Chaos on the Gridiron

An interesting challenge hit my workbench recently, in the form of a request to create a totally unique Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team.

I knew I had to start with Forge World's Infernal Guard; these guys could have been designed for Fantasy Football. A few weapon snips and the core of the team were ready for action:

The Hashut Ironfist Blockers prepare to cage up...

 For the Hobgoblins,  I opted for Greebo's lovely Volmarians, which have plenty of character. Check the Scrooge gloves!

Here come the hobnobs! One of them may even manage to get the ball, eventually.

Next up were the Bull Centaurs. I knew I wanted to use the Infernal Guard for the torsos, but needed suitable bull bodies to complete them. Eventually I settled on Mantic's excellent Half Breeds, which had the advantages of being plastic, and therefore very easy to convert, and also a very good size match. A bit of greenstuffing to create belly guards and rebuild the beards, and these guys were ready to rumble. I was particularly pleased with how the chainmail on the Hthark the Unstoppable came out, as it's something I've never felt quite comfortable sculpting previously.

Hthark the Unstoppable leads the Bull Centaur blitz.

All that was left after that were a couple more stars. Zzharg Madeye was made from another Infernal Guard, with the additional of a Blunderbuss made from a swivel gun from a GW scenery set, modified with plasticard to look appropriately meaty:

Reloaded and ready for a drive. Just the one mind.

Last but not least, Rashnak Backstabber was created with the simple addition of a Skaven sword to represent his poisoned dagger.

So that's those guys put to bed and ready for some competition! I need to make them a display plinth, so I'll pop a full team picture up once that's completed.

For now, keep your balls safe and mind them dirty players.

Mark E

Mike Newman Speaks...

Chaos Dwarfs 

part 4 - Tournaments and Hobgoblins

Hey guys,

This week I wanted to talk briefly about a couple of warhammers tournaments I've been to over the last couple of weekends.

First up was the Bjorn Supremacy at the North West Gaming Centre in Stockport

This was a smaller, more relaxed tournament, using the Swedish Composition Pack - a series of restrictions on building your army, which lead to a wide variety of unusual unit choices and army lists. This event marked the first time the Swedish Pack has been used in the UK for a tournament, and, while a slightly complicated system, it went down well and I fully expect to see more tournaments using it in the future.

To view the restrictions in full go to https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7619038/Swedish%20Comp%20Pack.pdf

Personally I took a variation of a rush Chaos Dwarf, based around a Lord on a Lammasu, 2 Tau'ruks, some Centaurs and a K'daai Destroyer. Had a great time and was very happy to finish 6th - especially as I had to play 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 8th places - a tough schedule indeed.

And then last weekend I went to Winter Incursion at the newly re branded Maunsfeld Games

This event was more of a standard UK tournament - and with 56 players, it made it (almost) the last maximum ranking point event of the calender year. I will talk and explain more about that next week, but it made it important, personally, that I came away with a good rest.

And thankfully, after 6 hard fought games, I managed to come away in 1st place. Which obviously I was overjoyed with.

I also managed to pick up Best Painting Nominations at both events - another achievement I was very pleased with.

Onto this weeks unit pics then - and as promised I've got some pics of the Hobgoblins. These were the very last unit I painted for the initially army list I talked about in part 2 of the Chaos Dwarf series. But one I thoroughly enjoyed.

I went for a dark brown shade on the cloth of the Hobgoblins, rather than using the blue/grey I'd used on the Chaos Dwarfs armour - to denote them more as slaves, an make the Blackshard armour on the Dwarfs stand out. I brought the blue/grey colour back in slightly on the armour for the command group, marking them out as separate to the rank and file. This is a good example of how small changes, while sticking within a limited palette range can really add character and emphasis to an army.

 And thats all for this week folk, next week will be the last entry before Christmas, I plan to talk a little about the UK Tournament year just gone and the UK Masters (a tournament of the best UK warhammer tournament players over the past year) - as we find out this week who has qualified. I also plan to celebrate Christmas by showing off my K'daai destroyer.


Till then....

Lava Lava Everywhere - Custom Blood Bowl

NAF rankings points, peer respect, complete DreadBall teams and a vintage Margaret Thatcher mug were up for grabs at FlameBowl MMXII - but the most hotly (ho ho) sought-after prize was the hyper-limited edition Blood Bowl pitch.

The victorious Team Swim - Podfrey, Ambush, Sillysod and Barney.

Tournament Organiser and Blood Bowl nut Nippy Longskar creates a special pitch every year. This year he asked me to craft the fiery boards so he could get on with the important task of making cheese sandwiches.

 

The FlameBowl board benefits from years of Nippy's gaming insight - the scatter templates are incorporated onto the pitch design, as are Fame and Weather markings. The Weather markings are a further development of last year's design as they now incorporate numbers. 

 

Thanks to Sally for illustrating the original FlameBowl logo. I stripped it down and incorporated it into the pitch's flamey lava centre. 

 

Sally also painted the team awarded to highest-scoring individual. I always like seeing teams with rims painted to denote their position.

 

Here's some people playing on boring grass pitches, but still having fun...

 

And the charity raffle prize Maggiemug. You could drink tea from it. Or (if you wanted to be like Thatcher herself) lots of scotch.

 

I hope I get asked to design another custom pitch for FlameBowl MMXIII. I've got a year to think of how to push the flame theme further (Or should I say "fan the flames higher").

Chris "Curis" Webb

Mantic Interviews Chris

Our very own Chris was interviewed by Ben Curry on the latest Mantic podcast.


Listen to him here.

Mike Newman Speaks...

Chaos Dwarfs

Part 3 - Lords & Heroes

OK so today I said I'd talk about the infantry lords and heroes I decided to include in my first Chaos Dwarf list (for more details of which see part 2 - http://golempaintingstudio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/mike-newman-speaks_26.html)

I opted for a Sorcerer-Prophet as my lord choice. For 265pts basic he brings alot to the table. Stat wise, with 3 ws5 s4 attacks, while not being overly choppy, he is pretty decent for a wizard, but the main key to the stat line is the facts he's T5 with 3wounds and a 4+ save basic - I chose to capitalise on this by also giving him a Charmed Shield - to both improve his save and provide some protection against miscasts.

I also chose to make him a level 4 wizard with access to the lore of Death - with leadership 10, spirit leech poses a very good threat to most enemy characters, while Doom and Darkness coupled with the panic test from Deathshriekers is an awesome combination. Overall I think Death is a very strong lore for Chaos Dwarfs. I also equipped him with the Chalice of Darkness - to help capitalise in the magic phase.

My second choice was for a Infernal Castellan Battle Standard Bearer. Like the Prophet, he is already half decent in combat, and very tough (as you'd expect from a dwarf) - but the main thing he brings is his ability to not only let units within 12" reroll their leadership - but also make any unit he joins Stubborn! I almost always deploy him with the other characters in the Infernal Guard - making them stubborn leadership 10 with a reroll - they aren't going anywhere!!

Obviously as he's the key to the anvil and all the characters standing strong its important he survives. I opted to give him an Enchanted Shield and a Luck Stone. For 10pts this give him a 2+ armour save which can be re-rolled once. I didn't want to go too over the top points wise as most of the time he sits safe in the second rank of the Infernal Guard.

And finally I chose a Daemonsmith. For only 95pts I think they are a fantastic choice. The bring a magic weapon, some spells, and are an engineer to boot, plus he carries the Dispel Scroll. They really are the jack of all trades. 

I also chose to make this a Death wizard, this time a level 1 - this helps me guarantee getting Doom and Darkness  to make the most of my rockets (especially as I now have two engineers in the army!) but also means I have access to two leadership 10 Spirit Leeches. Devastating against some armies.

That's it for this week, next week I plan to talk about two tournaments I've been to recently - as well as show off my Hobgoblin Sneaky Git unit. I also wanted to say thanks to those who got in following my last blog post, has been really interesting talking to people about what I wrote, and Chaos Dwarf army lists in general. If you want to contact me you can on twitter - @mikeygolem

If not, till next week...

DreadBall at FlameBowl

As if six games of Blood Bowl weren't enough for the hardcore fantasy sports gaming crowd, attendees at FlameBowl MMXII were treated to demonstration games of Mantic's shiny new DreadBall. Tactically situated on a table neighbouring the FlameBowl lunch buffet, Blood Bowlers had a chance to compare and contrast this new kid on the block with their 26 year-old classic.

 

The grizzled 'Bowl veterans grasped some of the tactical subtleties straightaway - starting their rush with Slams and manoeuvrings and only getting to the important scoring business at the end. There were a couple of observations that kept cropping up...  

Passing the Ball - Passing in Blood Bowl is a rare sight. The chances of losing the ball and suffering a turnover are high, even with skills such as Pass and Accurate. Blood Bowl teams tend to cage and advance down the pitch in tired, predictable fashion. In contrast, there's a lot of passing in DreadBall and more of a feel it's a sports game.  

Pitch Size - DreadBall's pitch is much smaller than Blood Bowl's. This is in partly cos there're a lot less models on the field (six a side rather than eleven). However, the models control much less of the board in DreadBall - rather than exerting eight squares of tackle zone in the all the adjacent squares DreadBall models only project their influence forwards into the three front hexes.  This is refreshingly different.

 

Game Speed - Khemri were 0-4 down against Elves, still with turns on the counter. Would no-one put Schmee's Tomb Kings out of their misery while the game dragged on to its inevitable conclusion? In DreadBall, if a team are running away with the scoring then the game ends - keeping it fast and fun.  

Nice Smells - The alternative MDF pitch smells of lasers. This is a nasal treat - much like the smell of printing in a new book, or the air inside a boxed game. If the DreadBall boxes came with MDF pitches inside it would be an olfactory joy explosion.

 

Special thanks to Mantic for sponsoring FlameBowl, their prize support and free Goblin miniatures for every player.

Chris "Curis" Webb

Orcs, orcs, orcs, orcs! Part 3

Read Part 1 here

Read Part 2  here

So far I've shown off the Orc Boyz and Goblins from my recent army commission. To round out this series of Blog Posts, I'll take you through the tough stuff! Black Orcs, Characters, and the Boar Chariot were the elements that filled out this force.

These black orcs were great fun to paint! I was happy with the result of the beaten/ battle damaged look of the armour, which makes them look like grizzled veterans, without being too messy.



Next up we have Udglud 'Eadcrusha astride his fearsome, armour-clad warboar, and Mazdag Ardnut, the Army Standard Bearer. You'll notice that the blending of colours is a little smoother on the Character standard minis - these little touches help the models stand out from the rank and file.

 Battle Standard Bearer Mazdag 'Ardnut glaring menacingly behind his iron mask as he holds aloft the Banner of Mork.

The limited edition Orc Shaman has a lot more skin on display than the rest of the orcs in this army. I didn't want him to look too bright overall, so I picked muted tones for the cloth and wrist straps. Balancing colours like this is an important part of making an army look coherant on the tabletop.

On the Boar Chariot, I painted the boars and crew separately before completing the assembly. This made it much easier to access the hard to reach spots on the mini and overall saved me time with the paint job.

Eadcrusha's Horde in all its glory! Who knows which unsuspecting settlement they'll ransack next?

If you'd like to learn the skills needed to produce an army like this quickly and consistently  our Army Painting Workshop on 26th and 27th  January is for you! Email events@golempaintingstudio.co.uk for more info or to reserve your spot.


Cheers!

Thomas Moore