Bloodbowl - Skaven Unboxing and Team WIP Part 1 (additional Gutter Runners)

Jab & Feb earlier this year I was in a tabletop bloodbowl league, which was a great laugh.  I played Skaven, and although they are fast they are also fragile, which can be seen from this end of game pic of my dugout at the end of the first game:

Yes that's 2 gutter runners in the DEAD column of the Dead and Injured box (one was killed by the Chaos Dwarf opponents while the other face planted the pitch and killed himself while trying to Go For It..  I still won the game, and only lost one game during the league, but learned you can't get too attached to your skaven players :)

So not surprising with the new Bloodbowl coming out we've decided to start up the league, all the old players are interested, but with a league under the belts will be much better.  However the friend which annihilated my skaven and I are still the most experienced coaches so he suggested we give ourselves a challenge.  He is going to use Goblins, and after one of the old league players walked across our first game with the new game and said "Why are you playing Humans; they're stit !" he challenged me to put away my Skaven and play Humans, but that's for another day.

To get me back in the mood I picked up Bloodbowl Chaos Edition with all the teams for £2.67.  The AI is better than I remember but nothing like playing a real coach.  I'm 6 games in and have just bought a rat ogre (be a nice change from just hiring one as an inducement, as the AI teams start at a higher team rating).  I'll have to get some Human games in, as I'm sure I'll start playing them like my Skaven, and Human Catchers are no Gutter Runners.

Even though I have a Skaven team I picked up the Skaven team as not only are the models really nice, but it would give me a chance to paint up a Skaven team (I bought my existing team from ebay over a few auctions - had to have the extra gutter runners and rat ogre).

When buying the team boxes one of the first issues for veteran coaches is getting the extra models to have an optimum team, For Skaven teams this is getting extra Gutter Runners.  While surfing I saw someone suggest the Deathrunners from Silver Tower -  I didn't even realise there were Skaven in Silver Tower so another search quickly uncovered the model:

A quick search of ebay found 2 for £6 (including postage), a bargain in my eyes.  I then wanted to find a cloak to make them look more like the existing Gutter Runners.  The first cloak I found that I liked was the cloak from the Choas Chariot, as it had a lot of movement in it:

However as is usual when looking for particular bits on models which aren't new or popular it was very hard to find the cloak not sold out.  Eventually I found them on a US bits store, however the postage would make 2 cloaks cost more than double the cost of the Deathrunners, so in the end I settled on some high elf cloaks (which still cost £4.70 after postage for 2).

So a few days later and all my bits had arrived:

The skaven sprues are really nice, not only filled with the lovely detailed models, but also containing nice additions such as tokens for the score, turn marker and rerolls, as well as 6 skaven themed warpstone balls.

As well as a ball made to slot into the hole on the model bases, there was also a ball with a flat base.  This was important for me because of my Deathrunners, whose base didn't have a hole in it:

For converting my Deathrunners into Gutter Runners I started by cutting off and then filing the spikes on the helmet.  I also cut of the rivits on the side of the helmet to make it look more like cloth (like on the actual Gutter Runners).

My next issue was the high elf cloak, as it contained the back of the torso on the inside.  I cut this out and filed it down.  Cutting off the spikes and on the back of the Deathrunner allowed the cloak to fit against the back and partially cover his left hand blade, like he hiding it before striking.

Here's the other side of the Deathrunner.  I'll need to do a bit of greenstuff around the top of the cloak, and I'll probably swich the right hand for a dark eldar punch dagger hand to finish off the model.

A comparison with one of the new Skaven linerat shows the new Deathrunner is a good size to blend in with the new Skaven team.  The Deathrunner looks slightly larger, but that's mainly due to the large tail being more upright, and the cloak having to point upwards between the tail and the right hand blade.  He's more lightly armoured than the linerat and overall I'm quite happy with the model.  What do you think ?

Well back to assembling the rest of the team for me.  More WIP pics will follow shortly.

What team will you be playing ?

May Nuffle smile on your dice :)

Rathstar