NAF GT 2019 Prize team

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The NAF have once again asked me to paint a team for the GT.

Previous years were
2012 – Khemri
2013 - Norse Dwarfs
2014 – High Elves
2015 – Lizardmen
2016 – Slann
2017 – Skaven
2018 – Wood Elves

Since GW relaunched Blood Bowl I have bought every team that came out along with many of the stars. The previous 2 years I had used these new kits as the basis for the GT team and was tempted to do the same. However all the current plastics were either of teams I’d already done twice or more before such as Orcs and Nurgle, or the models didn’t really appeal to me such as Humans and Chaos.

Despite having painted up 36 teams in total there are 2 I have yet to do; Ogres and Vampires. Both of these have crp stars I still have to do that either already have been removed from the new rules or likely won’t make the cut. For that reason I decided to paint up 1 of those teams along with any outstanding stars. If I can get all the crp stuff completed then I can start serious working on the new stars. This is not easy as several are added in each Spike magazine and some appear to be renamed and/or altered versions of crp stars.

In the end I settled on Ogres as I already had most of the bits I needed for them.



The ogre players were an idea I’d had a long time ago to use the top half of the Dragon Ogres. This turned out to be a lot more work than initially anticipated as I needed to find legs to go with them and enough variety in heads, armour and limbs to make all 6 players look different enough from each other. After a few years GW released plastic Ogryns and these came with suitable legs

I already had some of the 5th edition BB ogres to use for parts and bought the new plastic ogre as well. On top of that some other random bits from other big guys were used on these models to add variety, mostly notable the plastic fantasy ogres.


This is the test model above for the team, he’s been sitting on a shelf for years held together with blu tac. I’ve tweaked the pose a little and given him arms from the new plastic ogre. There were 3 different torsos from the dragon ogres in the team and 3 sets of Ogryn legs I am using. The aim is to have 6 unique players by using conversions and other parts. Knee pads were added to hide the joins in his leg extensions and to make him look more like a BB player.


The next player uses the same torso, but has different legs. I also mixed in a head and hand from a metal 5th edition ogre as well as an iron fist from the WHFB bulls. His gut plate comes from the new plastic ogre.


I wanted the third guy to be playing to the crowd a bit and so gave him a raised fist from the metal ogres. In his right hand is another iron fist from the WHFB bulls. You can also just see the back plate from the plastic ogre I added to him.

These models all need a fair bit more conversion work, things like gap filling and maybe adding some extra details. This kind of stuff takes a while, but the extra attention to little items can make all the difference.

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Having already used some of the metal 5th edition parts I had a pair of the legs as well. These were in a squatting pose and I thought they would be ideal for a LOS player. That gave me the idea to make ogre positionals, it wouldn't have any impact on their stats, but would help them all look different and add some variety to the team. He got a chunky helmet and fist guard from the newer plastic ogres to help make a "blocker" ogre.



2 of the bodies had their arms raised and this presented something of an issue, as it was an odd pose for a Blood Bowl player to adopt. I initially thought to get round it by chopping the arms off at the elbow and repositioning them, the join would be hidden by the shoulder pad. This still looked a bit add as the chest was raised. Whilst looking through my bits box for suitable hands I came across the plastic black orcs, these were a good fit and also had an arm holding a drum. By removing that I could make a blitzer who was holding the ball under his arm. The goblins have a themed ball which is a goblin in fancy dress and it now looks like the poor guy is trying to squirm free. He also got a head and arm from the metal ogres and is the team captain.



The last player also has raised arms and I'd already decided that I wanted 1 ogre to be in a catching pose, either going for the ball or a thrown player. I could have just gone for something static, but the plastic BB ogre legs allowed me to model him leaping to the side to catch the ball. I had some difficulty with his right arm and the metal hand, it was tricky getting it into the right position and it may still need some tweaking.

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The next players to work on will be the snotlings, I have 3 of the classic 2nd edition models I can use and did look into getting the others. However they go for silly money on e-bay and are not all that great. I do have some normal fantasy snotlings that could be converted to BB players, though a lot of them have weapons or other items sculpted onto them. Have decided to go for an easier solution and use the Black Scorpion snots as they are a lot cheaper and appear to be a good match for the ones I have. Will save me a lot of work converting them.




I’ve heard rumours that these 2 stars may be removed from the game, they are certainly not available to Chaos or Nurgle anymore. Hopefully they’ll still be able to play for Ogres, even if it is a renamed version.

I built Brick a while back and some of the spare 5th Ed metal ogre parts went into the normal team. He’s a pretty extensive conversion with a lot of greentuff, pinning and repositioning to get him into the right pose. The one positional the team is missing is a thrower and he fills that slot.

Grotty is just the 5th edition goblin with a head swap from a 40K Grot to make him a little different.




The female Ogre Maneater was long a favourite model of mine. The difficult part was turning her into a Blood Bowl Player. Luckily the plastic ogre came along with some great spare parts for me to use in her conversion. It still required a fair bit of routing with a Dremel to remove some of the fantasy details and swap in the plastic arms, feet and shoulder pad.

She is a bit small compared to the rest of the team, but then maybe that explains her greater agility compared to other ogres? I’m tempted to diverge the most from the team colour scheme with her.




Finally I do have the 5th edition metal ogre cheerleader I could paint up if there is enough time. Initially she was bought to be used as the basis for a Bertha conversion, but the Maneater proved to be a much better choice. This is probably the only reason I’d use that model as she’s a pretty hideous sculpt. It will largely depend on time, I’d rather make a nice display base than add a cheerleader if time is short.

Colour scheme is the next item to decide upon. The players have a fair bit of skin on display, but also plenty of armour and skin. This gives lots of opportunities to make them look interesting.

Checking back over previous teams I have only used yellow as the main armour colour a couple of times out of all the teams I have done. I don’t think this would suit either white (too light overall) or black (don’t want team bumblebee), which leaves either brown or grey. I’m thinking of giving the ogres quite dark skin to represent their toughness, which would make a dark smoky grey the better choice. Dark brown will be kept for armour straps and I may add some extra colouring to their armour or the scales on their backs.