Blood Bowl
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| Blood Bowl | |
|---|---|
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| Manufacturer | Games Workshop |
| Designer | Jervis Johnson |
| Publisher | Games Workshop |
| Years active | 19 |
| Players | 2 |
| Age range | 10+ |
| Setup time | 1–10 minutes |
| Playing time | 1.5-2.5 hours |
| Random chance | Medium (Dice) |
| Skills required | Strategy, Probability |
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 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, often reminiscent of Acme Corporation. The over-the-top nature of the game is reflected in the game mechanics, notably 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, such as McMurty's, CBS (Crystal Ball Service), the Wolf Network, Bloodweiser, Gat-Orc-ade, Reeb-Orc and the Orcland Raiders. Other spoofs include the "Iron Chefs", a Halfling team spoofing the Japanese television cooking show Iron Chef.
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 has admitted this wasn't the way to go, and has since stated that the Blood Bowl world is similar to, but not the same as, the Warhammer world. More recent models have been more sporty in demeanour.
[edit] History
[edit] First & Second Editions
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.
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 28mm miniatures, with another set of metal miniatures available from Citadel Miniatures to represent players from other races. Games Workshop provided two source books, Blood Bowl Star Players and the Blood Bowl Companion, which added to the basic rules, creating games with greater variation that could easily last several hours.
[edit] 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, 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.
[edit] 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. Despite rumours to the contrary, there are no plans to release it in print for Blood Bowl's 20th anniversary[1]. Work on this fifth edition, known as LRB 5.0, was started in March 2004 and the final product, based on two years of player testing, was released on August 1, 2006.
[edit] 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 licenced.
Games Workshop has announced that Cyanide Studios now have a licence to create computer games based on Blood Bowl,[2] 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".[3]
[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] References
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Official site, including the Living Rulebook.
- TalkBloodBowl.com, a Blood Bowl discussion forum
- EndZone Magazine, a Blood Bowl magazine for fans by fans.
- JavaBBowl, a Java client allowing Blood Bowl to be played online in real time
