Arthropods of the Wasteland

I'm of the opinion that you can't have too many vermin for your games. Many years ago, I picked up these Reaper Bones scorpions:

My 3D printer has churned out a swarm of giant ants and a hive entrance (from Imitation of Life):

I'm conscious that all my stuff recently has been rusty browns, so I went for green. A pretty sloppy highlight to tone down the very saturated Army Painter Orc Flesh, and dot in the eyes and jaws.

When I was a vulnerable lad, the TV advert below was somewhat formative. I'm sure Aussie males of a certain age will agree!

Sic 'em, Rex!

Blood Bowl Khorne

Tomorrow is the sporting event of the year- Eucalyptus Bowl! (FIFA eat your heart out!) I'm taking my Khorne team- Hardcore Khorne- these are the Ares Demons from MK1881. They were a pain to put together- I'm getting a bit sick of multipart metal figures. I didn't want them to have the typical red armour as I thought it would blend with the daemons' skin, so I went for white and I'm pretty happy with the colour scheme. The red skin was shaded with a mix of red and brown wash, and I like the final appearance.

Blood Bowl Khorne

I'm indebted to the Scalecreep team for the term 'haemoerotic'.

Blood Bowl Khorne Pitfighters

Blood Bowl Khorne Bloodletters

Blood Bowl Khorne Bloodthirster

I thought this terrifying familiar from Reaper would make a great coach:

Reaper familiar

And this is a great point to show these resin skull piles. I have had them for about 20 years, I think, and they're indestructible and versatile. I commonly use them in Blood Bowl for reroll markers, but I'm sure you can find a use for them in many games. They're still available from Eureka, and I can't recommend them enough.

Eureka Pile of Skulls

In other Blood Bowl news, my Ogre team paintjob has been used among some examples for a crowdfunding campaign to get these teams released in resin by Impact! Miniatures. Tom, the one man team at Impact!, helped keep Blood Bowl alive in the decades it was otherwise neglected. The crowdfunding campaign can be found here, and at time of blogging has a few days to run.

Blood Bowl Ogre team

A Game of Thrones

I had my first game of the Game of Thrones boardgame, with five other players. It is a nice little design based on The War of the Five Kings, with armies and fleets plodding about the board. The first player to get seven castles wins, or else whoever has the most at the end of ten rounds. As soon as someone gets close to winning, his (or her!) rivals tear them down. There's some additional friction with unpredictable end of round events, and the intrigue is abstracted by blind bidding to decide turn order, tie-breakers, and other hierarchy. You cannot lose characters, which detracts from GRRM's vision somewhat!

I was House Greyjoy (black), and I can't say things went well. I was hit by a surprise attack from the Lannisters (red) led by Gregor Clegane and Tywin Lannister, their most powerful generals, which took Pyke and left me permanently reeling for the rest of the game and struggling to stay alive.

Game start- Westeros from the northwest

There was a continuous back-and-forth between Houses Martell (sand), Baratheon (yellow), and Tyrell (green), whilst Stark (white) built up their force and inexorably marched south. I threw myself behind House Stark lest they crush me alive, but wasn't surprised when they eventually stabbed me in the back! Curse your sudden and inevitable betrayal!

The overall winner was House Tyrell, with six castles, in a tie-breaker with House Stark. I felt somewhat vindicated that, since the Lannisters had expended so much energy attacking me, they ended up coming second last.

Game end- Greyjoy slinks away on their sole remaining ship!

I enjoyed myself (since the pressure to compete and win was off)! It's a nicely presented game that works well with six players, that captures many (but not all) of the saga of AGoT. Where were my dragons?!

This is as good a time as any to show some figures I painted in the just-finished Analogue Winter Challenge:

First, some crows. These are for the board game Zombicide, but are available separately, and I thought they would complement my SAGA revenants nicely. They could work as fatigue markers, and generally look good en masse.

Next, a boy and his wolf. The boy is from Elladan, and I worry about the join between his wrist and his sword-hand. The wolf is from Reaper and is my first figure from their Bones range.

Finally, my first figure from Annie at Bad Squiddo was her 'Little Lady Warmonger', which comes with a mounted and dismounted version. A cracking little sculpt!

So, I'll be keeping a close eye on Fireforge's upcoming figure ranges...

Blood Bowl- Khemri

Another Blood Bowl team from the past. The Khemri are by far the quickest team to paint! They're good to game with, because they teach you the value of a 4+ to pick up the ball. I have done a two-turn TD with this team- once.

The Entombed Raiders

Blitzers (left) and Throwers (right). (I don't know where that black box came from!)

Skeletons

Mummies/ Tomb Guardians

Star Player

Team Coach

Reroll and turn markers

The skeletons are from Warhammer plastics. The mummies, coach and scarabs are all from Reaper.

My painting mojo has disappeared, hence no post last week and a few retrospective posts rather than anything new. Also, I'm moving house which does tend to upset things. Hopefully back to normal programming soon!

Blood Bowl Chaos mutations

I converted some mutations for my ever-so-slowly-progressing Willy Miniatures Chaos Blood Bowl team. I used bits from plastic Warhammer Beastmen, the always useful Warhammer Chaos mutation sprue, and a Reaper Creature Components sprue.

Beastman with two heads

Beastman with two heads

Beastman with extra arms

Beastman with extra arms

Beastman with Big Hand

Beastman with Claw

Chaos Warrior with Claw

Chaos Warrior with Tentacles

Chaos Warrior with Tentacles

I have concerns about the durability of the tentacles...

Naturally, Willy has now produced its own mutation figures, which would have saved me a lot of time and effort. There is, of course, a nice feeling to have your own unique figures.

Now I just need to pull my finger out and get painting!

Blood Bowl Humans- The Nuns

This will be the first in an occasional series going through my Blood Bowl teams in a chronological order, not including those already covered on my blog.

My very first Blood Bowl team was Dwarves. I got beaten a lot because I had no idea how to play.  It wasn’t just that I didn’t own the rules and had to rely on my opponents telling me what I could and couldn’t do, but also I didn’t have a clue about tactics. I didn’t take Blitzers because I couldn’t see the advantage in their (relative) agility, and because they didn’t have Tackle. I’d just line all my guys up on the line of scrimmage in defence. (Now I’m better- and I own a copy of the rules!).

A few years later, and I guess about over ten years ago, I had met a new wargaming opponent, Sangraal. He was teaching me DBA. The concept of units supporting adjacent units in a battle line and pushing opponents back sparked a few memories, and I said to him, “I think you’ll like Blood Bowl.” We then got into it in a big way, he’s run many Australian tournaments, and I haven’t beaten him in yonks (and I don't think we've touched DBA since...).

My first team in my re-finding of Blood Bowl was Shadowforge's nuns. I actually wanted to play the bunnies, but Sangraal got there first, and I’m glad he did because the nuns- The Bad Habits- were awesome. They opened my eyes to the potential of Blood Bowl to be non-GW, with conversions and customised support staff and allow you to really personalise a team. You know I'm having fun when I've got more support staff than players!

The Bad Habits

The linesisters

Sisters Patience and Goodness

Blitzers- Sisters Faith, Hope, Charity, and Salvation

Throwers- Sisters Sweetness and Light. These are some of my all-time favourite sculpts

Catchers- Sisters Chastity, Prudence, Virtue and Temperance. I really like human catchers.

Mother is the centrepiece of the team. She is still one of my favourite conversions, from a Reaper ogre. I went nuts with Milliput, and she always gains attention and compliments. My favourite moment with her was when I pulled off a last-turn highly unlikely play and got the ball from one end to the other and passed it to Mother, who caught it. To score, she needed to Blitz one opponent out of the way- Triple Skulls! I forgave her.

Mother

Before the operation

The Apothecary is the Reaper Angel of Light. I do better white now.

Apothecary

Other support staff from Shadowforge.

The monk is a generically useful figure for many games.

These are from RAFM.  The mad nun is my wizard, and I've had plans to change the lantern to a chainsaw. Someday.

Support staff

The reroll markers are also from Reaper.

Reroll markers

Cheerleaders are from the ever-useful West Wind and Shadowforge.

I love the cheerleader personalities.

I never went to a Catholic school, but it’s a common question I get from people who have seen the team. I also get a lot of questions about whether or not I have a nun fetish- sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t! Some friends got me a wind-up Nunzilla (she shoots sparks as she walks) to be a team mascot.

It's interesting looking back at these figures. I hadn't found my current painting style yet, and these are decidedly clunky, especially in close-up. There are a few chips I should touch-up. Still, I really enjoy the sense of uniqueness and ownership that the conversions and support staff bring to the team.