BlitzMania! (Blood Bowl & Blitz Bowl)

[Jack Hooligan]

Like Warhammer Underworlds, Blitz Bowl has captured my hobby attention. Both titles play in under an hour, are set in cool settings that I enjoy, and have deep game-play.

As a Blood Bowl player of 30+ years, I do have to say I appreciate the brevity of a Blitz Bowl game at this point in my life. In my 20s I was able to run long, successful BB leagues. I'm not sure I'll be able to pull those off anytime soon, and I don't want my fantasy sports gaming to live in the shadow of those glory years, so Blitz is a breath of fresh air allowing me engage in this setting a new.

Before I start running games (bought three sets) I want to get the pitches ready. Here's my first bit of work. Celebrating the stars of the Blood Bowl Pitch...in the "Hall of Fame" arena.

[von Lucky]

Looking good - will follow with interest.

[Daeothar]

Great stuff; the statues are inspired and the shields really bring them home.

3 sets of Blitz Bowl eh? I take it you're located in the US? because I searched high and low for that game here in the EU to no avail...

[Jack Hooligan]

Finally coming back to this. I have an early summer Blitz Bowl event to prep for. I'm not sure if it's still going to happen or not, but prep I shall.



Goblins for a special match where each team gets two goblins. This scenario came from me having a copy of the four goblin plastic BB booster box.  Not enough to field a full team, I decided to split into into two groups of two. I went with drab, neutral colors so they don’t clash too much with whatever team they’re playing for. Two have light brown shirts and dark brown pants, the other two the opposite scheme.



I had an extra rot spawn model about and don’t ever expect this creature to appear in Blitz Bowl officially, so seemed safe. I’ve added a chain around its neck and town the back to appear chained to the central trapdoor. I have simple rules where at the beginning of each team turn a d8 is rolled and it slithers over to the spot represented on the ball bounce chart and throws a block at a random player if possible. It only stays in the 8 spots adjacent to the trapdoor. In the image below it is on the '8'

[gamer Mac]

Never been a blood bowl player what is blitz bowl?

[Jack Hooligan]

Never been a blood bowl player what is blitz bowl?

It's a limited release game set in the Blood Bowl universe. Teams are only have as big (6-7 models), games only take 30-45mins, and the rules are more forgiving. However, there's no rich campaign system like Blood Bowl proper.

It's a fun way to push around BB models if one doesn't have the hours and time necessary for BB leagues.

[von Lucky]

Nicely done!

[Jack Hooligan]

I finally got around to completing all of the necessary terrain features for three Blitz Bowl boards as well as all of my team tokens.

With three Blitz Bowl (BzB) boards, I wanted enough terrain for two boards to have fancy statues celebrating the star players of Blood Bowl. I’ve gotten a lot of comments about using the expensive Forge World models for this project, but having played Blood Bowl for almost three decades…I’ve rarely used Star Players. This project has enabled me to finally make use of some of those models and in a way that will get them on the table _every_ time a game is played. This is actually more bang-for-the-buck then using them as actual star players where there are too many gates for their usage; will I be playing their team, will I earn enough to use them, does the league allow them, etc.

So, here they all are up on plinths with the heraldry for the team they represent.





The above four are for the single trapdoor board with four blocked terrain sections.



These two above are for the board with two trapdoors. This board has larger sections of blocked terrain so we have the perennial face of Blood Bowl, and all-around nice guy, Lord Borak on his own stone, and the other being Morg and Grim locked in a duel for all eternity. You can see these larger base sizes on these two in the image below.



Also, I’ve got a complete set of crates and barrels for teams slumming it on the third board, the Pub Table. I have enough of these for any combination of needed board terrain.



Finally, the tokens for my teams. I had a few philosophies in mind when I approached these. One…they needed to be easy to paint. Two, I want to be able to use them for BB and BzB. Three, though the coin and token/trophy is based on team races, I didn’t want them tied to specific races. My BB and BzB orc teams might not use the same colors. Or a friend with a BB team could be visiting without his tokens painted…these are generic and neutral to serve that need. The following met all my requirements and I’m very pleased how they came out.

[Jack Hooligan]

In the early 00’s, I managed an Undead BB team to quite a bit of success. Winning tournaments with them in Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas. Almost 20 years later…I’m bringing the franchise to Blitz Bowl.

I don’t have that original team anymore, but below are several photos. The team was made up of several conversions. Skeletons using bits from the Human 2nd edition plastic team, Space Marine shoulder pads across the squad for some uniformity. The colors were mainly black with scorpion green trim.







Looking above, this team has about 20 models worth of players as well as coach, re-roll counters, mascot and ref. A bunch of team odds and ends I simply wouldn’t have the time to do anymore.

Thankfully, Blitz Bowl has arrived for my current lifestyle.

On the off chance I ever play a full Undead Blood Bowl team, I would definitely go with these colors. Bring the squad back from the grave. In honor of this team, I’m having the Blitz Bowl, minor league squad go with the ‘Away’ version of the team’s colors…so more green and less black. Also, my ghouls have shifted from a pale color to dark blue/grey over the years.







I have yet to play a game of Blitz Bowl with this team. I admire and applaud the sleek design of Blitz Bowl and its "one sprue, one team" philosophy, but I wish this team was 6 players instead of 7. It would feel more like a legit organization if the teams all followed a little tighter standard, such as _all_ Blood Bowl teams having a max of 16 players, 13 on the field, no matter the quality of players. But, this isn’t a blocker for me to enjoy the game.

Anyone have experience with this team in Blitz Bowl?

[von Lucky]

I don't, but I am admiring your painting. That team has held up well.

[warlord frod]

very nice. I still manage to play Blood Bowl now and again as well as Dungeon Bowl so its good to see a revival of sorts with this version. Nice work on all the minis by the way

[Jack Hooligan]

Thanks, Warlod Frod and Von Lucky.

I've recently finished off the Chaos team for Blitz Bowl. In order to not duplicate images I've posted in other areas of this site, I've collected all my thoughts on the team and their inspiration in a blog post.

https://wyrdstonesandtacklezones.com/2020/05/03/blitz-bowl-chaos-team/

[Gibby]

Absolutely love these. This is how Blood Bowl ought to look!

[Bloggard]

excellent models and painting.

[Jack Hooligan]

For the orc half of the BzB box, I’ve simply gone with my older 3rd edition model (above), Badland Blitz color scheme with a few slight tweaks for the newer 32mm models, such as less on the shoulder pads.



I was initially thinking I would include etching and chip damage to the black parts of their armour, but I’ve sort of taken to the pure, clean look.





Only having checks down the right forearm gives this version of the Blitz a bit more uniformity than their original colors had.