Blood Bowl
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| Blood Bowl | |
|---|---|
| Designer | Jervis Johnson |
| Manufacturer | Games Workshop |
| Publisher | Games Workshop |
| Years active | 19 |
| Website: Official website | |
Blood Bowl is a board game created by Jervis Johnson for the British games company Games Workshop 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. This genre of game is often called Fantasy Football despite having only a passing resemblance to American Football. A PC version was released in 1995 by MicroLeague Multimedia.
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[edit] 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 fast 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, Linemen and so on.
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.
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.
[edit] Background
The Blood Bowl universe is fleshed out with its own background (including histories, puns, profiles, and unusual events) which establishes the tone and spirit of the game. For example, one Blood Bowl deity is called Nuffle, which is a pun on NFL. 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, often reminiscent of Acme Corporation.
The over-the-top nature of the game is included in the game mechanics, notably the use of stylised secret weapons such as chainsaws and Dwarf death rollers as well as in-game effects in some editions.
Blood Bowl also includes numerous tongue in cheek references to real life products and companies, such as McMurty's, CBS (Crystal Ball Service), the Wolf Network, Bloodweiser, Gat-Orc-ade, and Reeb-Orc. Other spoofs include a reference to a Halfling famous team called the "Iron Chefs" which spoofs the famous Japanese television cooking show Iron Chef with members such as team captain Chins Caneatcheese (real life: Chen Kenichi) and head coach Kaga Sakisushi (real life: Takeshi Kaga), while a famous Orcish team, the Orcland Raiders, are a spoof of the Oakland Raiders.
[edit] History
The first edition of Blood Bowl was released in 1987 and was a simple game that used many of the elements of Games Workshop's tabletop games such as a "wounds" allowances that permitted players to remain active until it reached zero. The representations of players contained in the first edition boxed set were small pieces of cardboard illustrated with the picture of the corresponding player.
A second edition of Blood Bowl was released in 1988 that began to move Blood Bowl away from the battlefield mechanics of other Games Workshop systems and towards the more brutal sports oriented concepts. The game was played on a polystyrene board to represent the pitch and the players contained in the boxed set itself were plastic 28-mm miniatures. To support the game, Citadel Miniatures produced a set of metal miniatures to represent players from different races and additional support was provided by Games Workshop in the form of expansion packs, Star Players and the Blood Bowl Companion. These expansions added to the basic rules to create a varied and sometimes lengthy game that could easily last several hours.
Blood Bowl suffered something of a hiatus between the second and third edition but the new version was released in 1994 and radically changed the game play away from the complex and lengthy second edition to a simpler and more dramatic third edition. Two key changes were the introduction of the turnover rule which meant that in many cases a failed action ended a players turn, and the introduction of a set number of turns. These two changes increased the pace of the game and allowed it to be played within a couple of hours.
The third edition also featured a completely new miniature range, with miniatures closely resembling counterparts in WFB without the weapons. This combined with new races mirroring Warhammer Fantasy Battle armies and changes in names of player positions brought Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Blood Bowl closer together.
In 1995, Blood Bowl third edition won the Origins Award for Best Miniatures Rules of 1994.
There have been many changes since the third edition was released, many driven by the large and vociferous player base. The current version of the rules is known as the Living Rulebook and represents the result of continued refinements to the third edition ruleset. The Living Rulebook is the basis by which most Blood Bowl is played but variants exist, either as a result of house rules devised by individual people or groups, or because of the transition into online e-mail based games. The current version of the Living Rulebook is the fifth edition (known as LRB 5.0), and is available in PDF from the official Blood Bowl site.
In March 2004 work was started on the next version of the game using massive input from the players of the game. On August 1, 2006, based on more than two years of player testing and suggestions, the newest version LRB 5.0 was released. This now online version of the rulebook is tentatively earmarked to be released in print from 2007, Blood Bowl's 20th Anniversary.
[edit] Chaos League
Cyanide Studios developed a game called "Chaos League" which bore a heavy resemblence to Blood Bowl in its style and rules, but was not officially licenced.
Games Workshop has announced that Cyanide Studios now have a licence to create computer games based on Blood Bowl,[1] 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".[2]
[edit] 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 in Nottingham, England in the spring and attracts 200 players to play in the 2 day event. The Dungeonbowl is held in Germany. The Spike! Trophy is held in Canada. The Chaos Cup is held in Chicago, Illnois, USA in October. Numerous other events are held throughout the world. [1]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Official site, including the Living Rulebook.
