A Tale of Four Coaches – Kick Off!
Welcome to: A Tale of Four Coaches!
What is ‘A Tale of Four Coaches?’. Well, many of you may be familiar with the ‘Tale of Four Warlords’ segment popularised in Games Workshops monthly magazine; White Dwarf. This is where four warlords take the challenge of starting a new Table Top army, from scratch, and White Dwarf tracks their hobby progress over a number of months as they collect, assemble and paint their forces, building up towards a climatic battle at the end of the designated time. ‘A Tale of Four Coaches’ is our take on that premise, except instead of an army, it’s a Table Top Blood Bowl team.
We’ve set four of our GRUMBBL coaches a daring challenge to collect, build and paint a new Blood Bowl team in preparation for a grand play-off tournament between them at a convention they’ll all be attending on 12th-15th of July. That gives them ~3 months to complete the project start to finish, not an easy deadline at all!
This is the perfect opportunity for any of you readers to get involved and collect along with us! Have you been a little dubious about starting that new tabletop project? Perhaps it’s something you’ve been putting off for a while cause you’re not sure how to approach it? Well, now’s the perfect time to start! Just following along with us as we track our four coaches progress, from start to finish. Along the way we’ll get loads of great insight into their approach to the hobby, the paints and techniques they’ve used and maybe even a little peak into their tactics and playstyle!
If you do want to get involved, there’ll be a thread in our forums for this challenge. There you might see our coaches post some more regular updates and is the ideal place for you to interact with them, ask questions and even post your own hobby progress and you join us on this journey, we’d love to have you along!
Right, without further ado, let’s take a look at the poor saps that have “volunteered” to take on this challenge…
7Tails – Chaos Dwarves
Tails is the League Commissioner of GRUMBBL and has plenty of Blood Bowl experience both on and off the table. An avid painter in his spare time, who always has a myriad of Games Workshop product projects on the go, he’s one of the more experienced hobbyists of the group. He’s going a little outside the box and has chosen Chaos Dwarves as his team for this journey.
“I love the Chaos Dwarf race, not only to play in Blood Bowl, but thematically from ‘The World That Was’. Their aesthetic is unique and eye-catching. I really hope to see them re-emerge in Age of Sigmar! But moving back to Blood Bowl, I particularly enjoy the mixed bash-running challenge of the Chaos Dwarves and it’s a team I want to play a lot more of.
The real reason I picked them though, is I love a good hobby challenge and I’m a big fan of converting models and making them my own. Seeing as there is no official Chaos Dwarf Team models since the re-release of table top Blood Bowl in 2016, this is the perfect opportunity to make my own unique team. They’re going to be made from a variety of Age of Sigmar kits, from Fyreslayers to Gloomspite Gitz, and I really can’t wait to see how this team comes out!”
Aaramus – Halflings
Aaramus is a veteran Blood Bowl player and is by far the most experienced Table Top player within the group. He’s the head Web Developer (Translation: Techie Grot) for GRUMBBL and, like Tails, has played in every season since GRUMBBL’s predecessor’s inception. He normally likes the taste of Elf BS (He’s a Pro Elf main on the Table Top) but for this challenge, he’s sharing his other love with us… Halflings.
“Halfings hold a special place in my heart. Everyone knows that they’re not a GOOD team by any stretch and even if the new Catcher and Hefty make them a little better, let’s be honest, they’re still going to be down the bottom end of the Blood Bowl spectrum! But I just can’t help but love them! They are the undisputed Kings of throwing themselves around and causing all kinds of Chaos and if you underestimate them, you’re going to see a barrage of Halfings either gunning for your Endzone after being catapulted forth by the trees, or they’re coming head first into your ball carrier… after being catapulted forth by the trees. I think the new Halfing kit is one of the best ones they’ve come up with as well. As much as I love all of the new kits, none of them have come close to being as themeatic as the the new Halfing team. I mean, one of them has a squirrel on his head… a squirrel!!! If that doesn’t scream one turn touchdown I don’t know what else does!
Marv – Orcs
Marv is a relatively new player to Blood Bowl, having started his Blood Bowl career with the GRUMBBL crew, he’s well into his second season with us. Don’t let his recent establishment fool you though, he’s already dived headlong into the mechanics and lore of Blood Bowl, and during his first ever season he played Kislev (aka Slann for you Table Top players) and quickly gained a reputation as the ‘Marvellous Marv’ amongst the other coaches, rapidly having both a Trophy AND a segment on our regular show; GFI, named after him for his fantastical (and daring) play-style and great sportsmanship like conduct. Now he’s faring his hand on the Table Top, and being the newest of our hobbyists too (this is his first painting project ever), it’s going to be great to see how he approaches the task ahead.
“I started playing Bloodbowl with the release of the BB2 legendary edition in the summer of 2017. A little holiday in Australia delayed my league debut to season 3 (Editors Note: This is the 3rd season of the previous incarnation of GRUMBBL) where I played Kislev Circus (or Slann, for the more tabletop inclined).
Last summer, I had the opportunity to play my first game of tabletop Bloodbowl as well, and despite believing I’d never be able to paint such tiny things, I got interested in that aspect of the hobby as well – and got the BB2016 Starter Box for Christmas.
Therefore my choice of race for this challenge was between Humans and Orcs – and I’m going for the latter, since the miniatures are a bit bigger and easier to paint than the Human ones.
After 7Tails helped me get started with painting techniques, I realised I absolutely CAN paint those tiny figures, and have been greatly enjoying it thus far!”
JustDog – Dwarves
JustDog is one of our new coaches for GRUMBBL’s official season 1 AND he’s new to Blood Bowl as a game. What he may lack in gameplay experience, he makes up for with his hobby experience. With plenty of table top hobby projects on the go, he’s now venturing with us into the land of Blood Bowl, where the pitches are stained red and the bodies piled high. And I’m sure he’ll be seeing a lot of both in his future, as he’s taken on the Cousins of his current Fyreslayer army; the Dwarves, for his painting challenge.
“I got into the miniature hobby thanks to a small game called “Dungeons and Dragons” early in 2018. I remember walking into the Games Workshop store and I was welcomed very kindly by the local manager, who I now consider a close friend. He helped raise my confidence about what I am able to paint and the community helped out alot too.
I’ve always had some affinity with Dwarves in RPGs and decided on playing a Fyreslayer army in AoS. Not being able to get enough of Dwarves, and falling in love with how the official Dwarf Bloodbowl team looks, I decided to get some models for them, right around the time I also started playing Bloodbowl in the league. It was then that 7Tails asked me to join this little hobby challenge, and I decided to try push myself to higher standards in a shorter time. Also I have Death Roller conversion ideas!”
That’s the lot of them! Be sure to keep an eye on the news page and our newsletter to see how these 4 guys get on over the next few months.
If you want to hobby along with us, we’d love to have you and see your progress! Just join the conversation thread in our forums.
If you want to keep up to date with our coaches progress, or see some of their other work, you can find each of their instagrams below:
7Tails – @7TailsPainting
Aaramus – @Aaramus1993
Marv – @Wombatmarv
JustDog –
Keep an eye out for our next post, where we’ll dig a bit deeper into our coaches experience with their teams, and hopefully get our first glance at their paint schemes. That’s all for now. Happy Blood Bowling! And May Nuffle Bless You All!
A Tale of Four Coaches – Kick Off!
Welcome to: A Tale of Four Coaches!
What is ‘A Tale of Four Coaches?’. Well, many of you may be familiar with the ‘Tale of Four Warlords’ segment popularised in Games Workshops monthly magazine; White Dwarf. This is where four warlords take the challenge of starting a new Table Top army, from scratch, and White Dwarf tracks their hobby progress over a number of months as they collect, assemble and paint their forces, building up towards a climatic battle at the end of the designated time. ‘A Tale of Four Coaches’ is our take on that premise, except instead of an army, it’s a Table Top Blood Bowl team.
We’ve set four of our GRUMBBL coaches a daring challenge to collect, build and paint a new Blood Bowl team in preparation for a grand play-off tournament between them at a convention they’ll all be attending on 12th-15th of July. That gives them ~3 months to complete the project start to finish, not an easy deadline at all!
This is the perfect opportunity for any of you readers to get involved and collect along with us! Have you been a little dubious about starting that new tabletop project? Perhaps it’s something you’ve been putting off for a while cause you’re not sure how to approach it? Well, now’s the perfect time to start! Just following along with us as we track our four coaches progress, from start to finish. Along the way we’ll get loads of great insight into their approach to the hobby, the paints and techniques they’ve used and maybe even a little peak into their tactics and playstyle!
If you do want to get involved, there’ll be a thread in our forums for this challenge. There you might see our coaches post some more regular updates and is the ideal place for you to interact with them, ask questions and even post your own hobby progress and you join us on this journey, we’d love to have you along!
Right, without further ado, let’s take a look at the poor saps that have “volunteered” to take on this challenge…
7Tails – Chaos Dwarves
Tails is the League Commissioner of GRUMBBL and has plenty of Blood Bowl experience both on and off the table. An avid painter in his spare time, who always has a myriad of Games Workshop product projects on the go, he’s one of the more experienced hobbyists of the group. He’s going a little outside the box and has chosen Chaos Dwarves as his team for this journey.
“I love the Chaos Dwarf race, not only to play in Blood Bowl, but thematically from ‘The World That Was’. I love their aesthetic and really hope to see them re-emerge in Age of Sigmar. But moving back to Blood Bowl, I particularly love the mixed bash-running challenge of the Chaos Dwarves and it’s a team I want to play a lot more of.
The real reason I picked them though, is I love a good hobby challenge and I particularly enjoy converting models and making them my own. Seeing as there is no official Chaos Dwarf Team models since the re-release of table top Blood Bowl in 2016, this is the perfect opportunity to make my own unique team. They’re going to be made from a variety of Age of Sigmar kits, from Fyreslayers to Gloomspite Gitz, and I really can’t wait to see how this team comes out!”
Aaramus – Halflings
Aaramus is a veteran Blood Bowl player and is by far the most experienced Table Top player within the group. He’s the head Web Developer (Translation: Techie Grot) for GRUMBBL and, like Tails, has played in every season since GRUMBBL’s predecessor’s inception. He normally likes the taste of Elf BS (He’s a Pro Elf main on the Table Top) but for this challenge, he’s sharing his other love with us… Halflings.
“Halfings hold a special place in my heart. Everyone knows that they’re not a GOOD team by any stretch and even if the new Catcher and Hefty make them a little better, let’s be honest, they’re still going to be down the bottom end of the Blood Bowl spectrum! But I just can’t help but love them! They are the undisputed Kings of throwing themselves around and causing all kinds of Chaos and if you underestimate them, you’re going to see a barrage of Halfings either gunning for your Endzone after being catapulted forth by the trees, or they’re coming head first into your ball carrier… after being catapulted forth by the trees. I think the new Halfing kit is one of the best ones they’ve come up with as well. As much as I love all of the new kits, none of them have come close to being as themeatic as the the new Halfing team. I mean, one of them has a squirrel on his head… a squirrel!!! If that doesn’t scream one turn touchdown I don’t know what else does!
Marv – Orcs
Marv is a relatively new player to Blood Bowl, having started his Blood Bowl career with the GRUMBBL crew, he’s well into his second season with us. Don’t let his recent establishment fool you though, he’s already dived headlong into the mechanics and lore of Blood Bowl, and during his first ever season he played Kislev (aka Slann for you Table Top players) and quickly gained a reputation as the ‘Marvellous Marv’ amongst the other coaches, rapidly having both a Trophy AND a segment on our regular show; GFI, named after him for his fantastical (and daring) play-style and great sportsmanship like conduct. Now he’s faring his hand on the Table Top, and being the newest of our hobbyists too (this is his first painting project ever), it’s going to be great to see how he approaches the task ahead.
“I started playing Bloodbowl with the release of the BB2 legendary edition in the summer of 2017. A little holiday in Australia delayed my league debut to season 3 (Editors Note: This is the 3rd season of the previous incarnation of GRUMBBL) where I played Kislev Circus (or Slann, for the more tabletop inclined).
Last summer, I had the opportunity to play my first game of tabletop Bloodbowl as well, and despite believing I’d never be able to paint such tiny things, I got interested in that aspect of the hobby as well – and got the BB2016 Starter Box for Christmas.
Therefore my choice of race for this challenge was between Humans and Orcs – and I’m going for the latter, since the miniatures are a bit bigger and easier to paint than the Human ones.
After 7Tails helped me get started with painting techniques, I realised I absolutely CAN paint those tiny figures, and have been greatly enjoying it thus far!”
JustDog – Dwarves
JustDog is one of our new coaches for GRUMBBL’s official season 1 AND he’s new to Blood Bowl as a game. What he may lack in gameplay experience, he makes up for with his hobby experience. With plenty of table top hobby projects on the go, he’s now venturing with us into the land of Blood Bowl, where the pitches are stained red and the bodies piled high. And I’m sure he’ll be seeing a lot of both in his future, as he’s taken on the Cousins of his current Fyreslayer army; the Dwarves, for his painting challenge.
“I got into the miniature hobby thanks to a small game called “Dungeons and Dragons” early in 2018. I remember walking into the Games Workshop store and I was welcomed very kindly by the local manager, who I now consider a close friend. He helped raise my confidence about what I am able to paint and the community helped out alot too.
I’ve always had some affinity with Dwarves in RPGs and decided on playing a Fyreslayer army in AoS. Not being able to get enough of Dwarves, and falling in love with how the official Dwarf Bloodbowl team looks, I decided to get some models for them, right around the time I also started playing Bloodbowl in the league. It was then that 7Tails asked me to join this little hobby challenge, and I decided to try push myself to higher standards in a shorter time. Also I have Death Roller conversion ideas!”
That’s the lot of them! Be sure to keep an eye on the news page and our newsletter to see how these 4 guys get on over the next few months.
If you want to hobby along with us, we’d love to have you and see your progress! Just join the conversation thread in our forums.
If you want to keep up to date with our coaches progress, or see some of their other work, you can find each of their instagrams below:
7Tails – @7TailsPainting
Aaramus – @Aaramus1993
Marv – @Wombatmarv
JustDog –
Keep an eye out for our next post, where we’ll dig a bit deeper into our coaches experience with their teams, and hopefully get our first glance at their paint schemes. That’s all for now. Happy Blood Bowling! And May Nuffle Bless You All!