Dragged into Turbolasers Episode 96 - Blood Bowl Sevens

Sevens!

In this episode we are joined by our friend Brad Smith to talk about our most recent experience playing Blood Bowl. We tried to play Blood Bowl in various forms over the years, particularly after the re-releases in 1996 and 2020, along with a stint playing Blitz Bowl. This time we played Sevens, a variant of Blood Bowl that uses a smaller pitch and less players, but largely uses the core Blood Bowl rules. We chat about how easy the variant is to play and how long games take, along with our ultimate opinion of Sevens.

Between the Bolter and Me: 2020, a year in review

A selection of models painted in 2020.

Although 2020 was a chaotic and traumatic year, it marked the 8th year of Between the Bolter and Me as a blog. Like with many others, the pandemic changed how we all interact with the hobby. It allowed us to focus more on our podcast Dragged into Turbolasers and develop a consistent, albeit small, streaming schedule! With this post, we wanted to recap the year as a whole, starting by examining the 3 most popular posts on each of our various platforms (blogger, podcast, instagram, etc.).

Blitz Bowl: Halfling Linemen

The Bodimore Byakhees are getting ready to take the field!

Earlier this year we started playing Blitz Bowl, and I created a Halfling team called the Bodimore Byakhees. I finalized a paint scheme for the team by painting the team’s strongest player, the Hefty. Having worked out the scheme, I set about painting a few more of the team members, something that proved to be relatively quick (for me, at least), due to their small size. Having finished two of the team’s linemen, half the team is finished, so I thought it would be a good time to show off the models!

Dragged into Turbolasers Episode 79: Blitz Bowl!

Season 2 is here!

In this episode we are joined by our friend Brad Smith and talk about Games Workshop’s new season of Blitz Bowl. We discuss how it differs from the classic Blood Bowl, of which it shares the same setting, and how it offers different tactical challenges. We spend a lot of time talking about the addition of Challenge cards, and how they define the game, giving teams multiple ways to approach victory. We also talk about how Season 2 added League rules and Ball cards, all adding more of the randomized charm inherent in Games Workshop’s games. We end the episode considering what is yet to come for the game, in light of the new addition of Blood Bowl that is soon to be released.

Blitz Bowl: Chaos Blocker

Violence made manifest.

We continue to be excited about Blood Bowl’s streamlined counterpart, Blitz Bowl. After Eric finishing painting a Halfling model, I decided to try my hand at painting a model from the Chaos team. I wanted a simple paint scheme, based around the Cleveland Browns. Fortunately, the process was rather quick!

Blitz Bowl: Halfling Hefty

Halfling Hefty next to a Human Lineman.

We recently started to play Blitz Bowl, the streamlined cousin of Blood Bowl. Although the Blitz Bowl box contained a Human and Dwarf team, I wanted to play a Halfling team, having had the team since their release. Although diminutive in stature, the Halfling models abound with character, with really expressive faces. With a team of only 6 models, the Halfling team also presented a great opportunity to assemble and fully paint a Blitz Bowl team!

Blitz Bowl: Unboxing

Blitz Bowl!

Multiple times In the past, we have tried to play Blood Bowl, both in the form of single games and in a league, but always struggled to continue after a few games. Despite this, every year we get the desire to get some tiny athlete models and roll some dice with friends. With the COVID pandemic keeping us home, coupled with the long playtime for a single game, we had resolved to put off Blood Bowl for another year. This changed when we saw that Games Workshop just released the second season of their Barnes and Noble exclusive game Blitz Bowl, set in the Blood Bowl universe. Designed by James M. Hewitt, known for writing the rules for the new version of Adeptus Titanicus and the Hellboy board game, Blitz Bowl streamlines and simplifies the mechanics of Blood Bowl, creating a game with a similar feeling that can be played in 30-45 minutes rather than two hours. Using half the number of models of Blood Bowl (6 rather than 12), Blitz Bowl seemed like an obvious place to get into the Blood Bowl universe. With a Dark Elf team largely assembled, we decided to get the second season of Blitz Bowl and give the game a try!

Blood Bowl: Dark Elves

A new season is about to begin!

We have never been large sports fans, but that has not stopped us from playing some miniature-based sports games. Interestingly, our very first blog post was for Mantic Games’ Dreadball. Of all the sports-themed games we have played, we always come back to Blood Bowl. Back in 2006, I got Bronze in the Open category in Golden Daemon Baltimore for a Norse blitzer. In 2016, when Blood Bowl was released after many years being out of print, we got back into it again, and even started a small league which we never finished. Now that a second season was announced, we are preparing to get back into the game. With that in mind, I decided to start assembling a Dark Elf team that had been sitting unused in my collection!

Dragged into Turbolasers Episode 47: Blackstone Fortress and Spiel ’18

A new Rogue Trader!

With Orktober coming to a close, we discuss some models revealed by Games Workshop at Spiel ‘18. The first is an Undead team for Blood Bowl that finally has some updated zombie models. The second is a warband for Nightvault, Mollog's Mob, with consists of an ancient Dankhold Troggoth accompanied by a few squigs and fungus creatures. Finally we talk about the first model shown for the forthcoming Blackstone Fortress game, a dapper looking Rogue Trader.

A look back: The miniatures of 2017

With 2017 coming to a close, we thought we would write our annual post looking back at the best Games Workshop models of the year. It has been an interesting year, filled with a lot of high profile releases, ones that many people people have eagerly anticipating for quite some time, such as reviving Necromunda and expanding the range of Death Guard models. Unfortunately nearly all of these releases were fraught with significant problems, which put a damper on our excitement for them. Longtime readers of the blog will know we can be very critical of the miniatures that Games Workshop releases, wishing to provide constructive criticism that will continue to push the company to being the best miniature company in the world. Towards this end, more than any of the blog’s previous years, we spent our efforts putting our critiques to action, converting and modifying many of the models that we had issues with. With this post we wanted to review the highlights of the models that Games Workshop released this year, and choose what we think is the best release of the year!

Dragged into Turbolasers Episode 30: We started a Blood Bowl League!

Ready to scrimmage enough yards!

We spend this episode talking about a new Blood Bowl League we started with a few friends. We begin by discussing what we hope to get out of the league and a few predictions of how each team will do. After each playing our first game, we reconvene to talk about how the games went and what we learned about the game as a whole.

Dragged into Turbolasers Episode 14: Blood Bowl Returns!

Blood Bowl is back!

We start the episode by touching on the success of Adam Poots’ new Kingdom Death kickstarter campaign. We spend the rest of the episode talking about Games Workshop’s new releases, with a focus on the new Thousand Sons’ models and the reenvisioned Blood Bowl.  We talk at length about each of the new Thousand Sons’ kits, including Magnus the Red and the fantastic new Ahriman.  We then move to discussing the component quality of Blood Bowl, and our general excitement to be playing the game again after many years!

Blood Bowl: Unboxing

Blood Bowl is back!

When there were first rumors that Games Workshop was going to re-release their classic fantasy football game, Blood Bowl, I was a little skeptical.  After all, the game has had a very strong following for years, despite a lack of official support.  Would GW really do enough to make it worthwhile?  As the months progressed, and more pictures leaked, it became increasingly clear that they would live up to the legend.  Their use of classic Wayne England artwork along with newer pieces from Karl Kopinski, and a fantastic cover by Filipe Pagliuso, was one element that really sold me on the whole endeavor, reassuring me that they were not cutting corners.  We were fortunate enough to pick up a copy of the game during the opening weekend, and wanted to do an unboxing, taking some time to go over the components!

Dragged into Turbolasers Episode 12: The Burning of Prospero is upon us, with Blood Bowl soon to follow!

We spend this episode discussing the upcoming Burning of Prospero box game.  We speculate on how it will differ from the earlier Betrayal at Calth Horus Heresy game, as well as comment on the quality of the new models.  In the second half of the episode we switch to talking about the rerelease of Blood Bowl, and decide whether or not we want to start playing it again.  Finally, we talk about our current hobby projects, where Greg and Eric reveal that they are starting to paint models for the first time in many years!