Steve Cross has been an active member of the Blood Bowl community for a while now, and his wonderfully converted and painted teams have snatched up hobby awards and internet fame alike. Steve kindly packed a few of his favourite squads onto the tour wagon and sent them our way for a day of press photos. Take it away, Steve!
Steve Cross: When painting my Black Orcs, I decided against using the traditional green for their flesh, opting for a deep red instead. Not only did it make my Orcs faster than everyone else,* it also leaned nicely into the magma theme I was going for. I decided to paint their body armour and helmets chrome – following the Blue Steel tutorial on Warhammer+ – the bright armour acts as a contrast to the flesh tones.
I finished off the team by placing them on bases crisscrossed with lava flows. After all, it would be a real shame if Magma City didn’t have any magma boiling up to the surface of its pitch!
I decided to use one of the Nightmare Husks from the Gellerpox Infected Kill Team for my Nurgle team’s Rotspawn – its mass of grasping tentacles made it the ideal candidate. The colour scheme was inspired by a guide I saw online for the Lord of Blights from the Warhammer Age of Sigmar range. The sickly green of the armour was achieved by using a combination of Layer and Contrast paints, followed by targeted stippling to create the highlights.
All of the metallic elements on the miniatures, such as the symbol of Nurgle and helmet spikes, were heavily weathered and tarnished to make them look as dingy and poorly cared for as possible.
I had a clear vision in my mind’s eye about how I wanted this Imperial Nobility team to look, and it was going to involve a lot of birds. After sending out a plea for aid to the Blood Bowl community, a full 22 Griff Oberwalds were separated from their feathered friends in order for my vision to become a reality – and I am thrilled with the final result. I also used the plastic Griff to convert a Mighty Zug to play alongside the Blues, giving the infamous bruiser a winged helmet to fit in with the feather-toting Imperials.
I kept the colour palette bright for Les Nordland Blues, using burnished gold on the armour and a regal turquoise coupled with cream for the uniforms.
My Khorne team’s kit might look quite familiar to fans of the Horus Heresy, as the colour scheme was inspired by the Heresy-era World Eaters Legion. The white and blue uniform is striking when spattered with blood and gore, and Khorne players are always going to end up covered in the stuff!
When the Nemesises take to the gridiron, I never bother taking any re-rolls – at the end of the day, Khorne cares not from where the blood flows, even if that happens to be from my own players following a botched tackle! I love taking Scyla Anfingrimm, as he really captures the essence of what it is to be a Khorne coach – solve your problems with violence, and if that doesn’t work, try more violence!
Old World Alliance teams are a fantastic hobby challenge, allowing you to combine players from three different teams into one. To make sure that everyone looked like they were playing for the same coach, I was careful to ensure that any consistent elements across the uniforms matched. For example, all of the shoulder and knee pads were painted white, and every model had a yellow shirt and blue trousers.
I wanted to include a few Star Players, so I painted Puggy Baconbreath and everyone's favourite ram-wrangler, Rumbelow Sheepskin, to match the rest of the squad.
When the Amazon team was released, I saw the opportunity to do something quite unique by converting the Python Warriors into actual pythons. The Melusai Blood Stalkers provided the ideal starting point and, after some careful cutting, I was able to put the top half of the Python Warrior Throwers onto the Melusai’s tails. I also converted a Mighty Zug in a similar fashion,** but I took the tail from the Boa Kon’ssstriktr model instead.
I rounded out the team with some more Lustrian Star power, painting Glot’l Stop and Estelle La Veneaux in the same scheme – I also snuck Dribl and Drull into the team as well, but they have been painted to match my Lizardman squad rather than the Armadillos.
What an awesome collection of Blood Bowl teams, thanks Steve! Did any of Steve’s teams inspire you to start up a new squad? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter which team you will be signing up to coach next!
* While this doesn’t have any in-game benefit, we all know in our hearts that red ones go faster!
** Steve has somewhat of an obsession with the Mighty Zug. Some might even say he is Zug’s number 1 fan! #TeamZug
