Having come around to the 2016 release of Games Workshop’s classic game of gridiron mayhem, Blood Bowl, it’s become time to update the ladz with a new kit. With many other projects in the queue, the Tale of Tuesdays event was the perfect time to start making progress.

Despite playing Blood Bowl for almost 30 years, it wasn’t until a few short years ago that I came around to actually painting an orc team. That third edition plastic squad became one of my favorite teams of my handiwork. They never saw too much success on the pitch, but did win ‘Most Casualties on more than one occasion, and for group of rowdies more into a good punch-up that may be the most desired result.

For the team’s new look I wanted to stay with the same core colors. Black with white trim. I’ve always wanted a team that featured checks, but my hands nor vision, were ever steady enough to pull it off. Fortunately, GW provided the perfect option with the goblin team’s sketchy set of checks on their transfer sheet. This was an ideal look that I could not have pulled off. Simply trimming down some small spikes on their right forearm gauntlets, I was able to clear the space for the black and white squares.

Too much black and dark greys isn’t a good look, so went with a single white shoulder pad to provide some visual interest. Again, no good with the steady hand, I poured over my transfer options, but none of them had the look I was going for. Nor did any of them match the team logo. I love this logo (designed by our own @caseyrog), so it’s important it can still stand for this new version of the team.

Knowing I needed something to go there, as plain white was too…plain, I leaned into their name and the other GW game of fantasy football….Blitz Bowl. The team’s new fluff is that in order to play for the Badlands Blitz an inspiring orc has to cause at least five casualties in the Blitz Bowl Arena….one casualty for each finger of a fist. Each casualty scrawled on the players shoulder pad for opponents to fear. These sort of tally marks I can handle and they don’t give the team a polished look that a transfer might.

I’ve finished up the heavy hitters for the Blitz, the Troll and four Black Orc Blockers, but am going to pivot over to the Blitz Bowl version of this team for the next Tale of Tuesdays post. I need a few more teams for that game painted up and I’m inspired to knock the orcs out with this casualty fist theme.