Dan Becker's Games Workshop 28mm Blood Bowl Figures

In the front row you see some blitzers and star players. The female star in the center with the big red hair was politically-incorrectly named "Bee-atch". The back row has some cheer leaders and various players. I love the black, red, and green uniforms.

The Dark Elves were the first Blood Bowl team I painted back in 1995. They were painted for our first Blood Bowl "Spike Tournament" in which they went 0 wins and 6 losses in the regular season and then swept the single-elimination tournament for the championship. Here is the Dark Elves Season Recap.

The tournament was run and recorded by Kevin Mooney.

Sadly these minis are no longer available from Games Workshop. There are new team minis for the current third edition of the game.

Additionally, the Citadel and Games Workshop brands were retired and most products are marketed under the Warhammer brand. The corporation is still named Games Workship Ltd. and headquarted in Nottingham, England.

I was amazed how my younger self was able to paint the eyes and faces. The current me has to do this with much effort, both in seeing the details and keeping my hands steady.

The vampire looking player is not quite finished and never saw play back then.

The player in the center is the quarter back who usually throws the ball. Players on the ends are catchers who usually catch the ball. The other two are blitzers who are good at tackling.

Blood Bowl has a stat sheet for each team with lines for each player. Each player has strength and dexterity which determine how hard they hit and how well they throw and catch. Additionally there are skills that boost veteran players.

These figures were painted by priming gray, filling in the base colors, and then dry brushing the highlights. I believe at the time I was using Citadel Paints, which are pretty good, but tended to dry out in their flip top pots.

I named this team "The National Park Caretakers". They were fast and agile, but easily were wounded or killed-off my heavy crunchy teams. In an open field they were fun.

These minis are photographed in my tiny miniatures home studio. I throw a fabric mat over a table. I hang a photographic backdrop in the background. And I have a couple of scrims to block out the cluttered basement.

I have some LED lights that throw an eye-dazzling amount of light and have color temperature controls. The light allows me to shoot at tiny f24 or f32 apertures, which keep the near and far minis in pretty good focus.

The quarterback is in the center. There are catchers on the ends. The rest are the blitzers which are the strongest players this team has.

They look resolute, but these linemen are easily beaten up even by humans.

I do like the yellow and green uniforms, kind of reminiscent of the Green Bay Packers.

A few more linemen to round out the team. The players on the ends are special players that I never finished. Blood Bowl players do not have facing in the game, and round bases work better. I do not know why I used square bases, I must have run short.

I named my third team the "Sleezeville Sak Smashers". This team consists of a number of small "stunty" goblins, a few star players, and some big nasty trolls.

Stunty means the player is hard to tackle. The large monsters in this game are often very slow, but they do great damage. Additionally these trolls can grab a goblin and toss him which is much faster than running.

The bases show the extent of my base modeling back then. Paint it green and throw some old school painted wood shavings for grass. The grass does remind me of those old vibrating electric football games.

The three special star players in the center had weapons that made them punch well above their strength class.

Started but not completed. These dwarves never played for me.

I did enjoy the Citadel Dwarf cheerleaders here on the ends.

These minis have great faces and details. I would love to finish them, but they are down low on the priority list.

The original game came with complete teams for humans and orcs. Sadly, I sold off my Blood Bowl games during a house move. I painted all the plastic minis for these two teams, but unfortunately I did not take any photos of the minis!

The minis you see here are Citadel metal star players that I partially painted, but never finished or used in a game. One lesson learned learned is never leave a painting project unfinished. You will never use them and they will be hard to sell 25 years later.

These final photos are other special metal Citadel minis that I primed but never finished. There are a few orcs, human and goblin cheerleaders, and some chaos and undead special players. I might give the cheerleaders a go one of these days.

Most of these players were "special" because they were sold individually in plastic blister packs. These figures did not come along with their respective team boxed sets.