- Jim Johnson, Blood Bowl II
I quite enjoyed Cyanide's Blood Bowl video game back in the day, despite its many bugs and absolutely hideous AI. A sequel came out in 2015 and was available for something like €15 last year, which I think is an acceptable price to pay for a Games Workshop-based video game. In this case, it's a great deal: while the AI is still very bad, it's not nearly as ludicrously incompetent as it used to be. No longer will an AI team start its turn with an AG 2 player attempting three dodges and going for it in order to assist on a block, and even though I don't have the faintest idea how I can possibly get the achievement for an interception as the AI never, ever throws the ball, they occasionally even manage to score! Some twenty games in, I still hadn't lost, but I'd had to settle for a draw twice, and even ended up in overtime in an elimination game. All this made me want to do an offline Blood Bowl project as well; since I already have several finished teams, I started thinking bigger...
Eventually, I'd love to be able to build an entire damn Blood Bowl stadium, but I'll start with a single component: some bleachers. Working from the 6'×4' playing surface I've got at our cabin, I have a plan for a modular Blood Bowl stadium, and the simplest part is a 20cm×30cm set of bleachers. So that's where I'll start!
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The components I'm using are:
- one sheet of 2mm thick balsa wood, 100mm × 1000mm
- one square dowel rod, 8mm × 5mm × 1000mm
- one square dowel rod, 5mm × 5mm × 1000mm
- one round dowel rod, 5mm × 1000mm
First, I used a craft knife and steel ruler to cut the balsa wood into three 300×100mm pieces, which were then each split into four 25mm×300mm pieces. I then glued 25mm pieces of 8×5mm rod, short side up, to the underside of each piece, so that a 5mm rod would fit in at the 50mm mark from each end:
What we have here is, if you like, a single bleacher, standing exactly 10mm tall. For this stand, we'll need ten of them. I'll mostly be trying to build my spectators out of plastic models, but if you're going to use a lot of metal figures, I'd reinforce these with a dowel rod lengthwise under the bench.
Then we stick them together! I've tried to get a 5mm overlap, to leave 20mm on each bench so the models will fit, but I mostly eyeballed it; after all, these are lower stands for a Blood Bowl stadium, they're probably built by the lowest-bidding goblin contractor!
Then it's time to reinforce the whole thing with the 5mm×5mm rod:
Finally, add supports cut from the 5mm diameter rod.
And it's finished!
I intend to glue this to a plywood sheet when I start building my modular stadium, but for now, it's done!
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As I got started painting, I remembered that my original idea had been to use the leftover balsa to make a backboard for the highest bench, so I did:
I started by spraypainting the whole thing white and applying a coat of Cavalry Brown.
I then painted the tops and sides of the benches with a cross-grain coat of Mahogany Brown, to add a little depth and make them look slightly weathered.
And that's it: some spray varnish and they're done.
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Stands are nothing, of course, without fans. Just as I was finishing my bleachers, the first batch of spectators arrived from Oathsworn Miniatures.
First up, Evil Reginald. He's a Starling Rogue, who I've painted up to look like Reginald from Nedroid was doing Shakespeare in the Park. Only the first part of that was intentional, the Shakespeare thing just kind of happened.
His feathers are Medium Blue, pants Neutral Grey, waistcoat Dark Red with Old Gold buttons, and the scarf is Orange Red. The base is Mahogany Brown, as is the dagger hilt and handle, and his talons and beak are Ivory.
Reginald will be joined in the stands by a Mouse Nun:
As well as one half of Reaper's Eastern Mouslings.
And an anime schoolgirl, because I didn't exactly know what else to do with her.
Here they are:
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My second set of spectators starts with a Squirrel Witch, busy hexing the opposition or whatever it is she's doing. A fantastic model! I'm also definitely a fan of the Drunken Weasel.
As I was working on a Beastman project at the time, I had some Gors and Catachan bits hanging around, which led to these guys:
This is how you go from a laspistol to a foam finger in just a couple of easy steps!
Last but definitely not least: an Oathsworn Pug Bounty Hunter.
All the Oathsworn Miniatures are very high quality, and a delight to paint. Highly recommended! Here they all are:
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That's it for now: I have a set of bleachers, which were easy and fun to make, with some spectators as well. Next time, I'll be mounting the bleachers on some plywood as part of my modular stadium project, and adding more punters! And I don't know, maybe we should also consider playing some Blood Bowl again...
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