The Alzuri Angels

"Well sports fans, have I got a treat for you!  Not only will you see blood, violence and destructive mayhem, you may even see the game being played with some style.  Yes thanks to our sponsors BloodWeiser - Ale with Attitude! we proudly introduce those gorgeous Elven gals, the Football Fae, the sirens of the gridiron - the Alzuri Angels!"

Hi all

Following on from my last post regarding Blood Bowl, I thought I would showcase one of my "alternate" BB teams - the Alzuri Angels.  The Angels are a High Elven team, that I spotted online a few years ago from a company called Shadowforge, an Aussie miniatures company specialising in female figures - Gridiron (note the link is for the Fighting 15s, the supplier for Shadowforge in the UK).  At the time I was looking for anything that wasn't GW and these ladies certainly fit the bill....

Commissioned by Prince Andris Deftblade - Lord of the Alzuri Heights, Keeper of the Sacred Chalice, Protector of the Shrine of Alfeyri Nubaris, the Alzuri Angels are a High Elven team with a difference - they are all female! 

The crown prince, is well known for his skill with bow and blade, his love of rare elven wine, frivolous gambling and his hatred of the inferior races (all other races....).  The legend goes that when facing a particularly mediocre human team, the prince who then owned a male elf team called the Alzuri Avengers leaned over to the opposing team owner, a noble of a wealthy city-state and bragged that the humans were so inept even the Avenger's cheerleaders could beat them. The human, outraged by the condescending statement immediately challenged Andris to a wager.  Still clad in their cheerleader costumes, the beguiling elven beauties thoroughly trounced the humans with a display of acrobatic skill, accurate passing and downright vicious low blows...  The prince immediately sold the Avenger players to his cousin and the Angels were founded!

So let me introduce the squad. Firstly we have the teams two throwers. 

Number 1 and team captain is Calarel "Hail-Mary" Helemaris.  Calarel is a master (mistress?) of the passing game even among elves, picking passes that seem almost impossible and drilling the football across the field of play with incredible accuracy.  A leader on and off the pitch she inspires her team to play hard and fight even harder!

Number 2 is her understudy and protege - Aneirin "The Bird" Reyven.  Under the watchful eyes of her captain, Reyven is progressing well.  Young by elf standards (90 years old) she can be a bit rash in her passing, leading to some embarrassing interceptions (the worst by Samuel Furfeet, a 3 foot tall halfling player) she none the less has produced some astonishing passes that have wowed the fans.

Next we have two of the teams catchers - Ayla Faerie and Alissa Gendove.

Number 3, Ayla is as elusive as her surname would suggest! quick on her feet and so nimble she ducks and weaves through opponents as if they weren't there, finding herself in open ground ready for that perfect pass.

Number 4, Alissa is an amazing, agile acrobat.  When the football comes over the top, she springs into action, plucking the ball from the air with ease!

The team blitzers are next.

Number 5 is Lenna "Wrecking Ball" Iarwreck.  Unlike her more ethereal team-mates, Lenna is brutally solid. Most elves don't usually play the running game, casting disdain on the vulgar races who practice the more violent aspects to Blood Bowl. Lenna has no such prejudice and seems to take perverse pleasure in smashing her opponents into the ground before stepping over their prone body and running the football into the end zone.

Number 6, Nithenoel Uridove is the complete opposite of her fellow blitzer.  Related to the team's acrobatic catcher - Alissa Gendove, she shares her cousin's agility and relies on her skills to ghost passed her opponents and score those all important TDs.  That said, she packs one hell of a punch and isn't above cracking a player's jaw as she skips by them with ease...

Making up the rest of the team are the Lineman...ahem women.

Number 7 - Aelrue Hertumal
Number 8 - Faylen Beilen
Number 9 - Shalendra Sylneiros
Number 10 - Solana Keanala
Number 11 - Soliania Royra

These elven beauties form the backbone of the team and fulfill those thankless tasks such as holding off rampaging Black Orcs or ganging up on their opponents star players and allowing their own to pass the ball at will.

and there you have it, my elven ball players - The Alzuri Angels

hope you enjoy
dGG

A new/old game!

Hi all

My apologies for the lack of posts and comments on my favourite blogs, RL is a factor but there is also a severe lack of mojo within my hobbywork since I've finished my board for PAW.  This is fairly normal for me following a major build project.  With PAW looming, I'm sort of in a holding pattern, not really playing that many games and certainly not writing them up! Never fear though, when I come back from PAW, which I'm sure will re-energise my mojo with all the eye candy that is bound to be on show, my first priority will be to continue my ATZ campaign.  

So in the meantime I need a little something that won't tax me too much with hundreds of minis to paint or loads of terrain to paint. Thankfully for xmas, the awesome Mrs Gobbo got me....

"Welcome Ladies, Gentleman and anything else that has crawled, flown or teleported to this beautiful, brand new stadium.  Mannslieb is full and Morrslieb has cast its sickly glow upon us all, so that can only mean one thing - Its time for BLOOD BOWL!!"

Ahh yeah, one of my favourite games ever produced by the resurgent Games Workshop.  GW fell from grace over the last few years, in my mind the sheer commercialism and disregard of it's fan base in the pursuit of making money turned a company that made excellent games and a range of miniatures that were second to none into a no-go area for me, with the destruction of Warhammer FB being the final straw.  However in the last year or so, managers have changed, mindsets have changed, this is good, this is progress! and yes I've been seduced back into purchasing GW products, albeit not quite so fanatically.  One of the best things about the fall of GW (in my mind, it was a fall...) was the drive to find other games that at other times, I might not have looked at - Bushido, ATZ, Bolt Action to name a few and this will continue despite me returning (partially at least) into the fold...

Anyway onto the new/old game - the new version of an old game! When BB was re-released in 2016, I was intrigued, really intrigued and even deigned to venture into a GW store to look at the contents of the box.  I was obviously impressed by the miniatures, they company hasn't missed a step in the quality of it's minis.  4 sprues (2 human, 2 Orc) nestled among high quality card components, colourful dice and plastic templates, each sprue had enough minis for half a team and some accessories such as balls, coins and turn markers.  The minis themselves just push together and the game itself can be played almost straight out of the box (you still have to clip off the minis from the sprue). My only gripe is the size of the minis - they are at least 32mm with a special 32mm round base, clearly designed to exclude older 28mm ranges and the plethora of other "fantasy football" minis from companies like Shadowforge and Greebo. All in all it looked fantastic and I was sooooo tempted to buy it there and then, but I was on my way to a Bushido tournament and so kept my wallet in my pocket.

Fast forward then to this xmas and I figure it's time to dip my toe back in the GW pool and here we are.  The scale creep in the minis doesn't really bother me and I will be playing with my existing teams as well as the new releases which look fantastic. The best thing about this is I'm not in any mad rush to complete teams as I have two fully painted from years back (albeit in 28mm).  This means I can take my time painting the brilliant minis that come in the box and to that end I've managed just a single solitary human to date and the tokens, footballs and coins.  That said, already my mind is thinking about building a full blown stadium, maybe situated in an goblin infested Dwarven hall or a Skaven haunted sewer system,  AARs of games......here we go!!

my human thrower, yet to be named!

"Strap on your armoured cod-pieces folks this could get rough...."

hope you enjoy

dGG

Urban Project - completed!

Hi all

ooooh yeah! after 6 months of toil I have finally completed my Urban Project whoo hoo!! Well, completed is a very strong term, just how completed remains to be seen! I mean I want to add so many things such as different types of store, a construction site and all sorts of other goodies. Still for the sake of the PAW convention that triggered the whole project, I'm gonna call it quits!

So as promised here are pictures of the final board

last but not least is a little virtual tour of the board....

Zompoc virtual tour


hope you enjoy
dGG

Urban Project - The Supermarket completed

Hi all

As the title of the post suggests, I've completed the supermarket that I have been building for my Urban Project.  Last time I posted about it, this was the extent of the build - a shell ready to be populated.

I also put together the shelves for my display counter.

So what have I done since? well for starters I put together the rest of the display counter.  Using blu-foam and coffee stirrers...

The finished, painted article is further on in this post.  For more detail on the shop floor, I also wanted to add some fresh produce so I built a wooden crate.

lined it with purple painted kitchen towel

and filled it with these....

to produce this...

which, again will show up later fully painted.  I also wanted to put up a low, decorative wall around the parking area of the market.  To this end I made some posts out of blu-foam (naturally) and added some beads to give a nice finish.

more bits and bobs followed including a rather crooked ladder from cocktail sticks...

and the flat roof that would cap the piece.

I also wanted to fence of the unloading yard and to that end purchased some mesh from Wicks for a couple of quid, some bending, cutting and swearing later, I managed to get some lengths of fencing made up, which I drybrushed with some rust effect...

more bits and bobs were made up while I waited for things to dry - here are some road signs made from signs printed from the internet onto photo paper and backed onto cereal box card, then mounted on a cocktail stick on a 20mm base.

All I did then was put everything together.  The roof was covered in homemade textured paint and capped with a sign that I printed from t'internet. I also printed off loads of advertising signage - supermarkets are a riot of colour and crap product adverts!

The parking lot got its bays whitelined and signs posted. added to which are my 3D printed trolleys.

The yard benefitted from some gas bottles from Wargames Terrain Workshop and some signage

as well as some homemade wheelie bins

The warehouse got some boxes that I'd sculpted as well as vending machines from Wargames Terrain Workshop and of course last weeks safe!

here are the shelves fully loaded with handy supplies for the survivors....

and the produce crate and some sacks of spuds on a pallet

the checkouts are at the far end of the store....

That's it for now as some of the piece is still drying/gluing.  I will, as promised show the whole board next week, fully laid out complete with zeds.

hope you enjoy
dGG