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31Oct/180

BLOOD BOWL – Journey of the Maulers: Hammertime!

In my last article on the Maulers I introduced Bonkh and Gabru. Today's introduction is a bit shorter, but it's a short character as well, so it seemed alright.

I rummaged in my bitsbox for suitable models for Blood Bowl fans and found an old crew member of the doom diver catapult. I never had the catapult myself, but I've always loved the goblin with the hammer. At that time, I simply did not have any use for the model, no matter how much I liked it, but a small greenskin with a hammer seemed to somehow fit in with the flair of the Maulers fan block. To paint the hammer was an interesting experience, because I experimented with methods of painting wood at that time and I did the whole thing in eight quite complex steps, layer by layer.

BLOOD BOWL - Journey of the Maulers

29Oct/180

Last Weekend Loot for O(r)ctober

It was a buzy weekend for the postman. During the week and on saturday a couple of smaller packages arrived, but I just had the time today to actually take a closer look on them. Was a bit buzy myself with the last touches on the Speed Freeks review and Saturdays visit to Spiel in Essen.

Games Workshop - 500th Store Space Marine Lieutenant

26Oct/180

BLOOD BOWL – Journey of the Maulers: Fans

In the introduction, I talked about giving the team a new paintjob. As explained the team color should not be red, because I had already painted the Gouged Eyes in their classic look and after quality had suffered from a rushed attempt, I couldn't get satisfied with blue anymore either. Yellow was a color I had never really tried before. Although I had other color combinations in mind, for me personally, yellow was simply the color that united the cheekyness of the orcs best within the community - hard but clever, clever but hard. For the color to work, it must be seen in the right places and needs very hard accents on the edges.

But I didn't know that at that time and I wanted to test the color on a different model instead on a member of the team right away. Since I am a big friend of strenghtening the immersion of the setting, it was clear to me that I wanted to have a small bleacher with fans. Since Orcs do not have to pay too much attention to a consistent style, it was a good opportunity to test different styles of yellow. Now the only question was which models I should use for the fans. Around the same time, I had stopped playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles, as the amount of miniatures needed was enormous and I had to lower the standard here as well, should I ever want to see the horde completely painted.

Well, what can I say, in my Warhammer army that plan had failed, but I had kind of grown attached to the models and so it seemed appropriate to give them new life by practicing yellow as a color on them and at the same time give them better painted quality. No sooner said than done. I grabbed two old Orcs from a regiment, snipped off their weapons, repositioned their arms as if they were just involved in a fight and painted them anew. In general, Blood Bowl not only persiflates the sport but also its fans, so a bunch of hooting, belligerent hooligans would look well on the sideline of the field.

From lousy foot soldiers to die-hard Blood Bowl fans …

BLOOD BOWL - Journey of the Maulers BLOOD BOWL - Journey of the Maulers

22Oct/180

Spiel 2018 Preview

This Thursday, the October 25th, Spiel starts again. It is the largest board game con in Europe. You can download the Spiel Guide for the show here for free.

Spiel 2018

It's been 3 years since the last time I've been there, and I've covered it on here, Spiel 2015 Part I, Part II and Part III.

Internationale Spieltage SPIEL'15 Internationale Spieltage SPIEL'15 Internationale Spieltage SPIEL'15 - Micro Art Studio

19Oct/180

BLOOD BOWL – Journey of the Maulers: Project introduction

At some point in late February 2001, I started to cobble together an Orc team for Blood Bowl. Although I had already painted the team from the 3rd Edition boxed set, I wanted a team that looked a little more contemporary and individual. Since most of the Orc teams had red as their main color at the time, I chose blue. No one used this color for Orcs in my group of players, and since I associated this color with the fictional orcish deity Mork, the name was quickly found: Mork's Maulers.

The Orc team from the 3rd Edition boxed set…

BLOOD BOWL - Journey of the Maulers

…and it’s expanded roster

18Oct/180

Blood Bowl: Teamnames

Now, who doesn't know that, the magic of something new. You put yourself in the position of a rising team manager, who has come to an unexpected blessing of wealth in the shape of a million gold pieces, recruiting a team from a bunch psychos...er...I mean players and then this - how should the team be called? Well, since a good team name adds a lot to the feel of the game, and BB lives on much larger parts of the fluff than most coaches believe, I'm here to provide a little help and share a few words on different styles of teamnames.

Filed under: fantasy Continue reading
12Oct/180

Age of Sigmar Skirmish: Da Hotpawz – Part 1

Among hobbyists, it has become a bit of a tradition to spoof the name of the eighth month of the Roman calendar with the word "orc". A habit that has also been taken over by the industry giant Games Workshop, which leads to increased painting activity in many forums among the friends of the greenskins. Looking through my own shelf, I noticed that I had stacked up a lot of those models myself, which were still waiting for a paintjob. Since I really love the skirmish expansion, I have decided to organize some of my models into several little warbands.

In addition, the Warhammer 40,000 kill team is currently running very well, and if you take a look at some YouTube videos, it seems to be so narrative that it reminds many players of the old Mortheim in style. It may only be a guess, but I could see a game like this also appear for Age of Sigmar in the upcoming future.

Okay, a new project - so far, so good. Now it is time to get around the usual pitfalls and one of them is that you are often making plans too big and that too fast. So to keep track and motivation, I decided to draw the line at a maximum of 50 renown. This has the advantage that there is always an end in sight and on the other hand, that I can divide the structure into smaller, more pleasing chunks. In the first block I will lay the foundation for the warband and its story with 30 renown:

  • (24) Savage Big Boss Grukk
  • (2) Morrboy Boss
  • (2) Morrboy
  • (1) Gitmob Grot Boss
  • (1) Gitmob Grot with spear and shield

Even at the time of the seventh edition, I always wanted to put a "wild WAAAGH!" on the table, but the sheer amount of models simply put me off. In AoS skirmish I can comfortably pack everything in that I wanted without making it a Herculean task. I started out with an ordinary Bonesplitter.

Age of Sigmar - Da Hotpawz Morrboy Age of Sigmar - Da Hotpawz Morrboy

5Oct/180

Blood Bowl – Skycastle Titans Part 3

It's been a while since I introduced and updated the Skycastle Titans team, but I mentioned that actually only one model was left to paint. Now the last Skaven of the team is finally finished the project is completed.

Blood Bowl - Skycastle Titans

Hard to believe. I started with the team in September 2013 as an Ogerteam and after almost five years(!) I finally ended up with an Underworld team. I think the most exciting thing was basically the journey to this point, because I did not only get to know a lot of nice folks in the hobby and at the gaming table during this time, but I finally fulfilled my goal of having a team with blue as the main color. Although the color scheme is rather unusual for Skaven, I am pleased with the overall result. Also, the decision to accommodate a purple troll has paid off visually.

Filed under: fantasy Continue reading
29Sep/180

Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault

In Summer I've already covered with Shadespire the initial start of the Warhammer Underworlds series, now in autumn the next wave for Nightvault is released.

Games Workshop - Warhammer Underworlds Nightvault Games Workshop - Warhammer Underworlds Nightvault

With the release of the Nightvault starter box, the competitive board game goes into its second season. The content is similar to the previous starter box, you receive two warbands, rules, tokens, dice, cards and two boards with hex fields, for 50 EUR. The game is fast paced, so you can play a match in 30-45 minutes and competitive matches are usually decided by the best out of 3 matches in a row. The included warbands come as usual for the Underworlds range in pre-coloured plastic and are push-fit (so you do not need glue to assemble the miniatures). All in all, a self-containing set, focused on competitive players and newcomers to the miniature (board) game hobby alike.

26Sep/180

Fling on some paint on those halflings

Last year I got myself a box of the classic 3rd edition Blood Bowl Halflings. And this Saturday it was time to put some paint on these stunty guys.

Daniel dropped by for a painting session and tutoring, and Florian joined via Skype video chat. You should think about doing so, it is fun and easy to set up, as almost every mobile device or notebook nowadays has a webcam.

Blood Bowl Halflings Blood Bowl Halflings

I went with a solid white primer instead of the black primer with white dusting I usually do, as I was told for the bright colours I'm going to use, it is the better foundation. So Army Painter Matt White as a primer (please note that GW Corax White Spray isn't white like the old Skull White, but a very light grey). The method to do the Halfling skin was given to me by Daniel, it was;