OLDBOWL '86 - 1st edition Blood Bowl

The year was 1986. Channel 4 had spent several years exposing UK audiences to the bizarre and exhilarating spectacle of the NFL, William 'the Refrigerator' Perry of the Chicago Bears and Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins were household names, and Games Workshop released the first edition of one of their most iconic board games. 

Designed by Jervis Johnson, the game reimagined American Football in GW's nascent Warhammer Fantasy Battle setting, complete with bad puns, chaos spikey death bits and lashings of ultraviolence. The insanely cool box art was by Brett Ewins, known at the time to fans of 2000AD for his run on the Judge Dredd strip. It was 1986 and Blood Bowl was top of my Christmas list.

 

 

Having recently dug out my copy to administer the traditional Easter weekend Blood Bowl thrashing to the kids, I thought folks who'd missed out on this gem might be interested to see what was in the box. Along with the rulebook, you got a pitch made from 6 interlocking boards, a pad of team rosters (which I've judicially rationed for nearly 40 years), a load of cardboard counters for the teams along with 30 black plastic bases, score tracker tokens and a reversible football token for when the ball is being carried or on the deck. Not shown here is the referee token which is tossed to decide who goes first. One player flicks the token in the air while the other player calls 'dead' or 'alive'. I suspect mine's hiding down the back of the games cupboard.

For the goodies you got 15 humans (who could be used to represent the Creeveland Crescents), 15 dwarfs (the Dwarf Giants or maybe the Dwarf Warhammerers) and half a dozen Halflings (not quite enough to play the Bluebay Crammers). Stats were also given for elves.

The baddies got a team of 15 orcs (the Gouged Eye or the Severed Heads) and 15 dark elves (Darkside Cowboys). Stats were also provided for half-orcs and hobgoblins.

 

A couple of special teams were also included. The Chaos All-Stars are, for me, the GOAT. You got 12 fairly crappy lesser goblins, but you also got 4 ogres, who in addition to being hard as nails could throw the lesser goblins. The tactic of chucking a gobbo who's holding the ball at the opposing team's end zone has been well used down the years. Once you got bored of ogres being far too good, you could switch them out for either trolls or troglodytes. These are still tanky but suffer from stupidity.

For the Champions of Death you got 10 skeletons or 10 zombies, 4 ghouls and a mummy. Rules were also provided for the Heroes of Law (humans, elves, dwarfs and halflings) and the Evil Gits (orcs, dark elves, half-orcs and hobgoblins).

As you can see, GW crammed a lot into the box and with so many teams available the game had lots of replayability. It was also a hit. Such was the enthusiasm for the game an expansion set, Death Zone, was released early the following year. I lost my Death Zone box many moons ago, but fortunately I still have the rulebook and all the extra bits. 

The rulebook tidied up some of the rules from the original game, resulting in smoother gameplay. Optional rules included new special players (chuckers, catchers, runners, defenders and kickers), pitch invasions and magic. A great deal of the rulebook was dedicated to a campaign system for running leagues. This introduced elements such as buying players and paying wages, arranging assassinations, bribes, performance enhancing drugs, sponsorship deals and cheerleaders.

Death Zone came with green, red, yellow and blue plastic bases for tracking special players on the pitch (which are massively helpful) as well as a load of new teams. First up were the teams missing from the original game - elves, half-orcs and hobgoblins. A further 9 halfling counters were also included. Presumably someone somewhere was desperate to field 15 of the wooly footed buggers despite them being truly awful.

Amongst the new teams came slann (Central Lustria Croakers) and goblins (Low Down Rats). The Heroes of Law got a couple of treemen for their roster while the Chaos All-Stars got some minotaurs for their big monster slot.

The Norse got a team consisting of 11 norsemen and 4 berserkers who are prone to go, well, berserk.

Another new team was the Albion Wanderers consisting of 5 knights and 10 peasants. Their special rule is Forelock Syndrome. Any player attempting to pass the ball to a peasant roles against their cool and if they fail they have to pass to a knight instead. Additionally, all knights must be moved before the peasants.

The werewolf team looks good on paper until you realise that all transformations must happen on the pitch and this takes the player out of the game for an entire turn. As the rulebook says, "They seem to perform brilliantly against skeleton teams, but have a terrible time keeping their minds on the game when playing treemen."

Nurgle's Rotters are represented by a selection of putrescent humans, elves, dwarves, orcs and halflings along with a couple of Nurgle beasts. On the upside, the Rotters can attempt to infect opposing players,  causing them to switch sides once the rot reaches their brain. On the downside, the Rotters are so rotten themselves that they are prone to falling apart every time they are attacked or tackled. There is always the chance that they will be "reduced to a gibbering, pulsating, throbbing, pustulent, festering blob of diseased-ridden tissue." Several counters are provided for this eventuality.

There were also stats and rules provided for Very Special Players. Alfie Shortzenegger is a halfling player who is not quite as crap as his peers, but his devotion to the minor deity Bod-ee-bill'da has made him suffer from stupidity. Talking of stupid, Thrud the Barbarian might turn up to play if both coaches agree, although he's liable to get confused and switch sides after each score. Finally there's giant referee Galak Star-Scraper, who steams onto the pitch if he thinks there is foul play going on and then proceeds to stomp everyone until he's managed to stomp the perpetrators.

To support the release of Death Zone, the Skaven Scramblers came free with White Dwarf issue 86 (Feb 1987). The team included star players Breeet Braingulper, Skrag the Unclean, Shisk Four-Arms and Glart Smashrip along with 11 standard skaven. In true Warhammer style, the skaven also received a mutation table.

White Dwarf issue 88 would include a team of Mega City judges and a team of fatties (GW had a licence for producing Judge Dredd games at the time) , but I don't remember ever seeing this in the newsagents. It's a pretty weird tie-in, though.

So there you have it, nearly the complete Blood Bowl 1st ed. Despite the clunky mechanics (pretty much ripped straight from WFB 2nd ed.) I was obsessed with this game as a kid and it is still a treasured possession. I'd play at any given opportunity and even ran leagues for my mates. One of my friends bought Blood Bowl 2nd ed. when it was released in 1988. The new mechanics were a huge step forward and I remember being impressed by the 3D polystyrene pitch and plastic human and orc teams, but I stuck with the original. With one boxed game, one expansion set and a freebie I had all the bits and pieces I would ever need for a lifetime of playing fantasy football.

Right, enough rose-tinted reminiscing. I need to crack on with painting goblins. Laters.

Come Mister Talisman, tally me hobgoblins

I have done an incredible amount of painting this week. Mercifully, I have now finished redecorating upstairs... I'm with the Mole on this one. 'Hang spring-cleaning!' 

I still managed to knock out a couple of hobgoblins this week, despite all the DIY. On the left we have the Talisman TL6 hobgoblin (1986) and on the right another C36 slotta hobgoblin (1985), both sculpted by Aly Morrison.

As a kid I was fortunate enough to have both  Talisman 2nd ed. and the Talisman Expansion Set (which included the hobgoblin character) and I must have played the game a hundred times or more. Citadel's Talisman range was based on the wonderful Gary Chalk illustrations for the game (playing pieces were cardboard characters that slotted into circular plastic bases).

I was sorely tempted to paint this fella the same as GC's hobgoblin, but in the end he got the same army spot colours as my other hobs. Once the varnish had dried, I undertook a wee stocktake on the hobgobs painted to-date. One, two... eh... three... um... some... some more...

I'm pleased with this lot. They're pretty basic paint jobs (mine usually are), but they have cohesion without veering too far towards Middlehammer uniformity. I have a cunning plan for these guys. I'm going to need twice as many, though, so I'd better pull my finger out. Cheers.

 

The Elusive Baron

I've finally got my mitts on Baron Brightgore! He's from Citadel's 1985 C36 hobgoblins range, sculpted by Aly Morrison.

I've wanted this miniature since I was a kid, after seeing him depicted as the Khan of the hobgoblin mercenary contingent in Warhammer Armies (1988). I remember thinking how cool and goblin-y he looked.

Since I've been collecting C36 hobgoblins the Baron has proved particularly elusive. After several years searching I was stoked to find him on eBay, and for less than half of what I would've been willing to pay. I'm always pleased to see paint on secondhand minis. It shows someone's had fun painting them and (hopefully) playing with them. That said, BB was definitely due a refresh, so he was sent off for a Dettol bath and then repainted in the colours of my horde. 

While I was about it, I knocked up a few more hobs for the ranks. From left to right they are a pre-slotta C36 (1984), a DL2 'Champion' (1984) and two slotta C36 (1985). 

There's plenty more where this lot came from. It's taken a while, but I've managed to collect nearly all the C36 sculpts. There's now just the small matter of painting them all. The one notable absence from the collection is 'Gyokurinti the Strangler' - a mutant hobgoblin with a maced tail from the pre-slotta range. Unfortunately he appears to be as rare as rocking horse poo. One day...

Punkhammer

I was at a punk show this weekend and had a good chuckle when I saw these stickers on one of the stalls. Obviously, I had to buy a few for me and my gaming buddy. 

They got a little scrunched in my pocket in the circle pit!

Sadly, they were all sold out of the 'Sometimes D&D - Always Antifascist' stickers. Now there's a sticker Tom Morello would heartily approve of!

Lords of Battle

 

There's been some slow progress over winter on the 15/18mm Dark Ages project. I finally have enough heroes painted up for half a game of Midgard! I've previously posted about the chaps in the middle with the bird banner here. The new additions are also 18mm Saxons from Wiglaf Miniatures mounted on 2p pieces. As before, the banners are from Little Big Men Studios and the photos are taken in front of Jon Hodgson backdrops.

Why half a game of Midgard? The rules (which are excellent) split each army into 3 commands. So, a standard game would include at least 3 heroes per side to act as contingent commanders.

I've really enjoyed doing these. More will be in the offing soon. I'm rather taken with the idea of building two Saxon armies so that the kingdoms of the Heptarchy can kick the snot out of each other.

I've also slapped some paint on another unit of armoured warriors for use in Midgard or Dux Bellorum.

The unit on the left-hand side is one I painted last winter, but I've recently switched the banner for a LBMS one I was more happy with. The banner for the unit on the right-hand side is by Wargames Designs (from  their eBay store).

I've also completed another unit of Forged in Battle 15mm Welsh teulu. I experimented with giving them patterned cloaks and sashes. It's taken a few attempts, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

I also note that Wiglaf have just released several packs of 18mm Welsh warriors. I'm looking forward to getting my mitts them in the near future. 

Cheers

Meanwhile, back in Midgard...

Hi folks. I've had a few months off. Not necessarily for good behaviour. But now it's cold, wet and dark of an evening I've retreated back indoors to the painting table. Amongst other things, this summer I got to visit some fascinating ancient monuments, in many cases for the first time, which in turn has inspired me to crack on with my 15mm/18mm Dux Bellorum project. While I probably have enough Saxons to cobble together an army, they are sadly lacking opposition. So, the priority was to get some paint slapped on some Forged in Battle 15mm Welsh teulu I've had kicking around for ages.

As well as the unit of 'noble warriors' (as they're termed in Dux Bel), I also knocked up a command base. This is in anticipation of the Midgard Heroic Battles rules, slated to drop next month. I've been eagerly looking forward to these rules, which are happily compatible with the Dux Bel units I've painted to-date. The major difference miniatures-wise is that Midgard armies have between 3-5 separately based 'heroes' per side. 

I think the photo above gives all you dyed in the wool 28mm players a good idea just how wee 15mm is! I so enjoyed modelling this Welsh warlord that I immediately painted a hero base for the Saxons, using 18mm Wiglaf miniatures.

Given that the Wiglaf lads are taller than their FiB counterparts, I built up the base of the Welsh hero with Greenstuff so that he could look his enemies in the eye. I used banners from Little Big Man Studios for both bases.

I've also managed to paint some Wiglaf Saxon skirmishers. These were a quick and dirty effort, if I'm honest. I tried to keep the colours more muted than usual, possibly indicating a lower social status. I do wonder whether I should have used less miniatures per base and angled the miniatures to make them look less uniform? Oh well, they'll do the job for now and there are plenty more minis in need of daubing.

STARGRUNT – ‘Nam in Spaaaaace

 

I guess it must have been early in 1991 when I called into a local indie games store/comic shop to buy some proxy minis to use for Rogue Trader. While I loved Citadel sculpts, my paper round money only stretched so far…  As I went to pay for my minis, the beardy chap behind the counter asked if these were for playing 40K. When I said yes, he thrust a copy of Stargrunt by Jon Tuffley/Ground Zero Games into my mitts and said that I should check out this exciting NEW ruleset. It was an A5 pamphlet, which looked to have been written on an electric typewriter and then photocopied, with a handful of rather naive illustrations and a few grainy photos. It certainly had none of the slick production values of its 1996 successor Stargrunt II (which is still available as a free download from GZG). As a young punk, though, the DIY aesthetic really appealed to me and so I bought a copy. As it happened, I never did manage to play the game back in the day, but while nearly all my RPGs, wargames rulebooks and minis were sold off, given away or lost by the end of the 1990s, my copy of Stargrunt survived squirrelled away in a stash of punk zines.

When I was getting back into gaming a few years back, my entry point was playing Craig Cartmell’s excellent FUBAR one-page rules using 15mm GZG/Stargrunt minis. Basically, rules I didn’t need to invest more than 5 minutes reading and a platoon’s worth of infantry grunts for around £20. Magic! Needless to say, I fell back in love with miniatures and wargaming, but I was also curious to explore a bit more of the Tuffleyverse. So, a little while ago my buddy and I dusted off the Stargrunt rules to see how this venerable ruleset actually played. It was also a game I appear to have lost all the photos of. Bugger.

In his introduction to the rules, the author writes that, “Stargrunt actually falls somewhere between a conventional wargame and a Role-playing Game.” As we’ll see below, this is a fair description. And where a game like Rogue Trader allows you to ‘roleplay’ the commanding officer, Stargrunt does a good job of presenting the battlefield from the lowly infantryman’s perspective. That said, in common with many old school roleplaying games, there is a fair bit of bookkeeping and maths required. The pullout-and-photocopy roster rather optimistically gives you enough slots for two 12-man squads and two vehicles. As we’re partial to a few beers with our wargames, we found one 8-man squad each was plenty enough to keep track of!

Example squad roster from the rulebook

The first order of business is to give your squad members names. This isn’t essential, but really adds flavour to the game. These are the guys whose story you’ll be following after all. Next, you roll a d10 for each squad member to determine their individual level of experience – which will be either Green, Regular or Veteran. This roll is modified by the scenario you’re playing. For example, a militia unit on patrol will more likely contain some Green troops with little or no combat experience, while a special forces unit rescuing a hostage is more likely to have veterans within their ranks. Veterans are also less prone to panic checks than other troops (they stay frosty). We decided to play a simple scenario with two opposing regular army units on a recce (using a table full of houseplants to represent impenetrable jungle). Both sides rolled a good mix of experience levels, but with my buddy having a Green NCO. Think Lt. Gorman in Aliens.

The experience mechanic is worth dwelling on a bit, as we thought this was one of the standout element of the rules. It is also the genesis of a core mechanic which would evolve through Stargrunt II to Tomorrow’s War and the Ambush Alley stable of games. Essentially, experience level determines which die a trooper will roll against a given target number. The Basic Die Roll for each level would be d6 for Green, d8 for Regular and d10 for Veteran, although under certain circumstances the die size can either shift up or down one. So, a Green trooper rolling Basic Die Minus would use a d4 and for a Basic Die Plus would roll a d8. A good example of this is testing to see if a trooper fires their weapon effectively. The target number required is 4+ when not engaged or 7+ when engaged with incoming fire. The trooper rolls their Basic Die if stationary, but their Basic Die Minus if moving across open ground or their Basic Die Plus if in position in cover. This rather nicely simulates troops becoming pinned, ducking for cover or squirting off shots without aiming.

The other stat worth flagging is Confidence Level (CL).  This deteriorates on first sighting the enemy, first coming under fire, taking casualties etc. but can also be restored incrementally by causing an enemy to retreat, taking an enemy position or receiving a stern talking to from Sarge. If CL reaches 0 then the squad will decide to bug out, withdrawing towards their table edge unless the NCO can rally them.

With the initial bookkeeping done it was time to get down to some action. Squads are split into two fireteams, which are the basic unit in the game. At the start of each turn orders are given to each fireteam (Fire, Move, Observe or Rally) and the players take turns to activate a fireteam, revealing their orders and carrying out an action. We liked this a lot as it allowed one fireteam to dash across open ground while the second team was on overwatch or laying down covering fire. Within a couple of turns the squads had sighted each other through the dense jungle foliage and started to let rip. The shooting mechanic was a huge departure to what we were used to. Once you’ve established who has actually fired towards the enemy you tot up the Fire Rating of all the various guns (essentially the volume of lead or lasers being poured at the enemy) and compare it on a table to the Target Rating, which is based on the number of targets and whether they are in cover or not. This gives you a ‘to hit’ number to roll on a d12 against each member of the target fireteam. We were a couple of pints in by this point in the game and the initial calculations probably took a bit longer than they should.

With laser beams and bullets ripping through the air it wasn’t long before we started taking hits. Once you’ve scored a hit you then roll on another table (I know! Old school, right?) against the impact value of the ammo-type minus the value of the body armour being worn. The result will either be no effect (the bullet just nicked an ear), stunned, wounded, incapacitated or killed. While stunned troops will shake it off at the end of the round, wounded or incapacitated troops are going to create a whole new series of problems to deal with. Abandoning the injured badly effects the squad’s CL, but this can be negated if their buddies drag them into cover and attempt to stabilise their wounds. Obviously, the guy administering first aid is also now out of the fight until he can stop his comrade bleeding out. We absolutely loved this rule. It felt incredibly thematic and brought to mind films such as Platoon and Full Metal Jacket.

By this point, things were fubar for both sides. Half the troops were either dead, injured or attempting first aid. With all the incoming fire it was proving near impossible to stabilise the worst casualties and the CL of both squads was dropping rapidly. If the mission had been to capture and hold a position, maybe I would have ordered ‘fix bayonets’ and tried out the close assault rules (which look brutal), but as both sides were out on a recce, both began to withdraw, laying down covering fire while carrying their injured buddies back for evac.

Troops from the high-grav planet of Grudge out on patrol

So, once the dust had settled, what did we think of Stargrunt? Well, the rules definitely showed their age in some regards. I think game specific tokens and coloured gems for the different experience levels would have helped with some of the bookkeeping, but even then two squads each + beer would still have been a stretch. There are also issues with the rules around having different ammo for the rifles and the SAW when working out hits (we followed the author’s advice and stuck to the same ammo to keep things simple).  And, to be fair, we didn't try any of the point fire weapons, such as plasma guns, which resolve their damage separately anyway.  Things we liked included the alternate activation of fireteams. This combined with the orders gave the feel of everything happening simultaneously. The sliding-dice system is genius and having a fixed target number for shooting effectively was welcome. What we really, really liked, though, was the cinematic feel to the game narrative. You could feel the panic rising within the squad as things fell apart, as injured comrades were dragged into cover, as plans were abandoned and orders ignored, as soldiers basically lost their shit. The game does a wonderful job of eliciting empathy for toy soldiers fighting a made-up war on a kitchen table, which is pretty remarkable. So thank you Beardy man, wherever you are. That was a top recommendation.