Hey guys, first of all sorry for the lack of updates on my other blog lately. I'm in the middle of exams and fighting a war with my college to get them to get their act together (I'm student welfare officer).
Anyway, as I have not had the time during this period to work on my armies proper, I needed an easier project. The notion was to paint and game with a small skirmish force. Originally this was going to be an attempt to kick start my old Mordheim campaign I ran a couple of years ago. Then something wonderful happened - I rediscovered Bloodbowl!
Coming back to the game after so longis tricky, and what I am planning makes it even more so. I'm starting not one or two but three teams! On top of this there will b a project to model a custom pitch, set up a league and hopefully actually win a few games. The reason for picking three teams is that I want to try lots of different styles and enjoy the modelling challenge. Obviously my first team will be Chaos Dwarfs, the others will comprise an orc team and to contrast both of these a quick running team of dark elves. Anyway, here we go.
The team compositions go as follows:
Chaos Dwarfs Orcs Dark Elves
1. Chaos Dwarf Blocker 1. Thrower 1. Blitzer
2. Chaos Dwarf Blocker 2. Thrower 2. Blitzer
3. Chaos Dwarf Blocker 3. Blitzer 3. Blitzer
4. Chaos Dwarf Blocker 4. Blitzer 4. Blitzer
5. Bull Centaur 5. Blitzer 5. Assasin
6. Bull Centaur 6. Blitzer 6. Assasin
7. Minotour 7. Black Orc 7. Runner
8. Hobgoblin 8. Black Orc 8. Runner
9. Hobgoblin 9. Black Orc 9. Witch Elf
10. Hobgoblin 10. Black Orc 10. Lineman
11. Hobgoblin 11. Lineman 11. Lineman
12. Hobgoblin 12. Lineman 1 fan factor
13. Hobgoblin 2 re-rolls
1 Re-roll
As you can see I've gone for as many specialists early on as I can. This is because a) I want to try as many tactics as possible b) the number of skills these guys have should help forgive my early mistakes and c) Its fun to model specialists.
So far as modeling goes I've already converted the six hobbos for my chaos dwarf team, four of which are painted. The parts for the orcs and dark elves are on order. The Chaos Dwarfs themselves are all going to be original sculpts, and work is progressing on them. Pictures are on their way, I need to steal my camera back from a friend.
Until next time, Nuffle bless your dice
1 re-roll with Chaos Dwarfs? To point out, your turns are likely to be very quick, but good luck at any rate.
Unless you are playing a Halfling Team with a master chef, having more re-rolls is an absolute must in BB.
trouble with CDs is that re-rolls are so expensive and I need subs as I don't have the unds for an apocathary. I may cut the minotour out of the team and add another re-roll and a blocker. As far as the dark elf team goes I know I've taken a gamble picking 11 players and so many specialists early, but a) I need the team to skill up quickly and b) I want to field a dark elf team not just expensive elves, so for now the linemen are out
The gamble on the dark Ef team won't necessarily mean they all skill up quickly. Without any rerolls at all, a single failed dice roll means your turn will end. If that happens often, and it will, they won't skill up much at all. For the Chaos Dwarfs, I recommend changing the Minotaur in to 2 rerolls, as if a Minotaur gets knocked over you need to roll a 4+, with its Loner skill, for it to get back up again. That's not exactly good. You can also get rid of 2 Hobgoblins to get a 5th Chaos Dwarf and have a small amount of cash saved.
In general, the standard Chaos Dwarf team is 2 Centaurs, 5 Dwarfs, 4 Hobgoblins and 3 rerolls. As one of the teams with the worst ball handling ability, 3 rerolls are very much needed.
For Dark Elves, 4 Blitzers is always good, but quite expensive. To keep positionals and have a chance if things go badly, I'd recommend you replace the Witch Elf and a Runner with Linesmen, who are still good, to get 50k and then buy a reroll. As it is, you have 5 players out of 11 with armour 7 and without block. Other coaches probably can, and most likely will, take those out, especially if you have no rerolls or reserves. It's always tempting to go for positionals, with as that team is now it looks like one single failed dice roll or casualty against you and things will begin to rapidly fall apart.
Of course, this is all info I've picked up from playing for a long time, and luck plays a large factors. For example, if you have a lot of it, nothing will go wrong, heh. Even so, I would strongly advocate rerolls, they're essential.
UPDATE:
Okay, after taking advice, I've changed the team compositions a little to reflect what I've been told. First up, the minotour is gone and is replaced by another chaos dwarf blocker and a second re-roll. With the dark elves I've taken Geckilian's advice and droped the witch elf, replacing her and the point of fan factor I took with a linesman and a re-roll.
Here are the new teams:
Chaos Dwarfs Dark Elves
1. Chaos Dwarf Blocker 1. Blitzer
2. Chaos Dwarf Blocker 2. Blitzer
3. Chaos Dwarf Blocker 3. Blitzer
4. Chaos Dwarf Blocker 4. Blitzer
5. Chaos Dwarf Blocker 5. Assasin
6. Bull Centaur 6. Assasin
7. Bull Centaur 7. Runner
8. Hobgoblin 8. Runner
9. Hobgoblin 9. Lineman
10. Hobgoblin 10. Lineman
11. Hobgoblin 11. Lineman
12. Hobgoblin 1 re-roll
13. Hobgoblin
2 Re-rolls, 1 fan factor
I've also managed to round up some guys to play some friendly games, with a view to a league. I shall hopefully be letting you know how the teams progress - and posting a few match reports - in the not too distant future. I've now recieved the half the parts I want for my orc team, I'm waiting on a space ork sprue and the bitz for my dark elf linesmen. Not sure what I'm going to do for the assasins and bull centaurs yet...
Looks good. re-rolls are criticals so never underestimate their importance.
Be careful with the DE Team, they are a tricky team to play.
TBH the dark elves were a bit of a vice (appropriately) as I had an idea for converting them. That idea has now been changed since I saw the new dark elf range, as I figure a blood bowl team is an excellent excuse to get a few f the new models. My original idea was to use dark eldar with dark elf heads. I'm now going to use that for my free elf team (modelling purposes only) with a mix of different elf and eldar heads
I have never played Blood Bowl - but in the last few weeks I have found myself - downloading LRB v 5.0, surffing on various BB sites and bidding on 2ed models, a playing pitch and dice at eBay ... (didn't win though).
All 'thanks' to you - and that awesome show off work from Geckilian and Willmark
Is there a cure for this? As I really don't need another project (- but I don't think I can control it).
I will follow this thread closely.
I started writing this: "You've underestimated the value of fan factor! A high fan factor will easily pay for itself over a few games. Drop a CD blocker for it"
Then I had a look at talkbloodbowl, and it seems that the new rules (that I've nevr played under) a low FF is a better investement so you can stick it in players, even a zero FF.
UPDATE
Okay, after an enforced period away from my projects I've got some more work done. The Chaos Dwarf team is progressing nicely. The hobbos are done, and pic will be up soon. The sculpts are coming on nicely. One is almost finnished, and simply needs hands adding and a little work on one arm. Two others now have the main body completed just need their arms and heads adding. The last two are still armatures. WIP shots as well as a "how I made 'em" feature will be included in my next post. The orcs too are well on the way, with one thrower, two blitzers and three black orc blockers almost ready to go. I just need a new chaos black to touch up some areas and then they're gonna be thrown out on the pitch.
Finally, I've come up with names for my teams. I decided to name each one after a super 14 franchise. For those who don't know, this is a rugby tournament contested each year between teams from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
Thus we now meet the Darklands Bulls, Har Ganeth Stormers and Orc team Da Chiefs all setting out to make an impression on the Carroburg Cup. I'm playing a practice match with my friend's orc team against his humans next week, so I'll let you know how I got on
come on show us the pictures !!!!! PLEASE
<<Seconded. All this BB hype is making me want to go trawlin in the attic for my metal orc team and Rulebook. Anybody know if they're still usable or is there a different rule set now?
I love bloodbowl even though I haven´t played it in ages, looking forward to see your team!
UPDATE: 3rd SEPTEMBER 2008
Request granted Kera!
Okay, first up come Da Chiefs. The Super14 team have black as their main colour with yellow as a secondary colour andred flashes, so I borrowed this colour scheme (ish) for my orcs. This also makes them stand out from my Fantasy army and my space orks. I've got some nice scary black orc blockers to hold the line of scrimmage and crack a few opposition heads. There's another one of these guys to follow pretty soon. I've always liked Black Orcs, they strike me as the props of the bloodbowl world, and who doesn't like those cuddly front row cavemen?
There are some other orcs to come as well. These are slightly more WIP but are painted to gaming standard. So from left to right (first picture) Here come a blitzer, lineorc and a thrower. The lineorc obviously needs basing and the thrower is going to have a pigskin added to his hand once I've ordered another pack. These guys give a pretty good idea of where I'm taking the team modeling-wise
Next up are the Darklands Bulls. I thought the Bulls' blue kit would make my hobbos look too much like night goblins, so I've stuck with the scheme from my WFB army. The chaos dwarfs will have a different scheme to the main army, which you will see in a future update. There are six hobbos in the team - four in the starting XI plus two reserves. If I need speed one or both of these may be swapped with a blocker. anyway here they all are
Finally, here's a special preview. My chaos dwarf blockers have progressed well, and are nearly done. However, they will be featuring in my next post, entitled "How to scratch sculpt Chaos Dwarf Blockers, by AGPO." As this will be rather a large post I don't want to spoil it for you all (it'll probablly be all there is in my next update
) so for now heres a shot of some models at four different stages. Hopefully this'll whet your appitites:
Awesome, AGPO - they look very, very nice. And for what I can see great sculpts and paintjobs too. Would have loved bigger pictures though
This, really makes me want to have a go for BB.
great team like the orcs and the night gobos
Thy're not night gobbos Kera, they're hobgoblins! There's no nightgobbos in bloodbowl which is why I nicked the minis for my chaos dwarf team
OOPS !!!! SORRY Sweety they also look a little short for storm trooper to lol
Dang the pictures aren't showing for me.
But holy crap I realised just now I have a Chaos Dwarf Bloodbowl Team! Including Bull Centaur Star Player anbd a Minotaur champion from WFB I was gonna convert up, oh wow, it's like I've been a closet Chaos dwarf for so long and not even realised it!
Auretious Taak.