Painting My Ogre Blood Bowl Team

Last time, I was building my Ogre team and working out the starting roster. However, before I could get the team onto the pitch I needed to paint them.

In order to paint the team, I needed to choose a colour scheme for the team's strip. I already knew how I wanted to paint the flesh on the Ogres and Gnoblars, but I wanted their sports kit to have a cohesive and relatively bright look that would truly belong to a fantasy football team.

This article follows on from Building an Ogre Blood Bowl Roster, where I settled on the team's starting lineup and development plans.

I have made it a personal rule to never play games with unpainted miniatures. I could say this is because painted miniatures are luckier, or that they have more character, or that it simply makes me paint them. I think in the end, it is because I like showing off my painted miniatures. I guess, that's why I put them on here!

The first step will be to decide what colours they are going to wear.

Choosing a Colour Scheme

Before I could start painting, I needed to work out what colours the team would wear. I already had ideas for the skin tones. The Gnoblars were always going to receive a grey-green flesh colour inspired by the original Ogre Kingdoms army book from 2005, whilst the Ogres themselves would use a more traditional northern European flesh tone. After all, the ogre of myth originally comes from French folklore.

The uniform was a more difficult decision.

First and foremost, this is a fantasy football team.

That meant they needed a sports kit rather than simply looking like another collection of Warhammer miniatures. I wanted them to look like they belonged on a Blood Bowl pitch. This means a lot less brown and more bright colours.

My initial inspiration came from Blackpowder's Buccaneers, one of my favourite Warhammer Underworlds warbands. When I painted Blackpowder, I gave him a large black coat with deep crimson-red details on the cuffs and collar. As I started experimenting with ideas for the Ogre team, I quickly realised those same colours could work surprisingly well on a Blood Bowl team.

This combination of black and red also is very similar to the colours worn by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL. More Buccaneers. I think the world is trying to tell me something.

The final scheme therefore combines both elements. Blackpowder's Buccaneers provided the fantasy inspiration, whilst the Tampa Bay Buccaneers helped reinforce the football identity of the team.

At the same time, the colours also pushed me towards pirate-themed team names. During the early stages of the project I found myself considering names such as the Blackpowder Bay Buccaneers and similar variations. Whether the final team keeps that name remains to be seen. As it is a little too similar to Underworlds.

Blackpowder's Buccaneers

Painting the Gnoblars

As with the assembly process, I began with the Gnoblars.

Over the years I have developed a habit of tackling the basic models first and saving the larger more eye-catching miniatures until later. The Gnoblars are essential to my intended starting roster and, once painted, I don't think I will need any more unless I decide to expand the team significantly in the future.

Their skin colour was inspired by the original Ogre Kingdoms army book from 2005. Games Workshop painted Gnoblars with a distinctive grey-green flesh tone rather than the brighter greens often associated with Goblins and other greenskins. I have always liked the effect, as it helps distinguish Gnoblars from other greenskins.

If you would like to recreate the skin recipe yourself, I have produced a separate painting guide covering the process in detail.

How to Paint Gnoblar Flesh→

My first Blood Bowl Gnoblar

As with most new projects, I started by painting a single Gnoblar first. This allowed me to check that the colours worked together before painting the rest of the team.

Interestingly, Skrappa was not the first Gnoblar I painted. Having already decided that he was my favourite miniature in the team, I deliberately painted another Gnoblar first. I wanted the opportunity to refine the scheme before risking a mistake on Skrappa. Once I was happy with the results, Skrappa became the second Gnoblar to receive paint.

The remaining five Gnoblars needed for my starting roster followed shortly afterwards.

Skrappa

The work was spread across two days. The first day was devoted entirely to the flesh, whilst the second focused on clothing, equipment and other details. Overall, they proved straightforward and reasonably enjoyable miniatures to paint. The details are sharp enough to remain interesting without becoming overly complicated.

As a side note, I deliberately left the bases unfinished. My intention was to complete all the bases together once the Ogres have been painted so that they all looked the same.

My Blood Bowl Gnoblars

Painting the Ogres

With the Gnoblars completed, it was time to move onto the stars of the team.

The Ogres.

As with the Gnoblars, I started by painting a single miniature first. This allowed me to test the flesh recipe and confirm that the red-and-black colour scheme worked as well on the larger models as it had on the smaller players.

Unlike the Gnoblars, the Ogres received a more traditional flesh tone (as mentioned earlier).

The colour scheme itself required a little adaptation because Ogres do not really wear jerseys.

Instead, they wear shorts, shoulder armour, loincloths and an assortment of crude armour plates. To create a strong sporting identity, I painted the shorts black with a crimson stripe running down the side of each leg. The shoulder armour plates were painted crimson red, whilst the loincloths were painted to match.

The gut plates were treated differently.

When Games Workshop released Ogre Kingdoms in 2005, I painted the gut plates on my army using silver and brass. More than twenty years later, I still use a very similar approach on my Ogor Mawtribes miniatures for Age of Sigmar, including Blackpowder himself.

Using the same approach here provides a thread connecting all my Ogre miniatures together.

My first Blood Bowl Ogre

Interestingly, whilst researching colour schemes I discovered that Ogre teams have a history of wearing red. The original Oldheim Ogres from 1988 wore a red-and-white colour scheme, whilst the modern Fire-Mountain Gut-Busters use orange and white.

My own team has taken a slightly different direction, drawing more heavily from Blackpowder and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but it is interesting that red tones have remained associated with Ogre teams throughout much of Blood Bowl's history.

Despite their size, the Ogres are reasonably quick to paint. They have large areas of skin that are broken up by relatively simple clothing and armour details, meaning visible progress comes quickly. However, getting the skin tone right is very important to the overall finish of the miniature.

This suited me perfectly because I have always enjoyed painting Ogres.

Whether they are marching to war in Warhammer Fantasy Battle, looking for treasure in Warhammer Underworlds or attempting to play Blood Bowl, Ogres remain some of my favourite miniatures in the Warhammer range. Maybe, I should dip my toe into Warhammer 40,000 with some Ogyrns!

The Ogres

First Impressions

As I put more paint onto the miniatures, I became increasingly pleased with my progress.

The grey-green Gnoblars contrast nicely with the natural flesh tones of the Ogres, whilst the red-and-black uniforms immediately make the team feel like a football team rather than a band of fantasy warriors.

I also liked that the colours help tie together several different aspects of my hobby collection. The silver and brass gut plates link back to my original Ogre Kingdoms army and modern Ogor Mawtribes, whilst the red and black colours provide a link towards Blackpowder's Buccaneers. I wonder if Gorlock owns the team?

My Butcher Bay Buccaneers

Numbers on the Butcher Bay Buccaneers

With the completed team lined up together, I think I achieved exactly what I set out to do. The red-and-black colour scheme gives them a strong sporting identity, whilst the silver-and-brass details keep them rooted in the Ogre aesthetic I have used for over twenty years. Most importantly, they look like a Blood Bowl team, and I cannot wait to get them onto the pitch.

You can find all of my Blood Bowl articles on the Blood Bowl: Season 3 hub page.

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Discussion

If you have any thoughts, questions or experiences of your own, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment below and share your experiences of coaching Ogre teams or developing players in league play.

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