'Doctor Fink' Skaven Ogre

I have just finished my rat ogre using the Warhammer fantasy model Maulerblades. I looked at
the fantasy football miniatures and didn’t really like any of them. He is to fill in on my Skaven team ‘Purple Drain’ a Prince themed Blood Bowl team. I thought Maulerblades being covered in bandages fitted with his name on the team. Doctor Fink was a keyboard player in Prince’s band.

I have played a few games in my last tournament and a few with friends, and found my Skaven team lacked punch. I know you are meant to be able to play around the opposition with the Skaven’s speed. But found it difficult to break cages and punch through the line. Having the rat ogre has alleviated those short comings in my play. At the very least, now I can frenzy a corner off the cage and leave the opposing team with a huge, prehensile tale beast in their midst’s. Or break the opposition defense line and still have my 2 blitzer’s to provide protection.

I will be taking the Skaven team to the Water Bowl Weekender a two day blood bowl tournament on the 19th February.

The Challenge: Let the Elf Decide

The 10 Wyches have been assembled. Which was quite fiddly with my old stubby fingers as the models are very thin and you have to be extra careful not to bend or snap them when removing them from the sprue. The plastic which holds them to the frame is thicker than the flimsy spiky pads on their shoulders..

The models have had all their guns trimmed but I have left weapons like daggers and swords as they still seem to fit the Dark Elf theme of cheating and stabbing their way to victory. The box only comes with 10 miniatures, but like with most Games Workshop models you get a range of body parts so you are only a pair of legs and body to get to your 11th or 12th man.

That is where this excellent site comes in www.letthedicedecide.co.uk. They sell bits of sprue's so all I need are legs and body to complete the team. This meant it only cost me an extra £1 to complete the team. Bringing the team to £15 ($24).

The Challenge: Second purchase Dark Eldar

So this is the second team. It takes the budget to £30.50 (damn you VAT increase) but I bought them just wanting to assemble, paint and make them into a team. I may yet see if I can buy cheaper miniatures and show a few different options to make up the Blood Bowl set. I am thinking the final challenge posts could be made up of a few different sets to show a range of budgets.

Anyway on to the miniature overview. This set of figures is £6 more expensive than the Mantic dwarfs. You don't get the plastic box for transporting the miniatures or the extra theme pieces.

The miniatures just come in the standard cardboard box and a basic assembly manual. What is better than the dwarfs is the amount of detail in the plastic and the greater range of optional arms, heads, bodies etc... The models themselves are also in more pieces. This allows for a greater range of posers which is good for making them into a Blood Bowl team. There are more pictures here if you want to see what comes in the box.

The Challenge: Dark Elf Team

One of Games Workshop recent releases have been updates to the Dark Eldar. In particular the set we are looking at as a possible 2nd team are the Dark Eldar Wyches. These could look like dark elves with their own version of Blood Bowl armour, lots of padding and spikes.

My local game store www.wargamestore.com does the set for £14.00. It was cheaper but with the VAT increases in the UK it has gone up in price. You get 10 models with this set so we are 1 away from a full team. Buying this team will take us over budget to £30.50, so we have a dilemma. Buy a Mantic set for £8.00 to stay under budget or blame it all on the VAT increase :)

The Challenge: Possible team 2?

When I looked at purchasing the first team my primary goal was price. I came up with 2 possible teams the dwarf team which are now painted and an undead team. We could go with the undead team or purchase the Elves from Mantic. Which could look like a Pro Elf team with a little trimming. But for the second team I'd like to buy a team, which I would like to play and from a different manufacturer.

My first look will be an orc team. I like the way orc's can play as an attrition (a team which relies on brute force to win a match) team but still move the ball quickly. A good set are the Ork Boyz from Games Workshop.

I started to put together an Orc team before I started the blog so I already have the set. They cost £15.50 from Games Workshop. But I managed to pick them up from my local game store for £14.00 as they do a 10% discount on all Games Workshop stock. The www.wargamestore.com has to be one of my favourite stores around, you can always pop in there for a chat and buy some miniatures. Like I said I have already bought these miniatures but thought I would post to give you more options when buying your second team.

I have not yet finished painting them but here is what they look like at the moment. The set comes with 11 miniatures so you could use them as a complete second team.

Linemen...

Blitzers...

Throwers...

The Challenge: Team 1 Dwarfs Painted

As you can see the first team has been painted with a total of 12 miniatures for the price of £8. Depending on budget I may replace the blue troll slayers with miniatures which look more like a troll slayer. But for now they will have to do. Overall I am pleased with the miniatures. But now they are all done I regret just going with green. I actually prefer the Blitzer's with white helmets. The troll slayers are blue, which meant I had to buy a 5th paint pot eating up my budget.

The team make-up is the following:

1 & 2 are Blitzers and have white helmets and cloaks so they look different from the Blockers.

3 & 4 are the Runners and are carrying orc head's like footballs.

5 - 10 are the blockers all have green helmets.

11 & 12 are my temporary troll slayers and come a extra theme pieces in the mantic set.

The Challenge: Blood Bowl Rules

Up until now the posts for the Challenge have been focused on sourcing miniatures and painting. This one is going to be focus on the rules. The Blood Bowl rules are free to download from games workshop. They also have a very good document ‘BB Art of Blocking which you should either print out for daily coffee table reading or for in your bathroom if you do that sort of thing. The booklet on blocking is probably the most important reads in my opinion as fellow more experienced player will always remind you of the general rules while playing.

The Games Workshop edition is good but I personally prefer the edition by the Yorkshire League edition 'TYBBL Turf Edition Rulebook 2009 v.1.7' which you can get here. It’s layout is very intuitive and has the rules for the experimental teams as well as all the star players.

Mini Tip: Numbering players

A good idea I heard on the Three Die Block podcast was a simply way to number players. Simply select a font which suites the team and print all the numbers out. Then use a hole puncher so the numbers come out on little disc’s of paper. Then glue them to the base.

The Challenge: Dwarf Blitzer

Here are a few pictures of the latest Dwarf from the first team. To differentiation the Blitzers we are using the Dwarf with cape miniatures from the Mantic set and also giving them white helmets.

The first picture is just the base colours of white, green and yellow to keep within the limited paint set. The second are the finished miniatures with a team emblem on the shield. As you get a bulldog with the team I have drawn up a simple image in windows Paint then printed out a scaled down version and glued it with PVA and stuck it to the shield.

Skaven Team: Purple Drain

Here are a few pictures of my main team of Skaven called ‘Purple Drain’. They are a Prince themed team with yellow and purple colours.

I took this to to my second tournament the Ironmanj One-dayer II. Here is my team sheet and I came a respectable 8th position. I put this down to the Skaven being very forgiving when I made mistakes and also tips on team selection from a fellow long time Blood Bowl player. If you just play Blood Bowl online or in a private league I would recommend trying a tournament. The tournaments have been a pleasant surprise. All players attending are very relaxed and willing to help you out. The whole atmosphere is welcoming and it’s good to meet fellow Blood Bowl players.