Transfer News Exclusive!! Warhammer Quest Minotaur in Genre Switch

Reg Scroatbage, Chief Scout of the Chaos Culumities Blood Bowl team, was not a happy man.

The Culumities previous match against the Skaven team, Rat Skinkies, was supposed to have been his last match working for the Culumities before retirement. However, following the 6-0 drubbing, the Culumities owner, Borab Donke-Slaya, had asked Reg to stay on for one more match, and find for the team a player who could turn round the Culumties' fortunes.

"Asked" is a slight misnomer, it was more a case of Reg being gripped by the throat and being barked at by Borab that if he didn't "F*%$!^g find a F*%$^g player to F*%$^g turn this F*%S^g team into a team of F*%S^g winners" then Reg would find himself working as a "F*%$^g Eunuch" at Madame Mezzanine's brothel house.

So, being quite fond of hanging on to all his bodily parts (literally), Reg, unfortunately, now found himself in a damp, dark, smelly cavern. Even more unfortunate for Reg, the smell, was not from the cavern itself but as a result of his digestive tract being in a state of turmoil from sheer terror.

Reg was not an adventurer, never had been, never wanted to be. Blood Bowl had always been his game but desperate times called for desperate measures. In the last village he had stopped in, Crabbitsass, he had heard of a nearby cavern, a magnet for adventuring parties, who were drawn to the cavern by tales of the fabulous lost treasure of Giz A'brayke, the notorious bandit lord. The villagers, of course, knew full well there was no such treasure, but weren't in any hurry to let this fact be known, as the rumour of the fabulous riches was good for the tourist trade and during the adventuring season (March to October) it was pretty nigh impossible to get a bed in the village as it was always stowed out with parties. Fortunately, for Reg, it was mid-January so the village was quiet and while drinking in the Stoat and Hare pub, one of the local worthies, their tongue loosened by several tankards of Mr Numpty's best bitter, had let slip to Reg that there was no treasure in the cavern, but what was there was a ferocious Minotaur that the locals referred to as Bovine Encephalopitus, or BE for short.

This was the break that Reg was looking for. Minotaurs were highly prized in Blood Bowl for their savagery, blood thirstiness, savagery and, well, savagery. Problem was they were also pretty difficult to sign up because they were, well, savage. However, the worthy had also let slip the secret of BE's only weakness, a fondness for Spicy Snotling.

So, Reg now found himself in the Cavern of Giz A'brakye, stomach churning. knees trembling, and clutching the only known effective weapons to counter the terrible BE, a bag of Snotlings and a tin of Auntie's Mabel's very hot chili seasoning.

Reg, cautiously approached the next turn in the corridor. A faint glow emanated from around the bend. Not the pale glow of sunlight but an orange glow of fire. Peering round Reg found himself looking into a broad chamber, in the centre of which burned a large bonfire and sitting on a boulder nearby, BE.

This was the difficult bit as Reg hadn't yet decided how he was going to approach the Minotaur and drop into the conversation the prospect of playing a game of Blood Bowl. While Reg contemplated his next move disaster struck. The Snotlings in the bag, no doubt aware that the proverbial was about to hit the fan started to get very agitated and suddenly a loud squeak from one of the Snots broke the quiet of the chamber. Quick as flash BE was up, axe in hand, and bellowing a terrifying cry, rushed towards Reg. Poor Reg was rooted to the spot in terror. As the ferocious creature bore down on him with axe raised about to cleave poor Reg in two all Reg could do was close his eyes and thrust both his arms out in front of him, one clutching the bag of Snots, the other the tin of Auntie Mabel's.

The fatal blow, never fell. Reg opened one eye and before him stood the beast, axe lowered and looking slightly stupefied.

"Moo", whispered the creature and gently took the offerings from Reg and trudged back to his boulder.

The rest was easy. Reg could not believe his luck when BE explained in Pidgin Common (Reg didn't speak Minotaur) that he was tired of being stuck in this dark hole and wanted to get out and see the world. The only reason he had really stayed was the regular supply of victims, sorry, adventurers who came to the cavern in search of the non-existent treasure. Reg was quick to tempt BE with the prospects of lots of travel round the Old World, nice, dry cavern to sleep in every night, as much Spicy Snots as BE could eat and still enjoy the prospect of smashing skulls on a regular basis, although Reg had to point out to BE that he couldn't take his axe on to the Blood Bowl pitch as using weapons in Blood Bowl, was of course against the rules.

BE was not put off by this one drawback and applying his hoof-print to the contract that Reg produced from his pocket, the pair wandered out of the cavern and back to the Culumities' training ground.

That season, the Culumities turned round their 0-4 losing start to the Season and finished 12-4 winners of their Divisional League. BE was top casualty scorer with 15 kills and 27 knock-outs during the regular Season. In the play-offs the Culumities won through to the final of the Blood Bowl where they ran out 3-0 winners against their former nemesis, the Rat Skinkies. with BE getting another 2 kills and  4 KO's. BE was voted Player of the Year by the fans of Spike Magazine, an honour he held for the next 4 years before finally relinquishing his title and unfortunately his Blood Bowl career in a fatal encounter with Morg N'Thorg.

Reg? Well he got his retirement and is now the proud owner of several take-away outlets specialising in Spicy Snotling delicacies.

Much as I like the Games Workshop Minotaur figure, I was not overly enamoured with the price. So being the cheapskate that I am, I was looking for a cheaper alternative to provide Minotaur mayhem to the Chaos Blood Bowl team that I seem to be taking an age to paint up. Other companies, such as Impact Miniatures also do Minotaur fantasy football figures but again I was not keen to pay full price as I wasn't convinced I would use the Chaos team that much.

I then remembered that Warhammer Quest had plastic Minotaur figures. For those of you Dear Readers not in the know, Warhammer Quest was one of GW's most popular boxed sets, a sort of cross between role-playing and board game and long, long time out of print. The pose, as seen in the first couple pictures above, was fairly generic and with a quick couple of clips with the clipper the weapon could be disposed of (because in Blood Bowl it's illegal to use weapons) and a couple of spare spiky bits from a Ork 40k box set would add a wee bit of decoration to the figure. Now, I do have a set of Warhammer Quest but there was no way I was going to hack up one of the figures from my set given that it is my pension fund but I was lucky enough to find someone selling the figure on Ebay which I duly purchased for £0.50 plus £1 postage. Result!