Little Bit of Chaos...

Well Chaos Blood Bowl Team that is.
I had posted before in "And a taste of things to come" that I was going to use some models from Privateer Press for my Chaos Team. Well part of that idea has failed, it's not a big part of the team as a whole but is a big part within the team. The model that I was going to use as a Minotaur from P3 is super sized compared to GW minis. So I think I'm going to go ahead with the Satyxis Raiders for Beastmen, the GW Chaos Warriors, and use the GW Minotaur that I put together instead of the P3 items.

As for the pure GW Chaos Team, well I have them put together and in their primer coat so far. I believe that I'll use the primer coat as the base color on the Beastmen, and give them some washes to accomplish what I want with them skin wise. I figure on using that same basic process for the Minotaur as him and the Beastmen will be about the same. The Warriors are going to be black armor with red and gold trim.



Sorry for the not so great lighting, but the primer was not showing up well either way & I'm in a hurry. As for when these guys will see a paint brush it's hard to tell really, as I'm still working on getting my Salamander's Army done for my end of September trip to the UK. So it will more then likely be after I get back from there, unless everything else decides to start painting them self. Don't figure that is going to happen.

And a taste of things to come

Just to top off the posting spree tonite, I ordered some miniatures today from the Warstore to make a new team or two. I say "or two" cause I figure on making one that looks really nice, and might be painted by a good painter as I don't think I can get the quality I want with my skills at the moment (but I'll try first). The second of the same team will be a legal GW team so if I wanted to use them in an official GW Tournament or a Tournament that only allow GW miniatures for some reason.

Both teams are going to be Chaos Teams, but the first one is going to have a fun name to go with the really great miniatures. The name of the first team will be the "Beauties & the Beasts" and will be made up of the following miniatures:

• Beastmen will be Cryx: Satyxis Raiders for the beauties side of things.
• Chaos Warriors will be the GW plastic Chaos Warriors box from WFB range as the beasts.
  
• And the Minotaur will be a Circle Orboros: Gnarlhorn Satyr as the real beast (at least by looks).

The second team will be made of the following:

• Beastmen will be GW WFB Beastmen Gor Herd plastic box.
• Chaos Warriors will still be GW plastic Chaos Warriors box from WFB range, 12 Warriors to a box and 4 Warriors per team. So I'll have four warriors left over for something else.
• And the Minotaur will more then likely be from the GW Beastmen Minotaurs plastic box from WFB. As I really don't like the look of the GW Blood Bowl Minotaur miniature, and I'm not to happy with the Beastmen Minotaurs in plastic but they will do for a simple tournament legal team.

I hope to have the first team miniatures more then likely in the middle of next week or maybe earlier. As the Warstore is really good about shipping items you purchase ASAP. And once I have them I'll start doing the minor conversions to them to get what I want the team to look like, and them I'll post up some pictures on here.

Wood Elves Blood Bowl Team - WIP

Out with the old paint job...

So I had bought the Wood Elves Blood Bowl team about eight or nine years ago now, which were some of first minis that I painted. I finally figured out which box these guys were packed away in and examined the quality of paint job I did, man is it bad & thank goodness that I've improved over the years. I still not the best paint in the world, but I can do an ok table top paint job. So my first task was to get the paint off the team, and while I was at it I was going to test two different paint strippers to compare the results. Half the team was put into Simple Green cleaner, while the other half was stripped with Mostenbocker's Lift-Off 5 from Wal-Mart. The Simple Green half soaked for five days and then took me 2 hours & 15 minutes to finish stripping. The Lift-Off 5 half took me 1 hour & 30 minutes to finish stripping.

Here is the overall process that I used for the Simple Green:

• Soak miniatures in Simple Green for five days, that is the best duration to get results I think with Simple Green.
• Start scrubbing miniatures (after soak) with a battery powered scrub brush (wheel detailer I think).
• Then once they are for the most part clean go back with a pick and get the paint stuck in the recesses of the miniatures.
• Take and make up a sink full of Dawn dish soap and wash the miniatures again, scrubbing with a brush to make sure all paint & Simple Green is cleaned off.
• Rinse the miniatures off with running water really well and let dry before re-primer of the miniatures.

Now for the steps for the Lift-Off 5:

• Spray miniatures with Lift-Off 5 in a small plastic tub or bowl to catch the Lift-Off 5 in. This doesn't have to be a heavy soak if you have the bowl to let the miniatures set in while you work on scrubbing each one.
• Let the Lift-Off 5 set on the miniature for about 5 to 10 minutes before you start scrubbing.
• Again I used the battery powered scrubber on these guys (actually did these one's before the Simple Green half).
• Then once they are for the most part clean go back with a pick and get the paint stuck in the recesses of the miniatures.
• Take and make up a sink full of Dawn dish soap and wash the miniatures again, scrubbing with a brush to make sure all paint & Lift-Off 5 is cleaned off.
• Rinse the miniatures off with running water really well and let dry before re-primer of the miniatures.

I have also used the Lift-Off 5 to clean off resin items of both paint and mold release, it worked very well on the resin and didn't hurt anything. Also on plastic miniatures this stuff is a must if you use Krylon spray paint with the Fusion in it, as Simple Green will not even make a dent in this paint. I've used the Lift-Off 5 on some Rhino tanks off eBay, some ABoR Space Marines that I didn't like the paint I used on them, and some Blood Bowl Human Team figures that I bought off eBay with no damage to the plastic or resin.

Here is the pictures of the before and after with the Lift-Off 5 paint stripper. Never took any pics of the Simple Green one's but they look the same for the most part just a little more paint in recesses on the Simple Green one's.

Human Team - WIP

Here is the beginnings of a simple Human Team for League, Tournament, or One-Off match play. I've just used the basic Human Team from the latest Blood Bowl box set, since I like the look of these models and cause I like plastic more then metal mini's. The basic set has six Lineman, two Throwers, two Catchers, & two Blitzers in the box. I have added an Ogre model that I've put together from the extra parts from my Ogre Team, and I plan on adding two more Blitzers & two more Lineman soon as the items come in from my eBay purchase from this evening.

I started with priming the mini's with Ultra Flat Black and then trying to paint one Lineman with red paint to see how that was going to work, it didn't work to well as it takes way to many layers to get the base red up where I want it (lazy painter). So I'm going to use Ultra Flat Khaki primer on them as soon as it gets nice outside to prime them again. The Khaki should make the red base color easier, and make the faces easier too. I can always go in and paint the black areas back in over the Khaki (shoes). The colors for the team are going to be Blood Red & Bleached Bone (GW Colors) like the Blood Raven's of 40k, and the team symbol I'm going to use on the chest plates is the Red Scorpion from Forge World. I've got a whole sheet of the Vraks Decals from Forge World, and I should have some numbers coming soon from Impact Miniatures to put on the bases.

Here is the Linemen for the team so far


And the Catchers, Blitzers, Throwers, & Ogre so far.


What next?
Well re-primer the mini's, make some Turn/Re-roll/Score markers with the Forge World resin Red Scorpion symbols, and a team banner pole of some type.

Ogre Team - League Team WIP

Well so far I've put together all of the Ogres for a League type of team. I figure there is five Ogres and six Snotlings along with two re-rolls & four fan factor should get them started. I know it's going to be risky and a pain in the butt if Bone-Head pops up a lot, this is a have fun and bash the crap out of the other teams list. I also put together three Ogres to act as Skill Boosted Ogres after the seasons get going good, mainly to tell the different Ogres apart on the pitch. To achieve this I've cut out six gut-plates of the same design and put magnets on the back of them, once I get the numbers from Impact Miniatures I'll put them in the center of the gut-plates.

I have a thrower type Ogre with a cannon with ball stuck in the end of it, a catcher with a Trap in hand and looks like he is yelling for the ball, & then another guy that looks like he is about to put the trap into a player (could be another catcher too).


Here is the starting Ogres with comparison size wise to a Human Lineman & Ork 'Ard Boy (Black Orc).


Closer Detail of the starting Ogres


For the heck of it
And just because it was to funny to not use, the Ogre Kingdoms Battalion box came with some random Gnoblers which I'm using as the Snotlings for the team. There was one of the Snotlings that stands out to me, I figure on using it for a Strength Boost Snotling or Two Headed Snotling.


Whats left to do
Now I just need a nice day outside so I can get these guys in Khaki Primer and then the painting can start. I figure on team colors of either red or maybe dark green white maybe white strips on the pants, and go with a light skin color for the Ogres & Snotlings. And I'm going to name the team the Ogreton Man-eaters, the good thing about the magnetic gut-plates is that I can get another set of 6 of the Great Maw Champion Gut-plates to make them look like the team banner pole I have.

A lot of Irons in the Fire

One good old saying, and boy is it true with my Hobby practices. I always have an unfinished project somewhere on the table, just a never ending cycle for me.

The Salamander Army
The first & foremost project that I've got to finish is getting my Salamander's 1,750pt Army ready for September of this year. As I'm going on a tour of the UK & to the Games Workshop Games Day & some of their main stores & HQ. I hope to have this army ready by then as there will be some gaming going on for sure on the nine days that I'll be on this tour. And as a special little side deal there is going to be some USA vs. UK vs. Canada / Australia matches taking place on the tour, and there was talk about either painting parts of the mini's to match country colors & flags to tell everyone apart. So I figure on making and painting up some nice looking American flags along with maybe an Ohio flag to go with it on a squad or two, just to show some state pride too. As with all of my hobby I love to build the mini's, and then I hate painting all the mini's. And I've been slowly working on my Salamander Army since I started playing back in 3rd Edition.
My UK list consists of:

• Vulkan He'Stan as the HQ with a five man squad of Thunder Hammer Terminators in a Land Raider Redeemer.
  
• One ten man Tactical Squad with a Meltagun & Multi-Melta in Rhino Transport.
  
• One ten man Tactical Squad with Meltagun & Plasma Cannon in Rhino Transport.
  
• One ten man Tactical Squad with Flamer & Multi-Melta in a Rhino.
  
• One Ironclad Dreadnought in a Drop Pod.
  
• And two separate Squadrons of single Land Speeders with Multi-Melta & Typhoon Missile Launchers.

Here is my Work In Progress photo of the Salamander 1,750 point army, I still have a long way to go on this project.


Blood Angels
I'm also working on a Blood Angels Army on the side, but I really just started to work on that project. First up is the Stormraven Gunship, since there again I really like building stuff.

Here is the latest WIP pics of the Stormraven.



And then there is Blood Bowl.

A couple of Irons in the fire on Blood Bowl; since the PC, Xbox 360, & PSP Blood Bowl games have came out (yeah I own all three versions, it's just to great of a game) my interest have came back again.

Custom Pitch
So first up, I bought some Hirst Arts molds & Smooth-On liquid plastic to cast floor tiles and other pieces to build a custom pitch for Blood Bowl. Boy is there a lot of tiles to cast, and some other pieces to form the Dugout section of the board. One key hint when working with something like liquid resin or plastic and a mold, start out mixing small amounts until you get the right amount to fill the whole mold. I was a Bone-Head and did the exact opposite first time out and eyeball guessed the amount of part A & B. The Smooth Cast 300 was setting up in the cup after finishing filling the first mold and still had the better half of a small cup left over which turned into a nice piece of ribbon plastic as I was pouring the second mold. The trial size bottles will do a lot of pieces, unless you waste it like I did right off the bat.

Here is the Trial Pieces for the Blood Bowl Pitch.

As a side note to the Blood Bowl Pitch, I'm also looking at making a small portable Blood Bowl board that might work with 15mm miniatures if I can find some good one's that are still for sale. It will use the small white pieces that are under the wall section in the above picture to the right, which are about 1/2" squares that kind of look like the stone tiles above. I figure on making it magnetic so the pieces don't fall off say during a car or plane trip.

Human Team
Next I have a Human Team that came with the Blood Bowl box set I just bought, I would like to find some extra mini's of the Human Lineman & Blitzer to help get the team up to 16 mini's. As I like the look of the plastic Human team better then the metal mini's, and I think metal mini's are a pain in the butt to work with & are to heavy. I've just got the mini's in primer over the past weekend, so hopefully some paint will hit them within the next week or two. I'm thinking of going with the Blood Raven colors for the Team and using some Red Scorpion Forge World transfers for the team symbol on the chest area of the guys.

Ogre Team(s)
And to round out the Blood Bowl section I just received an Ogre Kingdoms Battalion & some extra Ogre bitz from The Warstore.com build an Ogre Team or two maybe three with & an Ogre for my above Human Team. I can already see that I'm going to be using a lot of Green Stuff putty on the torso areas, there is a lot of Man Boobs going on there. I'm more then likely going to do shirts on the Ogres, but I've got enough of the Ogres in the Battalion box to make a Shirts & a Skins Team. They should be fun to build and play Blood Bowl with.

As a Final Note:
I can't wait for the Legendary Edition of Blood Bowl PC to come out this fall.