Blitzbowl Mini-Review

For Christmas, I bought and painted a full set of BlitzBowl for ActionMan and I.

Blood bowl? No. BlitzBowl. BlitzBowl is a trimmed down version of the classic game available only at Barnes and Noble, one of which happens to be nearby! I always wanted to play BloodBowl with ActionMan but wondered about the many rules.

This iteration is fast-paced and very involved, where you are constantly cycling players in and out of the field. Hogging the ball leads to more balls getting generated. So you are always playing offense AND defense at the same time as you run across the field looking to score. You can score many times in a turn. This is just a game of madness.

I painted the teams and the plastic tokens.The colors I chose are the Montreal Canadiens (humans) and the Quebec Nordiques (dwarves).

The box comes with cards to build teams using any of the classic teams: skaven, orks, goblins, elves, etc. You can even make halflings teams! I was happily surprised by it. It is very fast-paced and chaotic. I really enjoyed it. I don't think ActionMan nerdgasm'd as much as I was but that may be because he used the dwarves. We will have to play again.

I will rate this game a 4/5, because ActionMan's lack of enthusiasm. For 50$, you get two teams of 6, tokens, cards, dice, and two pitches. It's a pretty nice package, just like GW used to be able to put together in the days of old. And everything in the box fits into it, no need for carrying trays.

Sunday Funnies: Ork Power Grab

There is one thing about 40k is that once you go green, all the other armies pale in comparison. So when I found this on the web, I just laughed.

WAAAGH!

JP

Two Lord of the Rings Hobbits: Froddo and Sam

For a long time now I have wanted to get my hands on some of GW's Lord of the Rings models. However, I was never willing to part with the amount of money they were asking. However, I managed to get my hands on two hobbits and a few other "random" miniatures. I will be posting them in the coming months.

The details of the sculpts are really astounding. Definitely the most realistic miniatures I ever saw. The minis look like Sean Astin & Elijah Woods. It was pleasure to paint them. For such detailed models, they do paint up really nice and surprisingly easily. I went with the plaid pants on both and gave Froddo a pin-stripped jacket. This makes them look even better.

May Commissions: Dryads as Eidolon and a NeoExodus Dalrean

This installment is a number of Games Workshop Dryads I painted up for my good friend Brian-B. Brian wanted a few conversions to match his summoner's Eidolon I painted for him a while ago. So I did him two "small" version of that thing using the dryads. The first two models are those conversions. One has a greenish skin and the other is more white/ aspen theme.

Next is the rest of the unit (I just realized there are 2 minis not pictured).

This final model is for a yet-to-be-created NeoExodus Dalrean character. I'm not saying what it is for... Not yet, you will have to stay tuned.

[Rant] Finecast Eidolon Commission

A while ago, Brian-B came to me and asked me to paint his eidolon for his Home Game summoner. He has a summoner with a monstrous eidolon (aren't they all?).

Brian wanted a creature that looked very "nature-y" so he bought himself one of GW's new Finecast treants. Now I have to admit that when I saw the model, I was excited for a few reasons. First, this was going to be my first direct contact with GW's new Finecast models. Like many others, I had read a number of reviews about them. Second, I was really excited about trying my have at a large model like the treant. I wanted to paint one for myself for the longest time.

For those two reasons, I was really happy about painting this model for him.

Building the model

One of the things one cannot help but notice is how lightweight it is. I mean really. I *knew* resin models were light, but this is lighter than metal 28mm ones.

The resin itself is very easy to file and trim the flash from, even though some of it was difficult to differentiate from the actual mini. The sprues were full of bizarre casting bubbles and flash that at first looked like part of the mini. Only when I tried to put it together did I manage to figure it out.

Now this is where I started to hate this resin. There are many people who have already mentioned the bad casting, the bubbles in the mold and the odd flash. The bigger the model, the bigger the issues. Using my carpenter's glue & Zap-a-gap combination, the pieces held together fairly easily. I had to score the resin a little (which was easy). However the creature's arms feel very weak.

I have been working with hard plastic and metal, both of these have their problem, but this resin just beats them all.

By a mile.

At this time, I really am happy to have completely dropped GW games and their models. Everything about this Finecast crap makes me want to stay away. The model feels very weak. The casting bubbles turn some of the detail into "mushroom blowout". I am very worried about the model holding together - and I had to warn Brian about my concerns.

Because of all of these issues, the price hike really broke the camel's back. They went from a quality models company to... THAT? If the moved to this cheaper quality mold, they should've lowered their prices - if only on a temporary measure, they jack the prices.

"We will give you cheaper material models with many casting problems at a higher price!" That's exactly what they did. Really? Really?

Really justifies my move to Warmachine/Horde and Malifaux (I'll post my own warband tomorrow).

Painting the model

Once cleaned, built and primed, the painting was fairly easy. I did a number of inks and dry-brushing to make it look like a tree. The resulting look is pretty cool.

Touching up the model with a few highlight on the model: the mushrooms, the little imps, and the skulls hidden in the creature's body. These added a number of colorful highlights to a relatively "dull" model.

Yup, I spent a lot of time making the model look "dull". Achieving that look was far from easy.

Remember those "mushroom blowouts" I mention as I ranted earlier? Well I "hid" the worse of them by using foliage. Thus the final model looks good, very "nature-y". Brian could use it either as his eidolon, a tree (as terrain) OR as the treant it was intended to be.

My final concern was for transport... I don't know how that will be achieved... I don't know how to bring it to Brian, and I know even less how he will take it to his regular game...

The model

The finished product is nice - but fragile.

JP

Blood Bowl on the PC

It was early in the 90s when I bought a second hand copy of Blood Bowl from Le Valet d’Coeur in Montreal. I paid 5 or 10$ for it, but the box had everything I needed, including additional minis. It’s been more than 15 years and I still love the game. I was very excited when I hear there was a European company that created an on-line version of the game. My major concern was that, like many of Games Workshop’s computer version of their game was that they would be similar to the game, but still very different, much like the previous Blood Bowl game (which I still own).

So I spent some time wondering about whether I should get it. And I finally did.

The reason I wrote this post is because I saw the game for sale at my local Walmart. I felt all giddy just seeing it there. It is a GREAT game. Though I am not familiar with the latest version of the game (but I was proficient enough to catch on), it’s still the Blood Bowl I fell in love. You can easily play against the computer just like you would on a table-top, which was my main concern. The graphics are fine, the game is fast enough. Some teams are very challenging to defend against.

I won’t go over all the features of the game (I haven’t tried the Real-Time Version). But it’s really great. I have been playing my Orkland Rayderz in a number of competitions and my Passing offense is still ranked at the top. I love playing Orks in Blood bowl. You can really build a team the way you like.

I have been thinking about painting up my Blood Bowl minis just because of that game.

If you don’t have it, RUN to get it! Seriously! There are Elves, Goblins, Humans and Dwarves waiting for you to maim them!

WAAAARGH!