Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Aslan's Asskickers: Narnia Pact Blood Bowl Team: Guessing Game Concludes

I enjoyed playing the little guessing game, slowly revealing my next Blood Bowl team.

I was very surprised the theme was guessed so fast, but not surprised it took awhile to have the correct roster guessed: it's one of the three newest "Official teams that everyone except GW accepts as canon".  GW pulled their support of the three teams in what seems to me like pouting that independent companies make minis that are compatible with Blood Bowl, despite that GW seems to have no interest in creating many of the minis that these independent companies create to fill such gaps, or to update a line that is pushing two decades.

But I digress.  The roster was correctly guessed by Hippy Killer:  Chaos Pact.   Good Guessing HK!

If you're not familiar with the roster, Chaos Pact is a team that was designed to allow for a team that could (with proper development) recreate the original 'Chaos All Stars' team: a motley band of mutants and malicious malcontents.

The Chaos Pact is the only team that can roster three big guys!  ( O.K., Ogre Teams can have six, but the rest of the team are strength 1 snotlings... ) Making it appealing for modeling potential.
It can have a Minotaur, a Troll, and an Ogre.  In addition to the strength of these big guys, they also all can have mutations on doubles-rolls (great for the Troll & Ogre, same for the Minotaur of the Chaos Dwarves, though Chaos proper can have Minotaurs with mutations on standard rolls).  But before you get too excited or ready to yell cheese, remember that this is 3 team members who all have 'loner' (must roll a 4+ to use re-rolls) and each have a negative trait. That adds up to a 50% chance to have one of them fail their negative trait roll each turn. Troublesome to say the least.

The Chaos Pact can also have three special players: a goblin, a dark elf, and a skaven.  They're all basic linemen of their type, but they can have mutations as standard skills. Lots of interesting possibilities for team development.

The lineman for the team is a 'Chaos Marauder" which is a standard human lineman, except that in addition to general skills can have any skills on standard rolls, including mutations (!) except for agility, which is on doubles.

The bad news is, the team has few skills to start, and rerolls are prohibitively expensive.

So here is the team, ready for paint:
(click for larger image)

I wanted a non-chaos theme for the team. When I placed an order with Warploque miniatures for a troll and the halflings I also picked up three animal heads from the conversion bits section. These are heads for his upcoming minotaur, and included a bull, boar & elk. The sculpting is really top-notch.  But I wasn't sure what to do with them.  I started thinking of blood bowl conversions, and thought a 'forest theme' team would be fun.. but what roster to pick? Looking through the list I decided Chaos Pact would give me a lot of variety, and let me use all the heads! But I decided a Bull isn't very 'foresty' so the Elk would be the Minotaur, and the boar would make a good Ogre... I'd need another big animal for the Troll.. looking through my 'bits closet' I found I had the big Reaper bear and that was that. Also found was the reaper faerie blister.  I had picked up the Otherworld Miniatures' Giant Weasels, because they're amazing, and I wanted to paint a ferret (of course).  A goblin? I looked through my 15mm fantasy minis and snuck out a Frog for a goblin, and later a Beaver for a coach, since a Beaver was a help & planner in the Narnia books.  Linemen would have to be Fauns, and the new Beastmen Ungors were perfect.

Speaking of the Fauns, I didn't have a chance to show them yet, so let's take a closer look:

Here is a couple before green stuff. These two seemed more suited to creating a more dynamic pose than some of the others.  Legs were cut, re positioned, and so a running pose was made. I made a couple 'runner' types, a couple 'guarder' types and then 4 'general purpose' types, just so I'd have some variety of poses for their development.  

Here are four that are 'general purpose' poses,after green stuff for fill & creating shoulder pads. 

And the two runner types at either end, with the guarder types.. well i messed up the photo, 2nd from the left and the one at far right in the picture above it are the two 'guards'. First to get the guard skill will be the 2nd from the left, he has a 'gargoyle' look to him. 

Oh, and lastly the coach. Kind of hard to see bare metal minis, but here is the beaver, sporting his coach hat:

Next for this team is some paint!

The original Chaos All-Stars, from the Dawn of Man:
The history of this team can be found here:

7 comments:

Michael Awdry said...

I've really enjoyed the progress on these, although I have to admit the roster question stumped me (thanks for the explanation!). Really looking forward to seeing these painted up.

Simon Quinton said...

Very cool. I've never played blood bowl for some reason. Will be nice to see these with a lick of paint the conversions are great!

Paul O'G said...

Excellent! I've designs to slowly collect some figs for a Chaos Pact team too, but I'm in no rush.

Instead I've also just placed an order to build a new BB team with a difference...

Tristan M said...

Missed most of these posts over the holidays, but the title of this one caught my eye - AND scared me! I have an idea for a Narnia themed team and was worried you'd stolen all my thunder. Thankfully my plan uses a different roster so you've only stolen most of it ;)

Great looking team, look forward to seeing them painted!

Paul´s Bods said...

My eyes are a bit tired from painting and missread the titel..I saw an "l" where the "k" is and expected to see Mr tumnas, the beavers and assorted children :-D

Happy new year
Cheers
paul

Chris said...

These guys look wicked cool, but it's been so many years since I held a set of block dice that I'm out of my depth with the rules part. I can't wait to see them fully painted.

Laughing Ferret said...

Thanks all, I've enjoyed the conversions and I'm looking forward to getting them painted too :)

Tristan: you've got me curious to see what your narnia team will be!

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