Blood Bowl Nurgle Staff - Mr. Rotlaug the Horticulturist

It seems there will be quite a streak of Blood Bowl staff right now - and it's all for the smelly Putrid Punters of Nurgle!

After the Head Coach it's time for the Horticulturist. He's basically a wizard addition for the team, but the whole idea od a nurgly gardener with his free-range bio-vegetables was sweet and I had lots of fun putting this little "almost-a-diorama" together. The WIP post can be found HERE.

Festus was used as a base, because he's basically that as he already is. Still, that wasn't enough, so I have him a snazzy hat, a shovel, lots of healthy produce and a referee to taste his refreshments. He's supposed to be also a beer brewer for my team, so I wanted to put some foam on the guy tasting the brew - a new challenge for me. I made it with small glass beads mixed with gloss varnish and some pale green paint. Does it look okay?

Mr. Rotlaug here is also my answer to yet another challenge amongst polish bloggers, this time it's "If not minis, then what?", as a question what would one be doing if not wasting time and money on this hobby. I live in a modern (poorly lit) apartment, so no farming for me, but I do enjoy my houseplants and would probably work on them a little bit more if not painting minis. Close enough for the topic IMHO!

Every self-respecting Blood Bowl player knows that proper diet and good nutrition are the keys to success on the pitch - and Nurgle players are no different. Pedantic about the quality of their veggies, they often keep a small garden with only the best organic, bio, fair-trade and free-range greens for their high nutritional needs. Those who want to be even more serious about it employ a professional, a horticulturist - and the good Mr. Rotlaug is the one working currently with the Punters. While quite peculiar and difficult to understand (thick dialect developed in Averland), he’s nonetheless extremely knowledgeable and his veggies are truly exemplary. They are so good, actually, that they can be deployed on the pitch as a weapon - being so healthy, they are actually disgusting and distracting to other players that grew up on Big Moot Sandwiches and Orca-Cola - even causing stomach difficulties! Thus, the Punters rely on Mr. Rotlaug every time when they want to make a point of their exceptionally healthy diet and crush their weaker, poorly-fed opponents.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Staff - Marggh Mawgino the Head Coach

After a really long break, here I am again with some content for my beloved Blood Bowl team, the Putrid Punters!

This time it's the head coach, a character that gives you such a rarely used advantage, he's practically useless... but he's still an important person and a great modelling opportunity. As I mentioned in the WIP post, an ogre's body was the core idea for this conversion, all to make him this absolute unit of a coach. It works, he's towering over all his players!

I had to remind myself how to paint this yellow skin, but painting him was an overall pleasant experience. I have some other small things for this band planned, so this was a good warmup.

Through all the years and many time jumps, the Putrid Punters relied on their ancient and trusted coach Oughustus. Unfortunately, the stationary life of a coach made him susceptible to growing greater and more glorious with every season, until he became simply too big to fit in the time portal. Instead, he was consumed by the warp, never to be seen again. Some journalists argue that he ascended to daemonhood, watching the Punters from the comfort of Grandfather Nurgle’s garden. Hard pressed, the team pitched in and recruited a relatively new, fresh and fit head coach Marggh Mawgino. While he’s not as experienced as his predecessor, he knows much more theory and the modern take on Blood Bowl - so maybe together with his ancient, veteran players, they’ll be able to compensate for each other’s weaknesses and achieve something passable.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Staff - Infectius the Plague Doctor

Now this model was actually painted before my hiatus - and even photographed, but I just couldn't go through yet another round of editing. So, using my new setup, I retook the photos and here he is, sorry for the delay.

The colors were chosen to fit my Putrid Punters, with the notable exception for the white cloak. I painted it this way to make him look just a tiny bit more like your usual doctor. Just in case his helpful nurse, a sign, a doctor's bag weren't enough of a clue. Now he can join the team as the first proper member of the staff - first one of the many more to come!

The WIP for him can be found HERE.

Even if you are not interested in Blood Bowl, Blood Bowl may be interested in you! Such is the life of poor Infectius, a quiet, nerdy boy who always had a passion for all things biological. That evolved later into devoting himself to Nurgle and studying all his diseases and peculiar physiology of his beloved creatures. He would spend the rest of his days cooped up in his laboratory if not a recruitment organized by one of the high-ranking daemons. He wanted to create a guild of Plague Doctors, as a Nurglite alternative to Blood Bowl apothecaries. Being too timid and awkward to refuse, Infectius went with the daemon - and unfortunately for him - proved himself to be an exemplary doctor, being able to patch up even the weirdest of bodies and injuries. Then he got together with the Putrid Punters and the rest is history. The jocks from the team still occasionally make fun of him, but at least they respect him as the last chance to get back, should their regenerative powers fail them. And Infectius, while stressed and anxious most of the time, can at least find some meaning and purpose in his difficult task, which also involves endlessly learning new things about Grandfather Nurgle and his devotees.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Extras - The Pimplettes

I guess it's time to post something else than the neverending posts about weird beastmen, something painted would be good - so here are the Cavorting Nurglings, an unique small inducement available to the Nurgle Teams in Blood Bowl. I have a pile of primed minis ready to be painted and I chose those guys here as a nice start of going through it.

Unexpectedly, they weren't as nice as I wanted - quite a lot of detail and a lot of different skinshades. Still, they were a nice change of pace and a pleasant return to the Putrid Punters project.

The WIP post is HERE - I took a normal Nurgling base from GW and Bloodbowlified them a bit - added a ball-eating one, some helmets, a hotdog, etc. Their pose was perfect to write the team name on their backs.

Sloth the Sloth is legendarily shy and his handlers have tried out many different ways of encouraging him to actually move onto the pitch and play. One of those was getting a small bunch of Nurglings to throw him as snacks - which seemed to work for a few matches. Until that is, they bought a particularly feisty batch of them. When they saw the beast approaching them, they quickly cut their ropes and ran in all directions, causing all kinds of chaos and mischief. Sloth the Sloth followed them all around the stadium, trashing few stands and causing several fatalities, not bothering to play at all. The Punters lost that one match, but the surviving fans loved the spectacle and the team actually rose in the popularity rankings! The cheeky Nurglings got employed instead of being punished and they formed a merry band called "The Pimplettes" and their presence always rouses the audience to do their best. One or two still gets eaten by Sloth the Sloth occasionally, but it's all in good fun.

Blood Bowl Horticulturalist of Nurgle - WIP

The third character that I kitbashed for my Nurgle Blood Bowl team as a member of the staff, we've had a doctor, the coach - so now there comes the wizard!

Just like Dark Elves and Chaos Chosen before, Nurgle also got their own specific wizard - he's called a Horticulturalist and he's themed heavily around plants and farming. I looked through the range of fantasy minis and I found good old Festus to be the best match for such a character. Still, there was a lot of converting to be done - and now I can say he definitely earns his own post here, it's not that much of a padding as before.

I cut off his staff to turn it into a shovel, he got himself a straw hat, the box on his back is filled with some extra veggies, there are 2 toothy plants behind him on the base, as well as maggots, a buried head and more veggies. Besides that, the poor sod he gives his drink to, he got converted too, so now he has proper pants and a baseball cap - I intend to paint him as a referee.

This one should be fun to paint.

Blood Bowl Druchii Sports Sorceress - WIP

It's time for the last mini from the staff trio I did some time ago. After the Orc and Dark Elf coaches, here comes the Druchii Sports Sorceress - a unique wizard available to dark elves, to join my Dreadspear Dragons. While normal mage casts big but unreliable fireballs, she is adept at casting very precise lightning bolts and weakening opposing players with the 'Death of a Thousand Cuts". She may be expensive to induce, but she gives a lot of flavor to the elvish force and an 83% chance to knock down any player on the pitch is quite worth it.

Obviously, I used a Dark Elf Sorceress from AoS / WFB to represent her - the model is quite perfect in this regard. Still, I decided to convert her at least a little bit to make her more sporty and fit with the team. To first thing is achieved through sneakers I sculpted on her feet and the second thing through a small piece of dragonskin on her behind. I also scattered some bits around her to make the base look less empty and bring the Blood Bowl theme a little more. Not much done here, but it's always something.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Head Coach - WIP

As you could see with the Plague Doctor already, I couldn't leave my beloved Putrid Punters alone when other teams were getting staff members - so now I'm back with that topic, bringing you a WIP version of my properly massive Head Coach for those diseased and disgusting.

I had plans for this mini for a very long time now, but just about the only thing I was sure was using an ogre's body - the rest was being invented as I was going. This naturally proved to be problematic, as I was really unsure of several design alleys that I wandered into... Still, he is as he is - almost completely covered with greenstuff, becoming almost a humanoid version of my Rotspawn, especially with that big tentacle! To give him some Roman elements, tying with the loose theme of the team, he has a laurel on his cap and a piece of cloth vaguely reminiscing a toga. It's all only superficial because he's a 'modern' character just barely trying to fit in his ancient team somehow.

I can also admit that this is the first project (or a phase of one) that I did in its entirety after getting into the "hiatus", rather than just continuing it from the olden times when I had plenty of time for hobbying.

Blood Bowl Dark Elf Head Coach - WIP

As I mentioned in the Orc Head Coach post, I kitbashed a trio of staff members for the noble game some time ago - and after the beforementioned greenskin, it's time for a nasty elf!

The coaches are used mostly for flavor, for their effect on the game is minuscule (but at least they're free), but I enjoy the modeling opportunities that arise when trying to represent all the staff. With the new team from GW sporting dragonskins so extensively, this Black Ark Fleetmaster model was also an easy choice for a coach of my Dreadspear Dragons.

As far as conversion is concerned, I took away his overly fabulous hair and replaced it with a prominent baseball cap - on which I added a little topknot to make it more 'elf-like' and reference his original locks somehow. Then, I took away the hook from his left hand and gave him a book (I think of him as a novice coach, so he still needs to learn!) and stuck a spyglass in his right hand - because it works with the hand position, fits him to observe the match and references the marine theme of the whole mini. Finally, he's standing on a deflated ball - one which he punctured himself with that sharp peg leg.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Plague Doctor - WIP

Usually, I refrain from posting similar things two weeks in a row (WIP staff for Blood Bowl again!), but I had this guy laying around almost finished for a very long time now and in the time of the current pandemic, there was no better time to finish him and post him - a Plague Doctor!

He serves basically the same function as an apothecary for Nurgle teams, allowing to re-roll a Regeneration roll, giving some extra protection to the players one would want to keep alive/in the game. Unfortunately, he cannot be rostered and needs to be bought as an inducement. Still, I hope he will help the Putrid Punters sometimes!

The base model used for this was an old Nurgle Sorcerer. While removing his face and giving him a beaky bask was easy, I wasn't sure what to do with his staff - that's good for a wizard, but not really for a doctor! In the end, I decided to turn it into a sign - on which I will later paint a red cross or something like 'DOCTOR IS IN'. Then, because he still wasn't very medical, I gave him a bigger base and decided to litter it with some extras to make it more convincing. The first one was a doctor bag - which, fitting for a nurgly practitioner, is filled with worms, body parts and similar fun. The second one was a nurse - because every doctor needs one - happy Nurgling is working here in that role. I gave him a nurse's hat and a syringe - now they are a team ready to help!

Blood Bowl Orc Head Coach - WIP

Time for something moderately fresh - a conversion. This guy here was thought as a part of a trio with other BB staff members, but seeing as I am on a hiatus and need as many posts as I can get, I decided to separate them into different posts. Better this way than to leave a Sunday empty, I think.

Here comes the Head Coach for my Orc team The Badlands Badbuttz. I have a lot of greenskin bits in my collection and I wanted to kitbash him for a long time, but I couldn't think of anything good enough. I had a eureka moment when I found hands from the WH40K orks, ones used to support their guns - the size and the pose was perfect to be used as a face-palm - thus creating the reaction many coaches all around the world have when playing the game! Because what else can you do when your players break their necks by slipping on the grass, fall down while trying to kick a goblin and struggle for the whole match to even pick up the ball?

His body comes from the overseer of the Gretchin Herd - with his static pose and a big gut, it fit perfectly in this role. Besides, I also gave him some sporty wristbands and a baseball cap with a very long bill - with a spike to make it properly menacing.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Extras - WIP

Well, the Nurgle train never stops - I have the Star Players, now it's time for even more! As I mentioned in the post about Anirion the Weather Mage, I love Blood Bowl for all kinds of accessories and extras that exist in the game - staff, cheerleaders, markers, etc. You don't really need them represented as models - but you can - and that's what I did for my beloved Nurgle team, the Putrid Punters!

First ones up are my own interpretation of 'Bloodweiser Kegs / Babes' - a relatively cheap upgrade which allows your players to get up more easily after getting knocked out - fluff-wise by giving them copious amounts of beer. While dwarves, humans, goblins, orcs may all be satisfied with the usual stuff, I thought that Nurgle players would have more sophisticated tastes - so I converted them a special brew. The idea came to me when I was organizing my bits and I noticed this big bell from the skaven kit - which would actually quite well for my Putrid Punters, considering Nurgle's fondness for those instruments. I bought some Poxwalkers from WH40K and paired one of them with the bell as the first 'keg'. Seeing as you can have up to 2 kegs in a game, I took another Poxwalker and turned him into a living, walking keg of beer - full of delicious Nurgly goodness - which he can easily share with the tube he holds in his hand.

I call it the Infected Pallid Ale - or IPA.

The next ones are Cavorting Nurglings, a Nurgle-exclusive upgrade that rouses the fans on the stadium to cheer a little bit more and support their team a little bit better.

This was a simple thing - I bought a single base of AoS/WH40K Nurglings and bloodbowlified them a bit - an extra BB Nurgling in the front, a football helmet, a foam hand and a hotdog with a worm inside, all good fun.

Getting even smaller and even less essential to the game - re-roll markers! While absolutely anything can be used to mark the number of available re-rolls on the board, sooner or later, I want everything used by the Punters to be personal and fit their theme - including those markers.

For this I used Eyestinger Swarms from Kill Team: Rogue Trader box and converted them a bit to fit Blood Bowl better - so the corpses/body parts on the bases use BB bits and there is a small sculpted, deflated ball there.

Finally, there are two other markers that come with every BB team from GW nowadays, a 'hand' and a coin - which I use for marking score and turns. The hand is barely touched, I just added there some tentacles to make the little base a bit more crowded.

On the coin, I used some extra greenstuff to turn the flat Nurgle sigil into much more pronounced eyes - which will mimic the Punters' own logo. I actually sculpted the hole of the iris and the pupils there - which I will later fill with transparent resin. I am curious if this 3d approach to eyes will work on this scale. Time will tell.

That's it for now - but I had lots of fun with all the Nurgliness here, so expect much, more for the Punters.

Blood Bowl General Staff - Anirion the Weather Mage

One of the reasons why I love Blood Bowl is how much extras there is to the game - coaches, staff, cheerleaders, markers, inducements, bonuses, dugouts, scoreboards, etc. While it isn't necessary to the game, it's all a great modeling opportunity - or an excuse to paint a model I wouldn't use in my collection otherwise - like the miniature shown below today.

I noticed this guy when I was browsing Reaper Miniature's range some time ago - and I really liked the model, but I couldn't fit him anywhere. Then I remembered a cheap staff member one can employ for a single match - a Weather Mage - added in the Spike! Magazine Vol. 2. The effect of such a mage is negligible in most plays and I don't expect to use him very often, but that was enough for me to buy and paint this model.

The sculpt of the mini is really good, but when it came to painting, I didn't have any idea how to represent a 'weather mage'... After some thinking, I decided on adorning the various layers of his clothes with representations of weather, especially those appearing in Blood Bowl - so his hood represents a nice, blue sky, his cloak - rain, sleeves - snow, and the lower robe - sweltering heat. Everything's kept in a relatively muted palette - as I imagine those not-very-useful and poorly-paid guys to be humble and subdued.

Overall, a very enjoyable painting experience - more unexpected miniatures will follow.

After spending many, many years in the Ulthuan, learning the art of controlling the Winds of Magic, Anirion was ready to join the exclusive society of researchers and mages, working tirelessly to understand the fickle nature of Chaos. Unfortunately, he was so single-minded in his studies, he completely dismissed the networking and soft skills needed to reach the position he dreamed of - no matter how often he tried, he was rejected by the elitist masters. Bitter, but still in need to make a living, he applied for a position of a mage amongst the brutes playing and enjoying Blood Bowl. He never cared for the flashy spells used by the Sports Wizards, so he joined the Weather Mages - changing the monumental forces of weather was something much more fitting for such a skilled adept of magic. Only later he learned that the salary is meager, fame non-existent and the chances for networking slim… Well, at least it’s honest work!

Blood Bowl Dark Elf Staff - Mallerion the Team Owner + WIP

Back when I gave a name for my Dark Elf Blood Bowl team, the Dreadspear Dragons, I came up with the idea that due to some legal shenanigans, the team is officially owned by a real dragon, becoming a gimmick that makes them famous. This was just to give some more meaning to their name and make the whole backstory a bit more interesting but it would be waste if I didn't represent it somehow! So I digged through various dragon miniatures and decided on using a Shadow Dragon from Reaper Miniatures - it had the good style, pose and size for me.

Besides that, I also thought that I could do banners for my teams (because I love banners) - which could be then paired with cheerleaders and/or mascots. Thankfully I had a dragonskin (?) banner in my bits collection, one from Mournfang Riders, so I mounted it on a base, covered in various Dark Elf bits and added several skulls for the evil factor. Now the Dragon can stay with the flag on the sidelines and represent the team better than ever!

The painting scheme was chosen to reference the players' colors - purple, dark red and blue, pale green, with silver/bright accents. I used numerous points for shading and highlights on both instances of dragonskin to simulate the scales - and I think it was actually easier to pull off than trying to go for smooth blending. The wing membranes also got a lot of dots to make them more visually interesting.

I plan to use him in the game as the equivalent of 4-5 cheerleaders - and that's why there are two giant pompoms laying on the ground, just in case someone had doubts what is the dragon's role on the pitch. Maybe I'll come up with some additional rules for him - if so, I'll post them here of course.

The Blood-Bowl-enthusiastic dragon Mallerion, a mascot of the Dreadspear Dragons was a known oddity in on the pitch, but he became especially noteworthy only after becoming the actual, official owner of the team (due to some desperate legal maneuvering on the part of the previous one). Being a dragon, he was neither interested nor capable of all the bureaucratic work needed, so there’s a wide array of assistants and representatives who do all the legwork for him. They may even set their own salaries and working conditions as long as the owner is happy. Thankfully, Mallerion is perfectly content with having enough food, being able to cheer from the sidelines (heightened statistical amount of deaths correlating with him being on the stadium is a coincidence!) and taking part in photo sessions. Not only he makes the press more interested in the team, but his presence on the sidelines can also motivate the players and the fans into a glorious rage much better than a whole team of cheerleaders! The only problem is that he personally terminates the staff who’s he displeased with - after which the unfortunates often don’t find a new job. Well, this isn’t strange, since it involves fire breath and being eaten alive by the dragon, but nobody gets into the Blood Bowl business expecting a long life and nice retirement!

First, the scaly lad himself:

And the banner that I prepared to accompany him:

The conversion work that I did here was really minimal, but I've made a photo nontheless: