| Blood Bowl | |
|---|---|
 Blood Bowl third edition box art |
|
| Manufacturer | Games Workshop |
| Designer | Jervis Johnson |
| Publisher | Games Workshop |
| Years active | 19 |
| Players | 2 |
| Age range | 10+ |
| Setup time | 1–10 minutes |
| Playing time | 45-150 minutes, depending on rules version |
| Random chance | Medium (Dice) |
| Skills required | Strategy, Probability |
| Website | http://www.specialist-games.com/bloodbowl/ |
Blood Bowl is a Fantasy Football game created by Jervis Johnson for the British games company Games Workshop) (but now under the aegis of their Specialist Games division) as a parody of American Football. The game was first released in 1987 and has been re-released in new editions since. Blood Bowl is set in a fantasy universe similar to, but not the same as, Warhammer Fantasy, populated by traditional fantasy elements such as human warriors, goblins, dwarfs, elves, orcs and trolls. Strictly speaking, Blood Bowl is not a tabletop wargame, though it is probably closer to other Games Workshop inventions such as Warhammer Fantasy Battle than it is to traditional board games such as Monopoly. The most recent purchasable edition of the game remains the third edition. However, the latest edition of the game available is the Living Rule Book 5 (LRB5, also known as Perpetual Blood Bowl League or PBBL).
Contents |
Game basics
Blood Bowl is a turn-based two-player board game that typically uses 28 mm models to represent players on a board containing a grid of squares representing the field. Using dice, cards, and counters, the players attempt to outscore each other by entering each other's endzone with a player who carries or receives the ball. The "Blood" in Blood Bowl is represented by the violent actions available to players. Game play is based on a hybrid of American Football, Rugby, and ultra-violent fictional sports events such as Rollerball. Players may attempt to injure or maim the opposition in order to make scoring easier by reducing the number of enemy players in the way. The players themselves are drawn from the ranks of fantasy races and have characteristics that reflect the abilities of those races. Elves tend to be agile and good at scoring, while Dwarfs and Orcs are more suited to a grinding, physical style of play. Players are also divided up into positions, typically noted by their most suited role on the field including Throwers, Catchers and Linemen. In league play, the players may gain additional skills and abilities based on the accumulation of experience points and also can pick up injuries or even die, and teams can improve by the purchase of off-field staff such as cheerleaders, assistant coaches and apothecaries.
Rules
Blood Bowl Players
At the heart of a Blood Bowl game stands the player. (The human player controlling the Blood Bowl players is called the Coach.) Each player is represented by an appropriate miniature and has statistics and skills that cover his or her effect on play. There are four player statistics:
- MA (Move Allowance) indicates how fast the player is.
- ST (Strength) indicates the player's basic fighting ability.
- AG (Agility) indicates how good the player is at playing the ball.
- AV (Armor Value) indicates how hard it is to injure the player.
In addition, players may have skills that affect any number of circumstances in play. Some of the more commonly used skills are Block (for fighting), Dodge (for avoiding fights), Sure Hands (for picking up the ball), Pass (for throwing the ball) and Catch (for catching the ball).
Player Actions
In his or her turn, a coach may have each player take one of the following actions:
- Move - Move the player through empty squares (opposing players may try to trip the moving player if he or she moves close to them).
- Block - Fight an adjacent opposing player who is standing.
In addition, the following four actions may be taken by one player per team turn:
- Blitz - Move and then Block an adjacent opposing player who is standing (or Block and then Move).
- Foul - Move and then foul an adjacent opposing player who is prone.
- Pass - Move and then throw the ball.
- Hand-Off - Move and then give the ball to an adjacent player.
Some skills also allow for special player actions.
Turn-overs
If a player action fails, the team turn ends immediately (with some minor exceptions). This is called the turn-over rule, and is a defining game mechanic. The turn-over rule makes every action tense for the coaches, and together with the four-minute rule (a team turn must be completed within four minutes) it can make the game very high-paced.
Teams
Each team represent one race (with lesser allies) normally having an equal army in WFB. The game box supplies the coaches with players enough to field a Human and an Orc team, which are also the teams recommended to newcomers for learning the game. Not all teams available are equals in strength. Some are best at creation while other gain a lot when experience is added to the team (against equally experienced teams). Some teams are even available which has a considerable disadvantage against most opponents.
Background
The Blood Bowl universe has its own background which establishes the tone and spirit of the game. Additional background exists to describe the demeanour and character of the Blood Bowl players with frequent reference to rule breaking and over-the-top violence in a light-hearted manner. The over-the-top nature of the game is reflected in the game mechanics, including the use of stylised secret weapons as well as in-game effects. Blood Bowl includes numerous tongue in cheek references to real life products and companies. The deity overseeing Blood Bowl is Nuffle - a pun on the pronunciation of NFL. Many companies are spoofed in the game. Three of the most frequent are McDonald's (McMurty's), Budweiser (Bloodweiser) and Adidas (Orcidas). Many team names in the game's background are spoofs as well such as the Orcland Raiders (Oakland Raiders) and the Darkside Cowboys (Dallas Cowboys). Famous sporting personalities are parodied as well, with the most famous (and oldest) coach in Blood Bowl's background being Tomolandry the Undying (Tom Landry), and one of the most recently added stars being the Ogre thrower, Brick Far'th (Brett Favre). With the advent of the 3rd edition, there was a move toward the traditional Warhammer Fantasy Battle world with the miniatures moving closer to their Warhammer Fantasy Battle counterparts. Jervis Johnson, designer of the game, has admitted this was not the best direction for the game, and has since stated that the Blood Bowl world is similar to, but definitely not the same as, the Warhammer world.[1] This has been reflected in recent changes to the rules of the game and that newer miniatures for the game have been more sporty in demeanour.
History
First edition
- Released in 1987, the first edition of Blood Bowl was a simple game that used many of the elements of Games Workshop's existing tabletop games. Players in the first edition boxed set were represented by small pieces of cardboard illustrated with their likeness. Citadel Miniatures did release 13 metal miniatures to represent players for 1st edition but this covered only a small portions of the range of players in the game.
Second edition
- The second edition of Blood Bowl, released in 1988, began to move Blood Bowl away from the battlefield mechanics of other Games Workshop systems and toward more brutal sports-oriented play. The game was played on a pitch represented by a polystyrene board, and the players within the boxed set were represented by plastic 28 mm miniatures covering the Orc and Human races, with another set of metal miniatures available from Citadel Miniatures to represent most (but not all) of the players from other races. Games Workshop later provided two source books, Blood Bowl Star Players (1989) and the Blood Bowl Companion (1990), which added to the basic rules, creating games with greater variation that could easily last several hours.
Third edition
- A new edition was released in 1994, radically changing the game play away from the complex, lengthy second edition game to the simpler, more dramatic third edition game. Key changes were a set number of turns and the turnover rule. These changes increased the pace of the game and allowed it to be played within a couple of hours.
- Also featuring in the third edition was a completely new range of miniatures, including new versions of plastic 28 mm humans and orcs in the boxset, often closely resembling counterparts in Warhammer Fantasy Battle, though without the weapons. This, combined with new races mirroring Warhammer armies and the renaming of player positions, brought Blood Bowl much closer to Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
- In 1995, the third edition of Blood Bowl won the Best Miniatures Rules of 1994 Origins Award.
Fourth edition
- Jervis Johnson produced a new official 4th edition of Blood Bowl and presented it in the Fanatics Game's Official Blood Bowl magazine issue 1,[2] with follow-up rules presented in issue 2.[3] The new rules were a large departure from the previous edition, with numerous changes, and Johnson later admitted that "some of the changes would have benefitted from rather more rigorous playtesting".[4] In 2001, the 4th edition rules, with corrections and retitled 4th Edition Gold were placed on the Games Workshop website as a downloadable pdf file, and Johnson announced that the rules were now "experimental"[5] and announced the creation of the Blood Bowl Rules Committee (BBRC), a group of Blood Bowl players, some GW staff, some not, that would look at the rules once a year, and produce new official rules changes and experimental rules for possible inclusion in the following years rules changes.[6] The BBRC would meet in October each year, and their first release was the Living Rule Book 1 (LRB1).
Living Rulebook
- Since its release, the third edition of Blood Bowl has experienced many changes, largely driven by the large and vociferous player base. These changes have been combined into the current version of the rules, known as the Living Rulebook. The majority of Blood Bowl is now played by these rules though variants do exists, due either to house rules devised by individual leagues or to the transition into online play.
- The Living Rulebook, currently in its fifth edition, is available from the official Blood Bowl site. Originally there were plans to release it in print for Blood Bowl's 20th anniversary, but this has since been cancelled.[7] Work on this fifth edition, known as LRB 5.0, was started in March 2004 and the final product, based on just over two years of player testing, was released on August 1 2006.
In 1982, TSR published a game called Monsters of the Midway which was very similar in concept to Blood Bowl but significantly different in game play and which may have been an inspiration for the game.
Video game
In 1995, an MS-DOS version of Blood Bowl was developed by Strategic Simulations, Inc. and released by MicroLeague, featuring the base teams as well as many of the free agents.[8] In August 2007, Cyanide Studios announced that a new version for Windows computers would be developed, due to be released in 2008.[9] On November 14, 2007, the Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, and Xbox 360 (presumably for the Xbox Live Arcade service) versions were announced.[10]
Chaos League
French-based Cyanide Studios developed a game called Chaos League which bore a heavy resemblance to Blood Bowl in its style and rules, but was not officially licensed. Games Workshop has announced that Cyanide Studios now have a licence to create computer games based on Blood Bowl,[11] and that "Any differences between Games Workshop and Cyanide have been amicably settled for an undisclosed sum, and as part of the settlement the Chaos League title has been assigned to Games Workshop".[12]
Leagues and tournaments
League play is the foundation upon which Blood Bowl games are based. There are many kinds of league activity but it all ties into a general campaign in which teams battle against each other over a period of time, developing new abilities and suffering injuries or worse while attempting to be crowned league champion. Tournaments are one-off events whereby large numbers of Blood Bowl players gather to play against each other and at try to become the tournament winner. This form of play does not act like a campaign. Games Workshop holds 4 Major tournaments across the world each year. The Blood Bowl is held at Warhammer World, itself at Games Workshop's HQ in Nottingham, England in the spring and attracts around 200 players to play in the 2 day event, making it the biggest Games Workshop tournament. The Dungeonbowl is held in Germany, the Spike! Trophy is held in Canada and the Chaos Cup is held in Chicago, Illinois, USA in October. Numerous other events are held throughout the world, both at Games Workshop stores and events, or independently. In January 2003 a website was opened for the purpose of helping people to organise their own Blood Bowl tournaments, to promote Blood Bowl to the wargaming world and to rank players performance at tournaments. The organisation took the name NAF, after the fictional rules body in the Blood Bowl history."[13] In October 2007 the NAF held a "World Cup" Tournament in Nottingham, England over 3 Days with teams coming from as far afield as the United States and Australia. It was attended by 272 players making it not only the largest Blood Bowl event but the largest Games Workshop related event in History. It was won in the end by a team from France, whilst the individual coaching award was won by a coach from Germany.
See also
References
- ^ Speech/Open Discussion by Jervis Johnson on future of Blood Bowl at GenCon 17th August, 2005.
- ^ Johnson, Jervis (October 2000). "4th edition rules". The Official Blood Bowl magazine (1). Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ Johnson, Jervis (November 2000). "Extra Time". The Official Blood Bowl magazine (2): 2-8. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ Johnson, Jervis (2001). "The Future of Blood Bowl". The Citadel Journal (45): 42. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ Johnson, Jervis (2001). "The Future of Blood Bowl". The Citadel Journal (45): 42. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ Johnson, Jervis (2001). "The Future of Blood Bowl". The Citadel Journal (45): 42. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ EndZone Magazine Issue 4
- ^ MobyGames Blood Bowl entry
- ^ Sinclair, Brendan (2007-11-16). Blood Bowl Blitzes. GameSpot. GameSpot. Retrieved on 2007-11-16.
- ^ Dobson, Jason (2007-11-13). Cyanide confirms Blood Bowl for Xbox 360, PSP, DS. Joystiq. Joystiq. Retrieved on 2007-11-13.
- ^ Press article on Blood Bowl computer game announcement
- ^ press release about Cyanide/Chaos League/Blood Bowl announcement
- ^ NAF World HQ welcome
