Blood Bowl – Dwarf Team

Yes, hell has frozen over and/or Faust has finally managed to finish his Dwarf team for Blood Bowl!

Hard to believe that I started this team way back around the start of this site. The first image of them appears in a post about mishaps in priming and then a series of  “Under the Slow Brush” posts. So sometime around June 2017. In all fairness, I went through a rough series of mistakes upon returning to the miniature hobby and was not working on these minis the whole time.

Back around September (2018), I had thought I could easily paint up some of the Dwarves for Azazel’s miniature challenge of that month. Not enough time, and I ended up completing the Linemen/Blockers for the October Unit-Ed Challenge instead. Still, with a good start on the team, a desire to just get them done, and the ‘grunts’ mostly finished….it was full steam ahead. The team got done and the Deathroller then got wrapped up for November Mechanical Challenge. 

And now let’s back up a bit more, Games Workshop relaunched Blood Bowl back in 2016. The fever took hold and with each new release, I had a tough choice to make “buy new minis and/or sell the old ones”. Of course, I decided to buy the new minis, and ended up selling off the old ones. It had been some time since I had painted, so I opted to start with the Dwarves. They are not my favorite team to play, and not many people (that I’ve played with) are that interested in them. So if I made some mistakes (a lot!), I could probably live with that.

My old Blood Bowl Dwarf minis – possibly in the throes of being repainted or not completed.

Enter the new …

The Barrier Peaks Brewers!

Although Coaches will of course give them their own name, a background came to me while working on the new minis.

Barrier Peaks Brewers

These Dwarfs hail from an isolated region of the Barrier Peaks (a nod to the Dungeons & Dragons adventure module “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks“). They aren’t miners like the traditional Dwarves, but spend much of their summer harvesting and brewing the famous Barrier Peaks Ale. Which is why they all sport the white triangle ‘mountains’ symbol on their uniform. They often found themselves quite bored when not in the midst of harvesting season. That is until an ex-Blood Bowl player came to stay. Enough said, as they took up the sport as a pastime and later started to compete as a fledgling team. At some point they even cobbled together their own Deathroller. Though it breaks down so often, that you can’t count on it appearing from season to season.

The Players:

Blockers

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Well, we got our basic Blockers. Normally called “Linemen” in Blood Bowl, but these Linemen all start with the Block skill, and so I guess they get the title of Blockers.

I somehow miscounted along the way and instead of painting up just six, ended up with nine. Probably 2 more than I will ever need, but too late now. One is a bit of a custom, as I stole parts to make up the Deathroller driver. He’s on the far right, bottom row.

Star Players

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Star Players are ‘mercenaries’. On loan for whomever can pay their price, and useful in balancing the difference between a newer team and a more experienced one.

Here we have Grim Ironjaw and Barik Farblast. Barik (on the right) was done back in April for Azazel’s Assembly Challenge. Since then, I redid his base to match with the rest of the team. Rewriting the lettering as well (dread!). Grim (on the left), is a Willy Miniatures mini. Even though he’s a few years older, he still seems to fit in quite well with the team. I green stuffed some folds in his pants that I wasn’t crazy about, but not really any changes on him. I did use Blood for the Blood God for the first time, to add a few drops of the red stuff to his base.

Runners

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Dwarves play a running game in Blood Bowl. Some would say a “crawling” game, as they move so slowly. Some additional green stuff rocks on these guys base, and I painted their eye, since it was more visible through the helm. The eyes are pretty much obscured by the helm on the blockers. Also of note, I painted each gem to match a ‘position color scheme‘ used in tournaments. This is to give new players an additional way to easily identify the positions. Since there isn’t a Yellow gem paint color (C’mon on GW!), I glazed Lamenters Yellow onto it.

Blitzers

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The bad boys of most Blood Bowl teams. Hit hard and fast. I should have jotted down where I got the recipes for white/grey/black hair. It turned out pretty nice, and I’ve been experimenting with it a bit. For the team, I figure it’s a ragtag group of veterans and new blood.

Deathroller

All you want to know and then some, can be found in my last post: https://doubledowndice.wordpress.com/2018/11/27/azazels-november-mechanical-challenge/

Troll Slayers

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And last, but far from least, the Troll Slayers. Fearless members of the Dwarf team. Jumping into the field with little armor.

It was fun to paint the fiery orange Troll Slayer hair. My original team, I just used red on their hair, and didn’t know how to get the effect I got here. It actually took me a couple tries, and I’m not entirely sure which paints and process got me there. All good in the end. OR is it…

Are you okay, bro?!

During some of the early mishaps of this team, I was re-priming them for like the third time or so…and realized it’s about impossible to paint underneath those beards. Some of the minis had come apart while stripping the paint off, and so I figured I would just pry them all apart. 

Exhibit A

As you can see, the front of the face and long beard piece attaches to the head/hair piece. Well, trying to pry those two apart resulted in a ‘war wound’ on the Troll Slayer on the right. I decided in the end to ‘roll with it’, and give him a scar so to speak. It was another fun thing to play around with. Looking up some Nurgle paint schemes gave me an idea of how to paint up the wound, and I painted the center like his skull has been exposed. All in a day’s work.

The Paints

Originally I wasn’t too keen on the blue and gold color scheme used by Games Workshops for the Dwarves. That looked more Egyptian than Dwarven to me. My previous Dwarf team was Red and White. Ultimately I decided to stick with Red, but go with Red & Gold.

These models were completed over a 2 year period (yea, that’s right!), and largely because of that, there is some inconsistency in number of layers of paints and washes. This is my best guess recollection from cobbled notes and memory. It definitely would have been worse, had I not recorded most on my blog.

Prime
Vallejo White Airbrush Primer

Base Layers
Gold Armor – Citadel Retributor Armor
Red Cloth – VGC Scarlett Red
Dark Leather – VGC Charred Brown
Light Leather (mostly got painted over with VGC Charred Brown) – VGC Leather Brown

Shade
Agrax Earthshade – everything except flesh, gems, and hair.

Flesh
Base layer – VMC Basic Skintone
Wash – ⅔ Reikland Fleshshade, ⅓ Flowaid
Highlight – VMC Basic Skintone

Highlights
Dark Brown Highlights – VMC Flat Brown
Red Highlights – ⅓ Khorne Red, ⅓ Mephiston Red, ⅓ Flowaid

Bases
Mainly taken from the Warhammer TV tutorial: 
https://youtu.be/AWP3Ckh-4oo
Stylnrez Grey Primer
Wash – around feet on base, Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush – Administratum Grey
Line – VMA Black
Accent line – Administratum Grey
Base trim – VMA Black

Wrap Up

2 year, 16 players, 2 Star Players. Not quite a Warhammer army, but challenging enough for me. There is a lot I could probably say, from much debating over color choices to tackling technical gem paint and decals for the first time. 

In some ways it was a return to the miniature painting hobby, in other ways it was a whole new world with so much to learn and discover. I feel like I have learned an enormous amount along the way. A lot of that is thanks to my fellow bloggers, reading their own stories, and listening to their keen advice. So a special thanks to all of you out there for reading. Here’s hoping the next Blood Bowl team doesn’t take another 2 years! 😉

• Blood Bowl
• Miniature Painting
• Miniatures