In the Beginning, Season 3 - Blood Bowl Tournament Report & Season 3 First Impressions
Season 3 is here...
And to mark the occasion (back in early Dec 2025), Mr_Frodo and Howlinggriffon (Andrew and Darren) jointly ran a tournament for a wide circle of friends to come together and try out the rules - many, like me, for the first time.
To follow is a bit of an introduction to Blood Bowl, a very brief recollection of the tournament and my initial thoughts on the new ruleset... but first, an apology - Due to my personal laptop losing it's C: I've been delayed in getting this post done. With the delay comes a fogginess in recollection of the event but I will try to recall what I can!
So, what is Blood Bowl? And what is Season 3 all about?
If your a veteran of my blog posts, skip over this bit... but if not and you have happened across this by some convoluted chance, then let me quickly explain.
Games Workshop themselves explain (far more professionally!) here... but essentially it comes down to this: "Blood Bowl is the game of fantasy football set in a version of the Old World, where sports mayhem is not only tolerated, but encouraged. [the game] casts you as the coach of a team [such as] of Tomb Kings or Bretonnian players who battle in grand stadiums for glory, gold, and the entertainment of devoted hordes of cheering fans! Blood Bowl is a tactical game of big scores and maniacal violence. How you choose to coach your team is entirely up to you – will you go for agility and speed, or buckle down with some bruisers? Ideal for both League play and Exhibition matches, there's something here for every type of coach.".
What do you mean "fantasy football"?!?
No, it's nothing to do with selecting real players in either the English Premier League or NFL and then watching them to see how they do on TV! Instead, it's a turn-based board game loosely based on American Football, but instead of set in the world as we know it, instead, it is set in a fantasy world filled with Orcs, Knights, Undead and all sorts of nasty and questionable races that you might find similarly in Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones.
The object of the game is to score more Touchdowns than your opponent, but the way you do this could be down to sneaky, underhand tactics just as much as speed, agility or brute force. As a team coach, you move the players on your team according to the rules and stats that come with the game.
The game itself has evolved many times of the years, but since Games Workshop picked the game back up again, the essence of the rules and play style have largely remained the same. This latest iteration, Season 3, sees a realignment of teams & races with the models that are supplied by GW in their boxed sets, as well as a bit of a shake up of the game to challenge new players and old hands alike.
Tournament & Thoughts
For more details on the Tournament rules etc, see here, but essentially there were no tiers and 1 million gold to spend, with all teams receiving 5x basic skills.
I took Dwarves, mainly because I was interested to see how they played now that the Dwarf Linemen had all lost Tackle and had Defensive instead, but also because I was quite comfortable (or so I thought!) with how I expected them to play & perform.
I went with 11 players, 2x Blitzers - both with Mighty Blow, 2x Runners - both with Block and 1x Troll Slayer with Mighty Blow. They came with 2x Rerolls and a very limited expectation of success!
Venue & Tournament
Andrew runs a tight ship, with fair round timings to incorporate people getting used to new rosters & rules. The venue was a Village Hall connected to a school, and was light and airy, which is always good, as a you would expect from a hobbit, snacks and drinks had been laid out too!
Darren was in charge of scoring and keeping the rounds calculated and drawn accurately. It's all "black box" stuff to me.... main thing was, everything seemed to work like clockwork!
Game Rounds & Thoughts
Round One - Vs Skaggi's Orcs
The game itself was, as you would have expected no matter what version of Blood Bowl you have ever played, was a turgid affair. Two teams simply designed to knock lumps out of each other did exactly that. It finished 0-0 (1-2), but what did I learn?
Well, the Orcs lost 2x of their Big Uns... so they are down in terms of Strength that they can field. However, what did come up more than a few times (curse your dice, Skaggi!) was the new skill called 'Taunt' on the Big Uns, which meant when you pushed them back, they essentially force you to come with them. Skaggi rolled a 6 so many times for this that I started looking around for a Goblin Shaman casting from the side-lines!! Team Captain did also have an involvement, with Skaggi getting more than one spent Reroll returned to his tally.
The Orcs have switched from being quite bashy to a little more ball-focussed, with Break Tackle blitzers allowing a bit more agility along with more Goblins likely to be included in rosters.
My Dwarf roster did feel the loss of access to Guard to come out on top in the general brawling, but the armour remained fairly good for both sides.
Overall though, there weren't too many of the new rules that actually affected this match. For example, Sure Hands is more reliable than Secure the Ball in normal conditions.
Round Two- Vs Gethyn's Tomb Guardians
Next up were the Tomb Guardians - and the new miniatures look really good. So much so, Gethyn deservedly won "Best Painted" for his team!
The game was decided fairly early as the Dwarves punched through Tom Guardian armour like butter. This left the less-armoured skeletons more exposed, particularly with Mighty Blow on the pitch... and the Dwarf armour remained true. This led to a 2-0 (3-0) win to the Dwarves.
But what did we learn from the encounter. Again, the roster and rule changes didn't revolutionise the encounter, however, the Tomb Guardians have become much more reliable blockers with Brawler... being able to change (let's face it, either one of two or three) block dice from a skull to something else, or try your luck at changing a push back to a stumble or pow!
The Dwarves took their punches well in this game, but different dice rolls on a different day could have made this a much more tricky encounter!
Round Three - Vs Legion's Nurgle
Our final opponent was Joe's Nurgle. Now that is a roster that has switched up, and having faced them, I can see they are better in a few ways... But focussing on the match for the moment, I pulled off one of the jammiest counter attacks you could hope to see to secure a draw.
The Nurgle went 0-1 up in the first half as they pasted the dwarves into the dirt... The dwarves had lost a Runner and Blitzer by turn 5/6. As far as I was concerned, the game was over...
The second half saw the Nurgle swarming all over the Dwarves, but this is where a significant turn of luck took place. Following a double skull by the Nurgle coach, the Dwarf Runner clung on to the ball on the side-lines, dodged (twice) out of the grasp of the Nurgle markers, and sprinted away up the field without the aid of Sure Feet (a MUST if you get to skill them up in a league!). With the equaliser the game was effectively over with Joe unable to remove the look of incredulousness from his face as to what he had just witnessed!
Apart from giving thanks to the Dwarf Lords, and raising a tankard of Bugman's finest, what did I learn from this match up with the Nurgle? Well, for starters, the Rotspawn is an auto-include - He (or rather, "it"!) is usually sat in the middle of the field, and with 'Pick-me-up' can stand up prone team mates on a 5+. If you then include Foul Appearance and Regeneration on all but the Rotters, and Stand Firm on the Bloaters, this makes for a stubbornly resilient team! That said, any pace they once had has been halved with the removal of 2x Pestigors. Secure the Ball does reduce the need for a Sure Hands Pestigor so you could probably focus on more attacking skills.
Winners?
I took a bunch of photos of the winners. However, the prize winners were:
- scs.sam - winner
- M_Ruckuss - runner up
- darkstar - Stunty Cup
- monkeyrage - Most TD
- Charlemagne800 - Most Cas
- Gethyn - Best Painted
- Jon_bucket - Wooden Spoon
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| Darkstar - Stunty Cup |
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| M_Ruckuss - Runner Up |
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scs.sam - Winner! |
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