Wednesday 7 October 2015

The Amaze-Zings!

It's been a while since I talked Blood Bowl here. Last year, I mentioned my halfling league team, the Shinkickers. Unfortunately (due to people having babies and getting new jobs and moving away), our local league has fallen away (although there are rumours of some newbies being trained up ready to be unleashed upon us...) so I've not played any league-style games since. Which is a shame, because league play is different to tournament play and a different type of fun.

The other team I've played in league and hope to bring forth is my Amazon team, the Amaze-Zings. I can't find their roster just at the moment, but I can tell you a bit about the team.

Husbit, who oversees the league, encourages us to choose a suitable sponser for our teams, giving us the incentive of an extra 10k after a game if we mention the sponser in our write-up (I particularly recommend Rumble's, if you follow this link to our forum). So...

Dwarves and elves even love it sober, the happy world of Haribogre!

Haribogre are proud to announce their latest celebrity face: Bertha Bigfist. To celebrate the acclaimed Blood Bowl player's taste for the most popular sweets in the Empire, Haribogre have put together a team of staff members. Many put their names down to try out, but only female members of staff actually showed up (ignore the rumours of men being found tied up in states of undress in various supply cupboards) and so, Haribogre are the pleased to announce their sponsorship of the new amazon team, the Amaze-Zings!  

From that background, I gave myself the restriction that if I could afford to induce Bertha for a match, I had to. She's a great star player: strength 5, movement 6, agility 2, armour 9. Yes, she suffers the ogre bone head flaw, but in addition to the usual ogre skills (thick skull, mighty blow and throw team-mate - no help here) she has dodge and break tackle, which means she can terrorise the pitch... when she doesn't forget what she's doing... But I found when I took her, even though she generally stood there doing nothing, things went better for my team. Maybe her presence intimidated my opponents, or maybe it gave my players encouragement to impress their heroine! Either way, I had enoough fun with her that she's made a regular appearance when I take ogres to tournaments (and is a large part of why I've been considering ogres for the World Cup).

For models, I've been using Impact's Timberline Elves - the same models I use for my wood elves - because there are enough female characters to make a team, and their posing is overall pretty good. Well, I like them anyway.

Strictly Come Wardancing. Sorry about the poor quality
Cat is sitting on me so I can't take a photo of the 'Zings
For names, I sought inspiration from friends, family, cartoons and Joss Whedon TV shows, pairing up with Roller Derby-style nicknames. Erinaceous, Tempestuous Tarn, Ana Star, Stormin' Sarah, Wily Kit, Whomping Willow (a double geek trip there!), Iced Gem, Rockin' Rose, - I can't remember the rest, although I remember some of the other people I named them after.

Erinaceus is a blitzer, named after my little sister. She's one of the fastest, strongest and fittest people I know (I'd say the fastest, strongest and fittest, but I know her husband too...) so it seemed right when the player scored both a strength and movement increase, making her a pretty terrifying player in her own right. The name comes from my sister being called Erin, and her always being the one to spot the Erinaceus europaeuses (europaei?) that would scuttle past the kitchen window during late night storms when we were little. 

They were a great fun team to play and had some really nice skill-ups, so I hope the roster isn't lost for good, and hope the rumours of a forthcoming re-league'ing are true.

5 comments:

  1. I loved playing Blood Bowl when it came out - no one to play it with anymore :(

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    1. I'm really lucky to live in part of the world with a very active tournament scene - and I'm going to the world cup in November!

      I have some Australian blocking dice somewhere...

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  2. www.exilesleague.com/bbleague/CurrentLeagueTeams.xls has the last teams we all used

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  3. www.exilesleague.com/bbleague/LegacyTeams.xls has Amaz-Ings in it :)

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    1. Thank you! That's the one I couldn't find - I have a copy of the current spreadsheet but not the legacy one :-D

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