Blitzer Bowl & Norse - A fun one-dayer tournament

Blitzer Bowl 

A non-NAF 3x game one-day tournament - 12th July 2025

In association with the CBBBL.

Although I don't turn up to league games at the CBBBL (Chelmsford Blitzers Blood Bowl League - playing Blood Bowl in Chelmsford, Essex), I am a self-proclaimed honorary member, part of their Facebook page, and I've run a FUMBBL tournament with them, and represented along with other members at tournaments. And so, I attended by invitation.

Venue

Silver End Hall - A lovely-lofty venue - perfect for a hot day

Rules 

The standard 1.15m gold coins for team building applied, as did a race tiering system:

• Tier 1 (4 primary skills): Amazon, Chaos Dwarf, Dark Elf, Dwarf, Lizardman, Norse, Orc, Shambling Undead, Skaven, Underworld Denizens, Wood Elf, Vampire

• Tier 2 (6 primary or 5 & 1 secondary): Black Orc, Chaos Chosen, Chaos Renegade, Elven Union, High Elf, Human, Imperial Nobility, Khorne, Necromantic Horror, Old World Alliance, Slann, Tomb Kings, Nurgle

• Tier 3 (8 primary or 6 & 2 secondary): Gnomes, Goblin, Halfling, Ogre, Snotling

Skills could be duplicated across the team, up to 3 times (e.g you can give diving catch to a maximum of 3 players). Each player can only receive 1 skill - no stacking. Star players cannot be given additional skills.

Star players: ALL star players can be induced. Dust off those models that don’t get to see the sun too often! Inducing a star - “normal” stars cost 4 skill points to induce. “Mega” stars cost 6 skills to induce. Hiring any star uses any secondary skill allocation first (e.g hiring a mega star for a T3 team costs 6 skill points; 2 secondary and then 4 primary). Mega stars are those listed in the latest GW FAQ/errata at time of tournament.

Summer Weather table - As we were spending a summers day indoors, we used the summer weather table, with a slight change.

Blitzer bowl special rule: One player of your choice gains an additional skill. This skill does not cost against your tiers allowance and it CAN be stacked onto a player chosen for one of your allowance skills. This chosen player (not a star player mind you, their egos are big enough already) can choose from one of the following skills: Juggernaut / Break Tackle / Fend / Sprint 

Points make prizes: 30 for a win, 15 for a draw, 0 for a loss
Bonus points: 1 per TD (up to 3 per game), 1 per casualty (up to 3 per game). All casualties you cause counted - fouls and crows surfs included. Failed dodges however… no bueno. 

Races

A good mix of races for the event. Normally an indication of a good rule set.

Norse

It was coming up to a year since I had painted these guys, and they still hadn't see the pitch, so, with their bright day-glo paint job still intact, they took to the pitch.
Here's some pictures of the squad I selected from;

My team had the following: 4x Rerolls, 1x Assistant Coach, 1x Mighty Blow Yhetee, 2x Block Ulfwerners, and 1x Block Valkyrie (with Sprint too). I also had 9x Linemen.

I just used the Beer Boars as Reroll and Turn Markers, and left the Blitzers at home!

The tournament had a really good mix of races and abilities too. So nice to see lots of people near the beginning of their Blood Bowl journey.

Game One vs Undead

Harrison's Undead

And the crowed go wild as the teams take to the pitch. The Undead fans made the most of their numbers, "singing" loudly and stomping their feet, trying to intimidate the Norse. Unfortunately, some of the limbs were rather rotten and didn't stand up to the punishment, making the stewards post-patch tidy-up quite a revolting task!

The Norse lined up their kicker, who ran up for a big punt... but the Norse coach gave the signal and the team were quick to act ahead of the lumbering Undead, with a Blitz! An appropriate start to Blitzer Bowl. However, the punt was so huge it went off the pitch and the referee dropped it in to the hands of a brutal looking Ghoul. After an ineffectual Blitz!, the Undead did what they knew best and hit stuff... with the Mummy killing a Norse Lineman with Quad-Sixes! - which caught the slumbering Necromancer off guard - he wasn't able to resurrect a Zombie from the corpse!

However, undeterred, the Norse took up the fight, managed to grab the ball and scored. 1-0 (0-1). 

After a stagnant first half, the team went in for well-earned half time oranges and, well, let's not think about what the Undead had... 

Unfortunately, both teams put on an uninspiring display in the second half. One of the Mummy's opened up with a turn 1 Norse Lineman injury again, and again in midway through the second half, and the game ended 1-0 (0-3). Those Ghouls just would not die!!

Game Two vs Khorne

Dan's Khorne

Something smelt off... we were facing off against one of the TO's... they would probably engage in some sneaky tricks... and yes, it seems they had a word with a weather mage on the quiet who started the game off in Sweltering Heat. With more than double the number of Norse fans in the stand, the heat didn't stop the chanting. Yet again, the Norse kicked the ball, and in the early stages the Norse armour held. The Khorne armour however didn't stand up the the Yhetee who made short work of a Marauder early in the game. 

The Norse had piled on the cas's (relatively speaking - yes, okay, three) in the first half and had made some good Knock Outs, and we started the second half 11 vs 8. But then the Khorne rolled a Blitz! and we were very much on the defensive and the Khorne team started to get their revenge.

After a lot of back and forth, the game finished 1-1 (3-3) with honours even. (Special thank you to Dan who kindly sent me his spare transfers to use on this team... and he got to face them!)

Game Three vs Khorne

Ben's Khorne

Another one of the three organisers... This time Ben. It was Khorne again, and the Norse fans stayed away in their droves after the dull match they paid good gold to see last time. And many fans were pleased they did as the heavens unleashed Pouring Rain!

The Norse team kicked (third game in a row!). I told you the TO's had something shifty going on. This time, the TO were overly friendly with the Ref. The game got under way, and it wasn't long before we were an Ulfwerner down. This maddened the Yhetee who killed a Guard Bloodseeker, and the half ended 0-1 (3-2). The Knock Out box was quite full and both Ulfwerners were off the pitch by the time the Norse equalised in the second half. Coach Wotfudboy had a team huddle and told the boys to push hard in the few turns remaining to see if they could go for the winner.

Unfortunately most of the Khorne team returned from the KO box and the KO'd Ulf stayed out. However, through some quite fortuitous dice rolling, that involved a 1 dice block, a 3+ dodge, 2x GFIs with Drunkard and a handoff in the rain, we managed to grab a win! We even added to our cas tally, and the game ended 2-1 (5-2) to the Norse fans delight!

Results

I finished 3rd, with a 2/1/0 result - and given such a pathetic casualty score in the first game, I was surprised to be that high to be honest!

Blitzer Bowl winner - Alec Ward

As Darren W put on the CBBBL Facebook page:

"Thank you to everyone that attended the CBBBL's first Blitzer Bowl tournament.  It was an excellent day and fantastic to see some new faces as well as lots of old mates.

Blitzer Bowl developed from Daniel Larkin's BBQ Bowl where he invited a few of us to come to his house, have some food and play Blood Bowl in his garden.  The next year we had a couple of extra guys come along, and last year there were ten of us.  We were outgrowing his available space (and his family's patience with us!) so the next step was to branch out and rent a space.  I think Silver End hall worked well for us!  What will we do for next year's event?  We're hoping to make it an even bigger tournament and will probably try to get it NAF ranked.  Well done to all the winners, especially Alec Ward for dominating with his fearsome Goblin team.

Thanks to Daniel Larkin and Ben Harwood for doing the legwork on this event - you guys smashed it!  We also want to thank https://www.facebook.com/HearthforgeGames and 

Cymbeline Games for sponsoring us.  We couldn't have done it without you!"

Thanks all! Was much fun!