Blood Bowl

Blood Bowl is a soon-to-be video game released on various platforms such as PC, Xbox360, nintendo DS and PSP. It is an adaptation of a board game by Warhammer that first say the light of day back in 1987. Watching the trailer for the video game made me dust of my old coaches trenchcoat and the game has grabbed me again, like it did when I first started playing it, over 10 years ago.

Blood Bowl is a board game version of American football, only the teams do not consist of just humans. There are orcs, several flavours of elves, mutants, undead, dwarves, and many more. Sometime even a hobbit team loses their way and ends up on the pitch.

The game is fast-paced and tactical, revolves around getting the right player in the right position for offense or defense. Oh, and it is quite violent. It ís called BLOOD Bowl for a reason. Teeth are rattled, skulls are cracked, and promising carreers are cut terminally short on the line of scrimmage.

A good coach plays a team for their strengths and tries to make up for their weaknesses. Elves, for instance, are masters of ball handling. They can run in, swipe the ball from under the opponents noses, pass it halfway down the pitch and make a mad dash for the opponents’ end zone. The trick is to get a big enough lead before the team is inevitably mown down and you’re left with too few players to mount any kind of defense.

Orcs and dwarves, on the other hand, grab the ball, turtle up, and fight their way towards the goal inches at a time, ideally scoring just before time runs out. All the while they are pelted by goblins being flung at them by the Troll on the opposing team – as long as the Troll doesn’t get confused and decides to eat his team mates slash ammunition.

Ganging up and kicking a player who is down is officially frowned upon, but it is in every coach’s playbook. Some teams even employ specialists just for the job; players who know every dirty trick in the book. They probably wrote the book, or ate it. Steel capped boots, knuckledusters, even the odd chainsaw is smuggled onto the pitch. Don’t get too attached to your star player!

Blood Bowl’s a game of skill and cunning. Playing to your strengths and minimizing risks. But sometimes, you have to throw caution to the wind and just go for it. Amazing plays are pulled off in the last seconds of the game to get that winning touchdown. Light and agile receivers go head to head with quarterbacks that put the NFL to shame in a sheer desperate attempt to recover the ball and score. Or a small group of stalwart defenders try to hold the line against insurmountable odds. A charging Minotaur will put a strain on even the best laid plans, to put it mildly. Sometimes the only thing your players can do is brace themselves and pray the Gods of Improbable Statistics haven’t left them.The greatest thing is that you’ll often find that BOTH coaches are cheering the players on who are resorting to heroic last ditch efforts.

It’s about as much fun as you can have with cardboard and pewter figurines. It’s a two player game (excluding spectators) and a match takes about 2 hours. The original board game, including playing field, rule book, dice and two teams – Orc and Human, will set you back about 50 euro’s, but it’s worth every cent. Or play over the internet with tailor made free software in one of the many online leagues. I coach several teams at Fumbbl.com, a great site with coaches from all over the world, with perfect training grounds for new coaches who need to learn the game until they are ready to guide their team onwards, to victory or death!

Let’s play ball!

Next week: Flock and the time it takes for a game to become retro.