Hobby Update - Skaven Blood Bowl Team

14 Skaven Blood Bowl Players

Hot on the heels of the Orc Blood Bowl Team being completed, I decided I would try to get a few more teams finished… and next on the pile was always going to be the Skaven. I’ve loved the Skaven Blood Bowl team since the 2nd Edition (the original one, not the reboot!) as it is the polar opposite of the Orc team.

Low armour, good agility and 1 turn touchdown scoring Gutter Runners (with a few skills and movement increases. What’s not to like.

Blood Bowl Skaven Team

The box set comes with 6 Skaven Clanrat Linemen, 2 SkavenThrowers, 2 Stormvermin and 2 Gutter Runners. I added to this 2 Rat Ogres for a bit of beef in the team. Also who doesn’t like Big Guys?

I painted these using elements of ‘Slap Chop’ for the skin and black cloaks and then ‘battle ready’ for the armour. I’ve not done purple/pink and yellow before and I think it works well for a small force – not sure how I’d feel about it on a full Skaven army in Age of Sigmar or The Old World though. May be a bit too comic for that.

The skin is Volupus Pink (contrast) and the armour is Averland Sunset with a wash of Iyanden Yellow. Yellow’s are much better than when I started gaming and this is a great combo. Makes me wish we had these colours when I painted Empire – always liked Stirland (Green and Yellow).

The Rat Ogres were a suggestion by one of my Hobby Buddies – Chris Denmark. They are the Rat Ogres from the old Warhammer starter set – Island of Blood – which featured Skaven against High Elves. I used them here without conversion – just a change of base shape. I have used a slightly larger base than used in most Blood Bowl models but as long as they don’t stand next to each other too often it should be fine to have a little overlap of the squares.

How do they play?

As mentioned above Skaven are fast… lightning fast. The Throwers combine very well with the Gutter Runners to produce some very quick touchdowns and I’ve been 3-0 up with Skaven before half-time in games under the previous edition.

With mutations they are also a team that opens itself up to converting if you want to, or buying small expansions from Forgeworld.

The Rat Ogres provide a little extra bulk, but they can be a liability as they can be easily surrounded and brought down as the Gutter Runners rush through the gaps – be careful of teams that like to foul like Goblins and Snotlings – they can take out the big guys surprisingly quickly.