The team itself was the brain child of my good friend and [lapsed] podcast host JBone who came up with the idea of producing one the lesser represented teams in a style that was reminiscent of the great 2nd edition Games Workshop teams. The team he chose were the Slann and to carry this off he enlisted the services of one the best Blood Bowl sculptors out there at the moment, Pedro Ramos, and it wasn't long before I had the chance to see some of the initial concept sketches. The 2nd edition influence was immediately apparent and even though I'd never played Slann, or even thought I'd want to play them in the future, I knew I'd be supporting his campaign. The early shots of the greens convinced me I'd made the right decision and as the crowd funded campaign went through the roof, more and more items were added to the list. I think the initial idea was to launch, get funded and then have everything produced relatively quickly. Most of the greens had been done as JBone was clear that from the beginning he wanted people to see what they would be getting rather than just sketches. The success of the campaign, however, meant that things took a little longer than anticipated. In total there were 1,409 backers who raised 36,282 Euros making it one of the most successful Blood Bowl campaigns.
The team arrived a little while ago and after unpacking them and admiring the quality of the casting I packed them back up and tried to forget about them. I have now dug them back out from the pile of un-started teams that I have and decided it's time to paint them up.
The miniatures themselves were lovely and the quality of the casting meant that there was very little flash to clean up and mould lines were practically non existent. The detail on them was nice and crisp and they aren't overly detailed so it's not a as daunting a prospect to get them painted. The only criticism I would have is that the Blitzers came with their heads separate from their bodies. This was so you could choose which head you wanted to use - initially there were just 4 heads but one of the stretch goals extended that to 8 so there were plenty of options. The issue I had, however, was that the heads were wider than the gap where they were supposed to sit. I did a bit of cutting and some filing but still couldn't get perfect fits. I've had to add a little bit of Greenstuff to make them look better. It's not perfect and it would have been better had they fitted but it's certainly not the end of the world and, as you'll see, they still look good.
So, what did I get from the campaign? Basically everything that was put out - all of the team, markers, star players, coaching staff and sideline figures. The only ones I haven't started to base yet are the Star players. I've got enough to be getting on with at the present and they're not essential to have.
Let's start with the Blitzers. There are 4 unique sculpts for these and the poses are very dynamic which makes them very easy to differentiate from the rest of the team.
They look great and you can't see from the front the issue I had with the heads. Looking from the back, however, and you can see the rather large gaps left by the poor fit.
When it comes to painting the miniatures I'm going to incorporate the old 2nd Edition base colours but rather than do them as lines on the base, I'm going to bring the base colours onto the model itself. I think this will work really as they're frogs and frogs come in a variety of different colours. So, Blitzers always had a red base so my Blitzers skin will be predominately red.
Next up are the catchers and of the team sculpts, these are easily my favourites. Again, they're very dynamic but easily distinguishable and they look quite different to the rest of the team. They're thinner, more lithe, and the way that Pedro has been able to visually represent the fact they're only Strength 2 and Armour 7 is very good.
Catchers in 2nd Edition had a yellow base so these will yellow frogs...
Next up are the Linemen, cannon fodder of the team. The best thing about these guys is that that are two sculpts included in the linemen offering where the influence of the old Games Workshop sculpts can be easily spotted. One of the poses has the lineman pointing with one arm outstretched which is the classic pose of the old 'Chucker' position, and the second is where the pose is of a Lineman kicking the ball to reflect the 'Kicker' position. For me, these are just superb and provide a knowing, respectful nod to the GW models of the past.
The difficulty with painting these is that the base colour for 2nd Edition linemen was grey and I'm not that convinced that grey would work very well as a skin colour on these. So, instead, I'm going to do them blue but the underbelly will be a grey/blue to at least have something in there that references the old base.
Lastly, for the team positionals, there's the Big Guy, the Kroxigot or, as it's known on this team, the Big Croaker. This is a beautiful miniature and you get two choices to reprsent the the Prehensile Tail skill that this player has. The first is a traditional tail but as this is a frig team, that just doesn't sit well with me. The second is much better and is a long tongue that can easily be imagined as shooting out to trip unwary opposition players.
This guy is much more toad-like than the others and he'll be painted appropriately. There wasn't really a 2nd Edition base colour for Big Guys but as he's essentially a big Blocker and they're base colour was green, I'm going to do him green with a lighter underbelly.
That's the team and all that's left, for now, is to look at the staff/sideline figures. All of these look great and we have, from left to right, a referee, a wizard, Head Coach, Cheerleader, Apothecary and a drunken fan who I'll use as Bloodweiser Babe/Keg.
Although they all look great, the star of the show is easily the Head Coach who bears an uncanny and, no doubt, entirely coincidental resemblance to a villain from popular 80's kid's cartoon 'Danger Mouse'. Quite obviously, he will be painted in the same way.
That just leaves three markers. A small frog to use as a turn counter/score tracker and 2 tokens for the Big Croaker to use as Prone/Stunned markers.
Right, that's it for now. The aim is to get then undercoated as soon as I get a bit of dry weather and then make a start of them. I'm going to batch paint them by position so all the Blitzers will get done, then the Catchers, etc. I'm hoping I'll be able to do justice to the incredible sculpts and give them a paint job they deserve. I'll post an update once I have something to show.
Bye for now....
