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Continuing my Blood Bowl retrospective on from my halflings and skaven its the Munnig Marauders up today.  Tuern Redvenom (centre below) models the 2002 Marauders strip.

The metal second edition Blood Bowl Dark Elf team was one the first GW 28mm purchases that I made, back in about 1990 I think.  They sat unpainted in a box for years.  I even ended up adding the third edition team (I cant remember for sure but it was probably to get my hands on BB witch models) and some star players to the box at various points, but the lot remained unassembled.

I found myself time rich and cash poor in 2002  and at that time there was some enthusiasm in my gaming group for Blood Bowl.  I decided to be less precious about the big pile of BB figures that had been sitting around for an age and churned out a few teams quickly to a tabletop standard lower than my usual painting level.  The Marauders were part of that process.

The paint job is simple and a little uninspired, but functional.  The figures are a mix of second and third edition figures, with the odd very small conversion or two for reasons that I dont remember now (like the second edition blitzer with the head swap in the middle above.  He had probably lost his head for some reason back in the early nineties).

I could never decide whether I liked the Blood Bowl thrower/quarterback type figures to be posed with or without the ball in hand, as it often leads to teams holding several balls, which looks a little daft.  Still, when the result of leaving them out is that the player seems to miming carrying a ball (like the thrower on the right above) then I tend to come down on the side of the sculpted on ball.

This team got a small bit of play, but the skaven were my go-to team around the same time, so the dark elves didnt get to the pitch/dungeon very often.  They did however acquire a number of irritating chips to the paint for reasons unknown.  This was doubly annoying as I didnt record the colours used on the armour which meant that covering  the chips was going to be very difficult.  So I decided to add some blood stains.

Funnily enough, the figures with the bloodstains look a little more finished than the others now: the red made them pop a little, even if that may not be immediately apparent from the not so great photos.

Horkon Heartripper (centre above) has to be one of the weakest Blood Bowl sculpts ever.

The candy floss pink hair on the witches turned out well.  I have always enjoyed painting pink for some reason.  The witch herself is a bit goofy, doing star jumps with that Einstein hairdo.

The witch on the left is an old and redundant second edition dark elf catcher given a new lease of life by the addition of a Marauder witch elf head and a pair of green stuff breasts.  A third witch was needed in case I ever decided to field Roxanna Darknail or some other dark elf star player.  I never did, but I tend to be completist with these things.

The witch in the shot above is the better of the two third ed BB witch figures.  Initially I wasnt too fond of the third edition team at all really, with their large noses and features, but they grew on me a little bit.  The witch here looks so eighties rock that I started to like the model while painting.  Now that I think of it that seems to be a common theme for me…

Uniquely amongst my Blood Bowl teams, the Marauders played in the official, honest-to-Nuffle, accept no substitutes, actual Blood Bowl in Nottingham in 2003 (note lineman #6 modelling the commemorative coin given to contestants).  I wasnt even there though.  This team had been borrowed by another player who didnt have a team of his own.  The Marauders didnt place in the competition unfortunately 🙂

Filed under: Boardgame, Miniatures | Tagged: 2002, Blood Bowl, Dark Elves, Fantasy |