Blood Bowl 3e: Khemri-Flavoured Undead Proxy Team – Ghouls!

Blood Bowl 3e: Khemri Tomb Kings Undead Proxy Team - Paul Muller Ghouls! 1998 1999

Having completed my 3rd Edition Blood Bowl Chaos Dwarf team, it’s time to go back to my other unfinished teams from that era and get those models finally complete. This first batch is from my Undead Team – based on the Champions of Death player positions, I started this lot before the rules later came out for Khemri/Tomb Kings teams – so the models aren’t exactly in line with those, and after having a good look at the current Undead BB options, are actually more in theme with the current Champions of Death/Shambling Undead – though at this stage my plan is to simply disregard any and all current rules and team make-up until I’ve got all of my original model conversions painted and complete – and then I’ll have a look at the 2022 options for a “proper” Undead, and even Khemri team (once the later are released?) and probably add a few things in as needed. In the interim, there’s nothing stopping us using these models in friendly/home games as long as we like. I’m pretty sure that the Blood Bowl Current Rules Police won’t kick my door down, anyway….

Blood Bowl 3e: Khemri Tomb Kings Undead Proxy Team - Paul Muller Ghouls! 1998 1999

These four models are based on the Legendary Paul Muller 1998/1999 metal Warhammer Fantasy Ghouls. Still the best ghoul models from Citadel in my opinion. Side note – you can still get Paul Muller-sculpted Ghouls in 2022 over at Heresy Miniatures. either in Metal or Siocast thermal plastic. I’ve got the metal set myself, that I, err.. still need to assemble and paint. I named three of them back in the day but for whatever reason still needed to name the fourth one, so I did that yesterday. I also don’t recall where those shoulder pads came from, though I do remember that they’re plastic, I needed to cut a slot out of them on the underside. I added the “detail” to them with some thin brown lines over gold. The football was also created by adding some putty over the rock that one Ghoul was holding, and then trimming it back.

Zvezda 15mm “Grey” Panzer II Platoon- Early-to-Mid-War for Flames of War

Zvezda 15mm "Grey" Panzer II Platoon- Early-to-Mid-War German for Flames of War, Battlegroup, What a Tanker, 1:100, 1/100

And now back to the tanks! I’ve finally gotten some time to take a few photos, and so I’ve got some tanks for the European Theatre this time – a platoon of Panzer IIs in the Early War to Early Mid-War Panzergrau paint scheme. As with my DAK Panzer IIs, these models are again from Zvezda (using my stockpile – I feel like we won’t be getting restocks of these models …ever?) I decided some time ago that aside from painting forces for the North African theatre of war, I also wanted to play games set in Europe. No big surprise there, of course. But the question there became – which forces and which front(s) to paint? Being me, I went with “yes”, and so the next force I’ll; be working on (as I try to finish up my DAK, and get to the later stages of my Desert 8th Army will be my Grey Germans. Sure, I’ll do late-war camo schemes and have fun with all of that later on down the line, but I wanted to follow the DAK with something similar and even compatible – so grey Germans it is! Also, because grey Germans is such a classic scheme that harkens back to my early interest in WWII – and with so many of the photos being in black and white, there’s something about them that just looks “right”.

Zvezda 15mm "Grey" Panzer II Platoon- Early-to-Mid-War German for Flames of War, Battlegroup, What a Tanker, 1:100, 1/100

Adding in a fair bit of brown weathering via Green Stuff World’s liquid Pigments also worked well to give them a dirty appearance that also has a bit of a nod to the brown used in the early Grey & Brown scheme used by the Heer’s armour. I don’t pretend that these models would hold up to someone especially knowledgable about the specifics of units and markings and all the rest, but they look the part to a more casual student of history like myself as well as the amount of time I’m willing/able to spend on what is going to be another significant batch of models…

Zvezda 15mm "Grey" Panzer II Platoon- Early-to-Mid-War German for Flames of War, Battlegroup, What a Tanker, 1:100, 1/100

As with the similar Panzer II platoon I put together for my DAk force, I also painted an extra for use as an artillery spotter. This time distinguished by an open hatch with a commander using a pair of biniculars and a different style of tank number. As the Zvezda turrets are one-piece castings, I took the commanders from Plastic Soldier Company german kits, drilling out holes where the hatches are, cleaning them up with a scalpel and then adding in thin plastic card open hatches.

Zvezda 15mm "Grey" Panzer II Platoon- Early-to-Mid-War German for Flames of War, Battlegroup, What a Tanker, 1:100, 1/100

In addition to the Panzer Platoon itself, I also painted an extra PzII to act as an artillery spotter. Since the turrets of these simpler Zvezda models are one piece, I drilled and cut out a small hole in place of the 2-piece hatch and added in a PSC commander, and used a couple of small rectangles of styrene to represent the opened hatch for both the platoon commander and individual artillery spotter. The army I’m building with these will primarily be an early Eastern Front force, around Barbarossa in early 1942, though I’m sure I’ll also be able to vary the models to use in earlier situations and even early war Western Front/France. Technically, these models all fit into the remit of Dave Stone’s Season of Scenery Challenge as vehicles can obviously be used as terrain in a lot of games, though in this case, we’re really going by the letter rather than the spirit of the challenge. I will (or do plan to) have some actual proper scenery and scenic pieces complete soon for the challenge, so that’s something else to look forward to….