Favourite Unit of Mine - No.10

Actually, this is not a unit but a single figure.

And it's a figure which doesn't actually appear in the game that he has so much influence over.

But he is there, making sure the game is played fairly and in accordance with the rules. He is

THE BLOOD BOWL REFEREE

Blood Bowl, like any other form of sport, is played according to a set of rules and it's the job of the Blood Bowl referee to make sure that the Players abide by those rules. Of course, as you would expect in such a violent, chaotic, pell mell of a game, the Ref has his work cut out trying to keep tabs on what is going on all over the pitch. Players are quick to exploit the fact that most Refs don't have eyes in the back of their head (unless they happen to be the mutated Chaos Ref, Foureye Cotchya'atit, who does actually have 2 eyes in the back of his head).

Dwarf Ref, Buska Blutfast, does not have eyes in the back of his head

It takes a special type of character to want to be a Blood Bowl Ref. Strangely enough for someone who has to be able to interpret and enforce the Rules of the Game, a lack of intellect is probably an advantage (you would need to be pretty stupid to want to do the job in the first place). Unfortunately, the experiment introduced by the NAF (Nuffle Amorical Football) League Commissioners of encouraging each race to provide a Ref to officiate games failed miserably when the only Snotling to ever take charge of a match, Squeaky Meeky, was accidentally eaten at the start of the game between the Dwarf team, The KazaK Kruisers and the Orc team, The Greenboyz Duckers, by the Duckers' Troll, Gampful Bumpful.

The best Refs tend to be former players, who have survived a game, with all their faculties still intact. Some, however, unfortunately forget that they are now Refs and get carried away with what is going on the pitch, as happened to Ogre Ref, CrudFit Manmasher, who reacting to his own whistle for the start of the match, proceeded to clobber 5 linemen of the Human Goldenballs team. When Crudfit finally remembered he was supposed to be officiating as opposed to fouling, he had no option but to send himself off for his illegal play (because fouling is illegal in Blood Bowl) and the match had to be abandoned.

It's a dangerous job, being a Blood Bowl Ref, and in addition to the mayhem on the pitch, sometimes the Crowd can get carried away (if a "2" is rolled on the Kick Off Table) and incapacitate the Ref (usually in a particularly brutal fashion as payback for an "erroneous decision" that the Ref made against their particular team). The replacement Ref is usually suitably kowtowed that he will turn a blind eye to a Foul Play carried out that half by either team, unless, of course, the Player rolls a "1" and in those circumstances even the most terrified Ref will send the Offender off rather than risk the wrath of Nuffle.

It has to be said that a Blood Bowl Ref is not a particularly well paid job and consequently, it comes as little surprise that some will be tempted to receive a little "backhander"  from one or both Coaches, who use the filthy lucre to influence the Ref's decision where one of their Players gets caught in the act of putting his boot into an opponent's reproductive organs.

Normally if a Player rolls a double on a Foul play, then they will be sent to the Locker Rooms and take no further part in the game, but if the Ref has had his pockets lined in advance then anything but a "1" will allow the Player to remain on the field.

"Technically you have just committed a breach of Rule 26, paragraph B, sub-paragraph (iii) but I'm prepared to overlook it on this occasion, if you promise not to do it again!"

So love'em or hate'em, the game just wouldn't be the Game without the Blood Bowl Ref!

Byzantines, Blood Bowl and Shermans

I promised my mate, Alan, a full after action report of Friday night's Blood Bowl game between his Norse and my valiant Dwarrow Boys Dwarf team, and I will get to it, once I stop howling and gnashing my teeth at the injustice of Nuffle, the God of Blood Bowl.

So, as brief interlude, here are some pics of the rest of February's output of painting that I haven't previously posted-

Some more Byzantine Cavalry Command figs

Still too flashy. I'll need to try Big Lee's suggestion for a flash diffuser here

I know the Standard is too big. The guy's wife says he is over compensating for deficiencies in other areas..............

The full Byzantine Cavalry Command set all together at long last

Byzantine Light Cavalry Archers

Part of the Chaos Blood Bowl team that I said I would get painted up February 2011

A squadron of 10mm British Shermans and Firefly

And another squadron

An ickle 10mm Firefly next to it's 20mm cousin

And finally

On the hunt for Captain Kirk



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!

Mungo's Mashers

So towards the end of last year my bro finally decides to get himself his own set of Blood Bowl. He managed to get a second hand set pretty cheap off Ebay complete with the Orc and Human teams and a couple of extra metal figs as well.

About the same time Warhammer Historical were having their half price sale on all their rule books. For a while I had been swithering about their Trafalgar set of rules and using the pile of plastic pocket ships from the old Wizkids "Pirates of the Spanish Main" that I have had for years, before they became tainted with the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise.

Cheap and cheerful but they would do the job.

And although I have only played a couple of World War 1 games over the years I also had liked the look of WH's "The Great War" rules. As my birthday is just a few weeks before Christmas and being a great believer in receiving presents that I actually want rather than the hand knitted sweater I texted bro and basically told him "check out the WH site, I fancy a few of their rule books for my birthday and Xmas".

His reply came shortly afterwards - "Ordered Trafalgar, Great War, Over the Top (the supplement for The Great War rules), Waterloo and Kampfgruppe Normandy, but you've got to paint my Orcs and Human Blood Bowl teams". Well I couldn't really refuse given the value of the offered booty -

So the figures duly arrived at Kingsleypark Manor and once the festive holidays were over I got to work.

The Humans got finished first, pics of those can be found in my post Return of the Menagerie so then I started on the Orc team, which my bro has christened "Mungo's Mashers". He wanted a similar colour scheme to the Orc team that appears in the PC game version of Blood Bowl by Cyanide Studios. So that'll be red and green then.

Again, keeping it simple with block colours, a Thraka Green wash over the Goblin Green and then a brush dip finished off with the anti-shine spray.

Presumably this is Mungo (actually he is the old model for the Orc star player Varag Ghoul Chewer)

As will be noted Mungo is using an illegal tooth picker

Mungo and his Black Orc buddies (I've christened them Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee)

The stalwarts of any Orc Blood Bowl team - the Linemen

  Blitzer

Thrower

 I told my bro that you can't have a Ball and Chain Gobbo on an Orc Blood Bowl team. However, he tells me that this in fact Neville , the Cheerleader with his "Spiky Pom-Pom".

I've come to the conclusion that I really don't like GW's Goblin Green, which is a bit of a pain considering I've got over 100 odd Orc and Goblin models sitting in a drawer awaiting some painting love.

I've also realised that my bro now has 4 painted Blood Bowl teams (and I have painted 3 of them for him) - Chaos, Dwarves as well as the Humans and Orcs, whereas I only have 3 completed teams! Maybe it's time I got back to painting my own Chaos team that I had started many moons ago to redress the balance.

 

What I did

Many thanks to all of you who took the time to look at my last post and to those of you who responded there and on the TMP thread. It was extremely interesting to read some of the comments!!

So what did I do when in my game of Blood Bowl against Ruarok on Saturday night when I had suddenly realised, after just having scored the first touchdown of the game, that I had been playing with 13 players on the pitch as opposed to the regulation 11 players?

Well even though bragging rights at Kingsleypark Manor were at stake................ I had to fess up.

I had set up the Kingsleypark Karoke Boyz for the next drive of the game and, as it was that point I eventually noted the extra bodies on the pitch. I was so used to playing with teams that only 11 players on the roster that I had just gone into automatic pilot mode and had just set everyone onto the pitch without a second thought.

As reality dawned on me, I looked over to Ruarok who was deep in thought trying to decide how to set up his Skaven team to receive the kick off. He clearly still hadn't noticed the illegality of my set up. Someone came over to speak to him for an update on the game and while he was distracted I quickly whisked 2 Orc Linemen off the pitch and into the reserve box. Still nothing from Ruarok.

I couldn't help it. I started laughing hysterically, much to Ruarok's annoyance who obviously thought I was taking great pleasure in rubbing in the humiliation he had suffered in letting a Goblin be tossed halfway down the pitch and being allowed to score unmolested by a single Skaven.

Eventually, I regained enough composure to ask him if he had noticed what had happened. Ruarok, being a typical stroppy teenager, immediately assumed that he had made some fatal flaw in his team set up and started scouring his team looking for the error and shouting back at me asking why I was being a mong.

Finally, I told him we would have to start the game again from scratch. The puzzled look in Ruarok's face should have been captured on film but I was still shaking too much from laughter to have been able to record the moment for posterity.

"I had 13 players on the pitch during that last drive!"

SILENCE

Then give Ruarok his due, he started roaring his head off in laughter. A few guys from some of the other tables came across to see what was causing all the raucous and left somewhat bemused at the sight of the pair of us rolling about in hysterics.

So we started again from scratch. During the "proper" game, I had to suffer the indignity of watching the Skaven Rat Ogre, "Indio", do the impossible (ok, he rolled a "6" on a D6) and pick up the ball

The great brute then swatted my Star Orc Thrower, "Flingit Milz", half way across the pitch and then strolled in for a touch down.

And then when a wayward kick off from the Kydz went out of bounds and resulted in a "touch back" to the Skaven team, Ruarok, took his chance to give the ball again to the Rat Ogre who bulldozed his way down the pitch for his second score of the "proper" game.

Due to the fact that we had rebooted the game due to my "error" we didn't get the game finished when we had to pack up. But it wasn't all bad news for the Kydz and Kevin in particular. When Indio had scored his second touchdown, this had simply brought the score back to 3-2 in favour of the Kydz. And who had scored 2 of the touchdowns for the Kydz?? Yup that's right, Kevin got his moment of glory after all, twice...........

Oh how proud his old mum would have been.