Blood Bowl - Custombuilt Pitch: The Garden of Madness
Ever since playing Bloodbowl I liked Dungeon Bowl. And so I always liked the idea of having a Pitch that looks like it has a stone or tiled surface. And the league I am running currently gave me the perfect opportunity to finally build one - the “Garden of Madness”
I used Hirst Arts molds to cast the tiles and the bricks for the walls. I bought molds #40, 51, 201 and 205. I cannot stress enough how well done Bruce Hirst’s home page and products are. I had never ever cast anything in plaster in my life before, yet by just following the tips and tricks he has on his homepage I could easily produce all the components needed to make the pitch.
This picture shows how I used insulation board as the basis for all board components. It is light weight, but sturdy enough. I also used Lego bricks to get a straight edge. I also decided that it would be best to have the pitch in three different pieces. That would make storage and transport easier. This should also make the individual parts more durable. I used wood glue for the entire project; and lots of kitchen towels.
In a similar fashion I split the walls surrounding the moat into several pieces to make storage and transport easier. The picture shows the four corner pieces. Again a small wall of Lego bricks helps to get a straight wall while the glue dries. Unfortunately I didn’t take any work-in-progress pictures of the remaining wall parts. It is very important that you keep all the bricks and tiles in order during the building stage. Otherwise you spend a lot of time searching for the right pieces. The cardboard box in the back of the picture is what I used.
After all wall parts had been dry it was time to paint them and the pitch. For that I bought two large pots of acrylic paint - one in a dark gray and a second one in white. The pitch and the walls were then painted dark gray and drybrushed with more and more white added to it.
Then it was time to pour the moat. The moat is made from a glaze that is normally used for wood finishes. The product I used was “PARKS Super Glaze”. It should be available from most DIY shops. It is a two part epoxy. You mix two equal parts and then pour them over the area you need glazed. In my case that was the moat. You can also see one of my monsters I put in the moat. I sculpted the Swamp Thing from Super Sculpey.
This picture shows a corner piece ready to have the moat poured. The styro foam board had been cut down to allow some space for the epoxy and painted grey. The sides of it were closed with left over Styrofoam pieces. These had packaging tape taped to them (which you can see if you look closely at the picture) and were then glued to the sides of the corner piece with 5 minute epoxy. I used “LOCTITE Professional 5 min Epoxy” (awailable from most DIY stores). The 5 minutes epoxy sealed the edges around the different Styrofoam pieces so that the glaze poured in the later step didn’t leak. Having packaging tape on the other Styrofoam pieces allowed me to take them off after the glaze had set because the epoxy didn’t stick permanently to the tape.
Then I prepared the glaze for the moat. I measured the right amount of both parts. The clear part of the two then had some drops of green and brown ink added. I used more green to make the moat look suitably disgusting. The brown made it very murky and I had to experiment with how much I needed of it. You only need very little to make the water murky.
This picture shows the painted pitch with some of the walls finished. The end zone tiles had been cast from special tiles to set them apart from the rest of the pitch. In addition to that they had been painted in two different colors to set them apart even further. The wall in the middle of the field was higher than the rest of the wall. This was done to allow the wall to be used as a score board and turn marker. A small door had been added to the wall to allow the “players” to walk onto the pitch using the little tread stone.
The dug outs were behind the big wall pieces. They were divided by walls with small doorways into the usual compartments – reserves, KO and dead & injured. Each dug out also had a single tile with end zone colors added in the middle to tell each player which dug-out to use during a game.
The score board, turn and reroll counters were added to the inside of the large wall pieces. The counters were WHFB shields. I bought different ones for different races/teams. They were held in place by rare earth magnets. I used “MAGCRAFT Neudymium-Iron-Boron Magnets” with a diameter of 3.2 mm and a thickness of 1.6 mm. They were glued in palce with 5 minute epoxy. The important part here was to make sure that all the magnets had the correct polarization (i.e. all are pointin in the same direction). I did this by painting the first magnet black on one side and then using it to orient all the others. The lettering was painted on to the walls.
Also in the pictures is the second of my “sea monsters”. It was made from green stuff. The player is a WHFB zombie with an added shoulder pad.
The tiles I had chosen for the pitch were exactly 1×1 in. But the original 
Bloodbowl square size was 1 1/8” in. That meant that I could not use the original plastic range ruler used for throwing the ball. I had to have it resized. For this I contacted Litko Aero. I drew a small sketch for them and they custom cut it for me. Working with them on this project was a very pleasant experience. It took only 10 days from the initial contact email to the moment I received the final product.
The following pictures are mostly shots of the pitch in action.
The flag stone bases on the miniatures are from Heresy Miniatures. Their pattern doesn’t quite match the tiles of the field, but it looks close enough. I had originally ordered the flagstone bases before I had quite made up my mind on how I wanted to do the pitch. But I liked their look so I kept them. I also have to say that Heresy have always been excellent to order from they are always very fast and spot on with every order.
With the project completed there were of course a million things I would have done differently with the benefit of hindsight. There are two that stand out though:
The dugouts a re a little bit too small for teams with large numbers of coaching personnel. I should have probably added an extra section to the dugouts just for coaching personnel; or maybe some kind of tower. I might still build that tower.
The freehand lettering looks a bit rough. So if I had to redo it again I would buy some letters from some craft shop and glue them on instead of freehanding it.
Enjoy.
Lamenter
