Flint Churnblade – DreadBall Forgefather/Blood Bowl Dwarf

Flint Churnblade

Another vintage addition to the Ursa Miner Bruins, Flint has been hanging around the unpainted figure mountain for ages.  DreadBall seemed like a good excuse to get him painted, so I went for it.

I painted Flint at the same time that I painted Barik Farblast and I treated Flints chainsaw the same way that I treated Bariks bazooka.  Although there is justification for Bariks ball launcher being present in a DreadBall game, to date there is no in-game reason for a forgefather to carry a chainsaw around with him in the arena.

I dont really care though.  I saw an chance to paint a figure that had been sitting around for decades and went for it.  If Flints in-game presence is required then I will happily justify the saw somehow.

Like Barik, Flint is ever so slightly smaller than the forgefather miniatures, the guard in particular.  These old GW guys are shorter than average short DreadBall folk, but within normal racial parameters I think.

Barik Farblast – DreadBall Forgefather/Blood Bowl Dwarf

Barik Farblast

Barik is a 2nd edition Blood Bowl Star Player who overcame his racial inability to throw the ball satisfactorily by using a (surprisingly high tech) bazooka.  The models clean lines are quite a contrast with more recent Blood Bowl dwarf miniatures (which tend to look like Warhammer miniatures with their weapons clipped off rather than sportsfolk).  I think that the figure probably fits in better with a game of DreadBall than it does in Blood Bowl.

Barik Farblast features three rows down, third from the left.

Photos of the painted Barik miniature featured in the first White Dwarf magazine that I ever saw/bought (#108, December 1988).  Before I saw that magazine I had no idea that miniatures of fantasy sport themed, bazooka wielding dwarfs could be purchased, let alone painted to such a high standard and subsequently gamed with.

I pored over this magazine and this page in particular.  So from that day I wanted to paint my own Barik Farblast miniature.  Twenty five years later I finally got around to it.  Barik has been waiting for paint since before some of my gaming opponents were born.

I painted Barik with the same palette used for my Ursa Miner Bruins.  While it isnt a match with the original BB scheme shown in the scan above, it has some coincidental similarities.  The armoured style of the DreadBall forgefather miniatures is quite different to the sportswear look that Barik has, so I had to work a little to get the scheme to fit.  In retrospect its possible that I should have added a yellow stripe travelling front to back on the top of Bariks helmet, but that idea only just occurred to me now.

I decided to paint the bazooka in the same way that I paint the bases on my DreadBall miniatures.  I reckon that it makes the weapon look a little more like its something from TRON or Automan or possibly some sort of holodeck style re-sequenced photon projection rather than a big ol’ mechanical apparatus.  I think that it looks cool like that, but YMMV.

In DreadBall “guard” position players occasionally evolve, Pokémon-style into “keepers”.  As well as being tougher versions of regular guards, keepers also get the rather dubious ability to handle the ball crudely and launch it down the field via modified DreadBall launchers.  This makes Barik a pretty perfect proxy model as a DreadBall keeper, all the more so because the keeper models are not available yet.

L to R: DreadBall forgefather striker, Blood Bowl 2nd edition Barik Farblast, DreadBall forgefather jack.

Barik is a fraction smaller than his teammates and the style of his kit is a little different, but I think that he fits in just fine.  Im looking forward to using the model in a game after a quarter of a century wait…

Ursa Miner Bruins – DreadBall Forgefather Team

Ursa Miner Bruins DreadBall Forgefather Team

I painted up a medium sized force of space dwarfs last year and I named them the “Ursa Miners“.  With a Forgefather team to paint for Dreadball I decided to use more or less the same colour scheme simply because it was easier than coming up with another scheme from scratch.  I named the team the “Ursa Miner Bruins” to differentiate the sportsdwarfs from the military types.

Bruin Jacks

Like human (corporation) Dreadball teams, forgefather teams begin with three types of player: Striker, Jack and Guard.  A couple of people mentioned that the models of the different positions are not visually distinct enough, a common issue with dwarf miniatures.  I used helmet markings to help with identification.

Bruin Strikers

As you might expect, forgefathers are tough and a bit on the slow side in game terms.  Its interesting to note that nothing in Dreadball is even vaguely as slow as players can occasionally be in Blood Bowl.  While the Miners here are not as nippy as other Dreadball teams, they are still far more dynamic than dwarfs in Blood Bowl.

Ursa Miner Steel Warriors

When painting the Ursa Miner troopers I added a few bright elements to give a little tabletop pzazz to a realistic scheme (in as much as a space dwarf toy soldiers uniform can ever be realistic).  When painting the sci-fi sports team of the same guys I emphasised the brighter colours.  I made the blue/grey areas significantly brighter and added extra yellow elements.

Bruin Guards

Red is used as a spot colour on the troopers goggles and techy bits, but as the Bruins uniforms dont feature many of those I added some red to the face armour to act as a focal point.  The Bruins look a little like they are wearing tiki masks as a result, although that wasnt particularly the intention.

A few things regarding the painting:

1. The models are sculpted with short sleeves and gloves.  As I didnt really like the short sleeved look I painted them as if they are wearing some sort of skintight, spandex-y, sci-fi undergarment.
2. The highlighting is a bit extreme in places.  I probably should have been a little more restrained although that said, I quite like how the jacks in particular look in the group shot and on the game board, so its probably alright
3. I need to take a break from looking at the Bruins for a while before I can see them objectively.  I finished painting them and subsequently photographed them late last night, so I have been staring at them little guys for a bit too long recently.

Ursa Miners: Squat Engineer

This cheerful looking guy is the only Squat miniature that Games Workshop has made since they quietly retconned the race out of existence in the mid-nineties.  The figure was exclusively available to White Dwarf subscribers in 2010 and represents an incarnation of the magazines mascot, the White Dwarf himself.

Various internet sources hysterically claim that the figure is not a Squat but the White Dwarf in a Halloween costume, as evinced by the grey alien costume wearing gretchin (the Black Goblin?) that features as part of the model.  ”Its not a Squat, its a joke miniature!” they cried, oblivious to the fact that every single miniature in the WH40K range is inherently a joke miniature by concept and definition.  A dwarf in a spacesuit manufactured by Games Workshop is a squat as far as I am concerned and thats that

Seeing as dwarfs in space suits are the toy soldiers du jour at Sho3box Towers I tracked this peculiar but beautifully sculpted and cast miniature down on Ebay a week or two ago.  I painted the figure to match the colour scheme used for the rest of the Ursa Miners.

The contrast in the photo did something weird to the figures beard, it looks less chalky in real life, honest.

The Ursa Miners: Space Dwarfs

I have recently started painting some space dwarf miniatures from various sources.  I didnt really plan it: it just sort of happened.

After I came back from Salute I immediately painted up eleven veer-myn over a week or so.  Generally I tend to avoid batch painting like that as it often causes me to burn out.  Surprisingly however I found that getting a decent number of miniatures painted in a relatively short period (by my standards at least) was more enjoyable than I expected.  Therefore as soon as the veer-myn were finished I hunted around through my many assembled but unpainted miniatures for a suitable project to get stuck into.

Being both small and not very heavily detailed miniatures the Mantic Forgefathers that I got in my Warpath starter box last year seemed to fit the bill.  I picked a very simple colour scheme that wasnt too labour intensive and managed to start firing out little bearded guys from space.

The Brotherhood of the Bear (the “Ursa Miners” to their friends) will start showing up here from time to time, starting on Wednesday 

Edit: starting on Tuesday actually