The Season of Blood Bowl

Though I've still been working on historicals in my miniature hobby, and did attend a few more reenactments, most of this past season has been dedicated to the Games Workshop game, Blood Bowl.

Blood Bowl Game in Progress

After a board game day at the local game store, one of the guys and I got to talking.
"Remember that old game, Blood Bowl?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said, "I wonder if they sell that anymore?"

Turns out, they (Games Workshop) do.  The game, of course, has gone through some changes since it was originally released in 1984, but I was pretty excited to see that it was still in production.  I broke down and bought the "Second Season" starter set, and we convinced some other guys that hang out in the shop to start a small league.

The starter set came with two teams, Imperial Nobility (Humans), and Black Orks.  I opted to play the Orks, and painted them up in the colors of a local high school that closed down not too long ago.  Thus, the Black River Black Orks were born.

I started with the referee figures that came in the box set.  They don't get any use in the game, but they are a nice bit of flavor.

Elven Referee - Front

Elven Refree - Rear

Dwarven Referee - Front

Dwarven Referee - Rear

With the refs done, I moved onto the team's Star Player, Varag Ghoulchewer, who I nicknamed "Chulk" after a friend of mine who had attended Black River High School when we were teens.

"Chulk"

After Chulk, I worked on the Orks.  There were six, in total.  Big bruisers who worked great as tanks along the Line of Scrimmage.

Two Ork Blockers

After the Orks game the Goblins.

Goblin Linemen

And finally, to complete the team, a trained troll.  This is my least favorite of the miniatures, as it's really difficult to tell what's going on with the pose.  It unfortunately suffers from Games Workshop's habit of adding more and more and more to a sculpt, until it's so busy that it's hard to read.

Trained Troll and Goblin Tosser

For our first try, out local league started well.  We began the season with seven coaches, playing Black Orks, Skaven, Goblins, Chaos, Dark Elves, and Norse.  One coach, after his first game, had to drop out of the league due to scheduling conflicts.  Another had to drop out halfway through the season for personal reasons, leaving us with 5 teams to finish out the league.

Games played well, and we all had a great time.  Toward the end of the season, I put together a little diorama of Jim & Bob, the vampire and ogre sports commentators of the game's lore.  The miniatures are 3D prints from Ugni Miniatures, while the trophy is an original out-of-print mini that a friend of mine found in his stash.

Jim & Bob Watch the Finals

Congratulations to the Rutland Rats, a Skaven team, for taking the final and winning the championship game of our local league's first season.  For my part, I was in last place during the entire regular season, but was able to work my way up to 3rd place in the finals.  We're all very much looking forward to starting out 2nd season in January.

Skaven Players Celebrate their Win