Worst miniatures ever made?

Today I've stumbled on a link that lead me to a particular post from Chest of Colors blog, the 25 Worst miniatures ever made?

Truth be told, I haven't ever seen some of the figures in that list and while in my opinion some don't deserve to be in such list at all, there quite a few funny pieces right there for sure.

For what is worth within this "worst miniature" theme, the miniature making process has evolved hugely (sculpting, casting, etc.), and from amateurish easy going garage companies, the business has evolved to what we know today with highly professional production lines, miniature mass production and very big businesses with considerable amounts of money involved.

What I mean with all this rambling is that it might not be all that fair to compare the quality of some miniatures made with a completely different spirit (lets say in the eighties or early), to whatever is done nowadays.
With that out of the way, my vote on that list would go for those plastic GW "Minotaurs" (entry #14), followed very closely behind by Mantic "Darkon Riders" (#24).
What's the deal with dragons with rabbit teeth?


Feel free to share you view on the subject, or just add some link to a particular mini you think it should be on the list, and why!

NABBO Tea Cup 2013

Another year, another tourney...

Last weekend NABBO League crew gathered for their (so far) yearly tournament.
It's the third year in a row, and so far it has been a whole lot of fun!
As I mentioned in a post about it's first edition (here), while the core of the crew that attends to the tourney are the Blood Bowl League "regulars", every year we manage to have some old league mates to join us in the fun, and what a fantastic opportunity that is to remember old stories of legendary games and teams...


This year's tournament fluff was based on the global climate changes, and to reflect that into Blood Bowl game terms this would mean that despite whatever "Weather Table" result you'd roll during the match, in the beginning of each half, one (out of two) random weather phenomenon would take place and stay in for the rest of that same half.

This weather phenomenon were represented by a template (that stayed on the table), and it had a 'Zone of influence' of a square (center) plus three squares in every direction. The modifiers described below would apply if the action attempted was inside this 'Zone of Influence'.

The two different phenomenons were "Tornado warning!", and "Everything Frozen??".
The first one meant that all Pass, Catch, and Intercept actions were influenced by -1 modifier, and every time a ball was dropped or touched the pitch (for whatever reason), it would bounce one extra square directly away from the center of the Tornado template.
The second phenomenon, would influence the Go-For-It's, and Dodging attempts (by the same -1 modifier) as if the ground was completely frozen, inducing players to slip.

As in past events we had a thematic custom pitch and dice (pic above), which were a great success especially whenever the dice rolls were 'convenient'.
On all other occasions the dice were just 'pretty'... ;-)


The games

A total of eight different races (Amazon, Human, Elf, Dark Elf, High Elf, Norse, Vampire, and Undead), with almost as much different tactical approaches, granted a good challenge for every coach in the event.

Graveyard Diggers (Undead) vs Yokai Buntai (Dark Elves), one of the games from the first round, and the first tie of the tourney (2-2 TD, 1-1 Cas).

Frost's Frost Fangs (Norse) facing the Innsmouth Oceanics (Elf), in a game that proved to be rougher than what the Norse armour could stand, soon leaving them outnumbered and loosing the match unable to hold off the agile elves (0-3 TD, 1-4 Cas).

Garlic 'n Mirrors United (Vampire) overpowering The Buffs (High Elf), in a day that the odds didn't favoured these particular pointy ears (3-1 TD, 1-0 Cas).

The beautifully painted Pink Buccaneers (Amazons) in a tough match against the cyber-looking Mini Skull Crushers (Human), for a marginal win in the last few turns of the game (3-2 TD, 0-0 Cas).

In the end of the day, the Innsmouth Oceanics (Elf), ended up snatching the tournament "Champion" trophy with three wins, of which the last two where very close games: one against the vampires (2-1 TD, 2-4 Cas), and the last one against the amazons (2-1 TD, 1-2 Cas). 

Also congrats to the Garlic 'n Mirrors United vampire team for the "Most violent" trophy!

A blast of a day as usual.
Have fun!
A.

CACK Bowl Charity Pitches

I've been kind of busy lately and this obviously translates into very few time to keep up with forum and blog news. Today I've finally managed to spend a few minutes checking out "stuff", and found something I believe it's very worth to give a shout out to.


Quoting JT-Y, fellow TTF'er and Chairman of Coppull and Chorley Knights Wargames Club :

"(...) Final version of the CACK Bowl pitch below. 
The idea is that it plays on the club name; Coppull And Chorley Knights, and represents a jousting tilt being used as a football pitch with a nice, medieval look to the dugouts/ dungeons.

There will be a special one for the winner of CACK Bowl 2013, but we're also offering these to anyone who wants one. They'll have ''CACK Bowl 2013'' in the left hand endzone and will cost £50 for the hard jigsaw type. £45 to anyone attending the tourney. 
Very reasonable considering the standard pitches cost €45 from Comixininos.
All profits (we expect to make between £5 and £10 per pitch depending on numbers) will go in support of the charity, Help The Homeless.

If you are interested, say so below and I'll PM you with payment details.

If you are attending CACK Bowl you can collect your pitch from there, otherwise I'll post them after the event and we'll cover costs (within reason!) from club funds rather than charge more or donate less."

You can check the original in TFF forum here: link!

The pitch looks great, the price is quite reasonable, FF Fileds pitch quality needs no introduction, and if that wasn't enough, it's for a very worth and needy beneficence subject.
Give yourself an early Christmas treat and help those guys to help who needs the most!
Cheers!
A.

What to do with asshats?

As I've said here many times, I love the game of blood bowl and just about everything to do with it.
I belong to a very successful league, THE THURSDAY NIGHT HEROS, which is composed of guys I've known since I was a kid. Just a big bunch of friends that play 2 leagues twice a year. We mess around a bunch, but theres no cheating.

When ever we can, we get more people to join up. Sometimes it causes trouble. Like Chris...
Chris is a guy we've known since our D&D days. He's a bit of a pain. He has played in our league a few times in the past. He always quits when his team starts doing bad. He tries to cheat sometimes, and he is not above "miscalculating" his roster.
 Well, he talked me into allowing him back in our club, and after last night, I'd say his chances of rejoining us is nil. Here's what happened.


 My chaos team, the Deathvalley Destroyers, where playing his dark elf team, The Kill Machine. we had been forced to play extra time, due to a very close game, tied 1-1.
 My minotaur, Blight Headsmasher, had gotten very lucky, and grabed a loose ball and had to make a dodge to get past one of his lineman. I rolled a 6, and Blight barrelled on towards the goal line.
 It's now chris's turn, and he sends his blitzer after my mino.
I was nervously playing with a dice and just as he was going to roll for a 2nd go-for-it roll to catch my mino, I dropped the dice I was playing with. I bent down to retrieve the missing die, when he rolled his go for it roll. I then got up and his purple dice was showing "6". he said "success!". My wife was sitting there watching, and she said ,"It was a 1". I looked at him and said "What did you roll?" he just gave me a weird smile. I told him to reroll, and he picked up the die and he rolled a 1 again. He started to bitch...
 I then said, "I was gonna just win this game, but now I guess I will just destroy your team, which I proceeded to do. I lost the game, but his team is ruined.

I don't like being cheated. I play our game because I love the game.
I won't play with rules lawyers and I won't play with power gamers.
My wife does'nt lie. I gave him the chance to say "just kidding" or "you got me", but he tried to cheat.
That does'nt float in our friendly league, so what I'd like to do is give chris the giant foot in the ass, but I'd rather get him to stop cheating.

We have 18 players in our league, not counting Chris, everybody gets along well, and we've had to ask people not to come back. But what to do with a guy you've know for 15 years?
Guess I'll have to think on it...

Eurobowl 2013

Just a reminder to all Blood Bowlers out there that Eurobowl is taking place this weekend in Vienna, Austria.

Good luck to all the coaches out there!
Oh, and keep an eye on the blog 'cause we might end up with a report about it...

Thrud the Barbarian... Hardcover!

Most of you probably already know something about Thrud the Barbarian, either in the form of the comics character, of Thrudball (the BB tournament in aid of The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation), or it's miniature in a Blood Bowl pitch somewhere (see below)...
What some you of you might be missing is that he started as a comic strip, quite a few years ago (1981), in the pages of White Dwarf Magazine by the hands of Carl Critchlow.

 Image from The Stuff of Legends.

Here's how fellow TFF'er Giraffe told us about some very interesting news about it:

For those of you who've heard of charity bloodbowl tournament Thrudball , but are too young to recall White Dwarf Magazine back in the 80's, I wanted to share this news about Thrud The Barbarian.
Those of us 40something White Dwarf Readers will fondly recall the old black and white Thrud The Barbarian comic strips (in about 60 issues of White Dwarf, won several readers awards for best article)...but might NOT know of artist Carl Critchlow's Eagle "Small Press Award" winning Colour Graphic Novels ...

Titan Comics have released a Thrud the Barbarian hardback collection, containing all five of the colour Thrud stories, plus a few of the old monochrome strips from the 80's plus some NEW bonus Colour Strips never seen before...

I simply cannot recommend this enough to you, it's an absolute HOOT, if it doesn't make you laugh, then nothing ever will...
 

(...)

Thrudtacular!!!

Frank Hill, Club Leader, GCN Club BRGA

( You can read Frank's the original TFF post here: link).

  

Here's is the cover of the Thrud The Barbarian (Titan Edition - Hardcover) book, and you can find some more info about it's contents right here: yet another link.

:)

A sad comment on our community...

I'm old school. 

Well, maybe not so much old school, but certainly old.

I was told, when I was asked to write here, to write what I feel, and to be honest, to tell it like it is, I do that. Sometimes I get s**t from others for doing it, but sometimes the truth (as I see it) hurts.

  For those of you who run tourneys, you know how hard it is. 

Everything to do with it is hard. I have found that:

1) Finding a venue.

    As I'm in a small town, there is only one suitable place, besides trying to squeeze everybody into my basement. That’s the town rec hall. Its roomie, has plenty of nice tables and chairs, and very clean rest rooms.

 But the hall is pricy, and they just raised the price this year.

2) Advertisement

    Putting notice on line is free, and many very kind people I have met through blood bowl boards have offered to put the word out on sites I had not visited. But I also put notices in the local, and not so local, game/hobby/model shops by way of signup sheets, advertisements, etc. That’s also free, but driving there is not. I'm far from most of these shops, and since I broke my back I haven’t driven so my wife does the driving, and that’s on her time. And gas is only getting more expensive these days.

3) Having enough... of EVERYTHING! 

And this includes BLOCK DICE. I have 60+ block dice, which, not to call anyone a thief, I come up short a few after every tourney. I could use plain old 6 sided dice instead of block dice, but I want people to have the whole BB experience. Call me an idiot.

PITCHES

After looking at my Impact! green felt pitch, my wife got in her head to make pitches for our event. Without telling me, she went out one Saturday morning, got some yards of nice, blueish-green felt, a T-square, and a bunch of paint markers, and while I was up in bed sleeping in, she made the first of 30 hand made no frills pitches.

They are very nice and I'm very proud of her work.

TEMPLATES

This year, instead of having my club mates hand over their templates for the event, my wife and I are going to make a bunch of sets. I have to get on this, as its almost time...

DICE

I have this covered, considering I've been gaming since 1977 (I have about 100+ d6, about 40+ d8, and about 20+d16), and I have a bag of over 400+ dice of all kind. But again, many of these commons go missing at each event...

DRINKS/ SNACKS/ PIZZA.

Doms Pizza will be donating the pies again this year, so no cost there. But I pay for the soda and the snacks for the event. That puts me back about $50. I get some of the cost back from the $10 entry fee, but when the rec hall fee is factored in, not much.

AND ANYTHING ELSE I FORGOT...

What’s my point here?

Every year except this 2013 (I finally learned my lesson), I have emailed all the miniature fantasy football producers and asked for a donation of any size. I am not proud. I would be very grateful to receive one figure, if that’s all they could provide. Heck, I would gladly pay shipping costs for that one miniature.

  I’ve explained what our event is, size wise. I have told these producers about my cousin Mike, and how he was unfortunately killed in Afghanistan. How much Mike loved the game of blood bowl and how much mike was loved. How I pay, out of my own pocket, for most of the costs of the event.

  Count on your fingers how many bb/ff companies you can name. Don’t count games workshop, as they are a lost cause, LOL.

   

   Do you know, the only companies that help our event are GASPEZ ARTS, WILLY, and IMPACT!?

Every other company I contacted either refused outright, or ignored my emails. Some telling me our event was too small to support (they did not expect any business from their support), or because we are not NAF supported, they would not donate a prize.

  Most of the support we receive is from my friends: glowworm, East Coast Quake, all the guys from Spain. Friends!

  It saddens me that most of these companies would not even take a moment to email me and tell me no… what does that say about these companies? I understand the world economy is terrible. I get that, but how much does it cost to email me?

Or to put a figure in a envelope and do a good thing for a good cause?

  Are they too ashamed to say "I am too cheap to support your memorial event dedicated to a friend and cousin killed in a war”?

It’s a sad comment about these companies...