I decided to start yet another new project this weekend. I fancied building some of the new Blood Bowl models. So I cracked open the box to retrieve those new sprues.

The assembly instructions are typical GW layout, exploded numbered diagrams, indidicating which pieces at which step. It’s worth noting the symbol key, just so you realise which parts are optional and have an alternative available. Bloodbowl doesn’t use many figures, and playing in a league encourages naming and training individual team members. So you may as well make them look different too where the option is available.

The instructions provided are black and white, weirdly I find the coloured instructions easier to follow (I’ve got other GW boxes products that have come with colour prints and then later boxes come with B&W – guess that’s cost saving). Anyway the instruction sheet below has coloured blobs highlighting the options. One Goblin has two options, lucky Gobbo, hence two colours.

The Black Orcs were easy to assemble, I don’t remember any issues. I built the first 3 following the instructions to the letter. Clipping the numbered pieces off the sprue as they were required. The second 3 I played around with the parts to see how different I could make them look (in addition to using the optional heads). Here are the assembled 6 Black Orcs.

Now I wanted a little more variation in my Black Orcs than just the head, so I decided to do some simple arm swaps. The B.Orcs’ right hand is different between each original model’s pose. There is a open hand, a knuckle duster fist, and a gauntlet punching spike. I used a razor saw to get a neat cut at the arm’s elbow. After dry fitting the hands I felt I needed a spacer make the arms look the correct length in comparison to the opposite arm and body. I chopped a bit of sprue up to glue between the arm and hand. You might be able to make it out in the image below.

A little bit of greenstuff work, at the elbows, to fill the spacer gaps and add some ‘muscle structure’ completes the conversion. Although the sculpting is subtly camouflaged against the green plastic 😂

The 6 Goblin Bashers were also easy to assemble. Here you can see how the various optional parts can be assembled into different model variations.

The two Gobbos on the right in the above image are the most dynamically posed in the team. Even with the alternative head fitted they would be too similar for my liking. So I adjusted the left arm position on the second Gobbo, by gluing it on at a different angle. The first goblin is positioned as if leaping over something on the pitch (if I can find the right basing accessory he will be based that way too). The second I’ve tried to position as if diving forward, or being pushed. So the model’s weight is over the front foot and both arms flung back.

There are some tokens for keeping track of turn, score, and team rerolls. The coin style tokens are also handy for a coin flip at beginning of the game to see who gets to choose to kick or receive. The ball obviously marks where the ball is on the pitch, or who is carrying it.

That’s the team’s basic positions built, 6 Black Orcs and 6 Goblin Bashers. Here is the assembled out of the box basic team roster.

Which I believe translates into something like this for a starting 1,000,000 gold piece roster:

A blank roster can be downloaded from the GW downloads site. Direct roster link here.

I still have the Trained Troll big guy, and the star player Varag Ghoul-chewer to build. Of course I’ve also got the Imperial Noble team to assemble too.

Fancy some Bloodbowl action yourself? Here’s some affiliate links for your browsing pleasure.

• The Outpost Bloodbowl page.
• Element Games Bloodbowl page.
• Goblin Gaming Bloodbowl page.

As Bloodbowl Season 2 was a popular release I believe all the above stores are waiting for their restock of the boxed set in January. However Rogue Games has 1 left in stock (at time of writing), if you wanted it for Christmas. Just let them know who sent you their way please 🙂