Blood Bowl – Fantasy Football Stock

It is time for some stock taking and to give you an idea of the size of this project and collection. I did the same for Necromunda a while back, and now it is time to do the same for Blood Bowl. And in this regards Blood Bowl is something very special, as it was my very first miniature wargame back in 1996.

I talked about my fascination about the Warhammer / Citadel miniatures of the 90s, and why Blood Bowl means so much to me as well. But let us set the scope for my own Blood Bowl journey, the Chaosbunker Blood Bowl League (CBBL).

As mentioned multiple times - the third edition of Blood Bowl was my first full contact with a Games Workshop game (I only had a Blood Angels Captain before and a few White Dwarfs), and this will provide the frame. It depends a bit on how you count the further editions - we are excluding the major update of Blood Bowl 2016 (which is current in Season 2). The third edition was re-released in 2001 and the 2002 handbook, with updated rules was subsequently packed with the boxed set, as an update.

Why does this matter? Well, due to the updates of the Living Rule Book to the rosters, some positions were changed, meaning you would need more or less of certain miniatures per team. Thus having an effect on my collection and the size or at least types of miniatures for each team. For this project I went with what the 3rd/4th edition gave me as an option and kept my orientation on this. In most cases the major changes were the costs of the positionals and Re-roll counters, rarely the quantity.

The core of this project is the German Starter Set, that I was gifted for Christmas in 1996 and still is in my possession and clearly used. This will be the backbone, along with some further additions to the upcoming content, especially the match reports. I came across a remaining stock of a store, where I picked up multiple team boxes, and lots and lots of blisters, with positionals, star players and big ones, moving me very close to completion in the early 2000s.

The core set provided you with the rosters of six different teams, three "good" ones and three "evil" ones, if you want to split them this way. And these are the ones, we are going to take a closer look upon in this article.

The goal was to cover a full roster of around 16 miniatures for each team, partially including the Star Players. All the Big Guy Starplayers will fill in the role of a regular Big Guy, depending on the treasury / team score, if needed. I tried to have as much different poses as possible and swap/trade with other hobbyists to avoid or at least minimize duplicats as much as possible. I try to maximize the special positions and go for a reasonable amount of linemen (usually to full up to the full roster or have a backbone for the starting rosters.

Orc Teams

The roster offers the following options, and I could check off all of them. The team is complete, and the duplicate of the thrower is given due to the fact, that this is the only pose the range has. All of the secret weapons / goblin star players are listed with the Goblin team, that came with DeathZone.

• 0-12 Linemen
• 0-2 Throwers
• 0-4 Black Orc Blocker
• 0-4 Blitzers
• Star Players: Varag Ghoul-Chewer, Ripper Bolgrot

Skaven Teams

The Skaven team is a bit of a bigger collection, but primarely due to the mutation blister adding another 4 options / poses to the team. I maxed out the special poses and got both of the Starplayers, and just as written above, Headsplitter will fulfill the role of a regular Ratogre Big Buy if needed / wanted.

• 0-12 Linemen
• 0-2 Throwers
• 0-4 Gutter Runners
• 0-2 Storm Vermin
• Mutations: Extra Arms, Big Hand, Very Long Legs, Claw
• Star Players: Hakflem Skuttlespike, Headsplitter

Dark Elf Teams

This team is kind of a rare thing. The booster was even more rare and the Mail Order didn't provide the individual miniatures later on in each market. The team blistre with further models was a bit of unnecessary, as your only really benefit was the second thrower, but you were already maxed out on Blitzers and Witch Elves from the team box. I managed to add a few Linemen, but would like to add a second thrower to this team and be open for two more Blitzers.

• 0-12 Linemen
• 0-2 Throwers
• 0-2 Blitzers -> 4th Edition increased this to 0-4
• 0-2 Witch Elves
• Star Players: Horkon Heartripper

Human Teams

Oh, the Human team has a very special story to it. I used for a long long time the plastic set from the starter and got me at some point the 2005 Human Blood Bowl Team, never really bothering about the appropiate metal team of the 3rd edition, the Marauders. They were released a bit later than the other teams, and not even included in the Mail Order Catalogue for some period. But Dino gifted me his team back in 2017, providing me with this part of my collection.

The Mighty Zug, was actually one of my first metal miniatures (Might even be the second after a Blood Angels Captain I bought in September '96 in the Cologne Games Workshop Store).

• 0-12 Linemen
• 0-4 Catchers
• 0-2 Throwers
• 0-4 Blitzers
• Starplayers: Griff Oberwald, Mighty Zug, Morg 'n' Thorg

Dwarf Teams

From what I heard, Dwarves are a hard team to play against. They are slow, but their ability to take and deal damage makes them a challenge. As I got the all the positionals and even star players, this team is complete.

• 0-12 Long Beards
• 0-2 Runners
• 0-2 Blitzers
• 0-2 Troll Slayers
• Starsplayer: The Deathroller, Grim Ironjaw

High Elf Teams

This team is already in the works as the Caledor Dragons. I would have loved to swap the third Lion Warrior pose A against a second pose B, but you have to work with what is available. I remember when I picked this team up, it was for sale in the onlineshop at a large German eletronic retailer for 20 EURs and that was simply a deal to good to not pick up.

• 0-12 Linemen
• 0-2 Phoenix Warriors
• 0-2 Lion Warrior -> 4th Edition increased this to 0-4
• 0-2 Dragon Warrior
• Starsplayer: Prince Moranion

The Blood Bowl range was largely sculpted by Gary Morley (you can find two great interviews at The Painting Phase and Jordan Sorcery) and I had the pleasure to meet him at BOYL / Bring out your Lead in 2023.

Of course, these are "just" the miniatures on the field, that you play with. In case of Blood Bowl there are a lot of options for side line miniatures to go with each team, like coachs, cheerleaders, magicians, medics and such. I will see if and to what extend I add these as well.

The plan is to introduce each of these teams, just like I did with the Chaos Team and High Elves, along with creating a franchise for each of them - presenting them like the Mordheim Marauders.

And of course, covering a bit of game reports. But we're not doing 16 turns per side, more like a Sports broadcast, where you would see the highlights and sum ups of the turns, as it would be too long winded for our readers.

But in case any of you have spares of these, please let me know:

• Dark Elf Thrower (1x)
• Dark Elf Blitzers (2x)
• High Elf Lion Warriors (1x, Pose #2)
• Human Catcher (1x, Pose #1)