[BB] Hard Knocks - Blood Bowl in the Dark Lands [2024-01-19]

[Jasko]

Blood Bowl is one of the best games GW has ever put forth, and with the Greebo Kickstarter campaign it was finally time for me to take the plunge and get myself a truly awesome looking Chaos Dwarf team. And thanks to Greebo’s record-breaking delivery (less than a month after the campaign ended I had the models on my desk) they were in time to keep my BATG 2022 score low.

These are among the most awesome models I’ve ever seen (of any game system) and I am glad I went a little overboard and got not only the basic team (with all the kickstarter goodies it came with) but also a few add-ons and star players. There was barely any work to be done, no mould lines, no leftovers from printing supports, no warping or flossing, only the Bull Centaurs required a little bit of milliput for gap-filling after assembly. And the details are amazing.

Here we have the main team: 6 Chaos Dwarf Blockers, 8 Hobgoblins, 2 Bull Centaurs and a Minotaur. The Chaos Dwarfs are quite large (scale creep is real) but look great, but honestly it was the Hobgoblins which really sold it to me. How crazy is that? Hobgoblins! Still, I love those.

Part of the deal were also these handy markers. Prone and stunned Bull Centaur and Minotaur, team marker, re-roll and lose ball. Fairly standard.

Next we have the coaching staff. The coach on his throne, a team mascot, a cheerleader and a biased referee, I also got the markers for Bribe, Apothecary and Mage. On the far left is the bonus Greebo Gargoyle they threw in with every pledge and on the far right is Iron Steve, the guitarist from their pretty cool Chaos Dwarf rock band. I just had to have the model, instantly fell in love with it. At least I could restrain myself from getting the rest of the band…

And lastly we have the Star Players. There are models for the (currently not supported) legacy Chaos Dwarf star players Hthark the Unstoppable, Zzharg Madeye and Rashnak Backstabber, one for Grashnak Blackhoof (who just got rules in Spike! 13) and good old Morg ‘n’ Thorg, plus the current star players The Black Gobbo, Lord Borak and Hakflem Shuttlespike. And one for Akhorne, because look how adorable that little guy is!

I will have lots of fun painting these. And playing, probably. Maybe it’s time to actually get the basic game? Or at least the templates and some dice off eBay…

[Jasko]

For my first Golden Hat XXXVIII entry I painted “Iron Steve” from the Greebo Dwarvageddoom campaign.

I have focussed on painting quantity for quite a while now, and while I am perfectly fine with my tabletop standard and newly used battle-ready standard, it has been a long time since I took my time with a single model - and I have neglected training that particular muscle far too long!
Since this was a Golden Hat, I really wanted to leave my comfort zone with this model. And that meant three main things: trying to paint that flame, making use of that large canvas which is his cloak and make his skin more interesting by giving him appropriately rocky tattoos, all of which would be “firsts” for me.

I am quite fond of how it all turned out, the flames look nice from behind (the front is nice enough, but I don’t reaaaally like how the flames are modelled there, backside is much nicer) and the freehand coat came out good. It was truly a thrilling experience, and an area where there is a tremendous learning curve ahead of me, especially the gap from how I imagine stuff and how I am actually able to paint it I decided very quickly on a skull, heavily inspired by a Squidmar video. I wanted to have it surrounded by roses, which in the end was much harder than I thought and actually more difficult than the skull. In my mind I saw a dense group of high-detail roses, similar to something like this. But my skill level was nowhere near being able to paint it I therefore decided on something a little more abstract, which turned out not half bad.

I anyway wanted to paint rose-thorn-vine kind of things on his arms, so I just continued that element on his cloak. I think the coat turned out better than the arms, I should have made the tattoos really go around his arms instead of staying on the visible surface, but I realised the mistake too late. The hazard-striped hose was one of the first things I decided on, that was a total no-brainer for me

I am quite happy with the base, which I did in a way I wanted to do for a long time. I always wanted to try using the citadel texture paints over a layer of paint so it stays visible in the cracks. I was not 100% sure it would work, but thankfully it did and it looks pretty rad, if I might say so myself. Especially considering it’s basically no work at all! I liberally slapped red paint on the base and mixed it randomly with orange and yellow directly on the base. Then it’s just the regular thick coat of texture paint (Mordant Earth, in this case) and that’s it. I actually liked the stage before the texture paint already, gives off a psychedelic vibe

And here he is, the bass player of “Flowers is for Elvsess” (with a grateful nod to @Abecedar, I think about that phrase at least once a week )

[rollforwounds]

Love this guy! Amazing work on the freehand, that was such a worthwhile leap. Would never have guessed it was a first attempt

[Jasko]

Thanks mate, much appreciated!
It’s a great model, and the slightly larger scale did not hurt with the freehand obviously

So I did some dryruns of varying success

[MichaelX]

So happy you entered to comp @Jasko! Great model!

[Reaver]

Really well executed scheme, and freehand detail really adds a lot! Grimgoof bloodbowl miniature achieved!

[Bessron]

Great mini, great paint job,

Reminds me a bit of Lobo.

Now I want the Mini too…

Super well done

[Jasko]

@Bessron

Now I want the Mini too…

I am getting a lot of joy out of the Greebo models even unpainted and without having an actual game of blood bowl. And those Chaos Dwarf rockers are awesome. I am still fine with only getting the bass player, but my conviction is crumbling already

[Jasko]

It’s time to get the Zharr Kagur Bulls painted and on the pitch!

As it’s only fitting, the Chaos Dwarf Blockers will make the start.

I decided to go with yellow for my main colour. I tried my hand at this pink-undercoat thing for yellow and it actually worked to some extend. The effect was pretty much lost though after I had to put more and more coats of yellow on to get more overall coverage. I guess with enough practice I should get to the point. So for these models I in the end had to come back with a brown/orange glaze to get the desired effect back up. Overall I am quite happy with the result!

I’m calling these schroedingers-finished for now. In the long run I want to have some nice chequered pattern on the yellow throughout the team, but I will only do that once all models are painted to really think about how much and where I want this. That’s also the point where I will paint some numbers on them.

[tjub]

Looks superb! Yellow is a one of the colors I find hardest to paint myself, you made some great results here.

[Jasko]

Thanks a lot, Tjub, much appreciated!

[Jasko]

And here we have the Hobgoblin positional players.

While I like the Chaos Dwarfs very much, it was actually the Hobgoblins that made me fall in love with the Greebo Games team. I love the poses (especially the one leaping for the catch and the one in the three-point stance in the front) and they look every bit the mean, dirty players you’d expect a true Hobgoblin to be. And their aesthetic is awesome and a great blend of a modern interpretation of the classic Hobgoblin phrygian cap and a more LoA style armour.

[Jasko]

Coming to the big guys.

Can’t have a Chaos Dwarfs team without some Bull Centaurs and a Minotaur. Decided to go with a flesh colour for the Minotaur skin, for the rest I pretty much followed the recipe I did for the other models.

As a nice bonus, Greebo also supplies marker for prone/stunned Bull Centaurs and Minotaurs, as these models are a little big to lay down anyway.

It’s also time for the team photo. I still want to come back and freehand some numbers on the jerseys (unless I happen to have fitting decals somewhere) and introduce some black chequers, but as a whole they are done.

[Jasko]

The team icon and the re-roll marker

Can’t say I was particularly motivated to paint these two so went very quick and dirty.