One of the most enjoyable projects in Warhammer is creating your own blood bowl team.<br>

Growing older, I’ve shifted my focus from creating entire Warhammer armies to creating little units and high-concept models. Of course, I still have my pride and joy, my slowly growing Dark Mechanicus army, but I can’t spend a whole day anymore acting out an epic battle because I’m an adult with a life of my own.

I thus consider lesser tasks. That might be constructing a stylish Kill Team, converting a mansion full of servants for my Imperial Knight, or just coming up with a novel unit for an army I’ve never thought of before. Even while I’m really enthusiastic about the new Skaven in Age of Sigmar, I doubt I’ll build an entire force of them; instead, I’ll probably go for some awesome, stand-alone characters that I’ll be proud of.




Currently, I am working on creating a Blood Bowl squad. That’s not exactly accurate, though. I created this outdated project back in 2016, the year Blood Bowl was launched. I was devastated to discover that my favorite Norse squad lacked official regulations or models, so I used a lot of Chaos models, primarily from the Darkoath line, to create my own.

This past weekend, I took the models out of storage to launch a new league, and the conversions are still accurate. But I quickly discovered a serious issue. When the Norse roster was still a Team of Legend, I created this force for them. That meant that instead of having Valkyries and Beer Boars, I had Throwers and Catchers, which are nonexistent.



Fortunately, Darkoath Warqueen Marakarr Blood-sky had already converted one of my Berserkers. That definitely pissed off Valkyrie. While I had to start from scratch for the second, it was not too difficult thanks to Games Workshop’s official Norse team (which I had acquired during my absence) and some conversion pieces from other human teams I had purchased over the years.

I wanted the second Valkyrie to represent the wild and inebriated side of the Norse team—a direction that Games Workshop has taken quite a bit lately. I presented her with two tankards of beer and the head of an Imperial Nobility character using the body of a Norse Lineman. I took off the feathered plume, cut off the posh bits, and added some historically incorrect Berserker head horns. And so Ölrun came to be. Yes, that is a reference to beer from the Völundarkviða, an ancient Norse poetry edda. That or Stella Artvarsdóttir was the option.



With their athletic stances and ball-grabbing motions, my catchers and throwers transformed into basic linemen, ideal for Blood Bowl guys. Even though they won’t be carrying balls as much as they will be smashing and hitting, I still plan to enjoy myself with the conversions. Instead of a generic, out-of-the-box model, I would much rather have a Lineman who resembles a Catcher (a role that no longer exists, so there’s no risk for confusion).

Although my two Ulfwerener already have a beautiful appearance, I modified one of them by adding some better bits from the new Norse box. Even though he’s now in this bizarre transitional half-painted, half-grey purgatory, his scream-filled bearded face and creepy wolf-hands put him one step above my previous conversion.






Using the stocky man from the Imperial Nobility kit, another Berserker was constructed. A quick headswap and some pruning of his flashiest parts (no innuendo intended, I assure you) makes him a really strong player. I can write up some background for him, however I’m not sure whether he’s a touch too sophisticated for my force. Perhaps Underworld Armour sponsored him, or perhaps he received the armor as a present from a wealthy benefactor; perhaps it was a prize for winning the league with his former squad the previous season. In any case, he is large, vicious, and prepared to strike your guys.

To complete my roster, I have two Beer Boars and one Lineman, but I built these to standards. You can be heard yelling, “boring!””At the top of your lungs, but how can you expect me to convert a little piggie when there’s a Lineman with a good sculpt? There aren’t nearly as many pigs carrying brews as there used to be, even if the majority of Warhammer kits now include small Pokemon companions.


Although I only constructed a few models for this project, a Blood Bowl team is the ideal size for some lighthearted modeling. It will have to do with squads of inebriated Vikings; I don’t have time for big armies. The only issue is that I want to construct a stadium so they can play today.