Dead Men Do Tell Tales...

                       The story of a Blood Bowl team

One day, sitting at my desk, wondering what to do next, I started to look over
the Blood Bowl teams. For some time now I'd been playing Orcs, and had a pretty
good team. True, I hadn't been able to have a full team roster due to the
occasional death and far too many robberies, but what I did have was a team
where just about everyone had a skill or two, with some having as many as four
skills. I also had some humans, but had never bothered to use them in league
play. Why? The same reason I was still using the Orcs - Blood Bowl is dead.
You can't get the models anymore. Which was going to be a bugger if I ever won
enough money to buy those extra Black Orcs I had been wanting for some time...

This got me to pondering how I had managed to get a useful lot of Orcs together.
Well, I started with the plastic Orcs from the box. I had bought a Varag
Ghoulchewer model as an extra blitzer, and then cobbled together a fourth
blitzer from the Warhammer multi-part Orcs. I had no need for more linemen,
couldn't have any more throwers, and, after I rolled a 12 for a lineman's star
player roll (thereafter known as Thumper), didn't have any pressing need for
more Black Orcs (this has recently been bumped even further off the priority
list - another lineman got an extra point of strength!).

But I was still knackered by GW - I couldn't play any other Blood Bowl teams.

Or could I...?

After a bit of frenzied hunting around and consideration, I worked a few things
out.

1) A Skaven team might well be constructed from a Warhammer box, possibly with
a snipped metal or two thrown in.

2) An undead team could be put together in a similar fashion - get a skeleton
box, a zombie box, a blister of ghouls, and so on.

I decided on the undead, if for no other reason than that I have Warhammer
armies for them - the extra bits in the boxes would not be wasted.

But wait! I remembered a few bits and bobs left lying around...

I happened to have five old skeleton sprues (the good old ones, not the modern
giants) that I had purchased second hand and then put in a drawer. Plus I still
had heaps of armour bits from the old skeleton cavalry sprues. A quick survey
and bit of planning later, and I had 6 skeleton linemen and 2 wights.

Next, from my Khemri army came two mummies. They were those quaint old
Heroquest plastics that GW so loves to disown. I had a dozen or so just lying
around, due to GW's scrapping of mummy units. A use at last.

Zombies. Hmmm. No, I don't think so, not right away. Not with a move of 4,
anyway. I'll buy a box later, for raising fallen opposing players, but I don't
want them as starting players.

Ghouls. Well, I could get a blister of Warhammer ghouls, and chop the weapons
off... But no. Firstly, the new ghouls don't quite have the right poses for
Blood Bowl. Secondly, I can't guarantee which ghouls I might end up with.
Thirdly, I want them NOW, damn it - I've worked myself into a converting frenzy
and want to get to work. So, at this point I dug out some Heroquest Fimir, and
considered the possibilities. Now, if I were to cut the weapon off, chop off
the tail, and slice the swirly thing on the front away... Well, only one way to
see about it, and its not as if I'll have a use for a Fimir anyway...

Half an hour later I had two freshly converted ghouls. The single eye and huge,
low slung jaw needn't be out of place, either - mutated by foul magic and their
unwholesome lives sounds about right.

Construction of the skeletons and wights was simple and fun - with those old
skeletons you could do great things with poses. So, I've got a wight winding up
for a nice big punch, and one ramming someone with his shoulder. The skeletons
are in various poses, catching, calling, running, guarding. I've even got two
dead beastmen - ram's heads from the new skeleton box, with feet shaved to
hooves. One has thrown a punch, the other is ready for a fight. Why beastmen?
Because my opponent has put together a Chaos team... :)

Now I struck a slight delay. I could paint them, but not base them - I had to
wait a week for the bases to arrive. Ah well.

The skeletons and wights were easy. Wash with black ink, drybrush with skull
white. Every skeleton and wight was to have a knee pad, one of the small shield
bosses that came on the old skeleton sprue, a legacy of the days when citadel
shields had holes all the way through. For the wights, there was to be a lot
more armour - armour plate from the skeleton cavalry sprue as leg and arm
guards, helmets, and even a shoulder spike on the ramming wight. All the armour
was painted bestial brown, and then drybrushed with chainmail - this gives a
nice scratched, rusty effect.

The mummies were already painted, so I simply added shoulder pads (from the
Warhammer Orc plastics) and bits of chain (necklace chain). I chopped off one
arm and stuck it back on at a different angle for some variety.

The ghouls were painted with rotting flesh, and this was heavily drybrushed with
skull white. Looks good, pallid fiends from the night.

Basing was quick and simple when the bases arrived (60 to a bag, this is just
inviting some Skaven experimentation...). I put my players' numbers on the
base, at three points around the rim so that you can see it at all times. Takes
a little bit of practice to begin with, but is easy when you know how, and is
very effective.

So, after the end of this I had an undead Blood Bowl team - 2 wights, 2 mummies,
2 ghouls, 6 skeleton linemen. No vampires for me, I hate Star Players (and
I lacked a model for one, but that was only a secondary consideration). No
zombies, for reasons given above. A few re-rolls, a half-way decent fan factor
(something that I learnt with my Orcs - fan factor is one of the more important
aspects of a team), and some money in the treasury.

Now, I generally give my players names only when they've earnt them in games
(Thumper and Smasher from my Orc team are self explanatory, Gorg Gutrot was
poisoned on his first outing, Bogbreff is so named to explain his skill at
guarding and diving tackles, something has to be making them keep their
distance, Rocky was recruited from the crowd after throwing a rock, and Catchit,
well, has the catch skill), but in this case some really bad jokes forced
themselves upon me. So, there's a mummy named Dearest, a wight named Napoleon,
skeletons called Scapula, Fibula, and Tibia, and the skeleton who is in a boxing
pose has been given the title Osseus Clay...

All I had to do now was play.


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The ghouls have been named Muncher and Cruncher, for what I hope will be good
reasons...

The Boneyard Boys got off to a fairly good start. They played their first
game against a newly recruited Dark Elf team. During a rather bloody match,
they scored three touchdowns to two, and for one badly hurt and one dead
(Fibula), they scored one dead Elf lineman, a couple of serious injuries (one
of which was Magic Sponged), two badly hurt (including the witch Elf who had
killed Fibula and scored both the Dark Elves' touchdowns), and numerous knock-
outs. At one point (not too far into the second half) the Dark Elves were down
to 5 players on the field...

Of course, that makes it sound a lot easier than it was. The Dark Elves scored
quickly in the first half, and at that point (having just lost Fibula and having
an unconcious Cruncher) things did not look very good for me. My win was due,
I think, to a poor decision on the part of my opponent - he decided to try to
fight with his Dark Elves, which of course went very badly for him. Mummies
are very, very good at flattening the opposition, even without any support,
but it does help if the enemy comes within reach first. Even the witch Elves
went wrong - they had early success, but their frenzy was their undoing, forcing
them to continue in untenable situations. Eventually both were off the field
because of frenzy. Now, if, at the point when he was leading 2-0, my opponent
had stuck to the Elfy way if play (running, dodging, throwing, and generally
keeping out of my reach), I would have had quite a lot of difficulty scoring,
let alone winning.

In the end, half my team scored star player points of some sort, with Muncher
even amassing enough (without getting the MVP award) to get an extra skill (I
chose leap, which should be useful with amovement of 7). Regeneration failed
the dead Fibula, but restored the badly hurt skeleton. Dearest got sent off for
fouling, I forgot my automatic wizard (not really needed this time anyway),
and the Boneyard Boys were off to a fine start, even increasing their fan
factor (and 30,000 gold to dig up Fibula again wasn't much at all).


The next game was a bit different.


This time it was against a Chaos team. True, they were also a new team, but
I've played their sort before and had trouble - and that was with a nice, tough,
and experienced Orc team. My undead looked a bit fragile in comparison.

Things went slowly. I was unable to get the ball forward, even though, with
my mummies, I could knock great holes in the enemy line, and the one time it
looked like I had a chance, some bloody dog ran off with the ball... The only
thing keeping the Chaos thugs in their place was an inability to pick up the
ball and throw a decent punch - half the time my players were sent sprawling,
they managed to take the Chaos player with them.

I had both a magic sponge and a "this will hurt a bit" card, and, naturally,
I picked the wrong one to use. Early on, Muncher was badly hurt. I chose to
use "this will hurt a bit", failing to notice that the magic sponge doesn't
work on serious injuries, which is of course what I should have saved "this
will hurt" for. Later on, Scapula was seriously injured, and of course I
was unable to use the magic sponge.

The second half was much like the second, but with lots of Chaos players falling
over - they failed almost every dodge roll (even the simple ones on 3+...).
And still nobody could score - repeatedly his player fell over, repeatedly I
picked the wrong thing to do first (before, of course, going for the ball or
moving the player with the ball). The third half was much the same, only
bloodier - another of my players was seriously injured, and I managed a serious
injury on a beastman. After all that, it came down to a die roll to see who
won, and naturally it wasn't me...

In the end I had two players missing the next game (one of whom had a smashed
collar bone, and thus -1 strength - and that's a sacking offence, but as it was
only a skeleton, it doesn't matter much), 1 casualty and the MVP, and 60,000
gold pieces. Oh, and a new skill for the un-named mummy - I decided to give
him Break Tackle, which should come as quite a surprise - a mummy dodging on
a 1+... I think I came out of it better than I might have done - he seemed
to forget the "get the ref!" roll in his favour, and had a truly atrocious set
of die rolls for dodging, which kept the thumping down. Plus he allowed his
Chaos warriors to be tied up by my mummies, which kept them from snapping my
skeletons. My ghouls did well in slipping through the enemy line and racing
down the field, it's just a pity that nobody managed to get the ball to them.


So, I think I've got an idea now of how the team works - mummies are good only
for fighting (with an agility of 1, there is simply no way that they are going
to do anything with the ball), ghouls are good both for running and fighting,
wights are all-rounders, and skeletons are, well, skeletons. None too good
at ball handling or dodging with an agility of 2 (although I did manage both
passing and dodging), but cheap enough to throw into a fight that it might be
wiser to avoid, in order to tie up an opponent - after all, they even get
regeneration. And last but not least, I must remember that I start with a
wizard for free - a spell would have been incredibly useful at at least two
points in the game against the Chaos team, had I just thought of using one...

It would probably be a good idea, as well, to remember that I can turn dead
opposing players into zombies...

I currently have 110,000 gold pieces in the treasury. Do I buy another ghoul,
and possibly another skeleton (as I planned from the start, zombies will not
be purchased, merely raised if I feel like it), or do I wait a buy another
re-roll? I have three re-rolls, and, after having six with my Orcs, miss all
those second chances. Decisions, decisions...


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Given that there's a reasonably good chance of killing someone, I want a zombie
or two ready for raising. Short of buying a box of zombies (which, I must
admit, would be handy for my Vampire Counts army), what options are there?

Well, I've still got some skeleton sprues, and an old Necromunda figure from the
cover of a White Dwarf. Hmmm...

After a bit of thought, it went like this: cut off left leg below knee, add
lower leg from skeleton. Cut boltgun from arm, replace hand with hand from
skeleton. Cut off top of head above bandage. Carve some large gashes into
bared chest. Paint to look like bloodless flesh, with dried blood on bandages
and bandannas. Paint top of head to resemble open skull with brain oozing out.

Given the number 16, Dead Head Ned was ready for resurrection...

Two games were played.

The first game went easily. It was against the Chaos team again, only this
time I got it right, with a 2 - nil victory, and three casualties on the
mutants. It would have been 3 - nil, except for a magic item with lots of
tentacles...

I even managed a successful pass. Both Muncher and Cruncher gained enough
star player points to get a new skill each - Muncher got catch, Cruncher sure
hands. So now my team takes shape - Muncher will be breaking through the enemy
lines and dashing for the touchdown, Cruncher will follow behind, collecting
the ball and passing to Muncher. It's always nice to have a clear plan of
action to work by - assuming I can pass my agility rolls, because Muncher has
a bad habit of falling over when leaping...

Of course, it was only 2 - nil because of my wizard - a well-timed lighting
bolt flattened a beastman as he sought to score.

The second game was both a disaster and a triumph. Against an experienced
Empire team (who had honed their skills on my Orcs), I lost 3 - 1 (and managed
to have a wight with the ball stranded 1 square short of the line on my last
turn - aaargh!!). However, I thoroughly wallopped them - 5 casualties in all,
including 2 dead blitzers (one of which had been saved from death the previous
turn by his apothecary). The mummies racked up the casualties, along with the
un-named Wight, number 2. Number 4, the un-named mummy, now has 14 star player
points, solely from 7 casualties. Due for a name, that player...

Not even fire-balling the Empire box (five of them in the explosion, including
the ball carrier) could stop the buggers, who even managed a humiliating
second-turn score... But I think we know who came off best. I raised a zombie,
Dead Head Ned, from the fallen blitzer, and he lasted all of one turn. Set
up on the line for a kick-off, he was seriously injured before even moving,
and will miss the next game. Ah well, that's what I want zombies for -
expendable players to soak up the offence.

Scapula, returning from a serious injury, spent most of the game unconscious,
and then won one of two MVP's... Both mummies and wight 2 gained enough star
player points to get a new skill each. I managed to roll doubles for the
mummies (1s and 2s :), and decided to give them both jump up, which, combined
with 4's break tackle and their standard mighty blow, should make them unholy
terrors on the field (or so I am told...).

Regeneration still isn't working very well (although I have to admit that I
haven't been required to use it all that much - only once in these last two
games, for example).

The team rating is now 139, I have a fan factor of 8, 4 re-rolls (I got extra
training before the Chaos match), and have 160,000 gold pieces in the
treasury. I think I might get to work on a new ghoul model for the Boneyard
Boys. I'll see how the next game goes - if I can get enough gold for both a
ghoul and a fifth re-roll, I might just buy them both...


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