'Sport' from PhilH: Blood Bowl Skaven

I had just the thing for this Theme Round prepped but just sitting in a box, guiltily. I expect we might see a few of entries on similar lines. Yup, it's that classic fantasy sports game by Games Workshop: Blood Bowl.

I really like Blood Bowl, it's such a hoot to play, as demonstrated by it's enduring popularity despite absolutely no love from GW for 10 years or so. I was pleased when they resurrected it in their specialist games line. Traditionally, I played humans, and fancied something slightly different second time around, picking up a Skaven team.

I deluded myself i might knock the whole team out for this theme round, but nope, ready for the deadline are my colour scheme test Lineman, as well as a pair of sneaky, speedy Gutter Runners. Still, three means I'm 25% of the way there. It's those tails, they take ages.

In the olden days, Skaven were little things, but in GW-land, everything has got much bigger since I last bought any. So these are much more chunky sculpts and based on 32mm bases - which is the new size of base GW roleld out for their giant new Primaris marines. 

The team comes with two sprues, each with three Linemen, a Gutter Runner, a Catcher and a Blitzer: standard team makeup, though not optimal for Skaven: I'd take 3-4 Gutter Runners if I could, so I have spares for when some lumbering Chaos Warrior catches up with one and grinds him into the dirt. 

What's unfortunate is each sculpt only comes in a single build, something that I think they've fixed for the later Necromunda line. So I spent a fair bit of time converting so there were no identical minis. The hardest to do from the box components were the Gutter Runners and Blitzers, both being in more active poses and without as many suitable swaps across the minis. Being a good number of years weaned off GW, I've no bit box to dig into. So the Gutter Runners had to suffice with a twist of the cloak and tails, and arms in slightly shifted positions. 

To decide on a colour scheme I fished around in my box of paints to dig out some paint bottles I hadn't used on anything yet, ending up with Vallejo Khaki Grey and Middlestone, which I used as the yellow-khaki team colour. I felt it would pair well with black, and the rest of the colours sorted themselves out.

There's some bits to do to finish them off: adding grass to the groundwork, dirtying them up with weathering effects and adding player numbers using the decals that come in the box. For efficiency's sake,  I'll come back to that when the whole team is painted in....2021, maybe? :-) 

In GW's new spirit of accessorising all of their games, the team box also comes with themed balls, game tokens and this team sigil. I decided to base these three, as the teeny balls can be a bit fiddly to handle otherwise.

I'm reckoning 20 points due for this haul?

So, I've hit both theme rounds so far, but otherwise been a bit quiet this year. I've actually done a fair bit of painting, but have decided to try to save up groups of minis, rather than posting tiny entries. So I should appear one Tuesday with a squirrelicious set of posts.