Blitz Bowl Pre-Season Game

We got home from vacation on Saturday, and because I just couldn't wait any longer, Sunday saw my first learning game of Blitz Bowl. Because it was a learning game, I consider it more of a scrimmage or pre-season type of affair.

My son was busy, so it was a solitaire outing, and I was glad to find the game plays well this way. 

Blitz Bowl is basically IGO-UGO (limited to three actions each per turn) although if you claim a Challenge card,  some bonus plays (on the back of the Challenge cards) allow for an interruption, there is no hidden deployment, there are limited number of actions a player can take (the miniature,the person playing the game is called a Coach) and the outcomes of some of them are dependent on a die roll.

Most helpful of all to a solitaire player, I think, is the randomized behavior of the ball in the case of a fumble or bad pass or when a player moves into a square with the ball as a result of a push, sidestep, or anything other than a movement. It's difficult to play for every contingency in that case.

While I have heard that compared to Blood Bowl differentiation between teams and players on a team are limited, I felt like there were enough differences to be interesting. With repeated play I may feel otherwise, but for now it works. It does keep the mental requirements for learning the special abilities down which I am always grateful for these days!

Finally there are also some interesting/difficult decisions to make. 

Very often, I found myself debating whether to bring a player in from Reserve, or try to eek out something with the players on the field. Similarly, it costs an action to stand up a downed figure, and that has to be weighed against the other things you are trying to accomplish (primarily, get the ball if you don't have it and score if you do). And should you take three actions with one player or spread them around?

The game was a lot of fun to play- which, having heard all sorts of negative things about other Games Workshop games, surprised me a little. 

It reminded me of a game my friends and I played with a football in our backyards, called "Fumble Rumble" when I was a kid. When we moved when I was a teen, I learned another name for the game in use in that region: "Kill the Man with the Ball" which is pretty apt for a game of Blitz Bowl too.

I'm looking forward to giving it another go with the advanced rules and I'm hoping to pick up some paints next weekend for the Nurgle team, too.

Skaven Take the Field!

Despite thinking otherwise, I managed to finish my Skaven Blitz Bowl team before I left on vacation (which I'm currently still on - but we're just hanging around the hotel today)

I'm pleased with the results. 

I'm even more pleased that it means we can start playing when we get back. The game includes a set of drills to teach the basics, so that's where we'll start.

Here's a brighter picture with a less busy background:

I have a Nurgle team to paint as well, but I need to pick up some paints first.

In other news, we have been playing D&D in our hotel in the evenings and it's been a great time. He is very into it, which is more than I can say for most of the things we've done on the trip outside of D&D. 

It's an old school game of dungeon exploration and liberating treasure from a dangerous locale. We're using Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert D&D as the base, along with some Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion and some things I've found from other publishers (like a b/x artificer class). It's designed to be a drop-in/drop-out campaign, so other members of our regular gaming group can join from time to time if they would like, but also so my son and I can just pull out the maps, character sheets, and my notes and start playing whenever we want, even if no one else is available.

We'll be home Saturday, so I'll see if it works as planned once we've been back a bit and it's not one of the only options available. So far though it's been great just getting to play and see him so excited. 

State of the Painting Queue

As I've mentioned many times before, more as a reminder for my sake than for anything else, earlier this year, I put a moratorium on purchasing unpainted figures. 

What this has lead to, rather unintentionally, is renewed interest, if not enjoyment, in painting.

Perhaps I have swung too much in the "other direction" - here is my paint queue as of this morning:

For the curious, yes that is a very old Duncan Glow Imperial that I've had since the late 70s or very early 80s. I still can barely yo-yo.

 

Scales represented in that picture are 1/72, 28mm(or 32 mm?), 1/50 (the T-34 hull), and 54mm. Butterfly? Me?

I don't often share close up WiP shots, but I'm pretty excited about the progress on my Skaven Blitz Bowl team. As of last night, they are almost done with the base colors. I still have green, black, and a bone-like color to do yet (for their incisors). Then comes the wash, then a 2nd layer, and highlights.

This picture is a good deal brighter on my phone.

I'm following along with a YouTube tutorial, like I did for the human team. Same instructor - I find his instructions easy to follow, although I sometimes wish he'd show more of what he considers "armor" or where he applies a color because, as they are fantasy figures, I can't tell what's supposed to be what on these figures half the time.

It's possible I'll finish these over the weekend, but, I am also trying to ready a megadungeon-style campaign for my son (per his request) to have ready to take with us on vacation next week.

Fortunately, I really only need to have the ruins and upper level done. 

Of course, the ruins are three separate areas of multiple buildings/areas, two of which have their own mini-dungeons beneath - one connects eventually to the main dungeon. The third ruin connects directly to the main dungeon.

I'm using a number of freely available one-page dungeons to fill these areas, but I need to reskin them to the theme (Lovecraft tropes galore). The goal is to allow some exploration above ground as well as below, so he'll have choices about where to explore, creatures/NPCs to engage with, multiple ways in and out, that kind of thing.

So yeah, maybe finishing the Skaven this weekend is a little optimistic!

Shiny Grimdark of the Ion Age Space Knight

How It Started

 

 vs.

 

 How It's Going

The sad little halberd kind of reminded me of flame. So why not make him a Flame Tube Gunner?

Back pack made from Dollar Tree wood bead, piece of clothes pin, and piece of sprue.

 

Cloud Captain had given me some of these blue knights awhile back. I like them as their blue color but I already have Deetail knights and Saracens (who, together, make up Solis Nox).

I recently saw an add for the Ion Age miniatures from Alternative Armies and was immediately hooked by the 80s/early 90s sensibilities. Buying them wasn't likely - they are 28mm for one, but more importantly, I vowed not to buy any minis I have to paint for the rest of the year (skillfully worded so I can continue to buy brick minifigures and even painted figures!). 

However, a bell went off in my head and I thought, "maybe I can make my own homage to them".

So, I gave it a try. 

The color scheme is sort of inspired by Games Workshop figures I've seen. This poor fellow has been painted in several schemes, one over the other, before I landed on one I liked enough to call done. 

Being first is not without its risks!

The red is P3 Khador (I've had this bottle of paint for a LONG time. My friends tried to get me into Warmachine way back when, and I had a Khador army. I was more interested in historicals and VSF. Some things never change.) I wanted something that could play as "good guys" or  "bad guys" - and either fight with or against my chibi Space Nuns (which I haven't painted yet). 

 My plan is to (eventually) paint up a 10-figure red squad and a 10-figure blue squad (I have some nice blues I got for painting my Blitz Bowl humans) for classic red vs blue skirmishes or to serve as two units in the same army (those Space Nuns are tough).

Painting Update

Late Friday night, well technically early Saturday, I finished my first Blitz Bowl team.

This is "the human team". 

Painting was done by following this tutorial:  (10) How to paint Blood Bowl - Human player for the Reikland Reavers - YouTube

As paint jobs go, I'm pretty happy with it. Several new techniques involved for me - but I mostly paint toy soldier style, so that's not surprising.

I decided to dress up the basses a bit more than usual. too.

 When I did the first three human players, I used coffee grounds and flock for the bases. But, while decluttering the other day, I found a container of "steppe grass" which is longer/taller than flock. I decided I wanted uneven grass heights, like when you have crabgrass growing on a manicured lawn and applied some to all of the bases.

Heading to the paint table next: the skaven team.

I also did a little experiment last week.

Despite my resurfaced love for unpainted "army men" figures, and with an eye towards a future plan (far far future), I decided to paint two of my son's Timmee or similar brand figures but using the plastic color for the uniform. 

I've heard mention of this technique but never tried it myself.

Here are the finished products:

Easily some of the saddest bayonets I've ever seen.

To prime the figures, I used Mod Podge. 

Then, I painted the flesh, webbing, guns, and boots. Once the paint was dry, I followed with some Army Painter Strong Tone to cover the entire figure. 

This darkens the painted bits considerably. Using a technique garnered from the Blitz Bowl figures, I repainted the flesh and webbing again, while leaving the recesses the darkened color. 

I sealed it all again with Mod Podge. 

That looked OK enough, but I felt there wasn't enough contrast between the shadows and the lighter bits, so I dry-brushed the figures with Nubbly Linen (as close to a "buff" shade that I have).

I think that is a better effect on the tan soldier. The green soldier looks like his uniform has been beaten  on rocks - I probably should have used even less Nubbly Linen than I did. 

Nevertheless, for minimal effort (maybe 5-10 minutes total prime/paint/seal/dry brush time for both figures, not including the drying) they look more than passable for some Little Cold Wars, Sout American or African Imagi-nations, or similar.

Wargamers Are Some of the Best People

 Well, you are probably aware, being one yourself, but wargamers are some of the best people.

Tim Gow of Megablitz and More had a few surplus-to-need Dulcop Italians and knowing of my WWI Italian force, he asked if there were any I had need of. 

There was one, the bersaglieri carrying what appears to be a coronet that I did not have even one of. Tim generously sent one my way.

This animated fellow arrived in the post today:

If you can't picture him encouraging his fellow soldiers to advance under the withering fire of Austrian machine guns, you must be looking at some other picture.

But wait, there's more! (As some TV ads in the 80s were fond of saying)

Tim generously included several fellow Italians to keep him company in the New World:

So much energy and motion in this picture!

They will all round out my Alipini unit and bring up the strength of my Arditi. The Bersaglieri coronet players are destined to server as unit commanders.

And there was yet still more!

These beautiful figures are the Weston WW2 British. 

The sculpting is similar to the Toy Soldiers of San Diego and Conte figures I have and I'm looking forward to getting them into a game against the TSSD Germans sooner rather than later! (I've been having some fun, undocumented, games using unpainted figures with my regular table setup. There's something about the combination that I find wholly enjoyable lately)

Tim went truly above and beyond! A true gentleman!