LITW Contest Winner + Prizes

As reported "Paul of the Man Cave" has won the LITW@200 contest!

For his prize he has chosen the Games Day Limited Edition Dwarf Slayer. Here is an example of this figure painted by monkeyboy30672 on CMON:

A sealed MIB version of this will be making the great trip down under where he is reportedly going to be drafted as the coach and turn counter for The Man Cave's new dwarven Blood Bowl team!

As an added bonus for Paul (and because the AUSBOWL community to which he belongs has been so helpful to me in the past) I am also sending along a bonus prize! He will be receiving a custom set of Bloodbowl dice that were originally made for my league and club "The Lost".

Thanks to all who have supported this site and especially to those who continue to follow my hobby ramblings. See ya as usual on Thursday with a new post!

BLOODBOWL! (A.K.A. 'ere we go again...)

So a couple of the local lads put together another great Bloodbowl day down at our local haunt J&B Books.
It was 1.25 lists and full 6th edition rules (Icepelt Hammerblow is my hero!). Anyhoo I brought out my Slaan with a slightly different list than usual - no big guy for starters! - and decided to have some fun.
Oh man did I ever! I pulled dwarves as my opponent. These stunties had a veteran and very skilled coach in the form of my friend (who was inccidentally the organizer of the day as well).

Cage Break FAIL

It was a losing battle for me from the beginning - that being said I kept the pressure on him even as my own players bodies began to overflow my KO box.

Party in my dugout!

There were several close moments a few bad dice rolls that could have handed be legit touchdowns and a couple of good ones that sent even the stoutest dwarves to the apothecary for help. It was a whole lotta fun!

I may have lost but I count this as a moral victory!!

I really do love Bloodbowl, though I dont get to play it as often as I used to.  In working to address this, in at least a little way, I recently downloaded Bloodbowl Legendary Edition from Steam. They had a great weekend sale which priced it at 80% off! SWEET.

Discussions of AI efficiency and skill % balances aside, what I like about this game is that it IS Bloodbowl. It isnt a football video game reskinned to look like bloodbowl it really IS Bloodbowl. The machanics, the moving by square, the turnovers, the skill progression - all of it IS Bloodbowl. Now I can throw down against the computer or with friends online whenever I please - no set up no travel no worries. I still dont play it all that often but when I get the itch or if I am just not ready to go to bed I know that I can get in a quick game. My only wish is that my beloved Slaan were in the game - truth is though I do even appreciate that I am being forced to try out some other teams. In fact I have been inspired to build another team of bloodbowl models (perhaps for the 2012 Lakeside cup?) We shall see......

Lakeside Cup! Bloodbowl at its best meets me at my worst!

 

Having seen posts and been involved in conversations on the NAF website, I really started to see that the Canadian Bloodbowl community (particularily in Ontario) are a really tight crew and seem to be super nice to boot!  Seeing as how one of the Canadian events was only an hour away from my home it seemed that there was really no way to avoid it - The CFL was going to the Lakeside Cup! This event was really different than any that I have ever attended in the past. First the tournament is two days long and actually held in at the home of one of the participants. The host was Peter Meers.  Now, I have competed and made friends in this hobby worldwide and I say with no reservation that you would be hard pressed to find a kinder and more genuinely nice gamer anywhere.  Backed by his lovely wife Tammy, Peter made me feel really welcome and made this a great experience for everyone.The second major difference in this event was that while coaches battled individually the stats were totalled across two groups of participants split into Divisions (East and West) according to geographical location of their home town.   I was in the bracket of defending champions the East.


There were some really awesome teams there - one guy - Mark- who I had met at various events across the year had a BEAUTIFUL chaos dwarf team. I would be proud to own and play this one (or just put it in my display cabinet). Spazz (Craig) also had a super cool team of Zulu warriors and apes which he played as Norse (and quite frankly pounded me into the ground with when he and I played).


My first game was against Joe Michaud who taught me a few things about this event and more than a few about proper bloodbowl play. I am still really thankful that he was my first opponent and I would play him again any time. 

That being said, I realised at the end of my first defeat that my team was poorly skilled for this particular bash heavy tournament (with no block to be seen on my roster!) and that the weekend was going to be rough. I did have some solid opportunities throughout I also had some terrible luck (this would be the theme of the weekend with my nearly sure thing passes into the endzone getting intercepted on natural 6's or my anything but catches resulting in fumbles even with rerolls). By the same token I hardly ever failed a leap which made my team of bouncing maniacs threatening even in the face of defeat.  I played each of my games to keep the pressure on my opponent as best I could (desperate suicidal leaping maneuvers aplenty!) and I think that my opponents enjoyed our games as each and every one of them shut me down and handed me defeats. 


When the dust settled and the smoke cleared I won a stack of awards..... sort of ;)


The wheelbarrow (to carry my corpses home in) for last place. Yup LAST PLACE. I think his sign says it all. LOL In the Background you can also see The DaVinci Award for best team (based on theme and painting/display) as voted by the participants. It was nice to win this one (sorry Spazz - Mabey next time!)

The worst defence award (man I love this trophy).

AND for being on the winning team a Lakeside Cup Champions Award!  Yep even with me scoring so poorly in the event the East as a team still racked up the most total points for the win!

Truth be told I had such a great weekend that I felt like a winner either way. I have a much better idea of team loadout and expectations for next time. I cant wait to go again. I would like to add an extra thanks to Mark D and Roderick as well for going out of their way to make me feel welcome and help with newb rules questions. And a final extra special thanks to Dan's mom - 'nuff said. 

PS Anyone considering going to this event - it is a Blast but be prepared to play with a hangover! This crew plays hard on and off the pitch! Cyall soon.

CFL FTW!

When last we left off, the models had been stripped and primed and were ready to paint!

I decided that I wanted the models to retain some of the character of their era so I chose some fairly strong/bright colours to paint them in -Purple, electric blue and a minty green - though I used them in a really contemporary style with soft blends, some minor OSL glow effects etc.

Please note: Something I cant seem to sort out - that a better photographer probably could - Is that the colours you see in these pics arent really accurate, the Purples are deeper, the blues are brighter and the mint green tones are virtually non existant in these shots!!! AARGH! So they give a general idea and are nice enough shots - but the colours seem to be more extreme than the camera's sensor seems willing to capture. (If you have any insight into this phenomenon Id love to hear from Ya!)

Cheerleader

Linesman and +S Linesman

Catcher

Because I knew that the models would be odd enough for my opponents I used colour to help differentiate roles on my team. The Catchers were made predominantly purple and were generally much larger models than the linesmen. The Linos would be predominantly blue/green while the Blitzers would be a mixture of both schemes though still clearly set apart.  I did still use a little of all colours on all the models so that they looked cohesive but through modulating the colour I think I was successful in also creating the definition of role I needed.

Blitzers

Linesmen (Star Player in background)

The "Kroxigor" was a fun piece - painted in all the team colours he stood out enough by being a giant among the little horrors. I chose the leg set that I did so that even though his wings made him very large there was plenty of elbow room overhanging his base for other nearby models and I created this little counter with movable ball to represent him knocked down or stunned so that my big model wouldnt interfere with play. This was a REALLY good idea - feel free to steal it for your own big guy. I will do it for all of mine from here on out.

Greater Daemon (Kroxigor)

I also used an old tzeentch flamer model to represent my apothecary (and to use as a turn counter), the horror command drummer as my cheerleader (and reroll counter) and I procured an old Dieter Hammerlash bloodbowl model who I decided could represent a star player for my team if ever I were to need one.

Apoth and +Strength Linesman

Once painted I added letters and numbers to the bases that I bought from IMPACT! miniatures (these people are amazing to deal with by the way) to number all the players (9 for the greater demon of course!) and to add the title of star/apoth/cheer to the support staff bases.

The display base was a mdf ring for a wreath glued on top of a cork trivet from Ikea. The Chaos star in the center came from a few years ago and has just been waiting for me to find an excuse to use it :). A little gravel, a few skulls, static grass and Voila! A base that fits my whole team.

Speaking of whole team - I actually built more models than I field just so that across a season as players die or are cut I can actually replace them with different models for clarity and variety! I am really pleased that I was able to get all the specific models that I wanted!

This was a really fun project and a great team to play throughout the season at my school. I ended up with bronze/3rd palce award in the league and a reputation for unpredicatbility in play. Perfect. Exactly what I was after.

Message Delivered Suckahs!

Next: The CFL goes to a real NAF Tournament!!!

Craig’s Fantasmagorical Legion! AKA The CFL - Part 1

Here is my finished Bloodbowl team the CFL - Craig's Fantasmagorical Legion (For my foreign friends reading this the CFL is also the Canadian Football League so the name seemed an appropriate play on theme as well.....)

They started out as a confluence of happenstance and an idea. A friend gave me a bunch of extra chaos stuff that he really didnt need anymore to bolster some extras that I already had. In the box were these:

They are old pink and blue horrors - models that I have always liked for their character and genuine fun factor.  It was around this time that I also was starting the NCC BloodBowl league and was looking for a team that would be fun to play without being too dominant or threatening to my fellow players (it was their first ever season) so I decided upon the fragile but wacky fun Slaan.  While these horrors didnt have the "very long legs" Slaan are attributed with, they do have very long arms and have often been described as bouncing and leaping across the battlefields. I thought the fit was a good one. On the plus side they are also all GW miniatures, so  if I took them to an event that had any kind of strict figure rules (chaos cup in chicago for example) I would still be good to go! So feeling good about all this -  into the bath they went -

By the time I got them out all shiny and new looking (not bad considering these models date as far back as the late 80's/early 90's and are older than the kids in my league) I had done a bit more research and made a list of the additional models that I would want for my team (I like to avoid duplication where possible - plus some of the models in this range are hella cool!).  It would take me a year of searching trading and ebaying to get the ones I wanted (plus a bunch of other ones as I often had to buy lots of 2-5 figures to get the 1 I wanted) but I think that the poses and style of them really suit the team concept. The good news is the duplicates/extras would all be passed on to a friend of mine who was building a WFB army of demons. In the end I have about a dozen extra models to pass his way and an additional Lord of Change (had to buy 2 to get the pose/parts I wanted) which I will dump on ebay to recoup some costs.

Well thats it for now - but I actually have several posts lined up and ready to launch every week or two for the next while :)

Huzzah! Back on track.

Bloodbowl: its not just for Khorne’s bran flakes anymore…

 

It is about time I wrote a bit about Bloodbowl and my team the CFL as they have been growing obsessions of mine for about a year now. 

I love Bloodbowl - from my very first teams way back when I was a kid and we had the styrofoam astrogranite pitch to the present day it remains one of my favorite games. I had a large hiatus between the two eras but last year decided that Bloodbowl would be perfect for a couple of seasons at the games club I run for the students where I teach. Understanding that the rules had changed dramatically from when last I had played I reached out into the internet and found a few really great communities to discuss learn and strategise with.

The first community I joined was the Australian Bloodbowl crew at the AUSBOWL forums. A genuinely wonderful collection of gamers who really work together and are a very welcoming community.

These guys were so awesome that I even did a model for their 2009/10 Legacy Team raffle (sorry the pics arent very good - the model was really quite nice!). Basically anyone who submits a figure for their team must paint it with team colours and is given a ticket to potentially win the whole team. They then sell additional tickets at their events to raise money for their Forum and community events.  I did star player Bomber Dribblesnot and added striping and a back crest in the appropriate colours (note the base in the pic is incomplete as the person organizing the raffle does the basing for each model so that they all look the same).

Another larger and more diverse group of BB fans can be found at Talk Fantasy Football (or TFF). These are coaches from all around the world and really this site is considered the central pillar of the online community for this game.

I also joined the NAF who are the overseers and governing body of "official" bloodbowl events worldwide. For $10 a year you get access to info on upcoming events and a sweet set of collectable BB dice.
With the advice gathered from these sources and a set of the newest rules (The current Competition Rules Pack edition is available on GW's website under specialist games/bloodbowlresources  -->CRP ) I built a league for my students. Calling in a favor from my buddy Stefan "Ripsey" Grambart (who you may know from his webcomic GoneToGround) I even got a website built for the new student league which we named "Nuffle's Crusader Cup" (Nicholson Catholic College being the name of our school - the NCC shortform was just too good to resist)

The season went incredibly well, I placed third in the finals with my "Slaan" team the CFL, Bronze went to Coach Coffin and his Undead (With a last name of Coffin could you really see him playing any other team?) and Gold going to the Stronghold Strong Arm - Our resident dwarf team and bane to most players in the league.
Now we are preparing for an all new season mixing vet players and new blood - Stay tuned to the crusader cup blog starting in October to see how it all goes down! In the meantime I will post photos and info about my team from last season, their participation in an NAF official tournament and a sneak peek at what is to come this season.  I also have new Beastmen, new products to share and a plethora of other stuff. CYA SOON!.

Oh and Happy Birthday to me today :)

And Icepelt Hammerblow is my Hero!