Today I ran a demo for Blood Bowl at Highland Library.  I’m hoping I piqued enough interest to get people to start their own teams.

So, how does one start their own Blood Bowl team?  With Games Workshop discontinuing all of Specialist Games, this has become harder, but not impossible or expensive, depending on what you want to do.  First, have someone who knows Blood Bowl demo the game for you.  Then, read the team lists and pick a team.  Only then should you buy.  You have four options.

1. Buy the Blood Bowl box set, preferably ordering through a local game store.  This will get you an Orc team and a Human team.  Sell one of the teams to a friend.  This is the only way to buy direct from Games Workshop anymore.  The box set was still sold on the website as of the posting of this article.  Sadly, this is not an option for players who do not wish to play Orcs or Humans.

2. Camp on ebay.  This is an easy way to get a team.  However, there is no guarantee.  The team you are looking for may have several auctions right now, or none.  Just do a search every morning and wait.  The biggest problem with this is variability.  Some players getting rid of their team can let it go for a steal, and some people who have delusions of grandeur sell a poorly painted team with a $300 buy it now.  Just be patient.

3. Use existing pewter, plastic, and Finecast minis from the Warhammer Fantasy and 40K lines to convert your own team.  This is what I did with the Konquata Monitors and the Grimfang Scrappaz.  It helps to have a small amount of putty sculpting skills as well.  This works best with Chaos, Dwarf, Elf, Goblin, Human, Khemri, Lizardman, Ogre, Orc, and Skaven teams, but not so well with others.  Choose a team, look at existing model lines and get ideas.  Hopefully you’ll have a good one.

4. Go to a third party.  Mantic Games makes amazing Blood Bowl teams, but I can’t find them on their website.  They must have been forced to stop.  Look around for other companies.  Reaper makes good fantasy models that could be easily converted to a Blood Bowl team.  Meiko minis has good elves, ogres, and Nurgle.  Impact minis has a huge selection and great support models.

Check all of the above options before buying.  I searched ebay while writing this, and found several auctions of full team at less than $50.  Buying plastic either through bitz order or box sets could set you back $40-$80 depending on what you need.