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



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.

 

Paint, paint everywhere and not a drop of Black!

Normally, I undercoat my figs with a black (sometimes white) spray paint. Normally, I would do this outside but with the weather being so cold this hasn't been an option and with Mrs Kingsleypark less than pleased at my suggesting I spray the figs indoors, I have had to resort to good old fashioned brush and some watered down paint.

Today, I have the house to myself, Mrs Kingsleypark and the kids are all away down to the Webster Theatre in Arbroath for the final rehearsals of "Titanic, The Musical" (runs from Tuesday 7 Feb to Saturday 11 Feb, curtain up 7.30pm, ticket price £12 if anyone is interested!!!). As such I had my day all planned to get some serious painting done, but first I wanted to put some undercoat on some more Byzantine Cavalry. Not wanting to risk the wrath of Mrs K (even when she is not here I can still feel her "watching" me), I got the brush out but realised, the black paint I had been using had pretty well been used up. "Never mind" thought I, I'm bound to have some more, so I started to empty my carousel to find the elusive black......

No doubt, there will some of you whose paint collection dwarfs this lot, but I was surprised just how many pots of paint I had (and that's not taking into account the tray of enamels that I have but are unlikely to ever use again) and also how long I had some of these pots. I even discovered a tub of yellow that came from the very first "Citadel Paint Set 1" which must date from about 1983 or thereabouts. All 9 inks from the first Citadel Ink set are there and also some of the bigger bottles are from a range called "Anita's All Purpose Acrylic". I don't know who Anita is/was but her bottles of paint are still going strong some 25 years after I bought them.

But considering how pretty important paint is to my hobby, I was a bit abashed to discover just how little care and attention I pay to my paints. I discovered several pots of the same colour all opened, half used. Some of the really old pots their plastic lid broke apart when I tried to open them, the plastic had become so brittle, although the paint inside is still perfectly useable. Some, in not so good nick. So, I've just spent the afternoon decanting from one pot to another, thinning out those pots where they had gone a bit gooey, putting all the duplicate paints away into a box but indexing what I have got just in case I need to find that elusive colour, cleaned up the carousel which had a lair of dust (and a dead fly) and putting those pots that I think I am likely to use on a regular basis back into it.

Hooray! Nice tidy carousel!!

Still didn't find a pot of black though.........

Byzantine Cavalry

As mentioned way back in my post "Favourite Units of Mine No.4" during my first year at Dundee University, I bought my first Ancients Army - a Nikephorian Byzantine army (for WRG 6th Edition rules).

(Don't ask me why the General figure's head is almost turned 180 degrees to the rear - that's the way he was cast!!)

The figures were made by Asgard Miniatures (long since gone although the castings are still available from an American company - The Viking Forge) and stood a lofty 18mm tall, which towered above the paltry 15mm figs that my mates were using in their Carthaginian and Roman Armies. Alas as related in said post, I had a bittersweet love affair with the Byzies, they never quite did the byziness for me over the years that I fought with them either at 6th Ed or DBM and DBA.

However, once bitten, I knew I could never give the Byzies up and a couple of years back Santa brought me the Thematic Byzantine army pack produced by Gripping Beast.

As usual, due to my snail like pace of painting, it took me ages to finish the first unit - Byzantine Skutatoi, and then the Byzies took a seat on the back burner. However, with my new found painting zeal, I have made a start on the cavalry, well okay 2 of them -



So 2 down, 26 to go.