A bloodbowling diversion

The new league season having started (see last post), a little bit of Bloodbowl has snuck in to interrupt my LotOW preparations. Because it usually takes a fair bit of organising to get us together for a day's gaming, we have a fairly relaxed approach to fielding unpainted miniatures. This also means we can use new teams on a whim, but can detract from the visual appeal of the game. I was too ashamed, therefore, to photograph my two games (results in a moment) as I had decided on fairly short notice to use a new team (Chaos Pact) and they had to face their opponents clad only in a film of black spray undercoat [buries head in shame].

For those not au fait with the miniatures from the Chaos Pact team, my understanding is that they were originally a team converted by one of the old GW sculptors and painted by Phil Lewis back in the day for a spread in the White Dwarf magazine. They were then used as masters for a limited production run given as prizes at the Chaos Cup tournament over the years in the USA. Tom Anders ("Galak") was able to do a 500 figure run of each one as part of some highly complex deal with GW which seems to have been a victim of the latest round of C&D letters from the GW attack-lawyers. I'm not privy to any of the details, and I'm so fed up with GW's approach (see earlier posts) that I've no interest in finding out more. Anyway, I got a set of the figs when Tom was selling them, before the onslaught. This is what they looked like in the old magazine article:


After the games (one draw, one loss), I had a quick go at painting up the minotaur:

I went for a brighter and more lurid version of the original paint scheme - in homage, but without slavishly copying.

Anyway - the games. First game was up against Chris with his Slann (think psychotic humanoid frogs). They have the Leap skill across the whole team allowing them to bound over defensive lines and into cages around the ball-carrier. With Chris' positional play abilities I knew this was going to be a challenge. A bit of luck at the beginning of the second half (I pulled off the classic 'throw the goblin with the ball and hope' score - haha!) allowed me to draw level and the game finished 2-2, although he inflicted more casualties on me leaving me a player down for the following game with a permanent reduction in his Armour Value. Boo hiss!

The second game was against Mike and his Orc team. Mike plays a fairly... aggressive... game so I was expecting to lose many many players. As it turned out neither of us managed to inflict a single casualty, but the weather result (Blazing Heat) meant that after each touchdown a whole slew of players would troop off exhausted. It seemed to affect us each in turn, so one of us would be two or three players down at least. This led to a good-natured but unequal contest between us. It turned out 3-1 to him (as opposed to 2-2 which might have been expected) as I couldn't stop him turning me over on the deciding drive.

The other games were such that Chris was crowned the day's victor, but not by so much that the league look unbalanced for future league fixtures.

Phew - a long post! Back to school tomorrow...