#BloodBowl Chorley Bowl 2022 - Game 3, Humans Vs Squigs

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity and my third Blood Bowl match and I'm up against Otty and his Squig team. Well I say his team, but I think he was loaning one from David. Some things to note, Otty was not having much success, his bigger, stronger squigs bounced around in random directions - so although I was rightly terrified of them he constantly bounced around their intended victims. We were also running very late and only got the first half in.

If I'm honest I don't recall what was happening here, I think I got to shuffle off the line of scrimmage so I wasn't quite trampled on first turn. Oh, there were Chainsaws thrown on the pitch too, that's my Lineman running back to my endzone to pick one up.

I then managed to get the ball and went off up the right wing, with two catchers for options on who to throw it to and my Ogre getting in the way to draw attention away from them. 

My Chainsaw guy got to work butchering squigs and Goblins but with time running out I snatched a touchdown,

Despite my hazy memory there was one golden bit etched into my brain. I had got slightly frustrated with mixing up the D6 dice with the Block dice so had mixed two different coloured sets. But even so at one point I picked up 2D6 to block and rolled 10, to which I immediately said that would have been a great armour roll. I the picked up the correct dice, succeeded in my block, went for the armour roll and rolled 12! Then the injury roll was 11!

Otty continued to have misfortune after misfortune. Even when his big Squigs did bounce into my player he seemed only able to push me back, despite their advantage. His dice were cold and mine were hot. We came to the end of the first half and called it, his team broken losing 1:0. 

Somehow I came 3rd, which was fine, I even got this dinky little trophy. I had a lot of fun, moreso because I completed a game [2 actually]. It certainly helps when you're playing someone who knows what they're doing and is also willing to help you learn to enjoy the experience. I doubt Otty is motivated to play much, maybe he needs a team he's comfortable with and is less random. Humans are pretty average across the board so I think that faired well for me. I'd considered my Nurgle team but didn't want to complicate things with their extra rules. Overall I had a lot of fun, as this picture can attest, and I think it also illustrates Otty's feelings about Blood Bowl...

#WarhammerCommunity

Afternoon #WarHamFam I've been #PaintingWarhammer for a good few years now and you may have noticed I was lucky enough to be asked to share my Tyranids for a Warhammer Community article: This Tyranid Army Looks So Good You’ll Want Them to Eat You. 

This was such an honour to be asked, I'd seen a comment on Twitter about the community sharing their Tyranids, I shared pics of mine and also some of Otty's, because they're based on Jes Bickahm's scheme and he'd already chipped in with a tweet. There were a number of other fellow nid enthusiasts showcasing their Hive Fleets and I was totally unaware [or forgotten] the original tweeter is responsible for the community pages. A number of DM's later and I'm writing a few hundred words about my journey with the nids and taking some additional pictures [all on white background]. Now I've never been in White Dwarf, still a hobby achievement to aspire to. I had my Tyranid Reclamation Pool feature on the GW site a decade or so ago, but that no longer exists. I've been on the Twitch Hobby Round-up a few times and the Twitch live stream for the 40k GT, but this is one of the highest accolades I've ever had.

You all know me by now, I write far too much and take far too many pictures. Naturally they weren't able to use all of them and I was really impressed how they edited everything to still be coherent and make it better. That said I do have a number of new showcase pictures that weren't used that  I will be posting up in the future, and adding to the Showcase page.

Now back to my remaining hobby bucket list:

• Feature in White Dwarf, one model will do.
• Golden Demon participation pin

That's not too unreasonable I think...

#BloodBowl Chorley Bowl 2022 - Game 2, Humans Vs Dryads

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity and my second Blood Bowl match and I'm up against David's brother Tim's Dryad team. Its a fascinating army with some 'young' treemen, some Birch and Willow trees. I think the Willows absolutely terrified me, the were strong and all had the equivalent of tentacles and prehensile tails. Essentially once you were in their tackle zone you just couldn't get out. This time I was on my own but I was receiving the ball at kick-off.

I managed to move over to my right wing and even formed a rudimentary cage round One Eyed Jim. I actually had a play in mind to draw his team over to that side and then reverse and sweep up the left.

And it somehow worked. Everyone in my team moved over to the left. But there was a particularly sneaky move where my catcher had been knocked down. I knew he couldn't get past the Willow that did it, so I just kept him on the ground. When the Willow eventually moved on he got up and sprinted down the right hand side and then looped over to the middle heading towards the end zone. OEJ snuck up the baseline and completed the pass. Learning from my first game I mooched around in Tim's back field to draw out time and scored at the close of the first half.

I think I messed up kicking in the next kick off, and positioned it too close to an edge and naturally it scattered off in the direction of the nearest sideline! I think Tim was able to gift the ball to a player and relatively quickly score to draw even 1:1.

Again I'm vague about what was happening. Often I would just look at the board and my mind would go blank. I was so overwhelmed by my options and then trying to stack them in order of easiness/chance of success/absolute must take place which was difficult to work out. I also always forgot to roll Bonehead for my Ogre and constantly forgot to turn my models round to show they had made an action.

I think at some point I made another break for it and inevitably a 'go for it' roll left me on the ground and Tim was able to snatch up the ball.

I don't think I was able to recover from that mistake and I was outclassed at the end to lose 2:1. That said I found the game far more tactical and rewarding than my inexperience should allow. There were plays I'd tried and that felt good.

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Talonmaster - White Pics

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer my Ravenwing Talonmaster. Really I should have taken these pics against black, given their colour scheme 😉 but white will do.

Monkeychuka will be most pleased with these unadulterated images, he's right they do show off the painting a bit more, even though they're a little less atmospheric.

It's weird seeing some of the finish as the weathering in particular looked over the top when I first did it [so long ago]. However, now I think it's fine and fascinating to see how the Turquoise pooled.

The glow FX aren't exactly my best on the jets, but again I think the overall look is worth more than the effort I put in. I'm getting a lot of satisfaction from the 'cost/benefit' ratio out of this, the cost being my effort in achieving an effect.

I mean this angle makes those jets look really good, framed with the aged bronze and then the BLESSED VERDIGRIS. I've loved that effect since I first did it on my Dark Vengeance Plasma guys 8 years ago! 

It's often a bit hit and miss, like my purity seals but for the most part the result works out OK.

I also added my 'Bear Claw' tribal stripes, both on the crew and the top of the Land Speeder.

I did the ones on the top both diagonally left and right, the existing Speeders ones is angled right and one is angled left, so it had to be both, as the 'tip of the spear'. But you can just make out the angles aren't quite mirrored perfectly, which is annoying. I'll stick to one set in future.

Close-up of the 'lava' sword and the Talonmaster's tribal stripes.

The Gunner's tribal stripes and the now obvious simplicity of the highlights. I think the eye lenses were even simpler than usual, with a few less steps but I don't see much of a difference.

That BLESSED VERDIGRIS tho! And to think I wasn't going to add the hood ornament, but what was I going to do with it otherwise?

And here we are swapping out the radar dish and honour badge for the Typhoon Launchers.

The orange missiles are a bit more vibrant than my previous too, thanks to Trollslayer ORange.

And I love how that ties in with the Power Sword colours, something a silver blade with blue highlights would have introduced more colours to the palette.

There were still some bits of Tamiya Clear colours to add and I do need to glue some of my Speeder bases together but I really, really love a Speeder squadron.

That's one of those items I think I'd just keep buying more of, unnecessarily! Anyway, since this I didn't quite capitalise on the momentum with my Attack Bikes, just some metallics added. That's because my son is back from university and we've been watching the Expanse. 🚀  Which if you haven't watched it you should as it's possibly the closest thing we have to a 40k TV show right now. The final season in particular has some excellent space battles.

#BloodBowl Chorley Bowl 2022 - Game 1, Humans Vs Troglodytes

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been into the hobby for decades now and my first game was Blood Bowl but the new[ish] version, I've never actually played more than one half of a game. But Otty had some friends who were having a Blood Bowl tournament and needed someone willing to make up the numbers, there were only 6 of us. The great thing was it was very relaxed and David, who's birthday it was celebrating was more than willing to treat it like a learning experience and help me out. It brought back memories of attending the Lost Boy's gaming club in Ainsdale. Anyway, I got 3 [more like 2.5] games in but even when I was taking these pictures I wasn't sure how much of a commentary I could make and certainly not a few weeks later now. But I took the pictures so I will damn well share them, not that my Blood Bowl posts are particularly popular either, so I appreciate it if you don't want to peruse them with limited sketchy context. TBH, I'm not even sure if the pics are in chronological order.

Anyway, Dave was running Troglodytes, which I think is from the wider fan based list of teams. They're slightly tougher than Halflings and with two Stone Golems that randomly swirl about the board flattening people if they bump into them, but if they fall over they shatter into rubble and removed from play. My Middenheim Marauders take the field. 

I think I kicked the ball to David, but it looks like I've had a few players fall down. If I remember rightly one of my favourite players - Joe Mauler was hit by a rock thrown by the cord and injured before the kick-off.

One of the Stone Golems has left the field, I think the Ogre and a bunch of other players ganged up on it with them both falling down. The Golem came off worse, but I think I was still stunned. My Catcher in the top right was about to get bundled off the pitch too.

I managed to get a line of players back to defend against a break down my right wing.

Not sure what happened here, looks like David threw a pass but somehow failed to get the ball, or maybe fell 'going for it'. I think this marks the end of the first half and it was still 0:0.

2nd half and the ball was kicked to me.

My ace thrower 'one eyed Jim' picks up the ball and my catcher heads up the field. One of the Golem is removed from play.

My catcher get ready to make a break for it but there are some Trogs heading to sack One Eyed Jim.

Somehow he evades them heads up the field and throws to the catcher but misses. Luckily the rest of the team form up to block any pursuit. I think I then must of recouped the ball and scored.

We line up again, with 2 Golem back on the field!

My Ogre gest smashed and the Trogs break down my left wing.

I try to hold them back with putting bodies in the way, but to no avail David scores bringing us even on 1:1

We line up to receive.

Then I think I got to make an early move on the kick-off table and rather than have everyone pummelled by stone Golem I just bring them back to hold the ball and finish the game.

David did point out afterwards that me getting that early try allowed him the opportunity to draw even so it's worth thinking on that in the future, he was helping me, but not 'completely' helping me, which I respect and is perfectly reasonable. On to game 2.

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Talonmaster - TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer my Ravenwing Talonmaster. This feels like ages ago. I think it's about 2 weeks since I finished the Talonmaster. I've since picked up the eldest from uni, so my hobby time has been reduced and it feels odd to be writing this post [I;ve a Blood Bowl tournament to report on too and that was like 3 weeks ago!]

Anyway, with my epiphany regarding the simplicity of my black highlights I cracked on no bother. All the red's got highlighted, parchments and purity seals and any additional glow or lense effects.

It was only two or three sessions after the last update to get it finished and I was really chuffed as it's a big deal. Unfortunately I hadn't got any of my attack bikes or other Ravenwing up to speed so it's a retrograde step to be starting them from the beginning of the metallic stage.

But back to the Talonmaster and you can see I opted for the currently en vogue molten lava/red hot power sword. I watched a number of tutorials from the likes of Artis Opus, the one and only Duncan Rhodes, Vince Neturella and 2brushes1cup.

Given the wealth of research one might expect better results but I'm really pleased with it. It totally does not stand up to close scrutiny and there are so many subtleties from those tutorials that I just didn't do. BUT, from a tabletop perspective I thinks it's perfect.

I really can't see what difference hours of additional blending and glazing would have added to the sword. Even the quick and dirty additional glow FX feel bob on. It's amazing how some rough stippling hast achieved this. That's nto say I might not try to be more careful next time, that is practice afterall, but I'm over the moon with the end result.

I also got the Typhoon Launchers finished, I'd forgotten to do all the orange missiles for so long, so that was a last minute thing.

I do like a Squadron of these.

I don't think these can be armed with Power Swords, but I wasn't going to magnetise his weapon, not everything has to be 100% W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G.

I do like how the blade echoes the missiles though.

That trophy banner will inevitably get snapped off.

This will at least be something new for my #ArmiesOnParade2022 Ravenwing Vs Death Guard, so that's another bonus.

But I also envisage if I ever play with my Dark Angels the Talonmaster will be an essential choice to support the rest of the Ravenwing. So it's a major achievement [even though I don't always differentiate that in my stamps of approval...).

So, here's my Great Big BLESSED VERDIGRIS Stamps of Approval! White pics to follow.