch of peeps around the game table and threw some blocking dice. I believe there were maybe five total matches played that day. Some people were coming and going so it was hard to keep track. We pulled in some fresh blood as well, including a couple of guys new to the game, but I do believe they'll be back. All in all it was a good evening, good friends, food, drink, and of course fantasy football madness. As usual you can track all of the teams and matches on the newly made league page, the Painsphere. Rock on everyone.

Updating the Gorgons

The only thing it seems I'm doing right now is Blood Bowl, which any reader of this blog will know, is kind of weird. Not 'cause it's Blood Bowl, but because I'm only doing the one thing instead of the usual eight or nine simultaneous projects in ten different genres and probably two or three different scales! So I'm working on my team.


My team is 99% painted, but their bases weren't flocked, so that's what I sat down to do this day. I just went with a pretty basic flock, nice and green and easy to apply. Just a coat of white glue, undiluted, and a quick dip 'n swish in the tub.


Now the team is one thing, the players that go on the pitch are good to go, however I didn't have a coaching staff until now. Digging around in the deep recesses of my most remote bits bins I came up with some gems. For one, I found another Chaos Dwarf blocker, which is good so now I can quit proxying a WHFB fig. I also found a Hobgoblin with a spear, which will serve as my team's apothecary. He's currently sitting in Simple Green. Last is my head coach, the old Astragoth model, and I forgot how cool this guy was.


So, since my team is known for a different variety of "big funny" hats, I stuck to that theme here. I went with a giant super-fro for the player. The cowboy hats are cool, but this guy will be slightly different. For the coach I went with a "Stinky Pete" prospector hat.


The head coach is also going to have a steam-powered playbook!

Where in the World is Gyro Sandiego?

I am taking a break to just keep y'all informed since its been a bit since my last post. As you know, there's a game changer in the works and these last few weeks have been the final push to get everything ready for the baby.

So last weekend we deconstructed the guest bedroom and turned it into the nursery. The bed frame was converted back into a crib. Laundry has been diligently washed in eco-friendly hypo-allergenic fluids, and sheets applied to the mattress.

Today we built the changing table, wired up monitors, stocked goods, and constructed the basinet as well as the portable crib. It's been busy around here, but it's starting to look like it's physically ready to receive a young'un. I wish I was mentally ready though!

On the gaming front, it's pretty much just been Blood Bowl, which is good given what a great game it is. We're starting up a laid-back league, the Painsphere which you can track here. So far my Chaos Dwarf team, the Gorgons of Gorgoth, are 1-1 after playing matches against Skaven and Orcs. We're hoping to get some more of the local players from our other games on board.

In addition to the Blood Bowl there hasn't been much other gaming. I've playing the XBox version of Blood Bowl a lot, cranking through a handful of tournaments as well. I've got a couple of novels under my belt, which I also need to review. I've still yet to paint a single fig for the year! Tonight we're playing in our first (of hopefully many) game in a new fantasy RPG setting centered around the world of Sarterra. It's using the FATE system and the Legends of Anglerre rules.

So there you go, personal and gaming updates abound. Enjoy!

Thirteen Times the Blood...Bowl

Needless to say, just the two hour sample of Blood Bowl we played the other day has really sparked my interest again in one of the best tabletop games around. So I went rummaging through my stuff today and drug out all of the fantasy football figs I could muster and did a legitimate inventory. Some of this stuff dates back to second edition, so there were some changes to be made, and certainly some swaps to go around.

The one thing I need to honest about here is that I simply don't need thirteen teams. But letting go of minis is so hard to do. There are obvious choices for the auction block, like my Orcs, I have three Orc teams. Three, really? I think one will do just fine. There's other choices too, like my Undead, I just never got my head around their style of play and frankly I like being more of a scoring team, not a inure-the-other-guy team. Aggressively speaking I could get rid of about half the teams I own, and maybe even use some of the money I make to pick up a sweet looking third party team and paint them up right.


The Deadrock Goyles here are pretty much a hall of fame team. Not the Orc roster, but these actual models. They were the scourge of a league we played in way back when and seeing them here makes me wince. They are definitely my 'alpha' Orcs, so they'll be sticking around. I may pull figs off the other teams to fill their ranks.


This is a bit of an expanded team of Orcs. It has the basics plus a bunch of extras like a converted Troll big guy and a couple of Goblins. It has a metal Orc here and there to boot in the form of Blitzers and regular Linemen. After I pick out whatever I need for the Goyles, this one will be fodder for sure and on their way out.


This is a stock team, straight from the boxed set. It's a very nicely painted team and although it doesn't have any extras in it, the crisp paintjob makes up for it. This is a case where although I like the team, it's my third Orc team, it's days are numbered.


Here's a great looking Human team, mostly from the boxed set and mostly awesomely painted! In addition to the plastic figs, there's four metal second edition players in there, as well as a metal star player. A large Ogre has defected from the Orc team he used to be a part of to this new Human team. The men on the team however are too afraid to ask him to change his uniform. I'll be hanging on to these guys for sure.


It's almost embarrassing looking at my first Human team. They're pretty much straight from the boxed set as well, with some fun extras too, like two metal star players (one of which will probably get snagged for the other Human team) and a fourth Blitzer figure. As you just saw though, this is one Human team too many, and these chaps are headed out the door. They'll probably be a good bargain for somebody.


They're small, they're fast, and they have armor made from cardboard. Still, you gotta love the Skaven, they have lots of options and variety, and if coached right can be solid. As you can see these guys are a bit of a work in progress as I still have some unpainted mutant figs to do, and I need to rebase the Rat Ogre big guy in the back. I'll be keeping these guys around, and probably add some basic linemen at one point in the future.


The High Elves are another team I want to hang on to. They're more survivable than their Dark and Wood Elf cousins, and are the same speed of the Humans, which I'm used to coaching. If I buckled down, I feel I could coach these guys fairly well.


The Undead here are pretty flexible under the rules we've been looking at (LRB5). I pulled a second edition Werewolf from the Human team (since they can't have him anymore) and put him on the roster. Also on the roster, in addition to the regular team, is a second edition Flesh Golem (looks just like Frankenstein's monster), a Vampire star player, and a converted Ghoul. I like the idea of the Undead, but their days are numbered.


The only thing keeping these Chaos Dwarves from the chopping block is their theme. As you can see the Dwarves (including Centaur big guy) all have converted cowboy hats. In addition to the regular team is the aforementioned big guy, a converted bluderbussier, and a second edition cyborg Orc which I'm only guessing is still legal. I'm still up in the air on this one, I never play them, so someone else might get more out of them.


Here's a good example of a rock solid team that has the basics plus a little extra. Chaos is a great team with plenty of hitting power and good versatility in their line-Beastmen. I've also got a Minotaur big guy in there converted from a Reaper fig. I like these guys, but I can't keep them all just because I like them, they're days are numbered.


If the large (and painted) Chaos team's days are numbered then these guys aren't long for the world in my neck of the woods! There's barely enough here to even take to the field, but add in a big guy and maybe a fourth Chaos Warrior and you should be good to go.


I don't mind my team having an armor value of a lowly seven if they have the speed (Skaven) or the agility (Wood/Dark Elves) to back it up, but what the heck are the Norse packing under those spiked helms? Umm, not enough to keep them sticking around! I did manage to poke around and find another official second edition Werewolf to put in there too.


Not only am I keeping these Dwarves around, they may be the first ones on the painting and refurbishment assembly line. I love Dwarves, so I see no reason why I'd get rid of these, although I need at least four more Linemen to fill out their ranks.