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Author Topic: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team  (Read 9247 times)

Offline DinoTitanedition

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Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« on: October 18, 2018, 06:08:17 AM »
As I like a deep atmosphere in the games I play. Nowadays I tend to give various things a long thought due to this. One of them is the name for the Blood Bowl team that I want to play. Here`s a little article on various approaches when doing so:

https://www.chaosbunker.de/de/2018/10/18/blood-bowl-teamnamen/
« Last Edit: October 19, 2018, 08:10:20 AM by DinoTitanedition »

Offline DinoTitanedition

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2018, 08:12:30 AM »
It took me a while to get my ass movin', but I`m finally tackling the task of completely repainting and finishing an Orc team I`ve started on way back in 2001. I`d like you to invite you on this hobby journey of mine.

https://www.chaosbunker.de/en/2018/10/19/blood-bowl-journey-of-the-maulers-project-introduction/

Offline Daeothar

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #2 on: October 22, 2018, 07:54:36 AM »
Nice! 8)

Great paintscheme on those orks too btw.

Interestingly, just as a change of pace after painting Dropfleet Commander ships for quite some time, I started on a human Bloodbowl team just this weekend.

I had this bog standard team lying around for ages (I also have the orks of course), and never had much interest in painting them. Until last Friday.

Now they're almost done, and I'm thinking about painting my Chaos Dwarf team as well. And I'm not even that big on Bloodbowl... ::)
Miniatures you say? Well I too, like to live dangerously...
Find a Way, or make one!

Offline DinoTitanedition

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #3 on: October 23, 2018, 05:09:34 PM »
Just stay tuned for the upcoming articles. I`ll be talking about a specific campaign focused way to play Blood Bowl. You might like to adapt the method for your teams as well ;) The next article is due on Friday, but I`ll link it up here too, along with some pictures.

Offline DinoTitanedition

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #4 on: October 26, 2018, 06:57:42 AM »
So, before tackling the team itself with a repaint, I had the need to practice painting yellow a bit. Turned out well and sticked with it. Better pictures are in the article again...man, after I moved I need to get myself a little photocorner fpr minis as well...

https://www.chaosbunker.de/en/2018/10/26/blood-bowl-journey-of-the-maulers-fans/


Offline DinoTitanedition

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #5 on: October 31, 2018, 06:13:44 PM »
And here`s another guy for the bleachers. I`m slowly reworking all the material I already had in article form, but I`ll be done with that until the end of the year, so new stuff will be coming up soon as well.

https://www.chaosbunker.de/en/2018/10/31/blood-bowl-journey-of-the-maulers-hammertime/#more-22766


Offline DinoTitanedition

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #6 on: November 05, 2018, 07:12:41 AM »

Offline orm1

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2018, 04:00:06 PM »
Great paint job love the fans

Offline DinoTitanedition

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #8 on: November 09, 2018, 06:27:35 AM »
Thanks! I really enjoyed doing these. Gamewise they`re absolutely senseless, but they are great to practice painting and will hopefully fill one or two blechers nicely in the end  :)

This week I`ve also squeezed in another BB article, this time with a tutorial, for those eager to try to build some fans themselves:

https://www.chaosbunker.de/en/2018/11/09/blood-bowl-journey-of-the-maulers-tutorial/

Offline DinoTitanedition

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #9 on: November 28, 2018, 08:01:35 PM »

Offline DinoTitanedition

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #10 on: February 07, 2019, 07:05:36 AM »
This is the last model I have for my fan mob. Everything from now on is either fluff or repaints of the first iteration of my team. For all who want to support a bit, you can of course read the article here as well: https://www.chaosbunker.de/en/2019/02/05/blood-bowl-journey-of-the-maulers-fink-da-fixer/

Journey of the Maulers: Fink da Fixer

Since I rebuild the Maulers with a narrative approach and would also try to follow that in play, I've of course taken a look at the new rules and discovered the section for (in)famous coaching staff. The nice thing about the section is that the new staff are not optional but official rules, which means that I can use models for the staff at any time, as long as I have something to represent them.

Fink da Fixer is a perfect example of the twisted trickery and cleverness of a Goblin. For a staggering 50,000 gold pieces, Fink brings the equivalent of three coaching assistants to the team and a re-roll for failed bribes on fouls. Also, if you get caught in the act and are argueing with the referee, you can keep your player on the field at a 5+ already. He is available to all Ogre, Orc, Goblin and Underworld teams.

Having played a couple of games with my Underworld team, the Skycastle Titans, I've gotten a taste for fouling and intend to use Fink more often when I reach the next step of building the Maulers up again. However, until then Fink will take over command of the fan club of da Kneebreakaz.





Fink da Fixer

       The protesting noise of the audience was almost unbearable when Nat'E, Ogre player of the Nordland Hawks, beat Gorhuk senseless with a mighty blow.

    "Yes!" a nobly dressed nobleman triumphed in the VIP lodge of the Nordland Dome.

    "If the greenskins continue to let themselves being smashed by the Hawks, I'll win my bet high!".

    "PSSSSST ..." it suddenly sounded conspiratorially behind the nobleman.

    "Eh !? What do you want here ...?" said the nobleman in disgusted astonishment.

    "I bet da Ogre will stop playing without anyone e'en touchin' 'im..." said a tiny-looking Goblin with a helmet that was way too big for his head.

    "HA! Nat'E stops playing without oppositional interference!? Never! The guy's a machine!!!" the nobleman sneered.

    "Nah, maaan...you'll see...well, what about that bet? If I'm right, your whole glitterin‘ gubbinz will be mine. Aaand if you win, you'll get doubleee..." replied the little Goblin calmly.

    Greed slid into the eyes of the fat nobleman.

    "DEAL!" he said, slapping the Goblin's outstretched hand.

    The Goblin waddled to the edge of the lodge balcony and waved briefly, before finally returning to the nobleman's side. It only took a mere moment for two more little Goblins to emerge next to the Maulers' dugout, with something that looked like a stylized doll of a sad-looking Halfling with a chef's hat, swinging it back and forth. Nat'E, who had just gained control of the ball and started to dash for the Maulers endzone, suddenly slowed until he came to a stop with a blank, questioning look on his face.

    "Rufio ...? RUFIO !?" yelled Nat'E, who dropped the pigskin and ran to the doll - right off the field.

    "Pooooor Nat'E. His buddy da cook is...'missing' since last week ...that shook da big un quite a bit." the Goblin sneered, his face twisting into a nasty grimace.

    "YOU DAMN GIT!".

    Enraged, the nobleman turned to the greenskin with a dagger in his hand as he realized he had been tricked. But in the blink of an eye, two huge Orcs, armed with raw clubs, emerged from behind the curtain that had blocked the access to the box. "Um...I mean...whose hands should I send the sum to?" he stuttered, aware of his misery.

    "Da Gubbinz goes to Fink da Fixer" the Goblin said crossing his arms "of da Kneebreakaz club. An’ if ya need too long…".

    Threateningly, one of his henchmen clenched his fists a few times in a playful way. The nobleman nodded and bowed his head as Fink and his boys finally left the box.

 

Greetings from the Chaosbunker

Dino

Offline DinoTitanedition

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #11 on: February 08, 2019, 07:19:46 AM »
This article isn`t really about the maulers, but I`ll follow a very similiar, even more narrative approach while the project is running. So I thought I`d share my thoughts on how to run a solo campaign...


Blood Bowl: Solo Campaigns

First of all, I have to make it clear that you cannot play Blood Bowl alone (except virtually on the computer). In a solo campaign you play against other players too. So how does a solo campaign work then? At the end of 2009 I had the idea to use leftover parts from my bitzbox to reduce my enormous pile of miniatures a bit. After a brief look, I realized that I had a lot of skeletons, a few zombie parts, the old model of Ramtut, and a few 3rd edition human players left.

After putting together one of the models, I tried out the color scheme I had in mind. As I liked how it turned out, I decided to paint one model completely before each game, so after ten games I would have a fully painted team of eleven players without losing motivation on the go. In short, this was the basic idea of what would later become known as the Challenge.



At the time, I wasn't as narrative a player as I'm now, but I didn't have time to participate in a league, and in 2009, Blood Bowl experienced a relative drought in the German-speaking world of tabletop players. So I had to think of an alternative. I wondered if it would be possible to just continue my roster sheet and if I would find players who would also follow this style. Granted, at the beginning I had my doubts, but I did not always want to play a basic team or start with a teamvalue of 1000 in each league. After the second game that way of playing the game seemed to turn out as a good approach. In my first game I competed against Tabletopwelt.de forum user Kako K., who at that time played a human team in Bretonnian style.



My second game was against the only other player who had a Blood Bowl project in the forum running during this time, Ralf Brockhausen. As a small gimmick we used the cards, which he had left me as a souvenir from the Lutece Cup. Each player got a free card at the beginning of the match and my guest was allowed to choose the deck. I liked that so much that I kept this mode, because it made the game more unpredictable and this way more narrative.



Since I invested a lot of effort in the match reports and kept them comprehensible even though I was writing in a more story like manner, the number of interested hobbyists slowly grew and soon the first requests for games came by itself.





Over the years, I have continued to pursue and expand this concept. Although I had participated in various leagues since the first Challenge, I quickly realized that the German players were rather conservative and, for lack of a better term, a bit boring. So if I did not just want to play and roll statistics, but to tell a real story, I had to think about how to make a narrative approach more attractive as a soloist and thus to define the important corners for a solo campaign.

A solo campaign requires a bit of pre-planning and above all, players who get involved in this type of ongoing games. Since the rerelease of Blood Bowl 2016, there are enough special rules to define your own campaign a lot easier, and I follow this method for my upcoming campaign for the repaint of Mork's Maulers. The following things should be taken into account:

Amount of games

Playing a narrative campaign depends heavily on the number of games. The shorter a campaign runs, for example six games, the easier it will be to find opponents who are willing to follow this style of play in their own player community. This works in a similar way to an ordinary league, except that you are not restricted by the field of competitors in a league, but you can also choose who to play against. There are always hobbyists against whom you like to play and against whom you like to play less, for whatever reason. This way it's possible to create the player field that you are comfortable with.

Impact on the roster

Some teams need some help to get on their feet. For example, it can be fun to play with a star player for a while, helping the team build it up. He will remain in the squad for as long as his contract expires or he cannot be paid anymore. If you encounter an opponent who uses the same star player, he should not be used. Instead, he leaves both teams immediately - these starplayer folks just don't spend too much time with provincial clubs.

A really important rule is the use of "aging". This prevents the team from becoming too strong after a long series of games, so that nobody wants to play against them anymore. Generally you should settle with heavier impacts for the team and regardless just keep on playing. Even with real clubs things do not always go smoothly, and sometimes you have to go through a down phase in team history. Speaking of history ...

Background stories

To create the right level of immersion, it is worth spending an evening writing a background for the team and its players. Blood Bowl is a persiflage on real American Football. It is the stories that make the heroes or represent a villain in a models character. It is that what makes actually makes them interesting. Proper team names can also help. At this point, I can already offer a little help, as I have written an article earlier, that you can find here.

Playstyle and roster

If you play narrative, you should consider playing an unconventional setup and encourage your opponents to do likewise. Standardized, maximized squads can quickly create boredom and seduce players into following a no-jokes-attitude while playing. This is appropriate in tournaments where placement and statistics are important, but in narrative solo campaigns it can hurt the immersion immensly.

The choice of abilities is ideally also not only based on its usefulness, but also on the previously given character of the model. Sometimes players have done phenomenal, unexpected actions over the course of their career - you can customize the skills for the model accordingly. Anyone who has written background for his boys (and girls), will soon notice that the style of play will change over time, as the backgroundstory starts to sink into your conciousness.

Of course, the choice of campaign conditions is up to you. As long as enough players are okay to find themselves more of a passenger in a Blood Bowl game rather than an active coach, a narrative solo campaign works well and will be fun. Anyone wanting to see for themselves how the whole thing works in practice simply take a look at the already published and upcoming articles in the Journeys of the Mauler's series.

 

Greetings from the Chaosbunker

Dino

Offline DinoTitanedition

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #12 on: February 20, 2019, 07:21:52 AM »
This article can also be read here:

https://www.chaosbunker.de/en/2019/02/20/journey-of-the-maulers-team-logos/

Journey of the Maulers: Teamlogos

In my article, Blood Bowl: Solo Campaigns, I've talked about how the backstory of a team contributes significantly to the immersion in a solo campaign and that I'm actually following that method in the Journey of the Maulers series. For the fans I already did this, as each of them got a few lines of background. These are usually rather short as they serve as a basis for their character development and can be expanded both narratively and throughout the campaign.

Today, I lay the foundations for the background story of the Maulers as a whole and at the same time I deal with the logo of the team. Draw again a parallel to the real sport template of American Football, it is noticeable that many teams are recognizable by a certain symbol, similar to the heraldry of a knight's house.

I should warn you - today's post does not contain any miniatures, just a few scribbles that have sprung from my twisted, creative vein. But if you like a bit of story about Blood Bowl teams, you can sit back and enjoy the first real chapter of the Maulers' journey ...

   
Quote
Every team needs a logo

       It was the worst game of Blood Bowl Boz Bonebreaka had seen in years. Pathetic. There was no other word for the performance of the team. The Challenge 2 tournament was in full swing and the Mousillon Reclaimers wiped the floor with the Maulers. Although it was only 2 to 1, this did not reflect the course of the game at all. Two players were already badly injured and would have to end their careers, another was unconscious and would see the end of the game only after the final whistle. Fortunately, it sounded only a few moments later and the fans were released from the miserable show.

       But some of them were not satisfied with the end of the game. Lots of money was lost today in betting and the losers basked on bloody revenge. When they caught one of their orcish teammates, the rest of the team rushed all the more to get into the locker rooms.

       As soon as the bars closed, a furious mob gathered in front of the entrance, shaking the them with unhesistantanger. Boz grabbed one of the fans and threw him through the air like a doll. Even for such an aging Orc, he was still pretty strong. The shrill scream made the mob stop intimidated, and the eyes turned to face him.

       "Time to go Gitz." Boz said in a threatening rumbling voice.

       "Only when we have sacrificed these sissies to Nuffle!" shouted a tall Norscan.

       Obviously he was not as easy to daunt as the other fans and he was furious.

       „We’ll start with you!“ he shouted and suddenly started to charge towards Boz.

       Before he even understood how it happened he stumbled to the ground. He tried to get up again but was instantly horrified as he noticed that he was missing a leg. Boz's lap Squig chewed on the missing leg, its foot still sticking out to the corner of his mouth. The unlucky fellow was about to cry, but the Squig did not seem happy yet. With three hearty bites, he finally devoured the Norseman completely, followed by a loud burp and a satisfied smack.

       Some of the other fans had already fled by then and those who hadn't done so were petrified. Boz could now reach the entrance unhindered and ripped through the battered lock effortlessly. His mind was unusually clear. He knew it was time for the Maulers to change management.

       Imposingly, he opened the door to the crew cabin and stopped in the doorway. The sight offered to him wasn‘t exactly a pleasure.

   

       "I'm Boz Bonebreaka, and from now on, I'm da boss. From now on only da things I say happen. " he said it with a determination that didn't allow any protest.

       His plan was straightforward and simple. The team needed new players and they had to win enough games to rebuild the team's reputation. They would have to do this the old fashioned way. That would mean making a name for yourself in the smaller leagues, followed by a few more prestigious tournaments or cups. That should bring enough Gubbinz to them to perhaps become permanent residents somewhere. Everyone knew that teams that held something on their own had their own stadium. But first he needed something that brought the guys back on track and would motivate them again. An inspiration. Like a symbol.

     

       The team travel cart, who was once pulled by a bad-tempered boar, fit the run-down team just right. The pig had been stolen during the game though.

       "Perfect," Boz said, pointing to the drawbar.

       "From now on, training is always on. We'll drag da cart ourselves. And so everyone knows who is coming, they shall all see the logo." he said.

       For a moment, the remaining players were silent until one of the players finally dared to ask: "Which logo, boss?".

       Boz glanced at the carts loading space. A jumble of old trash was still in there. At least that hadn't been ravaged by the angry fans. An ax to gather wood for a fire and the old choppa from the former apothecary were some of the leftover tools. A true precision tool that could cut off any pain in no time. The rest consisted of old paint buckets, rough paintbrushes that you needed to paint a playing field in more remote areas, and the usual block shields, which were used for contact training when you didn't have a few cocky fans at hand.

       Hm...let's see...Boz thought to himself. He grabbed the two weapons, tied them together and mounted one of the block shields above them.

       His squigg nudged against his leg.

       "MMMMMM" rumbled the roundish animal. Mmmm? Mmm. Mm? M ... M! That was it.

       Boz was one of the eloquent Orcs and could not only read, but even write a little. A long time ago, he had been in a mushroom brewhouse in Karak Eight Peaks, whose red and yellow nameplate had lost the first few letters after a pub-wracking. They had fallen down because of the impact of skulls on the other side bashing against the wall. When he asked a Goblin what it read, he had answered "Gork's Mork's Shop", whereupon he had dragged him along for a while to learn the rest. He had eaten the Goblin later. Quickly he painted the block sign with the found color rests and drew in crude lines a provisional "M" over it. Moments later, he waved the boys over.

       "This is da sun and this are da mountains and that's an M. M like Maulers!".

   

 

Greetings from the Chaosbunker!

Dino

Offline von Lucky

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #13 on: February 20, 2019, 07:31:13 AM »
Nice output, oozing full of fun.
- Karsten

"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."
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Offline Chairface

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Re: Chaosbunker.de - 20 years for one Blood Bowl team
« Reply #14 on: February 20, 2019, 07:56:13 PM »
I love a characterful bloobbowl team!