HP Lovecraft

In the eldritch confines of my study, I unearthed a diminutive relic of unspeakable provenance—an accursed miniature that defied the feeble constraints of mortal comprehension. The blasphemous sculpt depicted an otherworldly figure, a ghastly visage that whispered of realms beyond the ken of human perception. In the sickly luminescence of my dimly lit chamber, the colors upon my palette seemed to shift and writhe, revealing cyclopean landscapes and nameless horrors. The twisted sculptor, a shadowy adept in the forbidden arts, had rendered the accursed author with a fiendish precision that echoed the cosmic malevolence of the Great Old Ones. As I gazed upon the diabolical creation, a palpable chill gripped my very soul, and I could discern the spectral murmurs of eldritch entities weaving their inscrutable tales within this infernal masterpiece. The mere act of contemplating the arcane artefact threatened to plunge my psyche into the abyssal depths of cosmic horror, leaving me teetering on the brink of sanity.

I tried out ChatGPT for the above paragraph- horrifyingly good.

Here's a fun figure from Impact! Miniatures. I originally got him as a Blood Bowl coach. They've captured his eldritch chin.

HPL and his friend LP Hovercraft

"I am Providence."

Howard Philips Lovecraft age 43 (1934)

Blood Bowl Khorne

Tomorrow is the sporting event of the year- Eucalyptus Bowl! (FIFA eat your heart out!) I'm taking my Khorne team- Hardcore Khorne- these are the Ares Demons from MK1881. They were a pain to put together- I'm getting a bit sick of multipart metal figures. I didn't want them to have the typical red armour as I thought it would blend with the daemons' skin, so I went for white and I'm pretty happy with the colour scheme. The red skin was shaded with a mix of red and brown wash, and I like the final appearance.

Blood Bowl Khorne

I'm indebted to the Scalecreep team for the term 'haemoerotic'.

Blood Bowl Khorne Pitfighters

Blood Bowl Khorne Bloodletters

Blood Bowl Khorne Bloodthirster

I thought this terrifying familiar from Reaper would make a great coach:

Reaper familiar

And this is a great point to show these resin skull piles. I have had them for about 20 years, I think, and they're indestructible and versatile. I commonly use them in Blood Bowl for reroll markers, but I'm sure you can find a use for them in many games. They're still available from Eureka, and I can't recommend them enough.

Eureka Pile of Skulls

In other Blood Bowl news, my Ogre team paintjob has been used among some examples for a crowdfunding campaign to get these teams released in resin by Impact! Miniatures. Tom, the one man team at Impact!, helped keep Blood Bowl alive in the decades it was otherwise neglected. The crowdfunding campaign can be found here, and at time of blogging has a few days to run.

Blood Bowl Ogre team

Blood Bowl- Ogres

Another blast from the past. This is my Ogre team, Snot Unusual. I won the 2008 Eucalyptus Bowl Stunty Cup with these guys.

Blood Bowl Ogre team, Snot Unusual

The Ogres are from Heresy, but I'm not sure if Andy sells them any more. They're on 40mm bases, and each required multiple pins- each is seven parts plus the base! If I ever run out of things to,do, I would rebase these on 30-32mm bases.

Ogres

I got the Snotlings from Impact!, and they're on 20mm bases. In hindsight, I think it would have been cool to have two or more figures on a 25mm base!

Snotlings

This team was where I started to veer away from the Warhammer-esque fantasy aspect, and played up the American Football aesthetic with helmets, shoulderpads, big numbers, padded leggings etc. Still a healthy amount of spikez, though.

Cheerleaders

Blood Bowl- miscellaneous figures

I've accumulated a small collection of miscellaneous Blood Bowl figures over the years.

Thrud the Barbarian

This is my interpretation of Thrud the Barbarian, a Star Player who sadly doesn't exist in the current rules edition. It is a conversion of a Hasslefree figure, which I picked up from Crusade in Cardiff in 2005! Hasslefree must have been about a year old as a company, and this figure has sat in my pile of shame for over a decade until I dusted it off for the Analogue Challenge 2016! Foolishly, I primed it on a humid day and it is a far from smooth basecoat. It doesn't show from a distance, and I was in a hurry, so I let it slide.

Guaranteed to score.

Zara the Slayer

I'm using this figure as Zara the Slayer. I can't recall for the life of me who made it. I believe there was an original variant sculpt wearing even less...

Team Wizard

Here's a team wizard, straight from Unseen University's wardrobe department! A cool figure from Impact! Miniatures, he's got the fireball and lightning bolt spells on his belt. Could do with a funkier staff, though.

To accompany him is Pete the frog, also from Impact.

Bloodweiser Babe

Here's a Bloodweiser Babe, also Impact.

I've already shown her Dwarf counterparts, but I think they belong here as well.

Referees

Here are two human referees. The first is an original GW figure c1991.

The second is from Shadowforge.

Sports Reporter

Finally, a goblin reporter, which was a variant from Impact. CCC was the Central Coast Corsairs, a club I was involved in about 10y ago which has gone the way of many gaming clubs.

Blood Bowl Monkey

This was one of those rare paintjobs that turned out exactly as I had pictured in my mind's eye. I think it would be a cool Chaos Pact goblin, and pairs nicely with my flying monkeys.

Ook!

I sculpted the banana out of green stuff, look out Perrys!

This says 'Monkey Bowl III' on the base, and was listed at Impact! Miniatures as Football Chimp. I don't know what or where the Monkey Bowl is/ was, and would be interested to know. I picked it up as a prize somewhere along the way.

Blood Bowl Nurgle team

I'm off to a Blood Bowl tourney, and am taking my new Nurgle team, Necrotic Corps.

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you plague the game.

 

For my Pestigors, I used Warhammer Beastmen with weapon snips, some bitz box finds, and some green-stuffed pustules. Yummo! Finally, some Impact! shoulder pads for that BB look.

Years ago, I made and painted these old plastic Chaos Warriors with some zombie bits. I tarted them up to more closely match my new Pestigors.

Then I had to redo my existing zombies' skin to match. I think this was worthwhile helping tie the team together, since the different figures don't really have much linking them as a coherent team besides their paintscheme.

I’m using my Mansions of Madness Chthonian as the Beast of Nurgle. I did up the base to match the rest of the team. I’m yet to find a suitable miniature that really fits my conception of this essential team member- (but I do like the qu-sh-ug (by Pure Evil), but it's too big and pricey (50mm base, £29 incl. postage)!).

Nurglings are my reroll counters. The team coach is my trusty West Wind mad doctor.

I’ve never played a game with these guys and am keen to see how they perform. I tend to play a better defensive than offensive game, and I understand that Nurgle are excellent in defence. Offence may leave something to be desired…

If I ever ran Nurgle as a league team, I'd enjoy making a few extra mutants.

Kneecappers, & Jokerbowl 2012

I went to the Jokerbowl Blood Bowl tournament yesterday, at Tin Soldier Penrith. I'm trying to complete the nerd-challenge of playing every Blood Bowl team at an official tourney- I'm up to 9/24 now! Maybe by 2020, if I squeeze in two tourneys a year?

Kneecappers

The Kneecappers were my first Blood Bowl team, when 3rd Ed came out in 1994. They've gone through a few paintjobs over the years- and I didn't strip them inbetween, so the details are somewhat poorly defined! Needless to say, I'd do them differently now (oy, the gloss...). The tankards are from metal tubing. The Blitzer has a transparent bottle from a 1/35 diorama accessory kit which I inked brown.

Troll Slayers

Runners

Blitzers

Long Beards

It's been a long time since they've been played with. To celebrate their dusting-off, I painted this figure (from Four A Miniatures) which makes a great cheerleader/ Bloodweiser Babe/ reroll marker. The kegs are from Impact! Miniatures.

Jokerbowl was great fun- good to catch up with old mates and roll dice again. I came fifth out of sixteen overall, with two wins, a draw, and a loss. Memorable moments include:

• Turning Ephraim's sole Dark Elf runner into a frog
• Meticulously advancing against Grumpsh's Dwarves, then failing a 2+ to score and being subsequently taken apart
• Ripping into Nick's beautifully painted Necromantic team, even though they kept regenerating
• Having a lacklustre first half against Vimes' Halflings, but then clearing the pitch of all but his treemen

My roster was two Troll Slayers with Mighty Blow, two Runners with Block, two Blitzers, five Long Beards (one with Guard), one Reroll.  I just realised that I underspent on my roster- I had an extra 10k in the bank I never used! An extra assistant coach or cheerleader would have been nice... In hindsight, Block on the Runners was excellent, but the two Troll Slayers with Mighty Blow generally underperformed. The Long Beard with Guard was useful.

Blood Bowl Lizardmen

My latest Blood Bowl team, which will get an outing this weekend if possible. Starting roster five saurus, 6 skinks, 3 rerolls, apothecary, 1 FF.

I've had the idea for the team for a few years, but did nothing about it until I got some cheap skinks at MOAB 2011. I rounded out with some Saurus from a bits-order via Ebay, and a Kroxigor from Mind Games in Melbourne. I did some terrible green-stuffing for straps (my greenstuff is old and almost unworkable, that's my excuse) to hold on the shoulder pads from Impact!, which are excellent for BB conversions. A simple and quick paint job, which I think is quite effective.

I'm thinking of calling them the 'Skink Bomb', but I'd be interested in your ideas. They'll have silly aztec-incan names (Poliputaketlon, Inyafaz, Chiqentika etc), and I'm looking for a jungle-lizard-dinosaur-latino name, preferably some kind of pun.