Crumb-Bowl - Saturday 27th July 2013

So, it was Crumb-bowl time again so I thought I would write a tournament report.

I'd decided to take Chaos this time because I've not used them yet and also they were painted up. I looked at the roster choices and 2 builds sprang to mind. Crumb is a 1.1 million tournament and allowed 6 skills (one of which could be a double choice). The tournament didn't allow more than 2 duplicate picks, so I had no worries about facing guard spamming dwarves or blodge spam amazon teams.

The initial thought was to have an 11 man team with a Minotaur, 4 Warriors and 6 Beastmen with 3 re-rolls. Block would be decent pick on the Mino for the double choice with Block, Guard, Mighty Blow and Claw on each of the Warriors and a Beast with Sure Hands.

Then... I remembered how cool the Schwing award looked at last years event.... Could I shoehorn Max Spleenripper into a useable roster? It would have to be Max, 4 Warriors and 7 Beastmen, to allow a reserve for the inevitable sending off of the Secret Weapon. I could only afford 2 re-rolls which didn't seem enough given the lack of skills on the squad, so a Beastman would need to take the double pick of Leader to bring me back to 3. It would be risky but entertaining!

The only other problem was that I didn't yet have a painted Max.... Never mind I had a couple of days before the tournament started so I painted one up especially!

Max Spleenripper! He's from Neomics

The day of the tournament arrived and I was still unsure what roster to use, even printing off copies of both, but finally decided to take the 'saw and embrace the carnage after seeing that it was clearly the biggest award available!

The Schwing is MUCH more impressive than the other awards...

The Glow-a-saur addresses the crowd

Waiting for him to finish talking....

The first game was against Bert, who was using Goblins and had a lot of secret weapons of his own - his team are converted super hero goblins which was a really cool theme. Bert won the toss and received so I decided to bench Max in case he scored early. The trolls and both the fanatics (one was a star) went on the line of scrimmage while a hail mary bomber was parked just outside the end zone.

Note the interesting dice rolling gesture! :-)

I rolled a blitz on the kickoff which enabled me to run a beast towards the bomber and generally interfere with Bert's game plan. The rest of the team either spread out or put goblins between themselves and the ball & chains.

Following a Blitz!

 Over the next couple of turns the Goblin cage ground to a halt and Bert launched a bomb onto his prone troll, hoping to break a hole in the Chaos defense. Unfortunately the ball scattered back into the cage, being caught on a 6 by a hapless goblin before exploding, knocking the ball carrier and 4 other players over and destroying the cage!

Boooooom!

I was able to collect the ball and push into the Goblin's half. I managed to block the fanatics, and KO them while a Chaos Warrior blitzed the bombardier in the backfield. I rolled a both down and a push, and decided to take the both down to ensure no bombs for a couple of turns, but the plucky bombardier injured the Chaos Warrior!

I am slightly ashamed to say I stalled on the goblins for the remainder of the half as I wanted to field Max for the the full 2nd half if possible and scored in turn 8.

Bert bribed both KO'd fanatics and one recovered to take the field. He then realised that the bombardier would probably have been a better bet for the bribe, but it was too late! For the first 3 turns Max ruled the field, injuring a goblin in each turn then KO'ing and stunning a few more!

Max starts chewing into the Goblins

I was a lot of players up by about turn 5 so I started fouling every turn too, taking out a troll before scoring in turn 8, finishing the game on a 2-0 win, 2-1 in regular casualties but more importantly a massive 4 Schwing casualties! All in all a hilarious first game and one I'll remember for a long time to come :-)

Not many goblins left at this point...

Game 2 was to be another local Derby - I was drawn against Dave and his Skaven!

Needs an imaginary pipe and smoking jacket...

I was happy, as it meant more armour 7 to feed to the chainsaw. Plus, the organiser Glowworm does love to wind Dave up as often as possible so there was a spot prize up for grabs - the first team to injure the Rat Ogre got a special casualty dice. If the Rat Ogre survived the tournament unscathed then Dave would collect the prize.
The Skaven won the toss and received, Max again was benched for the first half. I did my best to contain the offence but couldn't stop the score in turn 5, but I was able to equalise with a touchdown at the end of turn 8.

Chaos defense end of turn 3

Chaos Offence turn 6

Things got more interesting again in the 2nd half. Max marched onto the pitch and I received the kick. Dave threw everything he had at me, and succeeded in sacking the ball carrier not once but 3 times during the drive. Luckily for me every time the ball bounced it landed on another of my players who succesfully grabbed it before the rats could scurry off and score.

Chaos offence 2nd half - the Prone marker is the downed Rat Ogre before he frenzies into the cage

Max made a lot of chainsaw attacks, but only managed stuns, eventually KO'ing the Rat Ogre after it frenzied into my cage and went down. No spot dice prize for me! I managed to score in turn 8 to win 2-1 with 2-0 on casualties but depressingly no more Schwing points, despite my best efforts.

In my last game I drew DaPirahna's very welsh Lizardmen. He had 6 Saurus, and Star Player Hemlock on the roster. Again they received so Max was benched and the Lizards scored in a blistering 2 turns, partly thanks to a pitch invasion which stunned Hemlock and a backfield skink but also 2 players on my left wing.

Pitch invasion!

Unfortunately the lizards also KO'd a beastman in the process who didn't recover so Max was called on to the field. A perfect defense frustrated my plan of Clawing, Chainsawing and Mighty Blowing my way into the Saurus. My re-rolls went early on failed blocks and my leader beastman also got injured.

Max 'saws but just gets a knockdown

Max was ineffective and got knocked off his feet but his armour held, and he finally left the field after being spotted for a foul. I was players down and my cage got broken after some more poor blocking so I was 2-0 down by the time the half time whistle sounded.

Things went the same in the 2nd half, where another perfect defence cost me valuable chances at casualties. Hemlock stabbed the ball carrier which eventually resulted in another score for the Lizards. In the last drive I managed to handoff the ball and run upfield, but was swiftly sacked and lost another touchdown.

2nd Half final drive - the saurus to the left has break tackle and was just in range for a blitz

The final score was 4-0 to DaPirahna and a whole heap of casualty points. He played excellently throughout  and went on to take 2nd place in the end. I achieved no further Schwing casualties either, so I was fully expecting to be out of the running for any of the awards. Still, I had 3 very entertaining games against 3 lovely opponents. All the games had their moments of gold and the Crumb is a very friendly tournament so all in all it was a great day!

Amazingly only one other coach achieved 4 Schwing Casualties during the 3 games and I was absolutely delighted to find I had won the award as I had the highest total points from a single game! I finished in 13th position out of 40 which I was happy with too!

I'm looking forward to next year's event already!

Elfball Black Widows team - completed 29th July 2013

Hi All,

Long time no blogging so I thought I'd update you with my recently completed team. The models are from Shadowforge apart from the Naga which is from Impact Miniatures.

I've been using this team as Pro Elves in Bloodbowl, but need to finish a few more line elves before that's completed - I'm at the dangerous stage where I have enough painted to play with so there's a chance the remaing few will not be completed like in many of my other teams... let's hope I can be diciplined enough to 100% finish them.

They're not doing too badly in league play at the moment - I'm on 5 wins and 2 losses and 3rd place. I'll also be taking the team to the Thrudball in August so hopefully I'll get some good games out of them in the tournament setting too!

Team shot:

Naga Widowmaker:

Hunters/Blitzers:

Strikers/Catchers:

Throwers:

Midfielders/Line Elves:

Hack Enslash - Completed November 2012

Hi All,

Here's a recent conversion to make a suitably pint-sized Star Player for my ongoing Deadling Necromantic and Undead teams.
The model is a two-piece conversion, the Deadling skeleton is from Impact! and the Chansaw and hands was cut from an unfortunate goblin made by Neomics. Due to the size, gluing was a bit fiddly!

I may add a bit of blood spatter sometime later to the model, but at the moment I'm not sure how best to do this...

I've now managed to get 3 different uses out of the same miniature! :-)

Skaven Blitzer - Finished October 2012

I recently finished this model for the Talk Fantasy Football 2012 Legacy team, which this year is Underworld!

The team is shaping up nicely - here's a shot from the organiser of models received so far:

Spiky's guide to stripping models

Hmm, I wonder with that title if I'll be getting a few extra hits on this blog... Anyway I thought I'd share a step by step guide for how to remove paint. This is especially handy as badly painted models always sell for less on Ebay and stripping the paint is very easy.

This method works equally well with plastic and metal models. I'm not sure if it would work on the Humbrol type enamel paints though, but definately sorts out acrylic paints. I've also used Nitro-Mors for stripping before, Dettol works just as well and is not carcinogenic - Bonus! :-)

You will need:
1) A bottle of Dettol - see the picture below, it's available from any supermarket
2) An old toothbrush
3) A glass jar with screw on lid
4) Rubber gloves (otherwise your hands will smell for a while)

 
Step 1
Pour enough Dettol into a clean jar to cover the model. Stick the model in and pop the lid back on. Leave the model at least 24 hours!

 
Step 2
You'll know that the model is ready to remove because the paint goes all baggy and starts to separate from the miniature. See below for an example:

Step 3
Put your gloves on and fish the model out of the jar. Dip the toothbrush in the jar and use it to scrub the paint from the model. The paint should come off very easily, but you may need to keep dipping the toothbrush in the Dettol to keep it lubricated.

It's important that you don't wash the model in water at this stage otherwise the paint will turn into a sticky mess! Use some more Dettol to rinse the paint from the model

Step 4
Once the paint is away from the model, it can be rinsed under running water, and dried in a bit of kitchen towel. It may be a bit smelly, but otherwise completely ready for painting!

There you go! Hopefully this was of use :-)

Crumb-Bowl Saturday 21st July

This may be the only tournament I attend this year, so I thought I'd post about it. It started as a side event for our league (the Cakebowl League) but we went NAF sanctioned and opened it up to everybody! We had 32 attendees which for a 1 day tournament is pretty good, I think.

I decided to take my Necromantic Undead team, as I'd had some good experience with them in league play. With 1,100k to spend I went for 2 Golems, 2 Werewolves, 2 Wights, 1 Ghoul and 4 Zombies, giving me 11 players and 3 re-rolls plus a Cheerleader and Assistant Coach.

I only took the one Ghoul because I'd had trouble protecting 2 in league play, and with no regeneration and low armour they are big targets. The limited skill slots was also another reason for not taking the 2nd Ghoul, as we were allowed 5 skills to add to the roster, one of which could be a double, so I played it simple and went for block on both Werewolves, the Golems and the Ghoul. This meant everyone on the team was a reliable hitter except for the 4 Zombies.

First picture is the tournament organiser Glowworm telling everyone to play nicely:

Next picture is the lovely silverware on offer at the tourney - the Cups are for 1st to 3rd place, with smaller custom trophies for Most Touchdowns, Most Casualties, Stunty Cup and the International Glowworm Award (also known as 4th Place), plus the amazing SCHWING award and Wooden Spoon:

 Game 1

I got drawn against DDark, was part of the Exiles contingent who'd come up from Bournemouth. He was playing with Halflings and I was delighted to see that he was using the same models that I was using for my Necromantic team - the Deadlings produced by Impact Miniatures! I really love the team as the models are great and they're also able to be used to represent several of the Bloodbowl races, although in this particular game it was slightly confusing for me!

He'd taken 2 Treemen, Deeproot Strongbranch and 2 re-rolls along with a load of halflings and a Master Chef. For skills, he took Block on one Tree and Guard on the other, with Sidestep on 3 Halflings

Things got off to a good start when his Chef failed to steal a single reroll in the first half. I received the kick and blitzed upfield with a Werewolf, expecting that with all my Block skills and rerolls I should knock a few of the little fellas out of the game early before scoring.

Unfortunately my blocking dice were abysmal and I had failed to even knock down a single Halfling throughout the whole first half! DDark is a very experienced player and I went into the second half 0-1 down and defending - very aware that another good throw teammate score could seal the game.

The 2nd half started pretty badly too - although his Chef only stole one re-roll, and my kick went deep so I didn't need to worry about a quick score - but the 3 Trees on the Line of scrimmage sent all 3 of my defending Zombies for a nap in the KO box in his first turn.

He failed to pick up the ball, and then fumbled a throw which allowed me an opportunity to steal the ball from 3 tacklezones (needing to roll a 5 or more), dodging and then handing off to equalise.

In the last drive, I marked the trees with the Golems, who proved to be more resilient and caused a few problems. I managed to steal the ball and again ran upfield to finish my first game on a 2-1 score.

  Game 2

 Still shaken a bit from my near defeat against the Halflings I was drawn against Hawk, who as Glowworm had pointed out to everybody was the only person not to gift-aid his paypal tournament entry. Hawk had come across from Essex to play, and had won his first game with 5 touchdowns. He was using Wood Elves and had 2 Wardancers, a Treeman, 2 Throwers, 1 Catcher and 5 Line Elves. He went with Strip Ball and Sidestep on the Wardancers, Kick on a Line Elf,  Leader and Hail Mary Pass on the Throwers.
 
I elected to receive and a high kick close to the line of scrimmage and caged, but was promptly turned over when the Wardancer leapt into the cage, stripped the ball and collected it up. Some more elves dodged through the defense to pin players and he scored in his 2nd turn.... and again in his 4th turn employing exactly the same method.

I was able to regain a small amount of dignity with a score before the end of the first half. During this time the Wardancer also had failed a leap so one of my Zombies wasted no time and badly hurt him with a foul, being sent off in the process.

In the next half, the remaining Wardancer scored easily, hugging the sidelines to make the blitz really awkward. I received and pushed forward, but lost the ball in my opponent's half and Hawk used his Thrower with Hail Mary Pass to hoof it upfield and outdistance my defenders. He really put the pressure on and was rewarded with his 5th touchdown before the game ended. Result was 1-5 loss to me, and Hawk went on to win the Most Touchdown award which was very well deserved.

The game went fast, so I was able to take a picture while most other people were still playing:

  Game 3

My last game was against Stu who is a local and a new member for our league. He took Dark Elves and had 2 Blitzers, 2 Witch Elves, an Assassin and 6 Line Elves. The Blitzers took Dodge and the Witches took Block, while the Assassin took Multiple Block.

Stu received and pushed down the sidelines, forgetting about the frenzy on my Werewolves. My kick had gone deep and I ran a Werewolf forward to intercept the ball carrier if possible. One of the blitzers fell victim to a crowd push and the fans obligingly injured him.

I managed to steal the ball for a score, and crowdpush another player before the 1st half ended

In the 2nd half, I collected the ball and caged up but then failed a handoff to a Wolf who was in scoring position so the Dark Elves were able to dodge through my line, pick up the ball and run off to score.

I received again and this time made myself a problem by frenzy pushing the Assassin next to my ball carrying Ghoul. The Assassin was knocked down, but stood up and stabbed the ball carrier for the blitz. Luckily he failed the armour roll and was also stood next to the sidelines so was shoved out and injured by the crowd in the next turn. I handed off to a Werewolf who galloped in for a second touchdown! Stu was running out of players by this time, and I had enough time to steal the ball and score again before the half ended, finishing the game 3-1

This gave me a 2-0-1 score for the day, but I'd not picked up many additional points which put me in 10th place out of 32 which I feel wasn't so bad!

Basing models

I've tried several basing methods over the past few years, and there always seems to be a balance between the length of time you spend on basing and how good the bases look...

Up until recently, most of my models have been based with sand over PVA glue, painted then drybrushed with 3-4 progressively lighter colours before flocking with some grass on top.

This has been somewhat time consuming so now I've found a corner to cut - pre-coloured sand! To be honest I saw this on Nazgob's blog, and picked up some brown coloured sand when I next saw a model railway shop.

My basing is now much easier and I only take 3 steps as shown below: