Blood Bowl Trollberg Raiders
Every now and then I want to play a basic all-round human team instead of all the teams that have special rules and tactics. The article below shows my recently finished human team, the Trollberg Raiders.
I was never really a fan of the basic plastics that came out with the 3rd Edition box and I also never really liked the metal teams that were/are available from GW (other than the old 2nd Ed metals). I really like the Landsknecht look of the Empire state troops. So the team is based on them.
The color scheme is maroon and yellow. I imagine that the team is made up of a bunch of Empire state troops that didn’t get paid for a while because they were fighting for a poorer Prince of the Ostermark. And so they decided to seek their fortune playing Blood Bowl instead, keeping their old colors and trading in some of the Pikes and Halberds for some shoulder pads. The models were painted with GW Citadel colors. The Maroon was painted with “Terracotta” as base color, the Yellow was “Golden Yellow”.
Most of the team was assembled using models out of two boxes of Empire state troops. I added the odd piece from the Empire Militia box as well. The Ogre was from the Ogre Kingdom Bulls box (which I got from a friend). The (Catcher) girls are from Bronze Age and the cheerleader is a 2nd Ed. BB human cheerleader.
I started by removing all the short swords, daggers and Katzbalgers the models had tucked into their belts. I also removed some of the skulls, bones and hourglasses. Even though I liked these as signs of death and fleeting time, I figured they would remove them before they would go onto a Blood Bowl pitch. I also wanted to stay as close as possible to the landsknecht look. So I tried to keep shoulder pads (made from green stuff) on the small side and tried to give them a medieval look (as opposed to a more exaggerated Blood Bowl look).
The problem with using the state troop models was to find a way to tell the different playing positions apart. In most of the official Blood Bowl models different body postures indicate a different player type - throwers are shown in a throwing motion with a ball, Blitzers tend to be running or charging and so on. The models from the Empire State Troops are posed for sword and pike fighting and are meant to line up tightly in rank and file as per Warhammer Fantasy Battle rules. So they are all modeled with similar stances and arm positions. That means I had to find another way to display player positions.
The throwers were done without helmets or hats. And I tried to give them a vaguely pointing or throwing stance, like they are team leaders directing the team’s offense. They have some parts (arms on one, head on the other) from the Militia sprue.
The Linemen were pretty much straight out of the box. There wasn’t much to do to individualize the models since they were the grunts of the team and they already came with many different heads and arm positions. I did a few extra in case I needed to add journeymen to the team at some stage.
The Blitzers were next on the list. I wanted to keep the overall look of the team mostly uniform, so I decided that to tell the Blitzers apart from the Linemen I would just paint their feathers slightly differently - I settled on a black and yellow pattern. Also to make the models look at least a little bit different I used some arms and a head from the Militia sprue. Two of the models came without feathers (or a different looking feather), so I used the spare ones from the Statetroops sprue.
I needed to be able to tell the Catchers apart from the rest of the team. They are the fastest, weakest and most lightly armored of the whole team. So I figured using girls would be a good way to tell them apart. Unfortunately GW doesn’t produce good looking females models suitable for what I wanted to do. So I decided to get generic 28mm females from Bronze Age instead. All I had to do was put on some clothes (well not too much), hair and padding. I also have to mention here that it is always a pleasure to order from Bronze Age. They are always helpful and usually answer very quickly to requests. My last order from them had a bit of a problem on the delivery (due to me not paying attention) and they were very fast in sorting it out and getting the order replaced.
The last miniature to be added to the team was the Ogre (seems that all human teams eventually get one). I didn’t like the armor plate he had in front of the belly, so that was replaced by a greenstuff belt. I cleaned up his face a bit and also added a shoulder pad (complete with dragon ornament) and straps to hold it in place.
I did not assemble any coaching staff other than the single cheerleader (which I had spare from an earlier project). Once league play will commence again, I might do some assistant coaches and an Apothecary. I might also do some more Catchers, just because they are fun to make.
When it comes to the starting line up for League play (1,000,000 gc) with LRB5 I prefer to go with 4 Blitzers, 4 Linemen, 1 Thrower and two Catchers (I rarely ever use more than two of them). That usually leaves enough for an Apothecary (to protect my skill players from the worst accidents) and three rerolls. I then start filling in more Linemen and after a couple of games the Ogre.
Until next time. Lamenter
