The Great Maw's Invitational - Blood Bowl League

Good morning folks and welcome to the first edition of this special broadcast from Skycutter Sports News, brought to you by Athel Loren - because you're worth it. The Old World watched on last year as the Middenheim Mawlers demolished every team that stood before them (along with a few stadium walls too...) on their way to multiple cups and trophies.

Critics along the way claimed they relied too heavily on maiming the opposition, rather than actually attempting a touch down, but it made no difference to the Mawlers. By the end of the season, their dominance was so total, that comparisons were starting to be made with the almighty Chaos All-Stars.

Middenheim Mawlers in their prized Blue and White home armour.

The Middenheim Mawlers have since been inducted into the hall of fame in the Orclays Empire League after (literally) crushing the rest of their opponents into submission and achieveing a perfect season. In their post-cup final revelling, the mighty Mawlers declared that no team in their current division are capable of dealing with them and have saught out fresh challenges further afield.
Using the massive prize money from winning every honour available to them and keeping the majority of their team injury free, the Mawlers have put together the Great Maw's Invitational - where hand picked teams from around the region will compete to see who are worthy enough to grace the field against the Mawlers.

 So far, the Mawlers have singled out 8 teams from around the Empire:

The challengers make themselves known.

• Drakwald Destroyers, an Orc team from the outskirts of Bretonnia.
• Tlaxtlan Titans, a highly praised Lizardmen team from the Lustria leagues.
• Cabal of Broken Dreams, a mysterious Dark Elf team with ties to a mysterious Warpstorm.
• Altdorf Angels, a team of former Crickethammer players turning to Blood Bowl for the fame.
• Hulton Marauders, a team of hardy Dwarfs from the Khazad Undermountain Leagues.
• Zharr Earthquakes, the Champions of the Centaur Cup.
• Fallassion Rangers, an agile team of Elven nobles who dominated the Ulthuan Inter-Elf Cup.
• Mystery Team, an unknown team who have yet to reveal themselves but have answered the call through their herald.

The Mawlers await, atop a mountain of gold and skulls, for the team who conquers the invitational leaague. The Drakwald Destroyer's star Blocker Nobrot Uzthug has stated "We izn't afraid of dem big ladz. Da Destroyers can 'andle anyfink they throw dis way!". Presumably Nobrot hasn't seen the Mawlers alarmingly high casualty infliction rate - or he has and has taken a few too many blows to the head along the way...

"Thick skulls? Who you callin' Thick skulls?"

Whatever fate befalls the challengers to the Mawlers, it's sure to be an interesting run up in the invitational league whatever happens! There's some strong teams out there looking to take the Mawlers down a peg or two, along with taking a sack or two of their gold as well.

That's all for now folks. Signing off on this special introduction Great Maw's Invitational report - Rodnut Burgundee.

Blood Bowl - Bal Timorea Ravens v San Fancis Orcz

Morning folks,

As part of our attempt to keep up with Blood Bowl, we're trying to set aside the first of each month to play a game of it, with the hope to get a league or cup going soon.

Anyways! Last night myself and Mr. One had a game with my Orc team vs his Human team and re-named the teams to match the Superbowl teams. (I found the Bal Timorea name from this link on Santa Cruz Warhammer)

Bal Timorea Ravens

• "Hotpoint" the Ogre.
• 6 Linemen
• 2 Blitzers
• 2 Catchers
• 2 Throwers
• 2 Re-Rolls

San Fancis Orcz

• "Chicharito" the Goblin
• "Hargreevez" the Troll
• 2 Black Orcs
• 2 Blitzers
• 5 Linemen
• 2 Throwers
• 2 Re-Rolls

Orcz make a push on the nearside of the pitch with the Thrower on the far right holding the ball.

The two teams lined up fairly evenly, big guys v big guys, blitzers v blitzers etc. with the Ravens kicking to the Orcz, which landed off field and touched back to an Orc thrower.

The Ravens used their game plan of "push everyone back and not follow in" to prevent the Orcz from getting many blocks off, combined with the fact the Troll got KO'ed pretty quickly and never came back, meant that Orcz blocking was very poor.

Eventually the Orcz broke through the left hand wide area and scored a touchdown in around Turn 4 of the first half.

During the rest of the first half, the Ravens fought back crushing a lot of Orcz in the process and eventually running the ball for a touchdown in their Turn 8.

Half time: Ravens 1 - Orcz 1

The second  half began and no sign of Hargreevez the Troll (again) from the subs bench meant that my infamous Goblin super sub was brought on for an appearance.

The Orcz held onto the ball at the start hoping to pick out a Paul Scholes-esque long pass to the Goblin substitute, only for him to break through a load of dodges and then get crumpled by an assisted block and sent into the KO'd section of the bench.

Humans then began crumping all the Orc players, at one point there was only about 3 of the 11 standing up, which made it hard for the Orcz to get a reciever somewhere.

Towards the end of the second half a hole formed on the far side of the pitch where an Orcz Blitzer and Lineman broke through looking for a pass. After a few dropped balls and bounces, an Orc thrower dodged his way onto the ball and held it.

Turn 8. Bottom of the 9th. Deep into Fergie time.

Orc Blitzer and Lineman go long into the End Zone and hope for a good throw. The Orc thrower dodges out of a tackle zone, stumbles (re-roll gets used) and manages to weasel his way into a throwing position.

Turn 8 Touchdown. As you can see, there's not much actually left on the pitch by this point...

The thrower winds up as time slows down, the stadium held it's collective breath as the pass is succesful and looking good. Moment of truth, the Lineman needing a 3+ manages to catch the ball in the End Zone. Fireworks go off, floodlights explode, the Orcz have done it and scored a Turn 8 touchdown without their 2 star players.

The team in red does it again!

Full Time: Ravens 1 - Orcz 2

This was a really enjoyable game and went down to a few key failed rolls (falling over, dropping the ball, etc.) and the Ravens showed their brutal side by caving some Orcz heads in over the course of the game.

Looking forward to the rematch with this when hopefully my best players don't die so early on, that way I can learn the special rules for them a bit more!

Cheers,
SB

Blood Bowl: Getting Started

Morning everyone.

For the last couple of weeks a few of us at the club have been having a Blood Bowl resurgence and really enjoying it. The rules are simple to learn, everything is very streamlined and both sides tend to  match up evenly so there's no "uber-lists" or "Unit X spam" like you can find in 40K and Fantasy at times.

For those who don't know about it, it's American Football crossed with the Warhammer Fantasy universe. So teams consist of Orcs, Goblins, Trolls, Lizardmen etc.

The best part of Blood Bowl is that *technically* it is free. The rules are downloadable straight off the Games Workshop site, all you have to do is print them out and go. However, as we're finding at the club, unless you have access to the boxed set GW sell, then you're going to need a fair few things.

After speaking to people on Twitter over the weekend, trawling some forums and doing a bit of research, I've tried to compile a guide here of how to get started with Blood Bowl at different levels, ranging from free, cheap and then stuff that costs a bit.

The Rules
First thing you need is the rules themselves. GW seem to have introduced a streamlined document called "Blood Bowl Competition Rules" which cuts out lots of artwork and fluff pages, which makes it easier on the printer load.

Blood Bowl Competition Rules: HERE

The Boxset
One of the quickest and easiest things to do (especially if you or a friend want an Orc / Human team) is to just buy the boxset. It's £50 off GW and doesn't tend to dip much lower than that on eBay.

Personally, I got it bought for me about 5 years ago and although I've not played it as much as I should have, it's definitely got some good value to it (once you start comparing cost to other stuff).

Blood Bowl Starter Box: HERE


Alternatives to the Boxset
£50 is a fair wedge of cash for a game you might lose interest in, or like me you may need more pitches, tokens, etc. and don't want to be spending £50 a pop. So understandably, some people like to make their own stuff, buy cheaper parts or alternatives.

Luckily for us there seems to be a few generic "Fantasy Football" items out there that can be used.

Now, onto the physical stuff you will need to play the game if you haven't bought the boxset.


The Pitch
Next thing is, everything in Blood Bowl is done based on a grid of squares. Players move a set amount, have an effect squares around them, throw a certain length, etc. This means that you need to get yourself one that is to the correct size and scale.

Printable
First up, is printing yourself a pitch. These are sometimes a bit tricky to do as it requires multiple pages being stitched together, along with getting the printer settings right so that it prints at the correct scale.

I found a few different pitch designs available to print at this website: HERE

These are all themed to different teams in the game, like a Skaven one, Wood Elf one, etc. but personally, Pitch #8 is the most generic one and one that I would plan on using.

Grid Paper
Another alternative is large pieces of grid paper available from stationery shops, which is what a chap in a "Blood Bowl on the cheap has used. Check it out: HERE

Mat
In searching for alternative Blood Bowl boards, I found that a company called Impact Miniatures has their own range of "Elfball" and "Boulder Brawl" football games and sell a mat that is compatible with Blood Bowl.

These are £15 but I'm sure if you enjoy the game enough it would be a worthwhile investment. The main thing is you get the "Large" mat and "29mm" as that's the correct sized one for Blood Bowl.

It's available from their Webstore: HERE

Templates
Next up, Blood Bowl uses a few different templates for different things. These are unique to the set and no longer available to order from GW as a separate component. You can find these for a few quid on eBay usually, but if you need several at once (or don't fancy paying) here's 2 options I found.

Throw in template.

Scatter Template

Printable
Quick google searches found a really really useful Blog offering free printable templates for the game. He only offers the Scatter and Throw-In templates, but they're good enough to do the job and come 2 to a sheet (1 for each player, or 2 games worth).

You can nab them here: HERE

Pre-Printed
Impact Miniatures also offers some pre-printed ones for a few quid that are a bit more colourful. Handy if you are already ordering with them or don't have access to a printer.

They're £1.36 from Impact!: HERE

Range Ruler
Now, this is possibly the most awkward thing of the lot as it is specifically sized to the Blood Bowl pitch. You use this to measure throwing range and it's 1:1 with the size of a Blood Bowl pitch. If you make the pitch slightly bigger or smaller when printing, it'll mess up this range.

Likewise, if you make your own and the size is wrong, it'll mean throwing and intercepting the ball is impacted.

Here, you've got 3 options...

Pre-Made
You can buy these range rulers from eBay if you're lucky, but also Impact again do their own version of this. Going rate for either is around £5, but it's probably the one thing you should invest in if you're buying any template stuff that is pre-done.

Impact's version: HERE

Home-Made
Similar to the "Blood Bowl on the cheap" link earlier, you can always make yourself a range ruler out of some stiff paper or card. It helps if you have access to a GW range ruler and simply trace around, line the zones and then you're done.

You can find some measurements of the ruler available at "Sons of Twilight" blog: HERE

Throwing Matrix
With the lack of availablity on range rulers, Blood Bowl community have come up with a "throwing matrix" which uses the squares on the grid rather than a ruler. This means that no matter what size squares are on your pitch, you are always guaranteed correct throwing distance. The only issue with this is it then becomes harder to judge interceptions I suppose, and also a bit awkward to explain to people who've learned to play using the range ruler.

Either way, you can find an example pass matrix on a printable reference sheet: HERE

Dugouts
These are simply just bits of card that help keep track of a few things in the game, such as what turn it is, what subs you have, who is injured and crucially, how many re-rolls you have left.

You can always just keep this kind of thing on a sheet of paper, or knock up a quick one in MS word, but for the lazy folk like me, there's a pre-done printable one: HERE

Block Dice
These are special dice for Blood Bowl that feature various different symbols on them. At the end of the day, they're still just a D6 and you don't NEED them.

Using a D6
Simply make yourself a chart with what the D6 value corresponds to on the block dice results:

1. Attacker Down
2. Both Down (unless you have BLOCK)
3. Pushed Back
4. Pushed Back
5. Defender Stumbles (unless has DODGE)
6. Defender Down

Buying Block Dice
Again, Impact Miniatures sell some block dice through their website as does eBay. Also, you can join the NAF as a member and recieve some free block dice (assuming they still do this?)

Impact Miniatures sell them for £5: HERE

A single D8
This is used for scatter dice, which happens every kick off, failed pass and if someone drops the ball. This is essential unless you want to start using 2D6 and discount anything above 8.

Lots of people might already have these from RPGs, board games and other such, but if not, they're less than 50p a pop from most places.

The Ball
Occasionally (quite often if you're Orcs) the ball will need a physical representation on the pitch as no player will be holding it. When it comes to this you'll need a token or counter to mark where it is. The main boxset comes with 4 plastic balls, 2 for on bases and 2 for on the ground.

Green Stuff
One alternative is to make some out of green stuff, leave it to set and paint them brown. Just a really simple egg shape. The more detail you start to add, the more awkward it can look.

Pre-Bought
GW sell their own metal Blood Bowl balls, but they're about £3 for 2, and again Impact have their own range that come with a little ring on them to attach to people's bases.

Teams
Assuming you didn't buy the Blood Bowl boxset, you're going to need some models for teams. I'm planning on saving this for another blog but the jist is, you can buy 1 box of Warhammer Fantasy figures and some bitz to convert yourself a full team. Admittedly it's not so easy since they've re-packaged most figures to come in boxes of 10, but it's still doable.

I'll go into more detail on converting Fantasy models into teams on another post.

Failing that, there's also a LOT of other Fantasy Football companies making models out there, like Impact's "Apes of Wrath" and various other races that can count as certain other teams.

Conclusion
Blood Bowl is a cracking little game and people shouldn't be put off by the investment. It's well worth it, especially since once you buy a team (arguably the most expense) you're set for good. No codex creep, no changing or scaling points values etc. Buy yourself a team, keep a few extra blokes spare and you're sorted.

I've found it to be the most enjoyable GW game that I've played and helps a lot with 40k/Fantasy fatigue and provides a most sociable experience.

Any questions or other suggestions drop me a comment! Keep your eyes peeled for more Blood Bowl over the coming weeks.

Cheers,
SB


* Handy References
Figured it would be handy to provide links to a few places I've hotlinked to in the main post:

• Your Lord and Master's Blog, for printable templates (HERE)
• Impact Miniatures Webstore, for all sorts of stuff (HERE)
• Blood Bowl on the cheap, a 40Konline forum post that shows you can do it for pretty much free (HERE)
• Gaming Corner NL, for various printable resources (HERE)

Badger's Log - Blood Bowl Goings On

Morning folks,

I've been meaning to post this for a few days now, but I've had other stuff be getting in the way... Over the last few weeks I've been talking a lot about playing and getting involved more with Blood Bowl. So before Xmas, I'd planned a game with Col. Straken to get back used to the rules of Blood Bowl, so I could use this as a refresher to help other people start to play.

Then, I remembered on Sunday night that I was supposed to be playing and then took a look at my Blood Bowl stuff. It was painted before I'd actually ever painted any Orks, so they were my first attempt at Greenskins. I also looked at my Human team, who had white clothing and kinda thought "How did I live without Black Wash?!".

So I washed both teams, and then set about numbering my Orc squad with squad numbers on their backs:

Then I remembered, that I had a Troll I bought when Skull Pass was released, to use in the team and hadn't bothered to paint him since it showed up from eBay. He was already undercoated, so I thought since Sunday night was a bit slow, I could get him painted up

I went for a blue scheme on him, to set him apart from the other Greenskins on the table, and since I didn't fancy going for the more grey LOTR style troll. I think he looks pretty decent for an hour's work, and makes the overall team look much better on the table.

So then, I took my newly numbered team and freshly painted Troll down to the club, to actually do some bone-breaking, knee-smashing, head-bashing and maybe, just maybe, actually attempt to score a touchdown. So Col. Straken's Nurgle Rotters took on my Orc Motley Krew.

Unfortunately for Col. Straken, the dice Gods failed him completely. One of his first attacks was a Blitz on a lineman of mine, to which he rolled Attacker Down (on 2 dice, I think), I then proceeded to beat his armour and Kill the model outright. From then on, I was rolling well on armour rolls and injury rolls and Straken couldn't manage to beat the armour of the Orcs (Got to love AV9 all round!).

The game ended 2-0 to the Orcs, with a touchdown in both halves, one scored by my Thrower (thanks to the Sure Hands rule) picking up the ball and legging it into the End zone. And the other, with a thrown assist from my Thrower, to a Blitzer who then shrugged off the incoming attack of a Pestigor, who bounced off the Blitzer's armour as he ran to the end zone.

There could have been a late game touchdown from the Nurgle team, however, the Rotter who got the ball from a scattered kick off, fell down a few times and constantly failed to pick up and drop the ball repeatedly over several turns.

Overall, I really enjoyed playing the game again, although I got very lucky with my armour and injury rolls. Plus, any more reason to get more Orcs on the table!

Cheers,
SB

Blood Bowl and Getting Started

Morning folks,

After the Doubles tournament 2 weeks ago and after having a clearout of some gaming stuff last weekend, I've fancied wanting to play some other games instead of just 40k. This got me thinking about what other games to play. I kept my WHFB army, with the intention to start playing that some more next year. I also was looking into splitting the Warmachine starter set and getting the Khador stuff.

The next one I thought of was whilst I was debating selling it, was Blood Bowl. The rules are (legally) free through the Games Workshop website, the cost of making a team is pretty low and it's a fast and fun game that we could run a league or cup for every so often at MAWS to break up 40k.

So for those unaware or new to the hobby - What is Blood Bowl?

In a nutshell, Blood Bowl is what happens when you cross the Warhammer Fantasy world with American Football.

Blood Bowl is the game of fantasy football. Throughout the Old World and beyond, teams of fearless warriors - known as Blood Bowl players - face each other on ritualised battlefields known as pitches.

Their aim is to score as many touchdowns as possible in the time allowed. To score a touchdown a player must move an inflated pig's bladder - also known as a 'ball' - into the opposing team's end zone.

The ball can be moved around the field in many ways from being kicked, carried thrown or even held by a thrown player! The opposing team will be trying to gain possession of the ball as well.

They can do this by intercepting a ball from a throw, picking up the ball if it has become 'loose' or the far more frequent method of attacking the ball carrier! Over the years this hasn't stopped teams using this rule rather loosely, and many a player's armour is covered in sharp protruding spikes with blades and large knuckle-dusters attached to their gauntlets. The history of Blood Bowl is littered with the illegal use of weapons.

That's the GW intro and you can read their Getting Started article HERE

For what it boils down to at the club is 3 things...

1. The Rules
The rulebook is free through the Games Workshop website. It's about 80 pages and can be printed out or kept on a PDF capable device.

The basic rules are pretty simple, and you wouldn't have to worry about campaign rules or too much with the experience side of things for the time being, just the game basics.


There's also a lot of special rules like dealing with weather, star players and whatnot. Again, don't worry about these for the time being, just check out the basics and play a few games with that.

All the rules for the different teams can be found in that rulebook as well, so no need to be getting separate codexes and army books.

The full rulebook can be downloaded from here: Games Workshop - Blood Bowl Living Rulebook

2. The Team
The next step in this is to choose what team you want. As with 40k and Fantasy, each team have their own distinct style and theme.

The two teams that come in the starter box are Orcs and Humans. Both are pretty similar, with humans being slightly faster and better at passing, whereas the Orcs are tougher and stronger.

Also, Blood Bowl teams can be as cheap or expensive as you want them to be. Sometimes you can pick up good deals off eBay or second hand teams, and the full metal box for a team is about £25 - £30.

The other option is to convert your team out of a Warhammer Fantasy / 40k plastic boxset and do some scouring on eBay for extras.

Some examples:
- Halfling teams consist of 0 - 16 Halflings and 0 - 2 Treemen. You can pick up Hobbit models pretty cheap off eBay using LOTR figures, and there's Plastic Ent models for LOTR you can use for the Treemen.
- Lizardmen teams can easily be made from a cheap set of boxset of Skinks, some spare Saurus models off Ebay and a Kroxigor if you want them.
- By far the cheapest team to make is an Ogre team. 0 - 6 Ogres you can get from 1 Ogre Bulls boxset, and the 0 - 16 Snotlings can be Gnoblars.

There's also plenty of third party sellers who make "Fantasy Football" miniatures that can be used.

Again, I reckon about £30 is what you're looking around paying... depending on eBay deals, second hand sales and such.

3. The Resources
The main problem with Blood Bowl however is not the rules and minis, it's the resources you need for it.

First up, you need a board / pitch to play on. These are grids with specifically marked measurements and (mostly) only come with the actual Blood Bowl boxset sold. You can pick them up on eBay, but they're about £20 from there.

Secondly, you need the templates. These are a bit easier to get hold of and make however, since they can simply just be printed off and although it's not as nice as a clear plastic template, it does the job. One of the most important ones is the pass ruler, as it dictates how far you can throw the ball, as well as who can try to intercept. Also included in this is things like the turn trackers, dug outs, score counters etc. But these are even easier to print off, as they don't require specific measurements.

Third, are the special dice for the game. You need to get yourself an eight sided dice (about 50p) off eBay if you don't already have one, and also the "Block Dice" for the game. However, these go for about a £10 on eBay as they're hard to get hold of. But, what you can do is simply use a D6 and consult a chart, since the Block dice are just 5 different results, with a duplicate of one on the 6th side (I'll explain this in a bit more detail in a moment).

Lastly, but not too importantly are the Ball markers. In the boxset, there's 2 loose balls to be placed on bases to show someone carrying the ball and 2 that are in the ground, which I glued to spare bases to show when the ball is in an open square and not being carried.

Right, so it's not sounding so cheap anymore when you factor in £30 for a team, £20 for a pitch, £10 for dice, etc. etc. But as I say, you don't *need* the majority of the templates etc.

It can be done for dirt cheap as I found online: Blood Bowl on the cheap!

Basically he's printed everything out, and while some of it looks really basic, it does the job and lets you spend your pennies elsewhere.

4. Playing the Game
Now then, me and Angryman are really interested in playing more Blood Bowl and perhaps starting a league / cup and keep it running as a break from 40k throughout the year.

We've got 2 full Blood Bowl sets between us and are looking at getting hold of the bits needed, but if you're interested in playing (whether you're a MAWS member or not!) get in touch with me via comment or text message and we'll try and arrange something.

To play, all you will need is a team, we'll try and sort out the rest of the stuff like board, counters, templates etc.

Conclusion
Blood Bowl, from what I played of the game (and also the computer game) is really fun, it's wacky and personally, a much more socially enjoyable game than 40k or Fantasy, where there's 1 set of rules, no "codex creep" or need for FAQs, lengthy internet discussion or too much beardiness.

A turn in Blood Bowl can be over in 1 (extremely bad and poorly chosen) dice roll, meaning that games are fast and unpredictable.

So yeah, if you're interested in playing, let me know and once I work out interest in playing, we can arrange something!

Cheers,
SB