Sunday Night Bloodbowl

As mentioned last post, it's a new Bloodbowl season, and I'm fielding Orcs. Waaagh!

Andy Lawhammer - coach of the the Salzenmund Seahawks  is running things, and we kicked off on Sunday with a few friendlies. The New Orcland Hate-riots scored a 3-0 loss to the elven Laurelorn Lions - though we won on casualties! - and a hard fought 1-1 draw against the Rune Forged dwarves.

This spurred me on to paint up my ladz - albeit quickly - and here are the first batch: the heavy hitters:

#1 - Gurfang, Black Orc Blocker

#2 - Tufslab, Black Orc Blocker

#4 - Bloodjaw, Blitzer

#5 - Grimsnarl, Blitzer

The Marienburg Stealers

As I sit here, sipping a homemade cappucino, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. While days spent lolling on the couch or playing on the PS3 for 8 hours straight are all well and good, there is an undeniable satisfaction in achieving something on holiday.

OK, all I achieved was to make my mind up and paint some models, but still. Baby steps.

So, my chum Andy Lawhammer's been making a top-ten of GW games (speaking of which +Andrew, where's number 4?...) and at number 5, he placed Blood Bowl. Cue much reminiscing, a brief encounter with Google, and he's bought a copy. And given how much I love the game, it's no surprise I  wanted in on the action.

But what team to pick? Initially I planned to buy my own copy of the game and convert the plastic humans to become a Bretonnian team (like this chap on Warseer), and indeed I may well do that in time (as if nothing else it'll give me an excuse to buy and paint some Knights. And I do like knights.)

But for now I plumped for those nefarious ratmen, the Skaven. Now, the GW Skaven Team are fine (you can see them here), but they're 30 quid, there's only 12 of them, and they're in metal. No thanks. Instead, I picked up a plastic box of clan rats from +Baz Morrison's shop and set to converting. They're all converted now, and I'll paint them up over the next week or two. Some I'm pleased with. Some, like the throwers, are not brilliant, but they're OK for now.

So, without further gilding the lily and with no more ado, I give you the first two players of the Marienburg Stealers.

Blitzer 1 - Krikt

Blitzer 2 - Vurk

On the whole, I'm quite pleased with them.

I picked more armoured heads/torsos, to fit the blitzer look, and I added a couple of spare savage orc "plumes" (hairsquigs?) to make them stand out from the linemen. A couple of other random orky bitz went on too, to give them shoulder pads (which the linemen will be lacking...).

They're not well painted, nor are they thoughtfully converted, but you know what? They'll do.

I haven't put numbers on yet, and I'll probably flock the bases eventually. The name, Marienburg Stealers, is obviously derived from Pittsburgh Steelers. I was going to do them in black, but it didn't look right and I have a lot of green paint. :)

Speaking of green, I also had time to finish off the first of my new Orc units for WFB (a bigger post on my Waaagh in a week or two): my sister in law +Gillian Bruce got me some Savage Orc Boar Boyz for my birthday (ta!) and here's the first of them: the standard bearer.

Oink!

I was relieved that my ability to speed-paint orcs hasn't diminished in the 6 months or so since I last had time to wield a brush. The boar I'm especially pleased with. The photo doesn't do them justice (I really do need to work on my photography, I know: an iPhone camera in a softly-lit living room is not a photogenic environment!).

Ride the Pig...bash some skulls...

 I was really pleased with the boar's face. This time, I highlighted it all the same: skin, tusks, et al. Gorthor Brown, Tallarn Sand, Ushabti Bone, touch of White Scar on the tips of the tusks. Then I applied an Agrax Earthshade wash, but only to  the skin, not the tusks, and the effect is great.

Yeah, I'm wielding this huge banner like a sword, what of it?

It worked so well, I did the same thing on the rider's leather/wood/bone bits. It's not quite as effective there, but it's so very, very quick I'm going to stick with it.

So there you go. A productive day, by the standards of school holidays, any way.

Victory! (and not quite victory but not quite utter defeat either!)

As Andy Lawhammer mentions here, and t'other Andrew mentions here, I played a couple of games on Saturday.

The first, against Andrew Bell's undead, was an overwhelming victory for my ladz. Cue happy orcs.

ERMAHGERD! WE WON!

My army mostly performed well. A little bad luck, and a little good; Andrew B was hamstrung by the theme of his army. He wants one led by his PC from our RPG, who is not a vampire, so he has been having a necromancer lord as his general. It turns out necromancer lords are allergic to Black Orc Warbosses. Who knew? Ultimately, my plan was to wipe out his general and back up necromancer. With Orcs, that wasn't so hard. We called it quits in turn 4, as I still had most of my army alive, and he'd lost a chunk of units and both necromancers. That'll do, Orcs. That'll do.

(Andy Lawhammer and I prevailed upon him to use the vampire rules to represent his character (Eichengard) as it's a better fit. Eichengard is tough, a skilled fighter, and rubbish at magic. A rock hard vampire with level 1 necromancy is a much better fit than a level 4 necromancer who is squishier than a marshmallow.)

Not Eichengard

So, to the second game.

As we are still taking a while to play (though we are getting slowly faster, if that makes sense), we decided to make our next game a threeway (steady now!) using the battle royale scenario.

Would it be gauche to mention the lack of a Cathay/Nippon GW army?

We diced off, with Waaaagh Morthang forced to deploy in the middle, the Nulners on one flank and the Restless Dead on the other. I made the decision to focus on Nuln first, as my orcs hadn't eaten any 'oomies for a while, and I knew that if I got bogged down in the undead army, the Empire would fire their cannons and handguns at us both to devastating effect.

I'm hungry for manflesh. Oooer, fnar fnar!

While my orcs did rout the Imperials, it was at devastating cost. My Warlord fell to the Imperial General: Black Orc and Wyvern both underperformed, and the lack of a ward save / anything more than heavy armour meant he fell too easily.

Ultimately, I could only put up a token resistance to the undead, and our final VPs (based on generals, and objectives held) were Undead 3, Orcs 2, Empire 1. If the Wyvern had rolled more than one on his Thunderstomp Morthang would have lived and I'd have got a tie. Still, such are the vagaries of fate!

Lessons Learned
So the games gave me a few things to think about.

Firstly, I need to bulk up my units, especially my Orcs, Savage Orcs and Boar Boyz.

Secondly, I need a couple more characters, including a beefier Savage Orc and a Battle Standard Bearer.

Thirdly, if I'm playing undead, I need a few magic items. Stinking Ethereal units.

I've ordered some more troops, but I have movement on the characters already. Ladles and jellyspoons, I present...Big Toof.

Big Toof. Waaagh and what not.

This is another Avatar of War miniature and I love it almost as much as the shaman. Almost. I did a SHOCKING job on the mould lines, but I tried to make up for that with some more elaborate warpaint. This guy will go with Skargutz's Boyz, giving them a bit more oomph (and, against the Undead, having a cheap magic weapon to let him wade into those stinking ethereal units).

I am looking forward to seeing how he gets on.

Tomorrow I'll be picking up the annoying second shaman model, which I'll be converting to a battle standard bearer, thanks to some Undead bits and bobs given to me by Andrew B.

So that's all for now. The army continues to take shape, and with our first crushing victory I can feel the Waaagh energy growing!